Books I Read in January 2022

reading nook, 01.31.2022

In January, I read some books and threw a blog birthday bash (the posts are here if you care to check them out). I would have liked to have been more productive but every time I try to be productive, it seems to result in the opposite. Some people do not believe in such things as laziness, only that, we are taking a rest before doing something productive which I guess it means I've been taking many rests. These days, I do not buy paper/printed books but I did brought one book from the list, The Art of Tangled, which will probably be the only paper book I'll ever buy from here on. Anyway, here are the books I managed to read in January (click on the link to know more about each book):

01 | The Art of Tangled by Jeff Kurtti, Preface by John Lasseter, Foreword by Nathan Greno and Byron Howard > link
Tangled is one of my favorite Disney movies and The Art of Tangled certainly matched the spirit of the movie. It was delightful to see all the sketches, drafts and artworks and the ideas behind the movie. This book was well designed and I really like all the little illustrations that decorated the pages and all the artworks. It's a visual feast for the eyes. If you're an artist, you would love this. The writing was simple enough and I like the talks about process of creating an animated film, creating characters, searching for the right settings and all that but I would have liked to know more about the movie making parts and less on the gushing about Disney. You can view the pages in this youtube video over here.
    One Sentence Review: Simple book with some bits about creating an animated film but it's mostly filled with drafts, sketches, artworks and a little too much love for Disney.

02 | The Amazing Mr. Blunden (aka The Ghosts) by Antonia Barber > link
The original title is The Ghosts, published in 1969, kind of makes sense and the new title, is okay but Mr. Blunden is not the main character nor the one we follow through the book so it didn't quite make sense to put him in the title but then again, in The wizard of oz, we don't see the wizard until the end so.
    The Amazing Mr. Blunden was a good book except toward the end where everything is pretty much told to us instead of shown to us. I didn't except anything great but still, it's just too much telling. I would have liked a more detailed ending especially since it ended at a critical scene but we are told the ending of that scene instead of being there to witness it which is just so disappointing.
    One Sentence Review: A good read but a bit too much telling instead of showing for the ending.

03 | The List of Unspeakable Fears by J. Kasper Kramer > link
This was more like an historical fiction with hints of ghosts with some intriguing historical real events. The narrator (the main character) is a bit unreliable as she have anxiety and is at times a bit paranoid, jumps to wild conclusions, makes absurd assumptions and mostly, I think, she was too ignorant and too keened on thinking the negative which I guess is what a person with anxiety would be like but I would prefer a wider view of the story instead of being in her head so much.
    One Sentence Review: A gloomy book with anxiety-filled thoughts, tragic events and a main character who seemed a bit unreliable.

04 | A Hidden Magic by Vivian Vande Velde, Trina Schart Hyman (Illustrator) > link
This has fun elements but the short length sort of makes it a bit too hard to enjoy as the story seem to progress far too quickly for any one aspect to be enjoyed. Plus the ebook (kindle version) I read has typos which I believed is because they scanned the text instead of typing it. Certain words have a letter or two incorrect. I'm sure if you read the print version, it wouldn't have these errors but I guess no body cares to proof the ebook. I would only recommend reading this if you have a print/paper copy. Also, Jennifer is not a good name for someone in a fantasy book - I know it's probably meant to make her more plain and ordinary which is what her character is but it's just a really bad name plus she's a princess. I just assumed most royalties would not give plain names to their children, just a little nuisance that I can't ignore.
    One Sentence Review: If there hasn't been typos or if this had been longer, this might have been a great read but it's mostly just above average.

05 | Nooks & Crannies by Jessica Lawson, Natalie Andrewson (Illustrator) > link
This is pretty predictable and I sort of guess what would happen to the main character, Tabitha and the so called secret that this book seems to try to kept a mystery. I think if I had read this as a child, I would thoroughly enjoyed this but as an adult, it's a bit too easy to guess what happens. I like it enough but I think it's more enjoyable for children.
    One Sentence Review: I enjoyed the book's beginning and the middle but the ending is a bit lacking and a little predictable.

