REVIEW: An Echo Through the Snow by Andrea Thalsinos

An Echo Through the Snow
Andrea Thalasinos
Net Galley (e-book edition)

Goodreads Synopsis: Andrea Thalasinos’s debut novel is an inspiring story of how a single act of kindness can transform your life.

Rosalie MacKenzie is headed nowhere until she sees Smokey, a Siberian husky suffering from neglect. Rosalie finds the courage to rescue the dog, and—united by the bond of love that forms between them—they save each other.  Soon Rosalie and Smokey are immersed in the world of competitive dogsled racing. Days are filled with training runs, the stark beauty of rural Wisconsin, and the whoosh of runners on snow. Rosalie discovers that behind the modern sport lies a tragic history: the heartbreaking story of the Chukchi people of Siberia. When Stalin’s Red Army displaced the Chukchi in 1929, many were killed and others lost their homes and their beloved Guardians—the huskies that were the soul and livelihood of their people.

Alternating between past and present, telling of a struggling Chukchi family and a young woman discovering herself, An Echo Through the Snow takes readers on a gripping, profound, and uplifting dogsled ride to the Iditarod and beyond, on a journey of survival and healing.

At the publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied

While this sounds like a really interesting read, it was very  hard for me to get into.  I had trouble with the bouncing back and forth (which normally does not bother me).  I was more interested in the “present-day” timelime with Rosalie than the past with the Chukchi people, so I would want to hurry through the past to get back to the present-day.  I really wanted to get into this and enjoy it.  After struggling with it on and off for a couple of months I decided to give up.  I hate giving up on a book, though.  There really wasn’t anything bad about it per se, I just couldn’t get into it.  I love dogs and huskies, which was all the more disappointing that I couldn’t get into it.

Clearly Rosalie and Smokey are meant for each other; Rosalie is in an unhappy, abusive relationship and Smokey has been neglected and has a crappy “owner”.  Even in the bit that I read (~42% of the book), I could see that their relationship, their bond, formed quickly.  I think it was planning to show how Rosalie was becoming an independent person, finding her own way with the help of Smokey and a new job. Unfortunately, the story just didn’t grab my attention the way I was hoping it would.

Maybe I’ll try to read it again in the future…?

Have any of you read this?  Thoughts?

(No compensation was received for the review of this title.)

Edit 30-Sept (5 days after original post): I decided to look at Amazon to read reviews (if any) on this book to see if I was just really missing the mark or if I wasn’t the only one who felt the way I did.  Whenever I review stuff on Amazon, I tend to read the lower starred reviews for any products just to see what the worst have to say.  This was no different.  There were no 1-star reviews, which was good, and also only a few 2-star reviews.  The two-star reviews did seem to align with my thoughts and the reviewers were much better at articulating their thoughts than I was with mine.  Here’s a link to amazon.com and the 2-star reviews to get a better understanding of my opinon and what I was trying to say. But obviously feel free to check out the higher rated reviews too!

REVIEW: Chapman’s Odyssey by Paul Bailey

Chapman’s Odyssey
Author: Paul Bailey
NetGalley Review

NetGalley Synopsis: Stuck in a hospital and heavily medicated, Harry Chapman doesn’t just hear the doctors, nurses, and other patients. Is that the voice of his mother, acerbic and disappointed in him as ever? Perhaps her presence would be understandable enough, but what is Pip from Great Expectations doing in his hospital room? More and more voices join the chorus: friends from childhood, lovers, characters from novels and poetry. His father, fighting in World War I. Babar and Céleste, who dances with Fred Astaire. Jane Austen’s Emma. Harry’s aunt Rose, “a stranger to moodiness.” A man who wants to sell Harry T. S. Eliot’s teeth. And, of course, an old friend who turns up at Harry’s bedside principally to rehearse the litany of his own ailments.

Slowly, endearingly, the life of Harry Chapman coalesces before our eyes, through voices real and imagined. Written with a gentle, effortless generosity, full of delicate observation, Chapman’s Odyssey is the work of a master; a superbly rendered act of storytelling and ventriloquism that is stinging, witty, deeply moving, and wise by turns, but always explores the nature of love.

