The Book Book

THE LITTLE STRANGER/Sarah Waters

2012-01-17T22:07:00.000-05:00

Dr. Faraday is a hardworkingcountry doctor who has known The Hundreds Hall and its estate since he was aboy; his mother was a maid there for the Ayres family. Back then, the house waslike many other English estates of its class: majestic and full and a bit aweinspiring. By the time Dr. Faraday is grown, however, the Hall and estate havefallen into disrepair, the victim of the new Labour party and its socialistideas.

As an adult, he strays uponthe house quite by accident—or so it seems to him. Because his partner isunavailable, Dr. Faraday goes to treat Mrs. Ayres—one of the last survivingmembers of the Ayres family—and immediately finds himself enchanted by thehouse again, just like he was as a boy. Soon, he becomes not only the Ayresfamily doctor, but a close friend of the family—particularly to Caroline, Mrs.Ayres’s daughter.

His fate becomes entwinedwith theirs—something he’s only too happy to allow to happen, since it allowshim to see the Hall nearly every day. And here Sarah Waters shows us some ofher skills, for Dr. Faraday seems completely unaware that he’s mostly motivatedby his obsession for the Hundreds estate. As “the little stranger” makes itselfknown, he explains everything away as only a doctor of that time could.

And here’s more evidence of Waters’s skill: theincidents really can be explainedaway in rational terms. Even in Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, there’s a clear supernatural element. Thisnovel is subtler. Because the story is told in first person from Dr. Faraday’spoint of view, we are told of the scary incidents second-hand, so each incidenthinges on interpretation. After awhile, you begin to feel that perhaps you’renot getting the whole story from Faraday, that he’s shading the telling ever sosubtly in favor of showing each individual of the Ayres family as mad.

This way he doesn’t have to take responsibility forhis part. While it’s clear Faraday truly does care immensely about the Ayresfamily, he’s completely unaware that he cares about Hundreds Hall more. The moredisturbing things get, the more he tries to explain everything away—which isactually scarier than the little stranger itself.

10 MINDFUL MINUTES ~ Goldie Hawn

2011-11-15T16:01:00.001-05:00

10 Mindful Minutes: Giving Our Children--and Ourselves--the Social and Emotional Skills to Reduce Stress and Anxiety for Healthier, Happy Lives

I can hear many of your thoughts. What. The. ? Why is she reviewing a self-help? For kids? Parents?

It is so simple. Otherwise, you may end up reducing your stress with a cocktail instead of - I don't know - playing Goth Barbies for the millionth time.

Actually, my sister showed me the book while we were, um, "visiting" at another relative's house (trying to protect the innocent here). With all of my imbibing, I finished reading it during trips to the loo.

I despise stars using ghost writers to push personal agendas, but this seems to have Goldie Hawn's sticky sweetness all over it. Is it the new wave of parenting or psychology? No, but it is a smart way to provide kids with the language to express their feelings. Eventually, it will help both the parent and child develop strategies to deal with those feelings in a zen-Buddhist reminiscent manner.

There are many other books that will help those with teens or to assist in the understanding of human brain development (as in, teenagers do not have functioning pre-frontal cortexes, so they just cannot help text-driving). This book lands on this like a butterfly sipping nectar but prefers to spread its showy wings to spread calm and beauty.

Hey, it might work.

3.5 out of 5.0 Healthy 2% Milks.

Kristin at Books for Breakfast.

THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS - Vanessa Diffenbaugh

2011-10-29T14:17:00.001-04:00

Thorns = Go to hell - who knew?

The Language of Flowers: A Novel

Victoria Jones earned the general last name through the bland child welfare system. She never knew her parents or their circumstances and only remembered disliking touch and her foster families. Until she met Elizabeth, a oak tree against Victoria's hurricanes of hate. Elizabeth began to teach Victoria about the old language of flowers, when gentlemen dared not send red roses to a lady friend.

This is where I will shoot a test tube of some purply vodka mix to avoid giving away the entire story. It is not happily ever after with Elizabeth. And, I wanted to take a horsewhip from my barn to Victoria. The characters behave how they should, however, based on their experiences.

