Well, holy Hannah.

Or, hmm.

Not the King story I was expecting. A little bit of horror, but a whole lot of science fiction. Written in the late 1980s, the fear of nuclear power plants and technology taking over the world was certainly forefront of conspiracy theories at that time. Reading it now does make it a little dated, of course, but I don't know. It wasn't bad. I think it was a little bit good.

There are different degrees of good, such as "stellar-oh-my-gawd-holy-crap-that-was-amazing" (11/22/63 and 'Salem's Lot), to "ho-hum-but-not-bad" (The Colorado Kid). But I have yet to close a Stephen King book and think, "Wow, that was sufficiently horrible." I hope I don't ever experience that since I'm enjoying the journey so far.

The Tommyknockers is listed as #61 out of #62 out of all of Stephen King books. That's right, second to LAST on the rankings listed here (thanks to The New Dork Review of Books for posting it). I can't say if that ranking is nuts or not, but I can say that if this is considered almost *the* worst of Stephen King's books, then I've got nowhere to go but up in the Uncle Stevie world and it's going to be an incredibly fantastic ride since I sort of dug this book.

The 1980s experienced several frightening events, and one of them left a huge impression on history: Chernobyl. Those images from the horrible tragedy in Russia, nuclear radiation destroying lives painfully, will never be forgotten. The debate for nuclear power plants to be built in suburban neighborhoods caused intense arguments and in The Tommyknockers, Gard (James Eric Gardener) actively protests against it all. A struggling poet with an addiction to alcohol, it seems his only outlet and safe place is his best friend Bobbi Anderson. A fellow writer, she lives in the tiny town of Haven, Maine and lives on the land once owned by her uncle who passed away years before. When out walking with her dog one day, she discovers a piece of hard, unvarnished metal jutting out from the earth. While her dog, Peter, barks at her to leave it alone (why don't they ever listen to the dog??), Bobbi has a sudden urge to begin digging to see whatever is buried under the dirt.

As Bobbi begins to dig, the energy from the hidden object becomes stronger. A ship of some sort, a UFO ship of massive proportions is slowly unearthed and the power reverberating from it begins to overwhelm and control the town. True to King fashion, the town becomes its own character, isolated from other cities with just a few small roads through and out of it, with no major highway connecting it to anything else. It's a town somewhere in the middle of nowhere and the residents are slowly losing their minds and their bodies. Literally. They lose their teeth one by one as the power overtakes them, and I began to accept that the wasted bodies became similar to what might happen if nuclear radiation were to spill out into a neighborhood.

Not my favorite King story, but you know what? As ridiculous as some of the sections were, I still enjoyed it. Granted, there was the rise of a suped-up vacuum cleaner and a Coke machine, but I just got it. I totally understood King's disgust with society, technology becoming more advanced before we could keep up with it, and the fear of nuclear power plants right around the corner from schools and neighborhoods. (That is freaky, you know?) Apparently, King also wrote this at the peak of his addiction according to the article linked above, so it makes complete sense why all of his characters have some jacked up habit. The story meanders here and there, doing that awesome thing that King does which is to take a brand new character and tell their back story for a few pages, and it becomes so absorbing, you think that they're suddenly a new character to cheer on in the book. He tells a story and doesn't mince words. And I just love it when he does that.

Others said:
Let me know if you've reviewed this so I can link to your review here.

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Release Date: 1987
Pages: 558

FTC Disclosure: I checked out The Tommyknockers from my local Virginia Beach Public Library.

About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty novels, including The Stand, The Dark Tower series, It, The Shining, oh...what more can be written that one doesn't already know. So here you go, click here to visit this wicked cool author's official website.

The Stephen King Project. My education (and others') continues! The Tommyknockers is another selection for the challenge Kathleen and I are hosting. The site can be found (with other participants' reviews) here.

I am so conflicted on this one.

I really, really, and I mean really wanted to love this one. There is a Terry Pratchett fandom that is obviously out there for  a reason, and I know others have read or listened to the audio who absolutely loved it and I so wish I fell into that camp. Undeniably, there were so many elements that I enjoyed about it (particularly the surprising humor), but unfortunately, I am left slightly undecided on this one.

Sam Vines is finally going to take a vacation. As the commander of the City Watch for Ankh-Morpork, he religiously shirks vacation time since there's always something he needs to fix in his city, but his own wife, Lady Sibyl convinces him that a trip to the country is important for them.