06 | Winterhouse #1 by Ben Guterson, Chloe Bristol (Illustrator) > link
It started fun but then it sort of became boring about two children at a large hotel vacationing, having fun and finding a little mystery. I guess since this is a three-book series, I thought there would be more details but for some reason, when the children were having fun (for most of the book), there were no details, just summaries of what they did aside from when they played scavenger hunt. It's strange since I expect there to be tons of details given that it's a series but nope. The mystery I thought was a bit too easy and predictable. I did enjoyed the bit parts with the puzzles which would have been nice if they allow the reader to solve it and placed the answers at the back of the book but they just tell you the answer a paragraph or two later.
    One thing though - who goes skiing at night? Isn't it dangerous enough during the day? Plus the main character, who is ten or twelve, knows how to ski, sled, swim and everything else but there's no mention of when she had learned them and considering she is mistreated by her aunt and uncle, I doubt they would offer her ski lessons. I guess I just wonder how she can do everything with ease without needing to learn them.
    One Sentence Review: It started great but sort of became boring in the middle but the ending was almost enjoyable but still lacked the fun it had at the beginning.

07 | The Humming Room by Ellen Potter > link
I really shouldn't have not read this retelling (apparently no one's calling it that, certainly not the publishers but I call it that) of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett which is one of my favorite books.
    The Humming Room started great and made you think it will be a new version of the The Secret Garden but it's just a shallow version of it. It just feel all we get are surface details, we don't get to know anything further or deeper.
    The original story has a lot to do with the cousin and the garden but in this story, the cousin, Philip, is as far as I can tell, is a sad child who is around to be moved by other people and the author for plot convenience. We don't get to know him nor why he's a bit unhinged other than being left alone in a giant house that used to be a sanitarium for children. I supposed the author is saying children left alone by their parents would go mad or something. The garden seems more of a backdrop than something important. There are hints of magic-like things but they remain hints. I guess this didn't matter as much to the story even though they made it seem like the garden has magic or that Jack, the fairy-like boy, has magic but there're just hints, not something that are focused on.
    The title, The Humming Room, had me asking where the heck is the humming room. Philip hums in his room maybe twice but I wouldn't call it the humming room. The garden is an atrium and it only hums after the plants came back to life. And then there's Roo listening to the humming of the earth but she does that everywhere. No idea why that is since Jack, who was always spoke of like he's some sort of magical being, should be one listening to the earth, not Roo. And the humming seems to be a song Philip's mother sang to him and that it's the same humming as the one Roo hears when she listens to the earth - what a coincident, that one. I don't know what's the point of all this humming except to give us a sort of interest to the otherwise stale story.
    The ending was rushed. I hated it when the main character goes off somewhere while a very important event happened without her witnessing it and then she comes back to find out about it. (SPOILER AHEAD) So the story is in Roo's point of view but she didn't have to go off with Jack and leave her cousin Philip all by himself in the house knowing there is a chance he would get taken away. I suppose it's more fun to go off with Jack, who apparently is so ethereal and so graceful and all that, then to stay in the house with a slightly unhinged cousin. Then her uncle, Philip's father, returns and declares he came back because his wife sent him a message in his dreams or something to return to their son, then, it's the end. Philip is home. Roo gets to stay. All is happy. We get no more details, that's it. I interpret that as the author saying she didn't care, she just wanted to end it. It does end the same as the original but in the original, we get more of the uncle while here, the uncle seemed to just come back, the end. (SPOILER ENDS)
    One thing I would like to know is, if Jack is ugly, would Roo have gone canoeing with him, a boy she had just met? Since this is set in modern times with drug dealers and trailers parks, it seems Roo would have known better than to go off with a stranger. So Jack is so beautiful that anyone would go with him but modern children would know not go with strangers especially in a canoe ride in which he might throw her into the water or take her some place remote and murder her but I guess my mind is too modern for this story. Plus at one point, they were alone in some remote place where there seems to be hints of romance which irks me because Roo is maybe ten or twelve and Jack is fourteen or so and I don't get why we get this moment except to give readers second-hand embarrassment but at least, they didn't go the romantic route which I'm glad of.
    Overall, I enjoyed the beginning of the story but the rushed ending is lacking in details and even drama, and also the length is rather short (at around 180 pages), that I'm not sure it's worth reading at all unless you have never read The Secret Garden. (They also included the original book at the end which is dumb because it gives reader another reason to dislike this version when compared to the original.)
    One Sentence Review: It started great and made you think it will be a new version of the The Secret Garden but it's just a shallow version with a new setting.

