50 Book Challenge #1: Stardust

For those of you who didn’t notice the meter, I finished my first book in the 50 book challenge! Only….49 more to go. Whew.

The book I read is Stardust by Neil Gaiman. I’ve heard it was originally released with illustrations by Charles Vess, but the book I got from my library is an edition published without the art (darn!).

I started reading this book because a friend of mine is a big fan of Gaiman. He’s been trying to convince me to read one of Neil Gaiman’s books for a while (often combined with trying to convince me with setences like “He worked on the dub script for Princess Mononoke!”), but I had been putting it off for a while because…well, the last time he suggested a book, I actually didn’t like it that much. (I’m not saying which book it was because I have a feeling I would be burned at the stake by sci-fi fans if it ever got out.) But then I saw MirrorMask, and I actually enjoyed it, so I figured I’d give him a try.

One thing I can say is...

I’m so, so glad I’m not reviewing this book.

It’s not that I didn’t like it. I actually did. But trying to define how I felt about the book with words is…confusing. It was odd…when I first started reading the book, I kept asking myself “When am I supposed to start really liking this? When am I supposed to run up to Patrick and say ‘THANK YOU FOR OPENING MY EYES’?” While I never quite went that far, all of the sudden, half way through the book, I said to myself (almost without thinking) "I really like this book."

"What? I like the book? When did I decide that? What's going on?"

I don't know if I can say it's my 'favorite book ever.' None of the characters in the book grabbed me like Gen from The Thief or Pippin from Lord of the Rings. I don’t think I’m going to start obsessing over every detail of Tristan Thorn’s life and try to search for the hidden details about the character’s back-story like I do at times with my favorite works. (I'm a stickler for characters with deep back-stories.) Although, this isn’t that sort of book anyway. It’s more of a fairytale, I suppose.

One with a faint…bitter mood to it? Overall it’s happy, at times almost innocent. (Well…maybe not innocent. Gentle? Yes, gentle sounds better.) But there’s this bitter, almost cynical undertone in the book. Even though the book has a fairly happy ending, the last emotion mentioned in the book (in the last sentence, actually) is sadness. Although I guess not all fairytales are completely happy. We just think they are since Disney movies generally are. (I’m a Disney fan, just so you know, so I’m not bashing them.)

Or maybe I’m just seeing things. Who knows? Overall, I liked the book, and will probably read another one of Neil Gaiman’s books.

I just hope I don’t have to review one for a while if they’re all going to leave me as befuddled as this one did.

( ======= )
1 / 50 : 2.0%

As for the next book I'm going to read? Well...um...I don't know, actually. I was going to read House of Leaves, but it's nearly due at the library and someone has it on hold. So today I'm going to go to the library to turn in my books (and pay off some overdue fines) and...well, I guess I'll just grab whatever looks good? (That almost amounts to judging a book by it's cover, doesn't it? Oi.)

Edit: The counter looks really...wonky in my main posts, doesn't it? But not on the side bar. Hm. I might have to fiddle with it.

Another edit: Oooookay. For some reason the graphical counter isn't working at all in the main body of the post...I think it's something with the layout of the blog and the transperency of the graphic, but I'm not sure...so for posts, I'm just going to use the text counter, and keep the nice looking counter on the sidebar.

50 Book Challenge

Recently, while I was on Live Journal, I glanced over at the community spotlights and noticed a community called 50bookchallenge. It's basically a community that challenges you to read 50 books in a year--about, oh, one book a week or so. While it's a stretch, since I'm basically unemployed at the moment (this blog is my job, and it doesn't pay well...or....at all), I decided to go ahead and give it a go.

Actually, the person who created the challenge hasn't accomplished it yet, so obviously there's no pressure if you don't make it. But I'd certainly like to try it out. (Plus, I can count school books and books I review here in my total, AND it gives me extra blog post. I win!)

So, here's how it's going to work. As I said above, I'm counting books I read for school and books I read for reviews, as well as books of my own choosing. I'm not going to count manga--unless I get short for time, and decide I need it to help keep my running total going along.

For books I read that aren't reviews, I'll give you a summary of the book and my own personal thoughts on it--less professional than my real reviews, more chatty. I don't think there's much of a point to review a book that's been out for years (or even centuries!), but I thought you might find my thoughts interesting. (Plus, it helps me feel like I'm working!)

To help you (and me) keep track of where I am, I'm going to be using a meter:

0 / 50 (0.0%)

Right now it's "0" because i haven't finished any books this year. (I actually DID read some books at the end of last year that I was planning on reviewing--actually, I hope to have one review up tonight, but I'm not making any promises, just in case.)

Currently, I'm reading Stardust by Neil Gaiman, so I'll count that as my first book. After that, I have the ominous-looking tome that is House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I have a feeling I'll be reading that book while I'm reading others because it's a bit notorious for being very...different. But, my friend Patrick said that if I read through it and finish it, I can force him to read a book of my choosing, so I'm determined to get through it ASAP.

I think I'm going to go see how much I can get done of Stardust now, since I'm starting a week into the year. Regardless, I'm going to take a break and post up a review for you all (unless some unforseen event happens that prevents me from posting it up).

Oh! And I almost forgot--if you have a suggestion for me of a book to read, by all means, leave a comment in my journal and let me know! I love discovering new books.

Wish me luck!