Kudos to a beautiful debut from Vanessa Diffenbaugh, and I look forward to her next work.

4.25 out 5.0 Captain Morgan Silver Sodas.

Kristin at Books for Breakfast

IN A SUNBURNED COUNTRY/Bill Bryson

2011-10-17T09:35:00.000-04:00

Like most avid readers, I have a large TBR pile. Most of this pile is pertinent to what I do in some way (writing and art), and much of it is training and study material I should complete yesterday. Quite by accident I strayed across Bill Bryson’s In a Sunburned Country (a rather morbid story I’ll not relate here), his book about his travels across Australia. It’s a book that’s had me almost completely sidetracked.

This is one of those books that’s best read when it falls into your lap as a break from other books. One day you’re slogging your way through a tome of ungodly proportions, wondering how in God’s name this book ever got published, when a book like IASC falls into your lap and you pounce on it with the enthusiasm of a bobcat devouring a goat. Soon you find you must shirk all of your daily duties until the book is finished. This, people, is not only the mark of a good book, it is the mark of a good travel book. Even better is one that makes you want to visit Australia—which is remarkable when you consider Australia has more weird and horrible ways to kill you than pretty much any other place on earth. It’s the second most inhospitable climate on earth (the first is Antarctica). But all Antartica can do is kill you with its cold. Australia is home to fluffy caterpillars that can kill you, species of spiders that can kill you with just a pinprick of venom, and the world’s deadliest snake: the taipan. (Interesting fact: the taipan is fifty times more venomous than the world’s second deadliest snake, the cobra. You get bit by a taipan and it’s bye bye baby, goodbye.) (Little show tune humor there you’ll (hopefully) appreciate when you read the book.) Not to mention, there are sharks, poisonous jellyfish (“blueys”), and man-eating crocodiles. And desert. Lots and lots of unforgiving desert. While most Australians aren’t bothered by the rest of the lot, the crocodiles even scare them.

That said, Bryson makes Australia—a country, he notes, to which Americans pay little attention (Russell Crowe notwithstanding)—sound like the world’s friendliest and warmest place on planet Earth. Australians do sound like a very friendly and welcoming folk. That they managed to make a country at all is to their immense credit, though, according to Bryson, they’ll not thank you for mentioning that their country essentially started off as a penal colony. (The “criminals,” by the way, were not at all a bad lot; many were only there because of harsh sentences that were common for the lower classes in England at the time. If you stole five cucumbers, you could choose between your own hanging or … a move to Australia.)

There were many places in the book where Bryson made me burst out laughing. I tried to read a passage to a friend, but I could barely get it out because I was laughing too hard. And he’s not just good as a humorist, either. He’s great at the factual stuff. What otherwise might be dry and sleep-inducing comes alive in Bryson’s writing, and he kept me as riveted as any high-octane novelist. He truly is a delight to read, and I can’t wait to read more of his books. Highly recommended.

All Hallow's Read

2011-10-06T10:13:00.000-04:00

This isn't a book review, so if it's not okay to post, I'll take it down. With it being near Halloween, I was wondering: anyone participating in All Hallow's Read this year? Any scary book recommendations?

Shirley Jackson/THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE

2011-09-25T12:54:00.002-04:00

Eleanor Vance, 32, lost eleven years of her life to caring for an invalid, mentally unstable mother. As a result, she is lonely and shy and completely without friends. When she receives an invitation to work as an assistant to Dr. Montague (an academic whose "real" work is the study of the paranormal), she jumps at it.

Dr. Montague is looking for evidence of a true haunting, and in Hill House, he appears to have found it. If buildings have psychologies, Hill House is one of complete insanity. The house has a terrible reputation among the town's locals, so much so that they are hostile to anyone asking for directions to it. But along with two other assistants, Eleanor helps the good doctor collect evidence of paranormal activity.

This novel qualifies as a horror novel (in fact, it's considered one of the very best in the genre)—though there's no gore. The horror is all psychological, and Jackson is so skilled as a writer, all she needed to do was paint us a picture of Eleanor's loneliness to show how easily the house could play on it. The others have their moments, too, but it's clear that among them, Eleanor is the easiest target.