Let me begin with the technical stuff -
I understand that this was first published as a “physical” book.  However the transition to digital was less than seamless.  There was no cover image. The list of other titles by Bailey, the copyright page, Library of Congress info and dedication were all smushed together and right up against the first chapter.

One thing that was difficult for me to get around was that there were no quotation marks; speech was denoted by a dash (-) instead of quotation marks.  Also, conversations were kind of squished together.  I’m having trouble coming up with a way to explain this properly, so let me give an example:

-That’s because my mother’s Scottish. She brought me up. Mr. Chapman, I’m not here to talk about myself. -Come closer Dr. Pereira. I want to get a good look at you. (Location 55 of 2221, NetGalley Kindle edition)

I hope the above is a better explanation: a conversation between Dr. Pereira (first speaker) and Mr. Chapman (second speaker) but their sentences were bumped up against each other instead of being on separate lines.  Make sense? (I hope so!)

Okay, those were my only issues with the technical aspect of the novel.  Onto the meat of the story…

Overall, it was a decent story.  It was hard for me to pick up when different people and literary figures first popped up in conversation with Harry or when he was having  flashback.  Some of the stories were interesting, and I did begin to feel for Harry.  Essentially, he is in his 70s, sick in the hospital and doesn’t really know if he will make it out alive.  He begins to have conversations (with people actually there and others in his head).  Through these conversations we get glimpses into his life.  He is a curious old man, and I enjoyed learning more about his life. When he read the obituary of his good friend from childhood, I felt sad for him.  But was glad to have “seen” memories of that friend.

A thought that crossed my mind while reading was that this would probably translate fairly well into a movie.  I think the flashbacks and conversations would be conveyed better on the screen with all the different technologies available today.  For example, we would know his dead mother was talking to him if we heard a disembodied voice or saw a shadow sitting in the room.  It was harder to see it at first in the book as all speech was written the same way.  Maybe it would have been better to differentiate by using italics or bold or even different fonts.  But then I wouldn’t want it to get too distracting and silly looking.

Overall, I would recommend it, though I would suggest checking it out in hardcover or paperback due to the formatting issues.

This review reflects my honest opinion and I was not compensated for it. 

REVIEW: Friendship Bread by Darien Gee

Friendship Bread
Author: Darien Gee
NetGalley review

NetGalley synopsis: In the quiet community of Avalon, Illinois, Julia Evarts wonders how to move on with her life. Though her husband and five-year-old daughter give her anabundance of love, Julia still reels from a tragedy that has left her estranged from the sister who was once her best friend. Meanwhile, across town, widow Madeleine Davis takes great pleasure in serving up delectable treats and cozy comforts at her tea salon – now, if only she had some customers to enjoy them. And famed concert cellist and recent Avalon transplant Hannah de Brisay finds herself at a crossroads when her career and marriage come to abrupt ends. The three strangers forge a friendship at Madeleine’s Tea Shop, and soon their camaraderie extends to everyone in Avalon in the guise of a unique and wonderful gift. But even as Julia becomes ever closer to her new friends, she realizes the profound necessity of confronting the painful past she shares with her sister.  

Life and loss, friendship and community, food and family: Friendship Bread tells a spirited, remarkably moving tale about the triumph of hope.

This is my second NetGalley review,  and again a new edition  (this was originally published last year).

I enjoyed reading this book very much!  The characters were real, believable and well-developed.  We met many characters within the first few chapters and at first I wondered how many new people we would continue meeting and wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy constantly starting new story lines.  But it wasn’t like that at all!  After meeting the major characters within the first 4-5 chapters, there were random chapters that I thought of as “vignettes” for lack of a better word.  Whenever I read one of these random chapters, I was able to see how the town was connected by the Amish Friendship Bread.

