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Mistaking Her Character by Maria Grace

July 29, 2015 by

Source: the author
Paperback, 378 pgs
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Mistaking Her Character by Maria Grace is a phenomenal Pride & Prejudice rendering, and this series is shaping up to be one of the best in the market.  Grace has a firm grasp of Jane Austen’s characters, but she also is not afraid to make them her own.  As she explores the conditions brought about by emotional abuse, readers will see a darker side to the hints of neglect in Austen’s original novel.

Lady Catherine de Bourgh will stop at nothing to save her daughter Anne from her ailments, but her patronage comes with a price — sometimes too high of a price.  Dr. Thomas Bennet gives up his London practice and moves his family to Rosings so he can care for Anne, and Elizabeth dutifully helps him in his ministrations.  Lady Catherine does not stop at telling people who to court and who to seek out as husbands and wives, but she offers her advice in all things from draperies to clothes.  Those who presume to know more, have more experience, or contradict her current statements with her own previous advice best watch out for her unfettered wrath.

“She pushed the window open and gulped in fresh air.  Anyone who saw her would believe her half drowned, and she was — suffocating in pretense and overbearing interference.  At Rosings, she could hardly draw breath without instruction on how to carry it out more properly, more elegantly, more to her satisfaction.” (pg. 66)

Mistaking Her Character by Maria Grace is stunning and emotional, and readers will be blown away by the uniqueness of her plot and characterization.  While some may say they deviate too far from Austen’s original characters in some cases, isn’t that the fruit of creativity.  She has taken these characters and made them her own, and in many ways, they are even more nuanced and dynamic that they were in the original, especially those who were more minor characters.  There are some tough emotional issues tackled in this one, beyond the romantic entanglements. It’s the first P&P rendering I’ve given 5 stars to in a long time.

***Giveaway for 2 ebooks***

Open internationally, comment by Aug. 5, 2015, at 11:59 pm EST, about your favorite Jane Austen spin-off, retelling, or continuation.

About the Author:

Though Maria Grace has been writing fiction since she was ten years old, those early efforts happily reside in a file drawer and are unlikely to see the light of day again, for which many are grateful. After penning five file-drawer novels in high school, she took a break from writing to pursue college and earn her doctorate in Educational Psychology. After 16 years of university teaching, she returned to her first love, fiction writing.

She has one husband, two graduate degrees and two black belts, three sons, four undergraduate majors, five nieces, sewn six Regency era costumes, written seven Regency-era fiction projects, and designed eight websites. To round out the list, she cooks for nine in order to accommodate the growing boys and usually makes ten meals at a time so she only cooks twice a month.

Filed Under: challenges, fiction, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2015, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

A Week at the Lake by Wendy Wax

July 28, 2015 by

Source: JS Publishing & Media Consulting
Paperback, 432 pgs.
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A Week at the Lake by Wendy Wax is less of a chicklit romance and more of a story about friendship that has been tested when Emma Michaels backs away from her college friends Serena Stockton and Mackenzie Hayes without explanation and again when they agree to meet again for a retreat at Lake George.  Emma has been a single mother to Zoe for nearly 15 years, and her parents and siblings from Hollywood’s elite have been kept out of their lives for some time.  Although Emma enjoys acting, she takes jobs on her own terms, and she’s tried her best to shelter her own daughter from that fast-paced life.  Serena, on the other hand, may be a beautiful starlit that many men drool over, but her work is mainly as the voice of Georgia Goodbody in a cartoon.  Mackenzie is the least famous of the three, who moved back to the Midwest with her husband to run a local theater and make costumes when her dreams of motherhood were quickly dashed.

“‘We could put you in the bottom of a canoe and float you out into the lake like a Viking warrior,’ Mackenzie said.
‘As long as nobody tries to set me on fire,’ Emma said.
There was laughter, all of them glad to see any sign of the ‘old’ Emma.”  (page 132)

The friendship between these women has been strained, but each of them is excited to head to the lake and reconnect.  Serena continues to have a string of shallow affairs with married men, and Emma has focused her attentions on her daughter, Zoe, and her work.  MacKenzie has had a relatively quiet and routine life, and her life is the most disrupted by the events that happen to these women.  Readers will enjoy getting to know these women, the nuances of their friendships, and the struggles they have in their own lives.