No matter how cliché the haunted house trope may be, I've not read anyone who's done it better than Shirley Jackson (nor anyone who does a better job of painting someone who is lost emotionally and psychologically). She's one of those writers who achieved being both a good storyteller and a good writer. Her writing is a study in economy on par with Hemingway's. And I think that's one of the reasons this novel is considered more "respectable" than most others in the horror genre. You really can't fault the writing, even if it's not your style. It's really too bad she didn't publish more before her death. Makes her work all that more a treasure.

Joseph Mitchell/UP IN THE OLD HOTEL

2011-09-08T10:20:00.000-04:00

Some books come along in a person's life and becomes a friend that gets her through hard times. This book has been one such friend to me. My copy is bound with Scotch tape, I've read it so many times. If I were ever a victim of a fire, I think I would mourn losing this book. Sure, I could buy another copy, but it wouldn't be the same.

Joseph Mitchell wrote for the New Yorker. Up In the Old Hotel is an omnibus of his four previous books, plus never-before-gathered profiles he did in the magazine. Mitchell had a real talent for picking out truly original characters to profile, but for the most part he writes with such empathy no one comes off as a character at all. These are not caricatures.

Mitchell's nonfiction reads like good fiction, and his profiles of the bums, outcasts, and miscreants of New York are poignant and heartbreaking and sometimes exalting. Ironically, his attempts at fiction fall short of his profiles, but they still retain the same graveyard humor. There are profiles I go back to reading over and over and over again. (The profiles about the gypsy women and the plague scare are two of my favorites.)

I've read this book many times over. In fact, it's in the list of my top ten all-time favorite books. It just never gets old—even though the New York that Mitchell explored is, for the most part, gone. It takes a writer of real skill to make a reader miss the bygone qualities of a city she's never visited. I don't think I'll ever tire of this book.

Orson Scott Card/ENDER'S GAME

2011-09-03T16:04:00.001-04:00

Two and a half years ago, when I put together my Fill-in-the-Gaps list, this was one of the first books. For the sci-fi-fantasy community (on whose fringes I skulk) it's a staple; not to have read it is embarrassing. Plus, my dad, who has always greatly informed my reading list, read it a couple years ago and kept nagging me to get to it. I'm very glad to have read it, because I feel like it's become a cultural touchstone and now at least I can be part of the dialogue.

Premise: in a near-ish future Earth, the most promising of child-geniuses are sent to train in the Battle School, where they learn to fly fighter spacecraft in preparation for a coming war with the Buggers, an insectoid alien race who nearly destroyed the earth 80 years ago. Ender Wiggins, a six-year-old boy, has been identified by government agents as special--a genius with the capability to become commander of the fighting fleet when the war comes. He leaves his family forever (no contact at all until a family visit that's allowed once the kids turn 12) to face the rigorous, often merciless training at fight school, where he is stalked and monitored and presented with challenges the other students are not.

Themes: The book's biggest questions have to do with the nature of humanity (do the aliens have less right to life?), goodness (is Ender a bad person, because he's been hardened by his teachers into taking life opportunistically? is his brother Peter a "bad seed" type?), and education (is it right to design children through such rigorous training? what about if that's the only way to save the world?).

My personal reaction: like I said, I'm really glad I read this book, because not I can be part of the conversations that include it. I hear it referred to pretty frequently. I can't say I loved it, although I enjoyed the story and found myself caught up in it. Certain elements feel dated. For example, outside of the Bugger-Earth conflict, humans are divided in violent political factions that probably felt more plausible during the height of the Cold War than they do now. I also liked Card's writing of the battle training sequences and student interactions better than I liked the more allegorical and discursive parts of the story (long "telling" passages about his sister back home and her clandestine political campaigns, or the highly metaphorical and, in my opinion, not always interesting video games Ender plays to decompress). I also wish the story hadn't been so forcefully gendered. The reader only meets one female student in the Battle School, and she ends up cracking under pressure at one point. The narrative blithely explains that women have evolved differently and aren't as likely to be suited to the Battle Academy way of life. I find that to be another element of the story that seems falsely anachronistic (like the Iron Curtain feeling). But anyway.