The story was a really great one.  It was emotional, funny in parts, about loss and recovery, family, friends and a “tomorrow could be better” attitude (which was taught to our main character Julia). At first I was kind of mad at Julia.  Mad because her husband was also dealing with the tragedy that estranged her from her sister. (The tragedy was something that I generally identified before it was explained to the reader, and I’m sure many other readers picked up on it as well) Yes, she has suffered a tremendous loss, but so had her husband and her family.  And her relationship was different from that of her husband’s but he was also suffering and didn’t know how to help her.  She pushed him away.  I wouldn’t be surprised if this happens in real life in similar situations (and I hope this is something that I will never experience).  (Sorry for being so vague, though I’m sure you’re kind of guessing what the tragedy was).  Luckily, their relationship does get better with work, of course, but we see the progress of how to come back from such a loss.  Julia finally learns that family is what can help you come back from a dark, unhappy place:

“…he is her family and she wants him, regardless of what condition he’s in, to be  a part of her life. That’s really it, she realizes. That’s family in a nutshell. You take them as they are, and you love them, no matter what.”

I really enjoyed seeing the progression of the friendships and the Friendship Bread.  The Bread spreads throughout the community and it was a wonderful thing.  Madeline and Hannah are truly good people and good for Julia to have befriended. They helped bring her back to the world, all by chance and with a little help from the Friendship Bread.   I love that Julia and Madeline (and again the Bread) help Hannah realize she is a strong, wonderful woman who has more to offer the world than her music.  I also liked that Hannah turned to food. Someone who had barely done more than use a microwave became someone so comfortable and commanding in the kitchen.  She took control of her kitchen and her life.

Madeline is the older woman mother/grandmother/aunt figure that everyone loves.  She has life experience but doesn’t thrust it down everyone’s throats.  She is gentle and kind, but knows when to speak up.  But she has her own past pains, too.  Through a minor “accident”, she ends up with a happy ending which she was never sure would actually happen.

Edie, a fairly new person in the town, works for the local paper.  She is the character that I didn’t really care for. I thought she had a “holier -than-thou” type attitude at times.  She felt that everyone should always do things to help the greater good (don’t spend the extra money on those clothes you want, send it to a third-world country to help other people). She writes a really stinky article about the Friendship Bread “epidemic” (I wrote a note in my Kindle at the end of the article: “terrible”).  And even though she writes a nice article in the end after an amazing event occurs, I still don’t think it fully redeemed her character.  And I don’t think she was a very good girlfriend to her great boyfriend.  There was an exchange in the book between Edie and her boyfriend in which she said he is too good for her and he agrees and I wrote a Kindle note agreeing, too.

Connie started out as a minor character that I really liked, so I was happy (and not completely surprised) when she made a larger impact later in the story.

So now I know you’re curious, what the heck is Amish Friendship Bread??

The basic idea of Amish Friendship Bread is this: You begin with a starter (aptly named, no?), then after 10 days of kneading the starter and adding some ingredients, it is ready to be baked, but first you must split it into 4 equal  parts.  You use one of those quarters to make your Friendship bread and then distribute the other new starters to friends so they can make their own breads.    I absolutely love this idea and was super excited to see a recipe to create my own starter as well as numerous recipes to make different kinds of breads (and even brownies and pancakes!)

I want to try this sometime soon.   Though I don’t know many people who bake and would be afraid to make a lot because each starter makes more starter (it’s explained in the book).  Apparently, you can get a lot of information on it if you Google it.   I guess this has been around for about 30 years.  I haven’t Googled anything yet, but according to the book, no one really knows why it’s called Amish Friendship Bread.

I definitely recommend this book!!  And if you’ve read it, I would love to hear your thoughts.  And if you choose to read it after reading my review, come back and let me know what you think!

(image courtesy of randomhouse.com and synopsis is from the Net Galley page.  The image links to the Goodreads book page).

REVIEW: Sorcery & Cecelia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia C. Wrede & Caroline Stevermer

cover art courtesy of Open Road Media

Sorcery & Cecelia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot (Book 1)
Being the Correspondence of two Young Ladies of Quality regarding various Magical Scandals in London and the Country
Digital Edition
Authors: Patricia C. Wrede & Caroline Stevermer
Publish Date: 22-May-2012
Publisher: Open Road Media

NetGalley synopsis: Two girls contend with sorcery in England’s Regency age.

Since they were children, cousins Kate and Cecelia have been inseparable. But in 1817, as they approach adulthood, their families force them to spend a summer apart. As Cecelia fights boredom in her small country town, Kate visits London to mingle with the brightest lights of English society.

