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Book Review: Ramona and Her Mother

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Ramona and Her Mother
Ramona Quimby #5
by Beverly Cleary
Read by Stockard Channing

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Children’s classic

This book did not stand out to me as much as previous in the series did. I think that’s just because a lot of it felt like rehashing of things Ramona did, misunderstandings, etc. from previous books. After how much I loved the previous book in the series, this one felt a little like a letdown. It seems like she could really do with a little more discipline, but on the other hand, she’s at a young enough age that both of her parents being gone full-time would have to be very difficult on her. I feel for Ramona in some of the situations she gets herself into, and there are also some nice moments in the book, as in previous ones. Stockard Channing’s narration is pretty great, too, and I recommend it for anyone who might be interested, young or old.

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Book Review: The First Four Years

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The First Four Years
Little House #9
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
read by Cherry Jones

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Children’s historical classic

I can understand now the claims that this book is so vastly different from the rest of the series. The main thing I noticed is that there is a lot of hardship, just like the rest of the books have, but while the rest of the books also make sure to talk about the happy things mixed in, this one barely does. I get the feeling that Laura Ingalls Wilder, or perhaps her daughter Rose Wilder Lane, who edited the previous works, intentionally included those happy moments to soften the difficult ones. No one did that for this manuscript. Not that there weren’t a few happy moments, but they were meager compared to the loss of crops time after time, the bad weather, the fire, the sickness. And Almanzo comes across pretty terrible in this book. He convinced Laura to give farming 3 years when she tells him that she doesn’t really want to live a farmer’s life due to the hardship (which she was absolutely correct about, obviously) before they were married, so it’s not like she waited until afterward to tell him she didn’t want him to farm, and that, if farming isn’t so much a success for them that she’s okay with continuing, he’ll quit. After 3 years of losing their crops every year, though, he talks her into “just one more year.” To me, that sounds like a man who has no plans to ever give up his own way. I haven’t read Wilder’s diaries from after this time, and I don’t plan to at this time, but I do hope that he wasn’t as manipulative as he seems in this book.

For this whole series, my enjoyment of the book was greatly enhanced by the audiobook narrator, Cherry Jones, who does a fantastic job. If you’ve ever considered reading this series, or have already read it and have occasion to listen to the audiobooks, I say do it!

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Book Review: Very Good, Jeeves

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Very Good, Jeeves
Jeeves #4
 by P.G. Wodehouse
Read by Jonathan Cecil

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Classic British humor

This was definitely one of my favorite collections of the series. Maybe the outlandish situations Bertie Wooster gets himself into should be getting stale, but I’m only enjoying them more as I go. Maybe because I’m starting to get into the overall feel of the stories more? There were several moments that made me laugh out loud or at least smile; I regret that I was listening to the audiobook and couldn’t make note of them at the time. Bertie fooling himself into thinking Jeeves doesn’t always get his own way, though, is one such moment. I only wish I could have continued to listen to Kevin Theis, but apparently he only narrated 4 of the books. Though I still like Theis more, Jonathan Cecil was good too, excepting for the strange speech impediment he gave to Bingo Little. I can say with certainty at this point that I will listen to these audiobooks again someday.

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Book Review: Ramona and Her Father

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Ramona and Her Father
Ramona Quimby #4
by Beverly Cleary
Read by Stockard Channing

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Children’s classic

I so wish I had read these books when I was a child. I remember knowing about them. I may have read one, or maybe it was a different one set in the same world. But I really think I would have connected with Ramona. This book was my favorite so far, and that’s considering that I’ve really liked them all. Ramona gets to spend more time with her dad than usual, but it’s at the cost of him having lost his job and taking some time to find a new one. The scenes that stuck out to me the most are those related to her dad’s smoking habit. The scene where Beezus confronts him about it is relatively intense, and when her dad confesses his brief slip to Ramona, I teared up a little! This book is not just about the adventures of a young girl; it’s full of so much heart! Stockard Channing’s narration is pretty great, too, and I recommend it for anyone who might be interested, young or old.

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Book Review: These Happy Golden Years

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These Happy Golden Years
Little House #8
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
read by Cherry Jones

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Children’s historical classic

Of course I knew that Laura would grow up and this family that started in the Big Woods of Wisconsin would eventually change as some of them moved on, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still a little sad when it happens. Still, most of it was enjoyable, as a few years go by with Laura teaching school and finding other ways to make money to help her family, as well as spending time with Almanzo Wilder, who isn’t dissuaded when Laura tells him there’s no future for them. Unlike another series I read with a young main character, it’s not really the change in Laura’s maturity, motivations, or even location that make this book slightly less enjoyable for me than the rest of the series. I think it had more to do with the somewhat shallowness of the writing, even though I’m used to it by now. In this particular book, with the progression from wanting to be an old maid so she doesn’t have to leave home to happily accepting Almanzo’s marriage proposal, it really would have been nice to get a little more in depth on Laura’s thoughts and feelings. Overall, though, I liked what is essentially the end to the series, since the last one is a departure from the rest of the series.

As before, my enjoyment of the book was greatly enhanced by the audiobook narrator, Cherry Jones, who does a fantastic job, and being able to hear Pa’s fiddle, thanks to Paul Woodiel. If you’ve ever considered reading this series, or have already read it and have occasion to listen to the audiobooks, I say do it!

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Book Review: Carry On, Jeeves

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Carry On, Jeeves
Jeeves #3
 by P.G. Wodehouse
Read by Kevin Theis

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Classic British humor

After getting past the stories in this collection that I’d already listened to (though with a different main character), I think I enjoyed this collection a little more than the other two so far. Though I have to admit that, while at first I thought it was great that one of the stories was written from Jeeves’s perspective, I found that I didn’t like that story as much. It was still interesting to get his perspective on the schemes he gets up to for Wooster and his friends.