While on vacation, Sam really can't shy away from the need to solve a crime, even if it's not in his jurisdiction. When a murdered goblin is discovered, it's Sam who not only needs to solve the murder, but he does have to somehow set right the long-standing misconception that goblins were talentless, disgusting, (not to mention smelly) and all-around useless beings in existence. Well, disgusting at times they may be, but they are still members of society, and no amount of disgust should make them not regarded as individuals afforded the same rights as everybody else.

I knew this was part of a very large series, but I heard Snuff was easily read as a stand-alone. After all, this is book THIRTY-THREE in an extremely popular series called Discworld, which I've never heard of before. *ducks* I realize a ton of choked guffaws are now occurring in the science fiction fan world, but please bear with me, I'm relatively new to this genre (or this type of sci-fi fantasy) so don't give me a virtual smackdown. Snuff absolutely was extremely, and surprisingly, funny and not tough to follow as a stand-alone, but I haven't developed the love for these characters and sci-fi as I would hope to have at this point. I mean, I'm almost there, but I'm not all the way there yet. Does that make sense? Don't answer that.

I did enjoy Terry Pratchett's ability to create this very unique and distinct world. It was certainly an escape for me, and I really appreciated how racism, objectification, infidelity, murder, and more social issues were incorporated into this fictional land. Pratchett brings this to the forefront in Snuff and surprisingly, I did find myself giggling away at all of the hidden meanings, especially Sam Vines' perspective on marriages, interactions with fellow pub-drinkers, and more.

Ultimately, I'd have to say that while I'm certainly not going to walk completely away from Terry Pratchett stories, I think the next time I read one of the books from the Discworld series, I'll stick with the printed version first to get comfortable with the rhythm before diving into the audio. That's probably what it is. The audio was just a bit tougher to get into, even though I did enjoy the narrator's voice.

Audio Notes: I enjoyed Stephen Briggs' narration, even though his voice was very tough to get used to right off the bat. I do feel he had just the right British accent that tended to scoff at the ridicule of unbecoming traits in others. Click here for the five-minute Audible.com sample (click the play button beneath the book cover picture).

Others said:

Things Mean a Lot

Publisher: Harper Audio
Release Date: 10/11/2011
Audio Time: 11 hours, 29 minutes
Narrator: Stephen Briggs

About the Author

Sir Terry Pratchett is the celebrated author of the long-running fantasy Discworld series. With over 65 million books sold worldwide in 37 languages, his place in publishing history is undeniable.

Visit the author:

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This is another selection for Teresa's 2012 Audio Book Challenge.



FTC Disclosure: I purchased this audiobook on Audible.com

Discussion is good. Cyberbullying is bad. This is not a blanket response and pronouncement that everyone is cyberbullying. This is just a humble post on the very few who are not truly discussing an issue, but rather who might be coming very close to cyberbullying.

I won't make this a long post and I won't link to anything. Suffice it to say that something sad happened the other day with a fellow blogger and the world of online bashing rose up and decided to condemn and destroy. A Twitter hashtag was even created and who knows how much more. I understand the disappointment that comes with news like this, but when pictures are posted, threatening comments are posted, or a hashtag gets created, it goes much, much too far.

We love books, we love to read, we love to chat them up. We have our own self-made forum in our blogs to celebrate writing. Any money we put towards designing our blog comes from our own pocket, not from anything else. We have day jobs, whether we are a stay-at-home mother or whether we commute to an office. Blogging does not pay the bills and it doesn't pay the bills for the blogger I'm referencing.

I re-read my first paragraph from my review yesterday about a book which included the serious topic of  cyberbullying. If I don't feel like something's right, I shouldn't stay quiet, which is what I normally do when it comes to drama. But re-reading that first paragraph this morning was a reminder for me.

It doesn't matter who it is. It doesn't matter what it is about. It doesn't matter what caused it.

Cyberbullying is never the answer.

These are real people with real day jobs that are being affected when threatening emails and comments are posted. We are a blogging community. Wrong is wrong, but cyberbullying is never the answer.

Please. Before you click "send," before you click "post," before you tweet, please. Walk away from your computer and away from the drama that we can all so easily jump into and take a few minutes to think about what you were just about to post. Think about who you are possibly damaging. It never makes me feel good to think that someone's whole livelihood and reputation might be destroyed, no matter what may have initially caused the disappointment. If something was lifted from my blog by someone else, I would be disappointed and heartbroken, but what would make me thoroughly devastated was to know that someone was being bullied because of it, in apparent defense of me. That is not defending. That is a witch hunt.