At the initiation of a powerful magician into the Royal College of Wizards, Kate finds herself alone with a mysterious witch who offers her a sip from a chocolate pot. When Kate refuses the drink, the chocolate burns through her dress and the witch disappears. It seems that strange forces are convening to destroy a beloved wizard, and only Kate and Cecelia can stop the plot. But for two girls who have to contend with the pressures of choosing dresses and beaux for their debuts, deadly magic is only one of their concerns.

 This ebook features illustrated biographies of Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the authors’ personal collections.

First I’d like to thank Sarah Murphy from Open Road Media for her help in answering my questions and supplying me with the cover art for the book.

It turns out this story was published several years ago, but this is  a digital edition with added information about the authors that was not previously published.

Before I get into my review of the story, I would like to make a few technical comments.  When I downloaded the file from NetGalley to my Kindle, the formatting was off.  It was automatically horizontal and the last line of text on some “pages” was (screen image) cut in half, making it difficult to read.  Since I still have my Sony eReader, I decided to see if I would have better luck with that.  I chose the medium text option, which was a bit larger than I am accustomed to, but the small font was too tiny.  This also had some formatting errors.  Sometimes only a few words or a few sentences would be on one “page” (screen image), resulting in a total page count of 350 (the Kindle version was 320 pages).

Also, I don’t know if it is because I used the Sony eReader, but I didn’t have illustrated biographies of the authors or photos. There was a brief afterward from the two authors discussing how the book was developed from a game.  I loved the idea of a letter writing game and thought it was very clever to turn it into a book.  (The Kindle also did not have any images or biographies, but just the same afterward I read on the eReader).

Hopefully, kinks were worked out and the digital edition now available for purchase is formatted appropriately and the biographies, photos, and afterward are all included. (or maybe the additional sections are only included in the ebook for purchase and not for review?)

Though the digital formatting on the device was a bit annoying, I was still able to enjoy the story, and thought it was a good one.

I really liked that it was set up in a letter-writing format.  I think it made it easier and faster to read.  Though I’m not an historical fiction expert by any means, I thought the language and writing were appropriate (including Capitalizing certain words when trying to emphasize a point – see the subtitle above for a perfect example).  It very much reminded me of books I read that actually were written in the 1800s.

The story was cute. The reader gets to know Kate and Cecelia (affectionately known as Cecy) through their letters to each other. Most of the characters were fairly well-developed (especially when one considers how they were created) and easy to believe. While the “love story” elements were predictable, they didn’t detract from the story.  In fact, for me, it was more like “alright already, just realize you love him”.  I think part of the reason it was acceptable to see the love interest progress so “quickly” during the reading was because time passed through the use of the letters. There wasn’t a lot of  back-story and build up, but I think that was better since this is for young adults.  If this had too much back-story and plot set-up, young adults may lose interest quickly. (To clarify, for this particular book, I think of young adult as around 12 years old or so)

I thought there would be more magic involved considering the title (and subtitle), but it seemed a lot of the magic performed was “off stage”, meaning that the reader didn’t “see” it happen, but rather “heard” about it.  While this wasn’t really an issue for me, I can expect some people may wish to “see” more magic and spells happen.

Sorcery & Cecelia is a fun read that could be done in just a couple of days.  I would consider it a “beach read” or even something I would read while flying to pass the time.

I would definitely recommend this book to young readers, and girls would probably enjoy it more than boys, generally speaking.   I understand that a couple more books were written in this series and I will probably read them at some point.

I would like to reiterate that I was not compensated for my review.

Net Galley

Geoff over at The Oddness of Moving Things told me about NetGalley a while back.  I looked it up quickly when he first told me about it, but today I signed up for it.  I think it’s a pretty cool concept (and it’s free so why not?).

I’ve set up my profile and hopefully I find some interesting stuff or publishers are interested in asking me to review their books.  We’ll see!

It’ll be a new venture in my young life of book reviewing

I have added a Review Policy to my blog.  I hope this covers all the bases.  If you have any suggestions, ideas or anything to add to my review policy, please share!