The pages for recording your recipes have limited space for writing, you’ll need write carefully and small to fit most recipes on a page. The pages are not removable and pages cannot be added or moved around. The print in the book (charts, tables, etc.) is nearly microscopic. I found it very hard to read anything in the journal. As well the current and recent prices listed on Amazon (as high as $58!) make this a very expensive and hard to justify choice.

Three Stars

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It was an easy, comfortable read. Even the character of his mother whom I began by despising turned out to have reasons why she was who she was.

‘Where’s My Wand?’ follows several years of the adolescent growth, family drama, sexual confusion and social interaction problems of Eric. Covering everything from a mother who is a totalitarian nightmare, a browbeaten and cowed father and a sister who really doesn’t like him to how to deal with friends who have no arms and what to do when your crazy aunt wants to take you camping and what happens when the magic fails you.

I couldn’t put the book down and finished it the evening I picked it up. Highly recommended.

Four Stars

Reviewing a graphic novel from an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) especially one that’s labeled as ‘abbreviated’ is a bit tough.

The story itself is filtered down from a 2003 concept album and subsequent 2004 film by Neil Young. While the general environmental movement and ecological preservation message is a good idea the actual material used, while poignant, is closing on a being nearly a decade old. The message is there, it’s just a bit dated. I have no idea what level of involvement, if any, Neil Young had with this branch of the project.

The artwork is quite decent and the writing isn’t bad but the story wobbles in places, lacking in consistency. For instance the boy Sun Green agrees to run off to Alaska with disappears into the woods after a night of intimacy and Sun waits, apparently with little concern for her missing friend, quite a while before reporting the incident. She also meets a mysterious stranger who appears to know her and who can walk through walls and this has little impact on Sun.

I enjoyed what I read and wouldn’t mind seeing where the story goes from here. If you’re into the environment with a twist of the supernatural this may be the graphic novel for you.

Three Stars

I found this book to be nearly unbelievable. One of the worst books I’ve ever forced myself to finish reading. The dialog and actions of the people involved from beginning to end sound more like cullings from bad movie-of-the-week scripts than anything that ever actually happened.

The writing is stilted and forced. The editing also leaves much to be desired. As an example; During his last stint in rehab Todd claims to have been restrained, in a diaper, for three days due to his actions and behavior. On the very next page we’re told he was in restraints for four days.

Yes, we know that Todd has had multiple arrests and run-ins with law enforcement but much of the undocumented occurrences feel totally made up. Do I believe he experienced racism and even some jealousy at the hands of the police? Yes. Do I believe the LAPD was passing around ‘Get that Todd Bridges guy no matter what!’ memos, frequently hovering their helicopters over his house to annoy him or “lost” him for months in solitary confinement (immediately after he mentions he was marked as a high profile detainee and supposed to receive special treatment). Sorry, it just doesn’t ring true to me.

I didn’t get any feeling of regret or remorse from this book. Much of it just felt like bragging about the people that liked/loved him and name dropping. Todd mentions that he’s upset that other stars who have had serious public run-ins with alcohol and drug abuse had an easier time of returning to the spotlight and public eye. He blames this on racism failing to conceptualize that while ‘those other’ stars had drug problems he was a drug dealer running crack houses and exploiting women he deliberately got hooked on drugs so he could control them. There’s a difference and I don’t think it had anything to do with race.

I’m glad he appears to have turned his life around but I just can’t recommend this book.

Two Stars

Three Stars