House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones

[lightreads]

House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Not much to say. I didn’t grow up on DWJ; I was too busy reading things incredibly inappropriate for my age, like Heinlein and Dune and Watership Down (people who say that book is for kids are liars, Liars!).



DWJ stuck to her roots to the end. This is an aggressively cute kid adventure in an alternate magical world, with an ever-expanding wizard’s house and a kingdom to be saved. It all ties off at the end with an improbably neat bow. Very much the old breed of young adult, a little bit cartoonish, a little bit silly, but kind and safe right through. You know what I mean.





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Comments

[lightreads]

So I skipped Chronicles of Narnia because I was sucked into James Harriot's world of 1930s veterinary medicine

Me too! I mean, that exactly. I loved those Harriot when I was a kid. And I still think I may have missed one or two Narnia books.

[ecaterin]

Yes!!! I've so far read two complete sets of Harriot books to little bitty pieces. They're all missing pages and covers. Time to get set number three in hard-back now that I'm all grown up-ed :) He's a phenomenal story teller. I never get tired of reading his stuff. Even though I know every story, he still makes me laugh till I cry, and cry till I sob.

The only reason I didn't actually miss any of Narnia is because I bought a collected, illustrated hard-back to read to my kids. Of course, we read the cover right OFF the thing cause they loved to look at the pictures. There's a reason for this. I almost NEVER read them books with pictures, because they'd interrupt me all the time to ask whether there were pictures, or they'd keep hopping up and down to look over my shoulder, or they'd never fall asleep because every time they heard the page turn they'd be all IS THERE A PICTURE ON THAT PAGE??? I remember the GLEE I felt when I got books 2, 3, and 4 of Harry Potter on my Palm device, cause I could read at bed time in complete darkness and they'd fall asleep!

These boys could hear hours and hours of reading per day. When the youngest was in utero or the years he was nursing, I was sitting so many hours per day that it was not uncommon for me to do 4 hours of reading aloud. At that quantity of reading, I insisted on reading books that *I* liked :P When they got old enough to operate the CD player and we started checking out books on CD, their typical intake of read aloud went up to about 10 hours per day :P

Hmm. I'm chatty tonight! Sorry! :D

[ecaterin]

OT, I did point you toward's Sam's two White Collar/Sherlock crossover fics, didn't I? I can't remember. They are rollicking good fun, darned clever, and lovely character voices as always. Also very nice pacing and building tension, now that I think about it.

Paper Chase

Rematch (sequel to Paper Chase

[lightreads]

Yeah, I read those. I have many thoughts about them, actually. My household had a big discussion the other night of how they are so close to awesome, but just not quite. There's just a bit too much "shenanigans go here," in them, you know? I needed more actual caper, less implied caper.

[ecaterin]

Hmmm. I can't disagree with you in any way....but I felt satisfied by them both. Maybe because I've been absorbing Sam for so long I know what his short form is like and don't expect more? Big Plotting is still a weak point of his I think (but he'll get there).

My (very long) con-crit of Trace is that it resolves too easily, the characters aren't challenged enough, the story doesn't throw nearly enough obstacles in their way. NOT EPIC ENOUGH, was my diagnosis. In his current rewrites I know he's working on that as well as several other things I went on and on about - I have high hopes that the scale of the story structure will have grown to match the epic-ness I sense lurking in the story.