Read Books This will provide a list of the books I've read with a brief review. Users are blocked, contact me for access. I welcome discussions, but I'm tired of spam.

I stumbled across this book in a library, it looked interesting and seemed rated well. I remain unimpressed.

The story is about a vampire queen named Betsy, her sister is the daughter of the devil, and Betsy can see ghosts . There are several assorted characters, each with peculiar and interesting quirks. The characters are interesting and the book seems like it should be a winner.

There is no plot. There is no character development. The characters wander from event to event and things happen. Several events happen that could lead to an actual plot, but most of them don’t develop. It wasn’t clear what the intended plot was until late in the book, and feel anticlamatic in that it concludes too quickly and with little character development. After the climax, the book still has to wander. It was only at this point that I realized it was even part of a series. Maybe character development from earlier books would help, but I have my doubts.

The writing itself is simplistic. The dialog reads like a teenager’s tantrum half the time. Betsy died at the age of 30, but seems to act like a teenager most of the time.

Most of this can be forgiven in a humorous book. The book did have its moments with clever idioms used as a double-entendre with vampire meanings. It is mostly situational humor which doesn’t quite play out.

This book is set in a fantasy world where magic comes through illuminations. The idea is interesting, the text involving the illuminations is well told and interesting. The rest of the book is a bit bland.

The main character, Tessa, is from our world, who is drawn into another world and drawn into a quest to free a magical device, I’m being vague to avoid giving away too much. The characters are rather one-dimensional. Tessa seems all to accepting of her situation n this new world. Most of hte minor characters seem focused on one objective.

The plot is a simple plot rehashed in many other fantasy stories, but does come to life when the illuminations are drawn. I felt the book was just a device to carry off the idea. As it is, the story isn’t badly told, but it does seem like it could be a lot more.

Since everyone knows the story, I’ll dispense with the usual plot and character analysis.

This book was on my to-read list for many years. I’m glad I finally read it. First, I was surprised how closely some of the movies follow the book. The only differences were some of the adventures with ghosts. For instance, the ghost of Christmas Past took Scrooge on a short trip to a ship at sea, which was never (as far as I know) portrayed in any movie. Many sections of the book take advantage of the written form to provide descriptions that couldn’t be provided in video. And a proper portrayal of the ghosts would require some interesting special effects.

I think that some of the extras provided by the films are good addition to the story. There is often an expansion of Scrooge’s relationship with Tiny TIm, who becomes more of a focal point than in the book.

Although the book is a good read, the story is well known enough that I think I would have gotten more value out of one of his others. But I’m still glad I read it.