Please.

Stop Cyberbullying

National Crime Prevention Council on Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying Research Center

Stop Bullying

It seems like lately I'm reading a lot of intense books focusing on loss and regret, but this one touched these elements and shook the foundation much, much more. So Far Away (available for pre-order now) by Meg Mitchell Moore is a reminder to not look away, to not expect that someone else will take care of the problem that is right before you. After all, maybe you're supposed to be the one to fix it.

Bridget was an Irish immigrant who moved to Boston and became a maid for a rich family in the early 1920s. When her diary is uncovered in the cellar of a house by thirteen-year-old Natalie, it's Bridget's story that brings Natalie into Kathleen's life. Through this stirring and heart-rending story, Meg Mitchell Moore has beautifully woven three lives together to create hope for two women who are at different points in life. Natalie is beginning her young adult journey and Kathleen nears retirement. Each has their own pain to share, but both have just as much at stake.

At thirteen-years-old, Natalie is a little older than her years. Dealing with her parents' separation and her mother's depression that leaves her sleeping throughout the day and night, along with the cruel cyberbullying from her former best friend is completely devastating and has made her grow up much sooner than she should. People disappoint and drop their loyalties with others all the time, but she shouldn't have had to learn it so young in life. Her independent study project in school has grabbed her interest and has provided the distraction needed for her when she finds an old notebook in the cellar of her house on Milk Street, hidden in the shadowy back corners. Researching its potential relationship to her family brings her to the Massachusetts State Archives and to Kathleen.

In her late fifties, Kathleen feels like she has already lived her life and suffered losses with no chance to recover. With her husband passing away at the start of their marriage, Kathleen's daughter Susannah is everything to her, but when she loses Susannah, too, life becomes just one more day after another. When she meets Natalie, Kathleen doesn't initially understand that maybe this young girl might be someone she can finally help, to make up for all of her earlier losses. She doesn't realize that through Natalie, and through Bridget's diary, Kathleen may even be able to save herself.

I enjoyed this book and found that it was quite difficult to put the story down. Each character had a distinct voice, even secondary characters like Kathleen's co-worker Neil, who was struggling to adopt a child from Haiti with his partner, Adam, ended up being a background story that became just as important to me as the book went along. I enjoyed each aspect of the story and felt all of the crucial messages that the characters delivered, but Natalie's story was ultimately the one I anxiously waited for it to return back to when the perspective shifted either to Kathleen or to Bridget's diary. I guess I just wanted to make sure this young girl was okay. Her tormented school life completely enveloped me, simply because I just can't stand it when people pick on others. I cannot stand it.

Cyberbullying is just not something to sweep under the rug nowadays. Each generation develops different ways, meaner tactics representative of the times to exert influence and control over others, and today's younger generation uses social media and texting to bully. Physical fighting happens, but cyberbullying now adds a completely different complexity to it. School systems can no longer avoid this deeper issue, and I think the biggest message to all of us, those with or without children, those who work with children and anyone who comes in contact with today's generation, should take this passage seriously (note: this is an uncorrected proof so the finished copy may reflect changes):

Who did Kathleen think she was, to think that she could get involved with this mess with Natalie? Then again, who was she to think she couldn't?

With painfully difficult moments and hard truths of life, I enjoyed the story and writing immensely. It's clear that Meg Mitchell Moore has a passion for the subject matter, and she is an author I'll look forward to more from her, and I'll also be sure to pick up her debut novel, The Arrivals, as well.

So Far Away had all the elements I enjoy: Boston, archives, research, an old diary. It's given me a lot to think about and I very much so recommend this book.

Others said:
Let me know if I've missed your review so I can link to it here.

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Release Date: 5/29/2012 (available for pre-order now)

Pages: 336

About the Author

Meg Mitchell Moore worked for several years as a journalist. Her work has been published in Yankee, Continental, Women's Health, Advertising Age and many other business and consumer magazines. She received a B.A. from Providence College and a Master's Degree in English Literature from New York University. The Arrivals is her first novel. Meg lives in Newburyport, Massachusetts, with her husband, their three children and a beloved border collie.

Visit the author:

• On her website
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• On Twitter

FTC Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher through Netgalley for my honest review.