I now wish I’d read this article sooner, as it recommended newer readers to skip My Man Jeeves, since the stories in that collection featuring Reggie Pepper as the narrator were re-written with Wooster and Jeeves in this collection. Because I didn’t want to listen to the same basic story again, I skipped them this time, but I do think I would have appreciated them more if I’d read them here for the first time. That’s just a little PSA to anyone else new to the series. If I do re-read any of these someday, I’ll definitely skip My Man Jeeves, or at least the Reggie Pepper stories. I will, however, probably stick with the Kevin Theis narration, because I’ve really been enjoying it!

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Book Review: Ramona the Brave

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Ramona the Brave
Ramona Quimby #3
by Beverly Cleary
Read by Stockard Channing

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Children’s classic

Oh my goodness, the things this little girl does…I don’t know if Beverly Clearly followed a kid around for weeks, observed her own children, or remembered her own childhood for these books, but man, I’m constantly amazed by the real insight she puts into these stories. Ramona has such a rough time in first grade, I almost wish she was a real kid that I could put my arms around and tell that she is seen and she is understood. The owl episode, especially, made me wish for her sake that she could really explain her thoughts and decisions. I knew the moment that new room was announced, it would be a source of contention between sisters as to who would get it—it’s 100% accurate. And then Ramona’s unhappiness building up until she just had to get it out has hilarious, and then very touching, consequences.

Stockard Channing’s narration is pretty great, too, and I recommend it for anyone who might be interested, young or old.

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Book Review: Little Town on the Prairie

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Little Town on the Prairie
Little House #7
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
read by Cherry Jones

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Children’s historical classic

Though the Ingalls family lived in town during the long winter of the previous book, this one really brought out the character of the young town. Moving there for the winter again, just in case it were to turn out as harsh as the previous, Laura and Carrie deal with a school teacher who maybe needed a little training to know how to deal with kids (good, bad, any kind, really—she wasn’t great with kids), the townspeople come up with a variety of ways to entertain themselves through the winter, and Laura catches the eye of a certain farmer boy. Though there is still some focus on the Ingalls homestead and their work there, the book takes a turn as winter comes on, and it’s quite the change of pace after that. Also, thanks to much work and sacrifice by her loved ones, Mary goes off to college partway through this book, which adds to the different dynamic. It’s a good reminder that life keeps moving on and things change, sometimes for the worse, but even when it’s for the better, it can be bittersweet.

As before, my enjoyment of the book was greatly enhanced by the audiobook narrator, Cherry Jones, who does a fantastic job. If you’ve ever considered reading this series, or have already read it and have occasion to listen to the audiobooks, I say do it!

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Book Review: My Man Jeeves

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My Man Jeeves
Jeeves #1
 by P.G. Wodehouse
Read by Kevin Theis

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Classic British humor

I thought it was difficult to figure out a good order in which to read the Sherlock stories/books, but man, this seems more complicated. I had read in advance that some of the stories in this collection would have a completely different protagonist, but that didn’t make it less confusing when a story far into the collection was indeed focused on Reggie Pepper instead of Bertie Wooster. Perhaps the publisher could put in some kind of warning note, especially considering that it’s not clear that the narrator is different until a few pages into the story. Pepper is sort of like a combination of Wooster and Jeeves, yet not half as clever. He comes up with schemes himself, unlike Wooster, who relies on Jeeves, but Pepper’s schemes seem to fail more often than not. It was quite a return to the “old familiar” when I got to the last story, which brings us back to Wooster. 

Another comparison I can make to the Sherlock stories—it really might be wiser to read Wodehouse’s short story collections over a period of time, rather than all the way through, as they can start to all sound really similar. There is a sort of narrative thread running through the different stories in the other book I read (The Inimitable Jeeves), and there may have been a bit of that here too, but it certainly doesn’t help that it was broken up by the unrelated stories. Of course, I don’t follow my own advice and continue to read each Sherlock short story collection all in one go, so I’ll probably end up doing the same here. Maybe on a future read (of these, not the Sherlock books) I’ll spread it out more, because I do think I’ve enjoyed them enough to want to come back to them in the future. On the other hand, by the time I’ve read all there is to read, maybe I’ll have had my fill. Either way, I plan to continue with the Kevin Theis narrations if possible, as I read more about Jeeves and Wooster.

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Audiobook Review: The Hobbit

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The Hobbit
by J.R.R. Tolkien
Read by Andy Serkis

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Classic fantasy

I read The Hobbit for the first time 2 1/2 years ago and reviewed it then. I have not listened to the audiobook narrated by Rob Inglis, but I did listen to his narration of the LotR books. As I prepared to go through the series a 2nd time, I decided to try out Andy Serkis’s version, and I am so glad I did!

There are a couple of points that I want to make. It’s no surprise that Andy Serkis does a great job with the different voices for different characters. Though I’ve only seen the movies based on this book a small handful of times, it seemed to me that some of his characters sounded similar to how they did in those movies. It may have been a coincidence (excepting, of course, for his portrayal of Gollum, which is just how you would expect), but Thorin sure did sound like Richard Armitage. Considering that this audiobook came out several years after the movies, I did go into it wondering how much from the movies might seep into it, and since my favorite thing about the movies (which were otherwise just kinda okay, to me) is the music, I was thrilled to hear a few familiar melodies in Serkis’s narration.

I know Inglis’s version has long been a classic narration for some, and I don’t feel qualified to compare them, but I will say that Andy Serkis has done this book justice. It’s well worth listening to, whether you’re an old fan of Tolkein or a newcomer (or somewhere in between).

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