Overall take-home: glad I can say I've read it. Didn't love it. Would like to talk more about it.

Love Wins by Rob Bell

2011-07-07T08:59:00.003-04:00

Where I got the book: from the library.

I'm going to try to keep away from discussing the theological points in this book, mostly because I barely know what I'm talking about. Love Wins has been making waves in some sections of the Christian community because of Bell's notion (some say heretical) that there is no such thing as a literal Hell. I prefer to see this book not as an attempt to preach a new truth, but as asking questions there's no harm debating. Bell says at the outset that he's entitled to his opinion, and I'd back him up on that.

I enjoyed reading this book. It's an easy read,

although Bell's habit

of making points

by using lots

and lots

of short lines

can be a little irritating at times, but it sure makes the pages zip by. Bell makes some really interesting points that are worth considering, calling, for example, for more action here on earth to make the world a better place. I can't really fault that.

On the whole, I'd call this wishful-thinking theology; if you've read the Bible enough times, you'll know that Bell's claims just don't really line up with all the uncomfortable stuff that's in there. It's a shame, because Bell's version of Christianity would pretty much reconcile the rest of the world to the Christian religion, and wipe out the you're-going-to-Hell-I'm-not attitude adopted by all too many believers. Humility, anyone?

Anyway, NOT getting into the theology, this is a nicely-written addition to some debates that have been going on for the last two thousand years. Nothing to get overly excited about, in my opinion, but I'm glad I read it.

EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL BEGAN AFTER by Simon Van Booy

2011-07-05T06:00:00.011-04:00

Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon Van Booy

Literary Fiction

Harper Perennial, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-06-166148-8

Source: review copy provided by publisher (this in no way affected my opinion of the material)

It isn't often that literary fiction can sweep me away so briskly. So completely. Transport me from my reading chair, from the ordinary detail of my ordinary life, into another place and time--as if I was really there. Simon Van Booy's debut novel, Everything Beautiful Began After, did just that. And more.

The prologue relays the thoughts of an unnamed little girl who is remembering the story she'd been told of how her parents met, how they fell in love, and in wondering about this, she recognizes that there was a world that lived before her time and her parents were in it. There was a world that spun before her parents met, even. And that is the story that unfolds for us--the love that existed before the love that brought her into the world.

We don't know exactly how this little girl relates to the characters until the very end, though. Which personally I thought was brilliant. After reading the final page, I went back and reread the prologue, and it pretty much rendered me speechless. I had to give myself a few days before I could compose a review without it looking like a bunch of gibberish.

This is one of the most powerful stories I've ever read.

It begins by following three people who all happen to be in Athens, Greece at the same time, but none of them are Greek. Rebecca is a French artist. George is an American linguist. Henry is a British archeologist. How they all become inextricably tangled with each other in friendships and romance is fascinating. There is laughter, heartache, and adventure.

Then a major earthquake hits Athens, reducing large portions of it to rubble, and all three of their lives are permanently changed. What they do from that point on is where the real gut-wrenching emotion of the story takes place. Life is questioned. Love is shattered. Death is illuminated. Some of my favorite lines in the novel are reflections on life, love, or death (or any combination of those), such as this one:

But the dead don't come back to life. They sit frozen in our minds, finally free, capable of everything and nothing in a paradise where they can do no wrong.

Part of what made this novel abundantly swoon-worthy for me was the use of language. The poetic prose. But this didn't slow things down. The pacing was kept at a good, energetic clip with concise writing and short scenes. Seem contradictory? Read it and you'll see what I mean. I've never read such a snappy yet flowing style before. It's genius.

Everything Beautiful Began After is a strong contender for my "Best Read of 2011" in the adult fiction category. I highly recommend it for everyone, but especially for those who are reluctant to read literary fiction as anything more than a sleep aid. This story did just the opposite for me. Once I started it, I couldn't put it down, even if it meant reading into the wee hours of the morning. 5 of 5 stars.