A Week at the Lake by Wendy Wax is a heavier book than most chicklit books, given that these women deal with some significant crises of confidence, emotional baggage, and real-life pain.  Wax creates some strong and flawed female characters, and readers will love how these women interact with each other, how friendships can be tested and nearly break, and how they resolve their larger issues.  This was another winner, and if you haven’t read Wax’s books, you better get started.

About the Author:

Award-winning author Wendy Wax has written eight novels, including Ocean Beach, Ten Beach Road, Magnolia Wednesdays, the Romance Writers of America RITA Award finalist The Accidental Bestseller, Leave It to Cleavage, Single in Suburbia and 7 Days and 7 Nights, which was honored with the Virginia Romance Writers Holt Medallion Award. Her work has sold to publishers in ten countries and to the Rhapsody Book Club, and her novel, Hostile Makeover, was excerpted in Cosmopolitan magazine.

A St. Pete Beach, Florida native, Wendy has lived in Atlanta for fifteen years. A voracious reader, her enjoyment of language and storytelling led her to study journalism at the University of Georgia. She also studied in Italy through Florida State University, is a graduate of the University of South Florida, and worked at WEDU-TV and WDAE-Radio in Tampa.

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Filed Under: chicklit, fiction, Penguin, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2015, review copy, reviews Tagged With: ,

“Could You Lift Up Your Bottom?” by Hee-jung Chang, illustrated by Sung-hwa Chung

July 24, 2015 by

Source: Independent Publishers Group
Hardcover,
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“Could You Lift Up Your Bottom?” by Hee-jung Chung, illustrated by Sung-hwa Chung, is a math concepts book that explains figures, shapes, and space in a story.  This story centers on a frog who loses his favorite hat and an elephant who sits on it and takes advantage of the situation.  He has the frog get him food in different shapes and sizes, and promises each time to lift his butt off of the frog’s hat.  It becomes clear to the frog that he will have to be more savvy than the elephant who is being unkind.

Although my daughter and I read this book and we called out the shapes together until she was confident herself to shout them out alone, she told me that the elephant — who looks like a mixed media hodgepodge — was scary looking.  It was hard for her to focus on this book given her response to the elephant, but I tried to refocus her on the shapes in the book.

“Could You Lift Up Your Bottom?” by Hee-jung Chung, illustrated by Sung-hwa Chung, includes a great breakdown of categories for shapes — round shapes including circles and ovals, etc.  There are some interesting activities in the back that involve food as well, which my daughter enjoyed.  Overall the concepts in the book are well planned out and discussed, but the drawings here are less pleasant than those in the other books of this series.

Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2015, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Earth Joy Writing: Creating Harmony Through Journaling and Nature by Cassie Premo Steele, Ph.D.

July 22, 2015 by

Source: Ashland Creek Press
Paperback, 169 pgs.
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Earth Joy Writing: Creating Harmony Through Journaling and Nature by Cassie Premo Steele, Ph.D., is more than a book about creative writing.  It is a book that will help readers become more creative writers and thinkers through the connections they develop or re-establish between themselves, their family, and nature.  With the right conditions and frame of mind, creativity can grow from not only our own experiences, current interactions with nature, but also through reflection and looking at the unknown.  Steele breaks down the book into the different seasons — Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall — and each section also has a monthly breakdown with writing exercises, reflections, and connecting with nature and emotions.

Readers will want to get a journal that they can use when reading this book, and they’ll want to do as Steele suggests and begin in the season and month that they are currently in, rather than start at the beginning of the book.  The book is laid out in a way that allows readers to tap into their current environment and season when writing or thinking creatively — generating a dialogue between themselves, nature, and potential readers of their own.  Beyond writing exercises and questions that readers can answer to start creating their own poems and stories, Steele also includes activities and experiences that will help frame the situation for those trying to be more creative.  For instance, she advises that readers take a trip to an art museum or look through an art book — not on the Internet — and journal about what piece of art strikes their fancy and encourages them to take the time to explore why.

Earth Joy Writing: Creating Harmony Through Journaling and Nature by Cassie Premo Steele, Ph.D., is a unique book about inspiring writers to think more creatively and to draw on nature to tap into their own creativity.  The book is about becoming more observant, less stressed, and more focused on connecting with nature, our natural selves, and those around us.  In this hyper-connected, Internet world, many of us find that we have over-scheduled our lives, and this book will help us slow down.  This is a book that will remain with those “prime” writing books in my workspace — one I’ll be using in the future.