08 | Gloom Town by Ronald L. Smith > link
The first part of the book was good, spooky with a bit of magic, and it drew to a good conclusion - the mystery is solved and problem that came with it is also solved but then the author decided the main character needs to discover something new about himself that seems to came out of the blue and it ultimately altered the direction of the book, almost as if the first part of the story wasn't what the author intended so he decided to turn it into a different story. I think I prefer the first part of the book and would have liked not to have read the last few parts of the book.
    One Sentence Review: First part is a spooky story which I thought it would end right there because the main story concluded but then it changed directions and it almost seem to start a new story with hopes of a sequel or something.

09 | Wishes and Wellingtons #1 by Julie Berry > link
The one thing I can't sand in this book is the way the name Tom was suddenly called Tommy for no reason, yes, characters can have nicknames but then it was Tom again and then it was finally Tommy. There wasn't any reason for this switching back and forth plus this seems like a professionally published book, you would think they can at least sorted this out, right? I read samples for the second book and it starts with Tom being called Tom but then he's suddenly called Tommy. So this is told in the first person by the main character Maeve, but who goes around switching the names of people they talk about? None of the other characters have their name shortened nor do they have nicknames, like Maeve is always Maeve and Alice is always Alice.
    The main character, Maeve, is so unlikable which is fine but she keeps lying, making excuses for her poor decision making, being unkind and taking revenge when she should learn to leave it alone. Sometimes I want to hit her and tell her to stop and think before making yet another dumb decision. And she's pretty dumb most of the book since her friend Alice solves most of the mysteries and things Maeve can't figure out. The reader can easily figured it out too but not Maeve, she have to be dumb for some odd reason. And the djinni's back story seems a bit easy to figure out, actually, most things here is easy to figure out but it's a children's book. I have to admit, I admire Maeve's bravery facing people who bullies her but her dumb decision making and the way she can't even control her impulses, makes her a bit hard to like or even understand. Why does it takes her so long to learn anything? And also the cover, why is Maeve with dark skin when it is never mentioned in the book or had I missed that part when it was mentioned or does it matter? It didn't matter to me except they describe every character but Maeve.
    One Sentence Review: It was a good read but the main character Maeve is too dumb for someone who is supposed to be smart.

10 | Willow Moss & The Lost Day (Starfell #1) by Dominique Valente > link
One Sentence Review: There are witches, trolls, magic, people who can read your past memories and even a dragon and yet, for some reason, I find it a little bland at times but I still enjoyed it.

11 | The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book I: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood, Jon Klassen (Illustrator) > link
This was an interesting read. The writing/narrator is a bit snarky but I like snarky but this seems a bit much plus it assumed the reader knows modern jargons and it's a bit long-winded such as when it introduced a new word, it goes on about it and gives examples and such and then go to the story. Also, you really have to read the 6 books to get the full story as this first book offers no answers about the children or the mysteries or anything really. I don't know if I'll continue this series as I'm not much into series these days and there are 5 more books.
   The cover for the ebook version shows a scene that takes place at the end of the book which I thought was strange and a bit revealing though it has nothing to do with the main story. Why they decided to use this particular art for this book 1 is confounding. The title is The mysterious howling which I believed is the children's howling and nothing to do with whatever is in the wall which we don't get to see anyway since the wall is never torn down like the artwork suggested so why the heck is this illustration put on this cover? Isn't this like a spoiler?
    One Sentence Review: This first book offers no answers to any of the mysteries, not about the children or anything really but it was still fun to read.

Have you read any good books or did anything interesting in January?