~Lydia

Add Everything Beautiful Began After to your goodreads shelf and enter to win one of 10 free copies! Click HERE for details.

Extras:

More books by Simon Van Booy

Follow Simon on Twitter

Simon Van Booy on Love, Grief, and Long-Distance Travel

"Love Is Like Life But Longer", short film written by Simon Van Booy, directed by Poppy de Villeneuve

The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M. Auel

2011-07-04T09:33:00.004-04:00

A quick investigation of Jean M. Auel tells me that she began publishing her Earth's Children series in 1980, and I must have been introduced to the series in about 1985 when The Mammoth Hunters was published. So my impression that I've been reading this series since the dawn of time has some foundation.

The Land of Painted Caves is the sixth and, apparently, the final book in the series. For those of you who don't know, these novels are set in the Ice Age and centered around Ayla, who is orphaned at an early age, lives with Neanderthals who call themselves the Clan, is banished, lives on her own and tames various animals, meets hunka hunka burnin' love Jondalar and returns with him (and some horses and a wolf) to his own people, the Zelandonii.

Having worked through the last two books, I was already beginning to tire of this particular epic, but I'm loyal and wanted to see how the whole thing ended.

I am SO disappointed.

For one thing, have I just grown out of this kind of novel, or did these books always read like an animated textbook? It is pretty interesting to learn about how Ice Age people may have lived, but the author is way too evident in this book, stopping the action every so often to give us a little lecture so that you end up feeling the characters are those models in a museum diorama, spears brandished and hair all over the place.

Then there's the repetition. Seriously. EVERY time someone new meets Ayla (and there is a cast of thousands, most of whose names confusingly begin with J) they HAVE to be awed by the tame horses, scared of the wolf and aware of Ayla's strange accent. And I was starting to yell every time the Song Of The Great Earth Mother was sung.

Oh Yes, The Capitals. They Abound. The novel is larded with titles, the one that really got to me being She Who Is First Among Those Who Serve The Great Earth Mother, and its many variations. This 700+ page chunkster is ponderous enough without slowing things down by putting Capital Letters on almost every line.

And the whole Zelandonii thing is like some vast New Age commune who take their religion with deadly seriousness. I could never have imagined that sex rites, orgies and drug-taking could seem like so little fun or be surrounded by so many rules and rituals. I'm sure it's quite accurate from a research viewpoint, but hoo boy, I think I'd rather take today's stresses and idiocies over this depiction of a natural idyll.

And I could go on. And I'm really not trying to be unkind to Auel, who has obviously taken huge pains to research and write these books. As I said, I've read my way through the series and, taken as a whole, find it memorable. It's been hugely successful and Auel has legions of fans (don't shoot! Please!)

But what really disappointed me was the ending. No spoilers, but there were so many interesting directions Auel's epic plotlines could have gone, and yet I feel that the whole thing sort of fizzled out, as though she, too, had had quite enough of the Zelandonii (who remind me, bizarrely, of the Federation in Star Trek. Perhaps this is the effect of trying to imagine a simpler world.)

I guess I was looking for a bang (no pun intended, and while we're on that subject the honeymoon is definitely over) at the end - it came, in a sense, as a discovery/observation that would profoundly shake the Zelandonii's worldview, but even that could have been more fully explored in the plot. There's an interesting parallel to the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden there, and I'd like to have seen it taken farther. If this had been my book, I'd have cut out all the middle bit about the caves (endless descriptions of cave paintings and lots of repetition of That Song) and finished the series off with a bit more brio rather than repeating a prior plotline.

As a writer, I found myself wondering - would I take on a series that would take me 30 years to finish? I love to read series, but I think it's better for all concerned if the books are written over a shorter period, even if that means the research has to be shallower. The problem of the research eventually dominating the story is all too evident here.

THE ONE THAT I WANT by Allison Winn Scotch

2011-06-24T08:00:00.007-04:00

The One That I Want by Allison Winn Scotch

Women's Fiction

Shaye Areheart Books, 2010

ISBN: 978-0-307-46450-7

First edition, hardcover

Source: library

This is the second of Allison's novels I've read (click HERE for my review of Time of My Life), and of the two, I think I enjoyed this one a tad bit more. I loved TOML, but TOTIW had more depth to it. More depth to the characters and more depth to the story.

