April 2012 Reads

• "The Magician" (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel book 2) by Michael Scott
• "Austenland" by Shannon Hale
• "One of Our Thursdays is Missing" by Jasper Fforde
• "High Five" (Stephanie Plum book 5) by Janet Evanovitch
• "Grave Peril" (Dresden Files book 3) by Jim Butcher
• "Out of Oz" (The Wicked Years book 4) by Gregory Maguire
• "Midnight in Austenland" by Shannon Hale

My year is slower than last.  Booo.  Oh well.

The Magician is a continuation of a YA series I started.  Immortals, twins with power, etc.  Good stuff.

"Austenland" was ok. Not great literature, a quick read.  Being an Austen fan, I gave it a go.  Deals with an American heading off to England to immerse herself in the full Austen experience.  I thought it was a little odd, all those actors working on this property.  The money to pay to go to this place must be RIDICULOUS if you and a few other guests are splitting the cost of all these actors and grounds keepers, etc.  See? I think these logical things and ruin things for myself.  Suspension of disbelief, suspension of disbelief.  Must keep chanting.

So what do I do?  I see "Midnight in Austenland" by the same author at the library in the new release section and pick it up.  Because I am an optimist, right?  *sigh*  Same exact idea, different main character.  

Another great, crazy Jasper Fforde "Thursday Next" book.  His most recent, actually, so I will have to wait for more of his insane humor in the Next series.

I'm going to skip to "Out of Oz" by Gregory Maguire.  It's the last of his "Wicked" series.  I thoroughly enjoyed "Wicked."    "Son of a Witch" was ok, not as good.   I listened to "A Lion Among Men" in the car, so I don't count it as a read.  I was not a fan of the 3rd book and wondered how I would feel about book 4.   The book was much better than book 3, right on par with book 2.  I felt more empathy for the new character Rain.  Maguire writes characters that sometimes just fell like they have no feelings. It's odd.  Rain started out like this, but her character evolved into someone I liked very much.  We see Dorothy again, Brr the Cowardly Lion, Glinda is still vapid, and we never really know what happened to Elphaba, and that made me a little sad; I wanted to know!