Jim Butcher: Fool Moon

• Print Length: 356 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0451458125
• Publisher: Roc (January 1, 2001)
• Sold by: Penguin Publishing
• Language: English

Business has been slow. Okay, business has been dead. And not even of the undead variety. You would think Chicago would have a little more action for the only professional wizard in the phone book. But lately, Harry Dresden hasn't been able to dredge up any kind of work - magical or mundane.
But just when it looks like he can't afford his next meal, a murder comes along that requires his particular brand of supernatural expertise.
A brutally mutilated corpse. Strange-looking paw prints. A full moon. Take three guesses - and the first two don't count... 

 This installment of the Dresden Files was infinitely better than the previous/first one. I'm going to attribute the change to a more developed writer and the lack of the necessity to completely create a new world. Now that we've spent some time with Harry Dresden, we can immerse ourselves in the story and focus more on plot and character development.
  In Fool Moon, Harry must deal with a break down in his friendship with Murphy, his police bestie. That, in and of itself, irritated me although I can see why it was a necessary evil. Still, you would think that the brilliant Special Investigations cop who seems to believe in the possibility of another world would be discerning enough to see through coincidences and try to ask questions...but I digress. The plot was much better paced this time around. There multiple story lines, but they weren't so divergent that you felt like you were being jerked out of one story and into another. They came together in a cogent manner and worked well. The ending was action-packed and suitably full of crazy. I liked it a lot. I also felt the reader got to see more into Harry's character - we know him better. And we like him a lot more since we've seen the darkness that lurks inside. And yay for strong wizards - Harry was less bumbling and more badass which pleased me to no end.
  Furthermore, Susan's character saw more, and less obnoxious, air-time. I can see the relationship between her and Harry growing and deepening. No, I have no idea what's going to happen with them, but I think Butcher is setting them up for something grand.
  Overall: A
  The writing was much improved, as was character and plot development. The mystery was suitably mysterious and I didn't see the twist coming. (Well, sort of, but it was more...twisty.) Well done, Mr. Butcher, well done.

John Green: Paper Towns

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Speak; Reprint edition (September 22, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 014241493X

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs into his life - dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge - he follows. After their all-nighter ends, and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues - and they're for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew...
 
 Paper Towns was not as inspiring as I was anticipating, but I believe that was more because John Green has been hyped to me so much. I think he is a brilliant individual, but I was overestimating the amount of revelatory and inspirational material one can jam into a young adult novel. Taking that into account, the novel was hilarious and well-written. It did have its deep moments interspersed in the flotsam of the life of a teenager dealing with graduating from high school.
 The novel is more about the impossibility of truly knowing another person than the horrors of entering the world with at least half of your strings cut as a supposed adult. When Margo Roth Spiegelman (the girls whose name you must say in its entirety) runs away from her hometown of Orlando, her childhood friend spends an inordinate amount of time worrying that she might have committed suicide. The story revolves around his search for Margo and learning about her through the clues she has left for him. Unfortunately, he realizes that the image he's had of Margo for all these years is not the real Margo. That's the problem of humanity.
 The novel is paced fairly well, but there were times that I just wished he'd get to the point. Quentin, the protagonist, spends so much time pondering the Walt Whitman poem around which all of his revelations about Margo center that it just gets redundant. He also can't get through the poem until almost the end of the novel, which, if he had actually focused and finished it, could have led to the finding of Margo much quicker. On the other hand, that gave us more time with the ridiculous side characters, who provided 90% of the humor of the novel. And the humor was great. It reminded me of me and my friends.
 Overall: A-

William Makepeace Thackeray: Vanity Fair

• ISBN-13: 9781593080716
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Publication date: 12/1/2003
• Pages: 736

"I think I could be a good woman, if I had five thousand a year," observes beautiful and clever Becky Sharp, one of the wickedest - and most appealing - women in all of literature.
Scorned for her lack of money and breeding, Becky must use all her wit, charm, and considerable sex appeal to escape her drab destiny as a governess. From London's ballrooms to the battlefields of Waterloo, the bewitching Becky works her wiles on a gallery of memorable characters, including her lecherous employer, Sir Pitt; his rich sister, Miss Crawley; and Pitt's dashing son, Rawdon, the first of Becky's misguided sexual entanglements.
Filled with hilarious dialogue and superb characterization, Vanity Fair is a richly entertaining satire of upper-middle-class London life that asks the reader, "Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?"

 Having watched Vanity Fair starring Reese Witherspoon, I was anxious about reading the book, considering how much I liked the movie - which was not at all. Now, with the book finished, I can say - don't let the movie prejudice you toward the book.
 The movie did a terrible job of bringing the book's satirical feel to the silver screen. Thackeray is not just telling a story, he's pointing at and mocking society's failings, and while the characters are often hypocritical, and even morally reprehensible, he succeeds in making you laugh at them, even if you don't love them. Becky, especially, can be taken as a diverting creature, who is merely bent on achieving a place in society out of a lower-class childhood, or totally lacking human feeling. Rawdon starts off as an idiot and becomes the one redeemable character in the book, aside from the ever-present, gentle Dobbin. Dobbin is the only truly wise and good person in the novel, although he foolishly throws his love away on the equally foolish Amelia. Interestingly, the next generation is much the same as their fathers. Rawdon Crawley has a good heart, just like his father, and George Osborne is an arrogant ass, just like his father. At least they didn't take after their respective grandfather's - that would really have been a tragedy. One was a blithering idiot with bad business sense and one was a hateful, spiteful, belligerent coot.
  Thackeray often meanders through his subject matter, and by the end of the book, I was desperate for the last page. There just seemed to be so much extra stuff at the end. Rebecca's story could have come to a close a lot faster. Aside from those complaints, I thought the novel was a humorous representation of 19th century English society and had a lot of merit in the examination of the fickle human character.