About the Book:

What happens when the most beautiful girl in the world marries the handsomest prince of all time and he turns out to be…well…a lot less than the man of her dreams?

As a boy, William Goldman claims, he loved to hear his father read the “S. Morgenstern classic, The Princess Bride. But as a grown-up he discovered that the boring parts were left out of good old Dad’s recitation, and only the “good parts” reached his ears.

Now Goldman does Dad one better. He’s reconstructed the “Good Parts Version” to delight wise kids and wide-eyed grownups everywhere.

What’s it about? Fencing. Fighting. True Love. Strong Hate. Harsh Revenge. A Few Giants. Lots of Bad Men. Lots of Good Men. Five or Six Beautiful Women. Beasties Monstrous and Gentle. Some Swell Escapes and Captures. Death, Lies, Truth, Miracles, and a Little Sex.

In short, it’s about everything.

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

This is a book that I was first introduced to in a High School English class.  We were getting down to the end of a quarter, and I think even the teacher was looking for something that wasn’t quite so demanding.  This is what we were assigned to read.  I fell in love with it even then — long before it was ever presented in movie form.  The book is quirky, bizarre, and just plain weird.  And you can’t help but fall in love with it.  Beginning to end you find yourself wondering if you are reading a fairy tale, a piece of fiction, or something that is so far out there that you are sure the author must have been using some kind of controlled substance to finish it.  (Not to imply that the author uses any form of illegal substances.  But the make up of the story is just crazy enough to make one wonder.)

Also, if you have only seen the movie — you are really only getting half the picture of what a piece of art this story truly is.  Not only can you not put it down, but you find yourself laughing throughout.  The asides in the voice of Morgenstern, the commentary of the author, the one liners from the characters.  Everything is just simply fun to read.  (And if that didn’t make sense, trust me you need to read the book to follow the logic.)

There are three different layers to this story.  The author’s, the author’s author, and then the characters.  And everyone of them have been combined to present an amazingly fun work of fiction.  Having reread this book, I came away with the exact same response I had in High School.  Simply put — I have a favorite book.  And even the ending — though you find yourself going what the h–l?! is an incredible piece of work.

The characters, as you know from the movie, are fun.  They are the stuff of fairy tales — oh but then that was the idea!  They are not to be anything but enjoyment.  And in this case, since many of the characters fit so well with the actors in the movie, there is nothing lost in having seen the movie before reading the book.  But I truly believe that one cannot fully appreciate the movie, unless you have read the book.  Because while the one liners from the movie are entertaining, and all — the true pieces of great writing are found in the parts left out of the movie.  The parenthetical asides, which leave you wondering when exactly did this story take place?  The abridgment commentary that keeps you laughing at the crazy things that the author inserts — very little of which was found in the movie.  And then of course there are the one liners you remember from the movie that are still a classic piece of writing — even in the printed format.

I love this book, and I would recommend this for any and all readers.  It is fun, pure enjoyment, and I would class it as a real work of art!

Tags: Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Loss, Love, Romance

Category: Classics, Clean Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Romance, Suspense/Thriller

About the Book:

“An elegantly crafted, utterly enchanting debut novel set in a mystical, exotic world, in which a gifted young girl charms a sultan and changes the course of an empire’s history”

“Late in the summer of 1877, a flock of purple-and-white hoopoes suddenly appears over the town of Constanta on the Black Sea, and Eleonora Cohen is ushered into the world by a mysterious pair of Tartar midwives who arrive just minutes before her birth. “They had read the signs, they said: a sea of horses, a conference of birds, the North Star in alignment with the moon. It was a prophecy that their last king had given on his deathwatch.” But joy is mixed with tragedy, for Eleonora’s mother dies soon after the birth.

Raised by her doting father, Yakob, a carpet merchant, and her stern, resentful stepmother, Ruxandra, Eleonora spends her early years daydreaming and doing housework—until the moment she teaches herself to read, and her father recognizes that she is an extraordinarily gifted child, a prodigy.

When Yakob sets off by boat for Stamboul on business, eight-year-old Eleonora, unable to bear the separation, stows away in one of his trunks. On the shores of the Bosporus, in the house of her father’s business partner, Moncef Bey, a new life awaits. Books, backgammon, beautiful dresses and shoes, markets swarming with color and life—the imperial capital overflows with elegance, and mystery. For in the narrow streets of Stamboul—a city at the crossroads of the world—intrigue and gossip are currency, and people are not always what they seem. Eleonora’s tutor, an American minister and educator, may be a spy. The kindly though elusive Moncef Bey has a past history of secret societies and political maneuvering. And what is to be made of the eccentric, charming Sultan Abdulhamid II himself, beleaguered by friend and foe alike as his unwieldy, multiethnic empire crumbles?

The Oracle of Stamboul is a marvelously evocative, magical historical novel that will transport readers to another time and place—romantic, exotic, yet remarkably similar to our own.”

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

This is a book that I am amazed with, frustrated by, and passionately undecided about.  So if you are wondering what I thought — I probably can’t sum that up in one simple answer.  Some books that I have read have left an impression because they were written specifically for that purpose.  They are written with shock value and force — and that is exactly what they achieve.  There are some books that leave little to no impression — and they are hard to remember two minutes after you put them down.  Then there are books like this one.  They are impossible to classify because their story is haunting, subtle, and the footprints it leaves in the mind and soul are faint but unmistakable.  But the reader doesn’t realize this until well after they have put the book down, and then find themselves reflecting back on the story, and its message days, weeks and even months after you have read it.  It is a book that even after the story is gone — the memory of the feelings, and your response will be long remembered.  I would almost put this book in the same category as The Road, in one respect — (and I do that very hesitantly because I HATED The Road) which is it is memorable no matter what your response to it is.  But this one I LOVED — and my response was as positive for this one, as it was negative for the other.