About the Author:

Cassie Premo Steele, Ph.D., is the author of twelve books and audio programs on the themes of creativity, healing, and our connection to the natural world. She works as a writing coach with clients internationally.  Check out her website and the Earth Joy Writing website.  (Photo credit: Susanne Kappler)

 

 

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Read in 2015, Reference, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

The Cake Therapist by Judith Fertig

July 21, 2015 by

Source: Tandem Literary
Paperback, 304 pgs
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The Cake Therapist by Judith Fertig will have mouths watering all over these pages as these gorgeous confections meld savory and sweet and extrapolates memory, emotion, and the past from flavors.  Claire “Neely” Davis returns to her hometown to clear her head after yet another slip-up by her husband, Luke, a famous NFL player.  She leaves behind her five-star life in New York for a life that requires a bit more grit and persistence.  Slowly she finds that she has more than one bakery talent — she sees the lives of others in flavor and color, much like her grandmother did.

Even as she works through her own emotional issues, she dives head first into work.  She’s building her business, Rainbow Cake, from the ground up, but she’s also reconnecting with her past and her family.  Her grandmother’s home will not be vacant because she’s been moved to a nursing home.  Her hometown friends are happy to have her back, and while she’s still recovering, she begins to feel at home too.

“‘It’s a gift, you dope.’  I pressed the box into his stomach.  He read the card that said, ‘Thank you for helping me feather my new nest.’  He opened the box and saw a tiny cake shaped like a bird’s nest in three small round layers of tender, browned-butter vanilla cake with an apricot filling.  A ‘nest’ border of piped rum and mocha buttercream enclosed a clutch of pale blue marzipan eggs and a sugar-paste feather.  The complicated yin and yang of rum and mocha, the ‘everybody loves’ vanilla, Mr. Social white chocolate, tart and witty apricot, and artistic marzipan — all said ‘Gavin’ to me.”  (pg. 16)

Her culinary skills also come in handy when helping her employees and some others in the town cope with their own situations at home and from the past.  As she helps them see the strength in themselves, she becomes more sure of herself and that path she must take into the future.  Claire is an emotional mess, and like many of us, she throws herself into work and something she’s passionate about, leaving the heavier stuff on the back burner.  She often helps others, and that helps her work through her own issues, sometimes without even realizing it.

The Cake Therapist by Judith Fertig is a delightful confection and perfect for summer reading by the pool with some cake and delightful coffee — tea if you’re into that sort of thing.  Fertig has a clear talent for writing foodie fiction, and perhaps that is because of her background in cooking and writing cookbooks.  Bon appétit!

About the Author:

Novelist and cookbook author Judith Fertig grew up in the Midwest, went to cooking school in London and Paris, and now lives in the Kansas City area. Described by Saveur Magazine as a “heartland cookbook icon,” Fertig debuts a new novel that engage the mind, the heart, and all five senses—and celebrates cookbooks that reflect her love of bread, baking, barbecue, and the fabulous foods of the Heartland.

Novels you can read like cookbooks. Cookbooks you can read like novels. That’s what you get when an English major studies at École de Cuisine La Varenne (formerly in Paris) and The Cordon Bleu in London plus The Iowa Writers Workshop. Fertig often weaves storytelling into her books. Follow her on Twitter.

Filed Under: challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Penguin, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2015, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Who Eats First? by Ae-hae Yoon, illustrated by Hae-won Yang

July 17, 2015 by

Source: Independent Publishers Group
Hardcover, 38 pgs
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Who Eats First? by Ae-Hae Yoon, illustrated by Hae-won Yang, is another book in the math concepts of books that teach math basics through story-telling.  This book is a story about placing items and animals in various orders from smallest to biggest, fattest to smallest, and tallest to shortest.  This helps children understand how to differentiate size and type using animals.  The activities in the back are relatively easy to execute from putting numbered cards in order, rearranging them and having people draw them and then being placed in order.  These books would be great for classroom use.

Finding a delicious peach in the rainforest might seem odd, but these animals only care how good it will taste once they bite into it.  While they all want to share it, they are unsure who should go first when taking that first juicy bite.  There are different attempts to measure the animals and determine who should go first, but there are also discussions about differences, like who has the most legs, the longest ears, the longest tail, the longest neck, etc.  The book goes over the various ways to measure things from height to weight and more.  The pictures will help kids understand those concepts clearly.