When we meet Tilly Farmer she is living in a bubble of self-denial. She thinks her life is perfect. She thinks her life plan is perfect. She is married to her high school sweetheart. She works as a guidance counselor for the local high school. She is helping to put together this year's prom and the musical-- fun fun fun! And she is trying for her first baby.

It was clear to me from the start that all of these things she considered "perfect" were no doubt going to blow up in her face at some point. And I was right. Plus a few other things along the way.

In the title, The One That I Want, "one" refers to "life." Tilly's journey makes her question what life she truly wants to live. The one she thinks is already perfect (but clearly not, as she soon discovers)? Or the one she's been too afraid to try?

And who of us hasn't questioned that at some point, in some manner or another?

This story is mainly about relationships. We focus on Tilly and her high-school-sweetheart-husband, Tilly and her alcoholic father, Tilly and her dead mother, Tilly and her two (very different) sisters, Tilly and the baby she wants to have, Tilly and the charming new art teacher, Tilly and her best friend, Tilly and her ex-best-friend-turned-fortune-teller....

It's that final one that pushes Tilly into the events that change her life. After unintentionally finding Ashley in a fortune-teller's tent, Tilly is blessed/cursed with "clarity." She starts having weird visions of the future, visions that portray events involving the people closest to her. Sometimes these are clearly bad things, and sometimes she isn't sure whether it's bad or good.

Although these visions are crucial to the plot, this is not a fantasy story. This is magic realism at it's finest. The story is not about her seeing things in the future. There is no scary voodoo or incantations or anything like that. She simply sees glimpses of things that force her into decision-making.

The thing that kept me turning pages at an accelerated rate was the mystery of what these visions meant, how they all tied together, and ultimately, what Tilly was going to do once she figured it all out. I also really enjoyed her reflections on life and the parallels made between Tilly and the other characters, such as CJ, one of the senior students who frequents her office.

As with Time of My Life, Allison's signature writing style in The One That I Want is pleasantly fluid, easy to digest, and the cover art is equally awesome (so much so that the two almost look like companion novels, but don't be fooled-- these are completely different stories about completely different characters). Highly recommended for adults, especially women. 5 of 5 stars.

~Lydia

Extras:

Author blog - Ask Allison

Follow Allison on Twitter

Preview of Allison's upcoming novel, The Song Remains the Same

The One That I Want will be available in paperback on June 28.

A Sweet Deal from HarperCollins and Simon Van Booy

2011-06-22T11:06:00.001-04:00

To celebrate the upcoming release of Simon Van Booy's Everything Beautiful Began After (which I am currently reading for review and loving it so far!), HarperCollins is offering ALL Simon’s individual e-book short stories for just $1.99 each.

From the publisher:

The one we’re hoping people will start with is Love Begins in Winter, because we think it’s the perfect introduction to his writing.

Below are the links for "Love Begins in Winter"

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Google

Please spread the word, and happy reading!

~Lydia

Ellis Island by Kate Kerrigan

2011-06-13T14:03:00.003-04:00

Where I got the book: ARC from LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program. Its publication date is 6/28/11 according to Amazon.

In 1920s Ireland, Ellie's husband has been injured fighting for his country's freedom. Ellie makes the tough decision to take a job in New York in order to send back enough money for his operation. The new life she makes for herself in the US changes her, and puts her future life in Ireland in doubt.

I'm trying very hard here not to put in any spoilers, as I think it's pretty unfair to do that for an as-yet-to-be-published novel, so you'll excuse the brief description. The cover suggests that Kate Kerrigan is a new author on the American scene, and she was also new to me.

Ellis Island was a most enjoyable read. Kerrigan is very skilled at describing place and time with a light touch that hides her research, and there are several lyrical moments in this novel that definitely place it a cut above the average.