This is a book that it isn’t in the plot, or the characters that the power of the read comes from.  Rather, I found that it is in the mysterious nature of the message itself, and the feeling it leaves behind.  It is a book that I think a reader will get a different message every time they read it.  There are elements about the influence of one individual on history, politics, and a troubled world in general.  But there is also an element of the importance of self in the eternal scheme of things.  This book also covers themes from grief, loss, cultural differences in integrated societies, corruption, espionage, and the list goes on.

But my overall insight I gained from this book was in the nature of learning the overwhelming lesson of coming to terms with living with one’s self, before they can ever hope to influence the world around them.  This is the first, and foremost lesson of Eleonora — this 8 year old prodigy child that has intelligence, wisdom, and understanding vastly beyond her years.  And yet — even as a young girl, the lessons of life are still hard to learn for this amazing young woman.  It was this characterization alone that made this book dear and emotionally influential to me.  It reminded me of my own family’s child prodigy — her passion for reading, learning, growing, and living life — even in the face of her frail and troubled little body.  My niece and I share this love of books, and we have both learned to see life through the prism of books.  In some ways this leaves us both a little introspective due to our preference for reading.  I understood the challenges that Eleonora faced, and how she was able to see the world through the magnifying lens of the lessons of her reading.  And if for no other reason than this tenuous connection to this amazing character, I will always love this book.

One thing that did frustrate me about this book was I felt like there were a couple of elements that weren’t as well developed as I would have liked.  I am still wondering what the prophecy was about Eleonora — as it was only passively ever addressed in the book, but I felt like I was missing something significant.  And the other thing that I am still reflecting on to try and reconcile somehow was the relationship between Eleonora and the Bey.  This unusual relationship while strong and influential as to the story, is also somewhat awkward and not quite solidified.  The mysterious nature of the Bey is so all encompassing that I came away not quite sure if he was a presence of good, bad or indifference once the book had ended; I almost felt like he moved through the story like a ghost — haunting the pages, but leaving little evidence of his passing.  However, these are minor issues in the whole scope of the book, and the historical fiction setting which simply made this one an amazing read.

Tags: Clean Reads, Family, Friendship, Government, Grief, Historical Fiction, Loss, Love, Suffering, Young Adult

Category: Clean Fiction, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Young Adult Fiction

About the Book:

From the bestselling author of The Illuminator comes a magnificent tale about the power of love and the perils of faith

Tudor England is a perilous place for booksellers Kate Gough and her brother John, who sell forbidden translations of the Bible. Caught between warring factions—English Catholics opposed to the Lutheran reformation, and Henry VIII’s growing impatience with the Pope’s refusal to sanction his marriage to Anne Boleyn—Kate embarks on a daring adventure that will lead her into a dangerous marriage and a web of intrigue that pits her against powerful enemies. From the king’s lavish banquet halls to secret dungeons and the inner sanctums of Thomas More, Brenda Rickman Vantrease’s glorious new novel illuminates the public pageantry and the private passions of men and women of conscience in treacherous times.

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

Tudor England was anything but a safe place, particularly for those that were lovers of literature.  A world filled with peril that was founded on fault lines created through issues of faith, church, state, class, and countries — this story is set in a time that provides myriad options for story tellers.  And this is a story that has it all.  With not only the political ambitions of Sir Thomas Moore — combined with his rabid compulsion to destroy all those rapidly adopting the quickly spreading Protestant faith, to a King willing to tear a country apart, in an effort to get the divorce he so desperately wants — this book is filled with dangerous situations.

Vantrease has written a great historical fiction story, which explores the extremes of censorship in an age when the Bible was first being made available to the general populace.  And while the general literacy rate was almost non-existent, the Catholic Church was still concerned with the danger they perceived the Bible’s availability would become to their own spiritual power.  This division between the Catholics and the protestants would eventually divide the church at its very foundation — and would lead to warfare, and violence on a massive scale.  The controversial debate was only magnified in England, due to the pulling away of English throne, from the Catholic church when Henry VIII was excommunicated for his persistent pursuit of obtaining a divorce from his first wife.  Vantrease has created a story that is historically accurate, as well as fun and interesting to read.  The characters, and their struggles are very well envisioned, while demonstrating the dangers that promoting the newly translated Bible could bring to those who sought to expand the availability of the truth.

This book also presents an interesting look into the life of a man frequently venerated in modern days — Sir Thomas Moore.  This great Englishman, frequently portrayed as one of the great statesmen of England, Lord Chancellor to the King, and a man of great political power, there is another side to this man that is frequently forgotten, or overlooked.  Sir Thomas Moore was also an extremist when it came to his religious beliefs.  It was this division in his personal life that would eventually lead to his fall from power in the political world — when he chose religion over the state.  However this downfall would not come without many victims of those who opposed his brand of faith and commitment.  Vantrease presents an interesting insight into this lesser known side of Moore’s character.  And it is this division in this great, and powerful man that make this story into one that is a can’t stop reading, read. In a time when censorship was more than common, and book burnings were usually simply a warm up for the burning of authors, and those that possessed books branded heretical, this book explores the amazing sacrifices that had to be made in order to insure the survival of several books during this dark age.

Tags: Book Burning, Censorship, England, Government, Historical Fiction, Literature, Sir Thomas Moore, Suffering, Suspense, Tudor England

Category: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Politics, Religious, Suspense/Thriller