For those not residing in a jar (this is a Twitter MJ reference), The Name of the Star is a mystery story set in present-day London and featuring a Jack the Ripper copycat killer, which, I somehow had not realized how horrifyingly brutal Mr. the Ripper was and so let me just tell you right now that there will be stabbing and disembowelment and kidneys sent via post. Not too much, and only briefly, but now you are prepared.

Anyway, the story follows Rory, an American girl spending her senior year at a boarding school in London, not far from the Ripper’s hunting grounds. Once the copycat starts his bit up, the school gets a little lockdown-y, but Rory and her roommate sneak out on a murder night to watch the proceedings from the roof of the boys’ dorm (house? whatever) with Rory’s crush. On the way back to their room, Rory has a little chat with a super creeper face who happens to be hanging around their dorm, and then the next morning it turns out that there’s a dead body on school grounds and that that creeper was probably totally the killer. Eep!

And then there’s this twist that I wasn’t expecting and that I disliked and I was like, maybe I’m not going to like this book after all and maybe I should just stop reading but I was so intrigued by how they were going to get the SCF and then the twist just totally stopped bothering me and now I kind of like it a lot, because I think Johnson did a superb job of keeping the twist grounded in reality. Well, as much as one can, I suppose.

I’m not quite sure what it is about this book that I love, as opposed to the moderate to strong like I’ve had for her other stories I’ve read. I guess I just really liked Rory, who’s a smart kid that I would totally have hung out with in high school, and I liked the mystery and serial killer aspects, and I liked that even though I could see some things coming from pages away, the reveals were never exactly what I expected.

Now to just wait a year for the next book to come out! I’ll just be over here, twiddling my thumbs, impatiently…

Recommendation: For fans of mysteries and serial killers and boarding schools and stories that veer slightly out of the realm of reality.

Rating: 9/10

Because, yeah. I definitely do not get the appeal of this book. I will grant that the premise is interesting — a fella advertises for a reliable wife, procures a lady allegedly such and also allegedly willing to spend her life in Practically Canada, Wisconsin, but then it turns out that not only are these facts false, but both parties have some ulterior motives for this seemingly innocent transaction. I suppose I should mention that the book takes place in the early 20th century, so the whole advertising-for-a-wife thing is not as weird as it could be.

Part of the problem I have with this book is that the premise invites intrigue and mystery and perhaps some plot, but it’s one of those gothic novels that is more about how snow-covered Practically Canada is and how pretty flowers are and blah blah imagery blah. And yeah, sometimes I like me a gothic novel but this one was just not holding my interest at all.

And I think that’s probably because Goolrick goes for the twist, like, every chapter, and sometimes the twists are “twists,” like, yeah, saw that coming, and sometimes the twists are so completely outlandish that I’m like, “WHAT.” and I just have to go on with my day and not think about it because it will just make my head hurt. I mean, really, let’s make our twists actually consistent with the rest of the book, yes?

I was also let down by the characters, none of whom I liked or really cared about at all. There were a few moments in the story that might have been touching or sad or even just interesting had I felt like I had any connection to the characters involved, but instead I was just left baffled by their actions.

Yet somehow I managed not to hate this book as so many in my book club did. I suppose I’ve read enough gothic novels to know to appreciate the descriptions and recurring themes, and an undergraduate English class could certainly have a field day analyzing the way the characters keep mimicking each other throughout the story. The book’s got its merits certainly, but strictly on the basis of sitting down and enjoying a good read? This is not that book.

Recommendation: For fans of the gothic and maybe book clubs (like mine) whose members like to complain about things?

Rating: 4/10

But once there was death and intrigue, I was hooked, and I finished the rest in a couple hours. Bradley certainly knows how to write a thrilling story when he wants to.

Anyway, in this installment Papa de Luce, who has been generally hard up for cash through the series, has invited a movie crew to film on the de Luce estate, which is pretty cool. Even cooler, to most people, is that Fancy Pants Actress Phyllis Wyvern (think Marilyn Monroe, maybe?) is the star. Flavia spends some time getting in good with her, to the consternation of her sister, who actually wants to be BFFs with Phyllis but keeps making a fool out of herself instead.

That’s basically the first half of the novel, and it manages to be pretty interesting if not engrossing — Wyvern is awesome like a star but also haughty and entitled like a star, and she crosses that line deftly, and Flavia’s interactions with her are very telling of Flavia’s outlook on life and relationships in general.

Then someone gets all strangled and stuff and the investigation happens slowly enough for me to be like, who done it?, but fast enough that it doesn’t get bogged down in red herrings, of which there are a few.

I think I would be into a collection of “Flavia solves a mystery!” short stories and also a collection of “Flavia interacts with humans!” short stories, but I’m falling out of love with the combination of the two. And really, Flavia can only Jessica Fletcher it up so many more times before she’s just going to have to have been an 11-year-old serial killer the whole time.

Recommendation: I do love me some Flavia, but I might suggest that you stick with original Flavia unless the series gets drastically better in the future.

Rating: 7/10

Okay. Five books that I wouldn’t get horribly terribly bored reading over and over again for the rest of my life. No big deal, right?