Who Eats First? by Ae-Hae Yoon, illustrated by Hae-won Yang, is engaging and fun, and the activities can help parents and teachers engage children in math lessons.  My daughter and I have had fun measuring a variety of things in the house and outside, and spying differences between animals and ourselves.

Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2015, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

A Day at Grandma’s by Mi-ae Lee, illustrated by Yang-sook Choi

July 10, 2015 by

Source: Independent Publishers Group
Hardcover, 34 pgs
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A Day at Grandma’s by Mi-ae Lee, illustrated by Yang-sook Choi, is part of a series of math concepts books that teach basic math concepts through story-telling.  This book has a focus on time of day — dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, dusk, and night — and the difference between today, yesterday, and tomorrow.  The young girl spends an entire day with her grandmother, while her mother goes about her day, missing her daughter.  The mother talks about what she and her daughter would do at each time of day together and the daughter at her grandmother’s explains how she spends her day with her grandmother and compares it to life at home.

This simple story, children can learn how long an actual day is and can create a pie chart filled with their own activities, like the one in the back of the book.  Children that love art projects could turn this pie chart into something really visual with cut outs from magazines and newspapers, as well as drawings.  Parents should explain the different times of day and what accomplishments and activities they do as a family during those time periods.

A Day at Grandma’s by Mi-ae Lee, illustrated by Yang-sook Choi, is a cute story on its own about spending time away from our parents, even as young kids and how that can be an adventure filled with stories to be shared, rather than something that’s scary.  It also can help teach children about different times of day, and allow them to look at their own lives and routines in new ways.

Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2015, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Stencil Craft: Techniques for Fashion, Art & Home by Margaret Peot

July 7, 2015 by

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Source: TLC Book Tours
Paperback, 128 pgs
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Stencil Craft: Techniques for Fashion, Art & Home by Margaret Peot is a gloriously laid out how-to guide for stenciling on fabric and other materials, and Peot outlines what tools work best and how to choose the best brushes and materials for making stencils.  She says in the introduction, “In this book you will make your mark literally — using stencil techniques to paint on clothes, paper, and home furnishings for fashion, interior design, art, and crafting.”  However, she does warn, “while experimenting with the projects in this book, you will make some beautiful things and some ugly things.”  (page 7)

My husband is the more crafty one when it comes to art, though I’ve done some pastel drawings and some collage in scrapbooks previously, but this book was a way that our family could create something together.  With the gorgeous examples in the book, it was very hard to decide, but we ultimately chose to do a project with found items, which can be those found outside, like feathers and leaves, or just stuff from around the house like ribbon, lace trim, or other items. Then, after rummaging around the house and looking at the stuff we had, we changed our minds. Obviously, this is a book that can generate a ton of ideas.

Finally, we decided to create a board that our daughter could use for her achievements, like her swim ribbons and her medals from soccer, etc. We wanted to create something with stencils and acrylic that she could use. However, rather than cut out our own stencils, we bought some we liked to try out; we’ll probably be more adventurous later when we redo the kitchen cabinets.

You can see the progression and results we had for our first time. We thought that the instructions about picking out brushes and paints was pretty straightforward. The techniques for brushing on the paint was relatively easy to follow, though it seems that we were both using different techniques on the same project. The overall result is good, but I think we’ll need a little more practice before we tackle a larger project. Stencil Craft: Techniques for Fashion, Art & Home by Margaret Peot will have us busy for some time, and I think theses are some great projects for families to do together or even to teach little ones. I’ll be sharing this book with both my husband and daughter for sure.

There are two giveaways with this review, one through Rafflecopter, and one for a single copy of the book to a U.S. resident.

So please do enter both. Leave a comment about what kinds of stencil projects you’d be interested in doing in the comments for your chance to win a copy of the book.  Enter by July 12, 2015, 11:59 PM EST

 

 

 

 

About the Author:

Margaret is an artist, writer and costume painter. Margaret’s book Inkblot: Drip, Splat and Squish Your Way to Creativity (Boyds Mills 2011) was awarded a Eureka! Silver Medal for non-fiction children’s books. She is also the author of The Successful Artist’s Career Guide (F&W 2012), Alternative Art Journals (F&W 2012), and Make Your Mark (Chronicle Books, 2004), voted one of Library Journal’s best how-to books of 2004. She is looking forward to the publication of two new books in 2015, Stencil Craft (F&W) and an early reader picture book, Crow Makes a Friend (Holiday House).

