Adam Shields

Matched by Ally Condie

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Today’s Kindle Book of the Day for July 15. On sale for $2.99.  I am reposting the full review.

MatchedTakeaway: A romantic cross between Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, Hunger Games without the violence, Wrinkle in Time told from the perspective of the people of Camazotz and the determinism of Asmov’s Foundation series.

All of the recent young adult dystopian novels must be speaking to some cultural current.  It is not just the good writing (although I really have enjoyed Hunger Games and Divergent and Cory Doctorow, etc.).  I think at least part of it is the loss of privacy that comes about with the rise of Facebook and Twitter and computing in general.  Probably the weak economy and general feeling of government unresponsiveness is another part.  But there seems to be something more that I cannot put my finger on.

Matched by Ally Condie is set in a future utopia.  The ‘Society” lives in peace.  Everything is predicted and controlled by the ‘Society’.  The protagonist is Cassia, a 17 year old girl about to be ‘matched’ to her future mate.  The Society is large and controls everything, from the meals you eat, to your free time activities, to the date of your death.

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Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

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I am on vacation at the beach this weeks so I am posting some older reviews of books that make great beach reads. I finished the last Artemis Fowl book this week and will post the review next week.

Artemis Fowl (new cover)Takeaway: Root for the bad guy, because he is a 12 year old mastermind genius

I did not read these when they first came out.  I am glad that the series is almost done.  It is easier to read that way.

Artemis Fowl is a 12 year old genius.  He also happens to be from a very long line of thieves.  Previous to the book, his father went missing (died?) and as we meet Artemis he is leading the household with the help of his assistant Butler.  His mother is grieving over his father’s loss and has had a break with reality.  She often does not even know who Artemis (or anyone else is).  Butler’s sister is his mother’s maid and caretaker.

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Finding Juliet by Frank Sennett

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I am at the beach this week. So I decided to post some of my favorite beach reads instead of writing new reviews.

Finding Juliet

Summary: Classic guy meets girl romance with a slight literary twist.

Today is my last day at the beach while on vacation.  I just have not been reading much this vacation.  Instead I have been playing Scrabble and Words with Friends and hanging out in the room.  (I break out in hives if I put on too much sunscreen, so I have to limit my sun exposure to a couple hours a day.)  I have mostly been reading church focused stuff but not finishing anything.

Yesterday, I gave up and decided to just go fiction.  So I looked through my long list of fiction books that I have picked up free from Amazon and pretty much at random chose one.  (The cover image on the left was different when I originally picked it up.  I think when I got it, it was a statue of Juliet.  This cover looks like it should be on a vampire book.)

Finding Juliet is a classic beach read.  A light romance without a ton of mental content.  The set up is a recently dumped Literature Grad student writes a letter to Juliet (from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet) as a class assignment.  The letter is chosen best in class and sent to the Juliet Society in Verona.  A letter is written back and soon the guy decides to travel to Italy to meet his Juliet.

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Beauty Queens by Libba Bray (Second Review)

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Note: Bookwi.se contributor Emily Flury posted a review of this book earlier.  This review is from Adam Shields.

Beauty QueensSummary: A humorous satire about a group of teen beauty pageant contestants that crash land on a deserted island and have to figure out how to survive.

It is summer. And I am mostly in a mood for vacation reading.  Vacation reading for me is funny, usually light, reads.  I often lean toward young adult or action/romance or maybe some fantasy books during the summer.

After reading Emily’s review, I picked up Beauty Queens from the library on audiobook.  This is a book that I think needs to be listened to.  I have not seen a paper copy, but I have no idea how it would properly communicate the story the way that the audiobook does.  There are commercials, flashbacks, pageant background interviews, not the mention the actually story line.  In audio form, it works really well.

This books is satire.  A group of teen beauty pageant girls crash land on a deserted island.  All of the adults and chaperons and most of the pageant contestants die in the plane crash.  But a small group of them survive and have to figure out how to live on a deserted island.

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King Jesus Gospel by Scot McKnight (Read Again Post)

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The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News RevisitedTakeaway: Asserting that the Gospel is about Jesus, does not minimize the need for salvation, the need for evangelism, the need for social ministry or God’s transforming power.

In my desire to expand my knowledge (and keep myself entertained), I read a lot of books.  In my head, I know that many times I need to ruminate on a book more to really get the point and put into practice what I have heard from it.  But too often I just keep reading.  After all I have a blog to write.

So I made a goal for myself to re-read one book a month.  I suck at meeting goals.  I have only re-read 10 in the last 18 months and only 2 this year.  But when I re-read, I like to read in a different format. The first time I read King Jesus Gospel I read it on my kindle.  This time I listened to the audiobook.

First things, first.  I think this is a very important book. I think that the message, that we need to place Jesus as Savior, Lord and Messiah and full-filler of the story of Israel, is vitally important.

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Scheduling

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Posts will likely be pretty light over the next two weeks. I am with my family from today to next week And then on vacation with my wife’s family the week after. I will probably post book reviews but not many free books.

Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical Roots by Scott Hahn

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Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical RootsTakeaway: The more I explore Catholic belief, the more it pushes me to think about my own beliefs.

If you have not noticed, I have been reading about Catholic theology, practice and conversion lately.  This is a personal project to understand a stream of Christian faith that is large, important and often quite misunderstood by Evangelical Protestants.

The subtitle of this book: 40 Catholic Customs and their Biblical Roots, seemed like a perfect book to further my education.  And it was useful, even if not really what I was expecting.  It is designed to be read like a daily devotional.  There are forty short chapters with an explanation of the custom and a little devotional quote from a modern or ancient Christian figure.

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They Eat Puppies, Don’t They? by Christopher Buckley

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They Eat Puppies, Don't They?: A NovelSummary: A novel about a defense contractor lobbyist and a political commentator who get together to whip up furor over China in order to justify more weapons programs. 

Christopher Buckley is one of my favorite authors.  But this is not one of my favorite of his books.

Buckley’s books follow a similar path.  Washington insiders, in a cynical, but somewhat believable way push a line that seems absurd, but much of the time you could actually see things working out in real life like they do in his books.  It is satire.  What makes Buckley one of my favorite authors is that he ridicules all sides of the political spectrum, he keeps his books funny and in the end his heroes usually see the error in their ways.

But this book is not as funny as most of his other books.  It is satire, and you can see him poking fun at lobbyists, at the defense industry, at the media.  But it is not sharp, it is not very funny and it feels phoned in.

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