Well, the first one I would pick would be The Phantom Tollbooth, which I have already read about eight million times. I always find different parts to fall in love with all over again, so I could probably read it eight million more, easy.

The other four? That’s more difficult… there are plenty of books that I’ve read and would certainly love to read again, but forever? Or books that I’ve read twice or three times and enjoyed every time, but would I like them a fifth time? Augh!

So, let’s cheat a bit for the next one and pick Fragile Things, a short story collection I read recently and mostly enjoyed. So now I have like 30 stories I can pick and choose from, which makes the rest of my life a little more varied!

A hopeful choice would be The Sparrow, which I’ve only read once but I absolutely adored it and I keep telling everyone else to read it and now I kinda want to go read it again. So, fingers crossed that it has staying power!

Another book I’ve only read once but might be okay reading forever is The Manual of Detection — it’s technically a mystery novel, which would eliminate it from consideration because, hey, I already know whodunnit, but it’s so delightfully written that I think I could dip into it for a dose of wonderful every once in a while.

For a last book, let’s cheat some more and throw in the Oxford English Dictionary, because hey, I want value for my limit and that thing is honking big. And, I mean, it’s a dictionary! That’s useful AND educational AND entertaining if you’re a big enough nerd, which I totes am. I do miss my online access to the OED…

So there you go! Any objections to my list? Additions of your own?

I didn’t do anything in lieu of the football game… I actually had a bunch of friends over to watch the game, only one of whom had any care for who won. It was a good game, if you liked to bite your nails, but unfortunately my friend was a Pats fan, so… alas.

But, having people over meant I had to, like, vacuum and fold all the laundry and make the bed and stuff, and I thought it would take forever but it didn’t. This left me with some time to kill, so I picked up that Flavia de Luce mystery I mentioned last week and actually managed to finish it! I feel so accomplished now.

And it was, mostly. Johnson is not a librarian, but she spent a good deal of time shadowing/stalking/hanging out with librarians for the book, so she has a good perspective on how libraries are awesome but also have their problems. In this regard, I particularly liked a section where she talks about a library getting a big computer upgrade and the librarians being absolutely friendly to all the patrons and then making mean faces at the IT guys who in turn were like, “Shut up, librarians.” As they should. Or the story of the Connecticut librarians who went up against the FBI over the Patriot Act, which made both me and my law-student husband just slack-jawed in disbelief.

Johnson also has fun being amazed at the variety of librarians and libraries that exist, which is fantastic and even I learned some new stuff there. Unfortunately, Johnson also falls into that “these are not your grandma’s librarians!” trap wherein she gives a description of every librarian to prove that they don’t all wear their hair in buns or whatever, which… whatever.

One of the problems with reading this book two years later is that it’s a bit… dated. The longest chapter by far is the one on Second Life, which may still be popular in its own little circle but I have not gotten an invite to an SL library party in ages, and in fact I had almost forgotten about the thing entirely. But Johnson loves it, or did then, at least, and so she goes into great detail about the clothes she picks out for her avatar to wear and how she goes to the different places and meets people and “dances” with them and I am like omg get on with it and then there’s some interesting stuff about people who are librarians in Second Life (if not always in real life) and so that’s cool but then she goes off on this tangent about some sexually ambiguous librarian who intrigued and confused her. As you do? I don’t know. It got a little out of hand there.

The fact that that part of the chapter was even in there is testament to how little focus this book has. It waffles between being a study of libraries and librarians, a love letter to libraries and librarians, and a wide-eyed look at fancy technology (Second Life, of course, but also blogs and Wiis), and it just never struck the right balance for me.

Maybe it’s because I am a librarian, so I had more familiarity with Johnson’s topics and a bit of in-the-loop disdain for those outside of it? That’s probably at least part of it. I can imagine that if you aren’t a library person a lot of this might be new and interesting to you, although on the other hand you might just be like “who cares.” So… read it if you care?

Rating: 6/10

Well. I suppose that depends on how good my current read is! For instance, right now I’m about halfway through I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, the new Flavia de Luce novel, which follows its predecessors in being droll, ridiculous, and also not terribly engaging. So I’m reading it in little chunks and pondering what to read next — am I ready for the weep-fest that The Fault in Our Stars promises to be? Is it time to finally get around to finishing The Revisionists? Should I start on the stories in A Study in Sherlock? I probably won’t actually make a decision until Flavia has solved the case, but I’m looking forward to a good read no matter what I pick!

The only time I might start thinking about my next book well before finishing my current one is when it’s book club time — that always seems to sneak up on me and then it’s a mad dash to find the book in the library and get it done, so I generally try to think to myself, “Okay, if I’m reading Flavia right now, and it’s taking me a while, I’m going to need to at least look at getting A Reliable Wife so I’ll have it in time for my in-person book club, but I can put off worrying about Zeitoun until my online book club friends figure out a date for us to meet.” My online book club friends know this last part to be true.

And of course sometimes there are those books that just prevent me from thinking about what I might read next, or in fact thinking about anything at all, like any of the Harry Potter books when they first came out, or The Likeness, or The Night Circus, to name a few. Then when I get done I’m like, “Oh, crap. What am I going to read next? Anything I read is going to suck compared to that! Stupid excellent book.”

How about you guys?

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