We see the story from Ellie's point of view, and what struck me was that her voice is Irish, but not overly so. None of the Frank McCourt street Irish here: we're talking about a girl from a good family with a superior education, and I thought Kerrigan got this exactly right in Ellie's voice. The American parts of the story were pretty convincing too, although the idea that Ellie would fall so quickly into such high society strained my imagination just a little. But--again, trying to avoid spoilers here--the resolution of the story was credibly underplayed. I really wasn't too sure which decision Ellie would take, which is unusual as I generally see plot twists coming a mile off.

I would recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys historical fiction with a dose of romance but a good grounding in reality. Kerrigan is a fine writer, and I'll be looking out for subsequent books.

Lisa Brackman/ ROCK PAPER TIGER

2011-06-08T07:57:00.008-04:00

First off, at The Book Book I usually write my review very soon (often immediately) after reading the book, so you get my knee-jerk reaction. This time, a couple weeks have passed, so you'll be getting my impression over time, what stuck with me and what didn't.

Second, Moonrat previously reviewed ROCK PAPER TIGER for this blog, thereby saving me the need to write an in-depth plot summary. You can read that and her thoughts here.

Now, let's begin.

This book follows Ellie Cooper, a 26-year-old American Iraqi war vet, as she grows up. Yes, grows up. Ellie may be smart (she's learning Chinese quickly) and tough (or is it numb?) from her time in the military, but when we meet her she's a woman who rarely takes action in her life--she merely reacts, if she does anything at all.

This inertia contrasts with her wry observations and likable personality. She's fun to be around, when she's not struggling with her PTSD. And while she may not realize it, she's a strong person. When she tells one character he's "an asshole" you will want to reach through the book and give her a high five.

Ellie finds herself stumbling and limping through China, pursued by various guys in dark suits. Some are from the government while others work for independent organizations and those are often scarier. Despite her best efforts to disappear, she's suddenly getting a lot of attention. The pace quickens, and everything builds towards what I expected to be a crazy, government-conspiracy type climax.

But that is not quite what you get. And, honestly, it was disappointing. I think as long as you go in knowing that, however, then you can still really enjoy this book. Just remember that (in my opinion, anyway), this book is about Ellie's internal journey, more so than it's about her external journey through China. She is not a badass heroinne in this book. She's got potential, but she's also got PTSD and a tendency to mix beer with percocet. The end of this book is only the beginning for Ellie. In fact, I would welcome a sequel!

Bonus factor: China. You've heard it before, I'm sure: China China China. But, it's true. As corny as it sounds, I really felt like I'd been to China for days after I read this book. A tough, sometimes fragile China that's a work in progress.

Much like Ellie.

BUT I LOVE HIM by Amanda Grace

2011-06-07T09:18:00.000-04:00

But I Love Him by Amanda Grace
Young Adult Contemporary
Flux, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7387-2594-9
Source: library

This book surprised me. In a good way.

From the back cover:

Sometimes at night, I wake up and stare at the heart for hours. I think of how I collected each piece from the beach, how I glued it all together into one big sculpture. I wonder if Connor realizes what it means, that he'll always have a piece of me no matter what happens. Each piece of glass is another piece of myself that I gave to him.

It's too bad I didn't keep any pieces for myself.

This is not your typical "abusive relationship" story, although it very well could have been, had the author not decided to tell it backwards.

That's right. Backwards. The entire novel is a string of flashbacks. Unfortunately, this is the very same reason why I struggled through the first 50 or so pages. The timeline takes some getting used to. But I'm so glad I stuck with it.

We start with Ann in a very bad place, made clear by the very first sentence: I lie in pieces on the floor. Then we are shown the events that led up to this pivotal moment. Every so often, the story jumps back (ahead?) to the opening scene.

Which, in my opinion, is crucial. If we hadn't kept going back/forward to that moment, the character arc would have collapsed by the end. Because the end is really the beginning, so by that point we already know everything that happened/is going to happen. In any good story, the main character has to make a tough decision at the end. Ann does just that in the final flash forward.

