6/3/11

Two I did not finish for the 48 hour reading challenge

I spent an hour and five minutes listening to The Birchbark House, by Louise Eldritch (which I've never read) while driving to the car repair place in rush hour traffic to get my car, only to find that when I said "please put new tires on my car," which they said were needed six months ago, they heard me say "see if you think you need knew tires on your car," so there were no new tires and I went home again in the loaner car. Sigh. I did not like the narrator, who was Too Fond of many individual words...giving them strange Stress....and...pauses. She relaxed a bit by the end of the hour, though, just as the cd began to skip horribly. Sigh.

And then I came home and had to throw myself into the morass of getting the children to swim class, but they left, eventually, and I sat down to read again.

The Tower Room, by Adele Geras (2005), is a book I'm happy to recommend to those who take a prurient interest in the sexual longings of girls at boarding school (in this case, heterosexual). I found the central story of a girl and a male lab assistant falling in love boring, and gave up on page 91, although I did read about ten pages of the ending (the repressed sexual desires of the spinster teacher were featured. It was not interesting). It is also, incidentally, a reimagining of Rapunzel, for what that's worth--I thought it a nice touch that the sex crazed teacher/witch smashes the lab assistant's glasses at the end (as opposed to him having his eyes put out by thorns).

Onward.

Stats: additional hours read: 1 hour, 35 minutes additional blogging/commenting: 35.

6 comments:

  1. I'm not liking my audio book either. Not the narrator's fault -- the narrator of the story is constantly sarcastic and unpleasant and its really tiresome. I'm only listening when I really have to, because I don't have anything to switch to. :-(

    The sequel to The Tower Room, the sleeping beauty story, was really excellent, I thought... Watching the Roses, IIRC. By far the best of the trilogy.

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  2. Oh, wow. That's one reason I'm a bit afraid of audio books - if the narrator isn't good, it's all JUST TERRIBLE.

    I'm voting Alfre Woodard read MARE'S WAR. I somehow doubt she's not, you know, busy...

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  3. I will look out for Watching the Roses--thanks!


    Next time I just happen to bump into her, Tanita, I'll be sure to mention it!

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  4. The Birchbark House is a hard read because of all the tragedy. I can't imagine listening to it would be any easier.

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  5. I own that Geras trilogy but found it very tedious/overwrought.

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  6. I think I agree with you! I haven't actually sought out Watching the Roses yet, even though I said I would....maybe someday.

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