filler: h

These entries are from ye olde days, when I kept records by hand.  I typed them up last year, when I was trying to reach a minimum number of blog posts every month.  It seems a shame to waste them, and this makes them more searchable for me.  These were read between 2001 and 2006.

The Hostile Hospital by Lemony Snicket.  The children start to go off on their own in this one-- it reminds me of the later Harry Potter books and makes me worry a little bit.

The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O'Shea.  One thing that confused me about this book was that it was written with a 10-year-old and a 5-year-old as the main characters, but no child of or between those ages would be able to read it.  Possibly if it was read to them, that would do, or if the characters were made 14 or there abouts, it would work.

Other than that bit of confusion, I have only positive comments about the book.  It was well-written, with great descriptions and an interesting plot as well as characters easy to love.  Way to go, book.

The House of Sight and Shadow by Nicholas Griffin.  This book brings up wonderful thoughts about the power of the mind, "evil," and the immoral use of another.  Also, it has an interesting, though not quite gripping, plot.

Howl's Moving Castle by Dianna Wynne Jones.  I very much enjoyed this author's imagination, as well as her writing.  What a refreshing relief not to have to battle through fragments and misplaced commas.

I will say that she could use a little help on content [I can't read my own handwriting here] and plot development.  It wasn't too bad in the book, just a few instances when I felt a little lost, but the final resolution and the happily-ever-after bit at the end were totally unexpected, or unwarranted, based on everything previous.  The last few pages felt like a thrown-together, tacked-on ending just to be done with it.  Of that, I heartily disapprove.

Humans by Robert J. Sawyer.  The plot of this book was not appreciably different from the first but added little flashbacks/retellings from the main male character's point of view were interspersed; I didn't like it-- it didn't allow the reader to focus on other aspects of the story continuously but pointed them to try to figure out the plot before it happened.  This is not a figure-it-out-first book.

Hybrids by Robert J. Sawyer.  This book was like a compromise of the first two: at the beginning of each chapter, there were a few lines from a (fictional) speech.  There weren't any more experts anywhere else in the chapters, so the reader is able to focus more, with fewer interruptions.  The speech bits did make me inclined to be suspicious when the plot had not yet indicated a need to be.