Margaret has painted costumes at Parsons-Meares, LTD for more than twenty years. Projects include Broadway (Aladdin, The Lion King, Wicked, Turn Off the Dark, Will Rogers Follies, Shrek the Musical, Phantom of the Opera, Mary Poppins, among many others), dance (ABT, Joffrey Ballet, Pilobolus, Feld Ballet, Nevada Ballet), film (Bram Stoker’s Dracula), as well as for circuses, arena shows and ice shows. For more information, please visit her websites: MargaretPeot.com and TheInkBlot.com.

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Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2015, review copy, reviews, tlc book tours Tagged With: , ,

Lucky Alan and Other Stories by Jonathan Lethem

July 1, 2015 by

Source: Random House
Hardcover, 157 pgs
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Lucky Alan and Other Stories by Jonathan Lethem is an eclectic collection of short stories that range from the experimental to the surreal and traditional, but many of these stories lack the final punch readers make expect from short stories. While characters in these stories may experience smaller revelations, they often fall a little flat in the telling as the prose tends to be overly flowery or down-right boring. Of the collections that should be engaging to the reader given the title alone, they often lack the glitter readers will expect, such as “The Porn Critic.” And even these stories with catchy titles are some of the best in the collection, despite their flaws.

The first story, “Lucky Alan,” chronicles a neighbor who is obsessed with a reclusive Alan in his building and upon his marriage and later his growing family, the neighbor feels less important and pushed aside. In reality, he learns that this friend he tried so hard to win, was not who he thought him to be at all. And after the entire building sides with Alan, it is hard for him to continue living in a place that is unaware of Alan’s true nature. There are more nuances in the story, but they often get lost in the strange dialogue between friends and the situations that seem outlandish even in a large city of eclectic people.

In “The King of Sentences,” Lethem takes a look at the other side of fame, not so much the emphasis on the crazed fan, though there are some here, but on the perceptions we have of these famous people and how they may be very far from reality. In fact, the reality presented here is very scary for those of us who wish to meet those famous stars and writers we love. Meanwhile, “Their Back Pages,” seemed to be riffing off of Survivor and Lord of the Flies, but there are some pieces within the story that worked better than others, which made the overall effect of the story muted and confused.

Lucky Alan and Other Stories by Jonathan Lethem was a collection of stories with a lot to recommend it, but unfortunately, I can’t. I was disappointed with the individual stories and those that worked for the most part just didn’t wow me. Others might have a different view, but when reading short stories, I shouldn’t be falling asleep.

About the Author:

Jonathan Allen Lethem is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. It was followed by three more science fiction novels. In 1999, Lethem published Motherless Brooklyn, a National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel that achieved mainstream success. In 2003, he published The Fortress of Solitude, which became a New York Times Best Seller. In 2005, he received a MacArthur Fellowship.

Filed Under: challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, random house, Read in 2015, review copy, reviews, short stories Tagged With: , ,

Ally-Saurus & the First Day of School by Richard Torrey

June 30, 2015 by

Source: Sterling Children’s Books
Hardcover, 32 pgs.
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Ally-Saurus & the First Day of School by Richard Torrey is a carefully crafted story about an imaginative young lady who leaves home to attend school for the first time.  Her mother assures her that she will make friends once she gets there, buoyed by this, Ally heads off to school.  She loves dinosaurs and imagines herself as one not only at home but at her new classroom as well.  She greets her teacher as a dinosaur would and eats her lunch as a dino would.  She’s not as odd as adults might think because the other students in her class act in similar ways, though none act as dinos.  From princesses to lions and astronauts, these kids have vivid imaginations.  Initially, they are wary of those who are different from one another, but eventually, their perceptions of one another are broken down and they learn to play with one another.  There is even one classmate who does not have an over-active imagination, and he’s accepted too.

My daughter and I loved this book and roared with Ally as she entered the classroom and played with her new friends.  We loved the adventures she took with her friends on the playground and hope that there are more books with Ally to come.  The illustrations are reminiscent of chalk drawings for the most part, which goes well with the theme — the first day of school.  Parents can use this tale to help ease the fears of their own kids before they enter school for the first time.

Ally-Saurus & the First Day of School by Richard Torrey is fantastic, inventive, and we loved it.  We’ll likely read this many more times before my daughter enters Kindergarten, so may by by then, she’ll be ready for her own new adventure.

About the Author:

Richard Torrey is the author and illustrator of a number of well-loved children’s books, including Almost, Why?, and the popular Beans Baker series. Mr. Torrey lives in Shoreham, New York.

Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2015, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Gorillas in Our Midst by Richard Fairgray and Terry Jones

June 26, 2015 by

Source: Sky Horse Press
Hardcover, 32 pages
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Gorillas in Our Midst by Richard Fairgray and Terry Jones, is titled in a way that will remind adult readers of that movie, Gorillas in the Mist, but this is not that movie and this boy is not Diane Fossey.  He’s been told from a young age that he should always carry a banana with him because a gorilla could show up at any time and anywhere.  In fact, they often get jobs in which they wear masks, like surgeons or scuba divers, but they also disguise themselves with funny masks and t-shirts that say they are not gorillas.  This book contains fun plays on names, like Gorilliam Shakespeare and Apebraham Lincoln, but it also is fun to read with children and ask them to spot the hidden gorillas in the background.

Our narrator also is quick to explain how gorillas are adept at hiding but not other types of primates.  The surprise ending will have kids laughing as well.  My daughter and I were giggling at its conclusion after trying spot all of the gorillas throughout the book.  As you can tell, we make reading a game sometimes.  It’s always good to make reading as fun as it can be.

Gorillas in Our Midst by Richard Fairgray and Terry Jones is a cute book that can become a game for parents and kids reading together, and there isn’t a whole lot of text, so it can be easily used to help children begin the stages of word recognition.  The illustrations here have an old comic strip feel to them, like those that used to be in the newspaper and that every kid and adult loved to share over the breakfast table.

About the Authors:

Richard Fairgray is also an active Podcaster, blogger, and writer/illustrator of picture books. His Morgan series has sold well throughout New Zealand and overseas and his new title Gorillas In Our Midst was released in April worldwide.

Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2015, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

William Shakespeare’s The Phantom of Menace by Ian Doescher

June 10, 2015 by

Source: Quirk Books
Hardcover, 176 pgs
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William Shakespeare’s The Phantom of Menace by Ian Doescher is just what it espouses to be, a Shakespearean rendition of Star Wars.  Doescher has clearly studied enough Shakespeare and is creative enough to pull this off, and as an avid reader and lover of Shakespeare and Star Wars, this one was a perfect fit.  In fact, I was chuckling to myself as I heard the movie version of Jar Jar Binks in my head speaking in near iambic pentameter.  It was hilarious.  If I could see this one filmed, I would.  There are people who hate Jar Jar, and there are people like me who just adore him.  What I loved about Doescher’s rendition of him is that there is more to the character than appears outwardly to the other characters.  The re-imagining of this polarizing character was fascinating, and I couldn’t wait to see what happened next – even though I know the story.

Amidala: “A youth is no more frail than older folk,
No less intelligent, no less sublime.
Our steps are newer, yet we are no jewel
To be protected and encas’d by them.” (pg. 20)

Anakin: “Why do we worship at the shrine of change?
Hath change e’er put a meal upon our board?
Is change betoken to something positive?
Or may it be that change for changing’s sake
But changes good to evil, bad to worse?” (pg. 99)

This rendition can be read for its homage to Shakespeare and Star Wars, and it can be read for its humor, but it also is multi-layered with meaning. What does it mean to accept change so easily, and does it mean that youth is unequal to older people with experience? Doescher also speaks of the hidden commentary in Star Wars about perception and the “locals” of Naboo, in that the Jedi believe them to be primitive and less worldly. Fans of the movie franchise and its many incarnations have debated many things like these, as they have been debated in the study of Shakespeare and other literature, why not do it in a modern and fun mash-up like William Shakespeare’s The Phantom of Menace by Ian Doescher.

ianAbout the Author:

Ian Doescher is a Portland native, and lives in Portland with his spouse and two children. He has a B.A. in Music from Yale University, a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School, and a Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary. He is currently the Director of Nonprofit Marketing at Pivot Group LLC, a full service marketing, research and web agency in Portland, Oregon.

Filed Under: fiction, humor, Publishers/Publicists, Quirk Classics, Read in 2015, review copy, reviews Tagged With: ,