And that was the scene in which I completely lost all my composure, followed quickly after by the final-final scene, the day Ann and Connor meet, and, being already in a state of sobbery from the scene before it, it was just too much to take--all the innocence of that first meeting coupled with the knowledge of the downward spiral that follows...

I pretty much died at the end of this book. It's that good.

But let's go back to the heart of glass in the blurb and on the cover for a minute. I love when stories have an object of value (to the main character) tying everything together. Every time this heart was mentioned in a scene I felt a little closer to Ann, understood her a little more. It starts out broken, as does her figurative heart, and then as we travel backwards through time we see how she put it all together while Connor progressively crushed her heart.

It's an amazing parallel to the story of Ann and Connor's relationship. So fragile, yet sharp-edged like broken glass. And at one time, it was beautiful. But now it's shattered.

The thing I liked even more than the parallel of the glass heart and the brilliance of telling the story backwards, however, was the presentation of the characters. In a book like this it's easy to make the abuser flat. One dimensional. But Connor isn't, and that's one of the main things that kept me turning pages. It's also easy to make the victim unsympathetic. You get to a certain point in a story like this, and you just want to shake her, saying, "Get away from him! Why don't you just leave already?!"

Ann gives the simply-stated-yet-not-simply-understood answer in the title: But I Love Him. A situation like this is never black and white.

If this is subject matter you normally shy away from because you feel the story has already been told in every possible way, then I highly recommend reading this book. It might just surprise you in the good way it did me. 5 of 5 stars, and a contender for my Best Read of 2011.

~Lydia

INVINCIBLE SUMMER by Hannah Moskowitz

2011-05-29T12:11:00.001-04:00

A brief, yet necessary, preamble:

So. My bad. I totally thought I wrote a review here for BREAK, Hannah's debut, which I was going to link in this review... aaaand I didn't. If you follow my blog, though, or follow me on goodreads, you already know I loved BREAK. It was a (well-deserved) 2010 ALA Popular Paperback for Teens, and I highly recommend it for reluctant readers. Easy to read and get sucked into. Quick pace and a brilliant concept. Get on it.

Now for the actual review of said novel in the post title.

Invincible Summer by Hannah Moskowitz
Young Adult Contemporary
Simon Pulse, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0751-0
First edition, paperback
Source: own

First, a word from Hannah. Because she highlights some things in this video that I think are important. One: this novel is difficult to summarize. And two: it's about family. No, really. It's about FAMILY. Just with some sex and the occasional F-word sprinkled in for good measure.

This is probably one of the most difficult reviews I've ever had to write. There is so much about this novel that I want to talk about, but a good majority of it will come off as spoiler-y if I get into it. Yet, at the same time, if I don't, there isn't much to say without coming off as rambly and disinteresting. (I'm getting red squiggly lines under both of those words. Whatever. You know what I mean.)

Let's start with the viewpoint character, Chase. At the beginning of the story he is 14 going on 15. At the end he is nearing his 18th birthday. So that's four years. Or rather, four summers. The presentation of the story solely through the summers spent at the family's beach house is just... amazing. The stuff that happens elsewhere really doesn't matter, and that's a difficult thing to pull off. It includes all of Chase's high school experiences, which in most YA lit is a defining quality, but not so with this novel. The definement (another red squiggly line, wtf? I swear I'm using real words) of Chase's self-perception comes through his summer experiences.

Hence the title, Invincible Summer. It's perfect. Also perfect? Is the cover. This story is told through summers, and I believe the cover presents summer in all its wondrous glory. It's clean and bright. It gets up close and personal with a hot chick in a bikini. That's summer, yes? But for some reason it has been the source of much debate among book bloggers and readers. So there's a girl in a bikini on the cover. Everyone assumes, then, that the love interest (or rather, the sex interest) is the main plot. It SO isn't. The disaster that is Melinda certainly has influence on the events of the story and the realizations of the MC about life--his life--but she, herself, is not the plot. The fact that Chase and his older brother Noah are both "involved" with her is NOT the plot. It's just one element of a much bigger concept.

And that concept is -- family relationships. In my goodreads review I mentioned that this novel is just as much Noah's story as it is Chase's. The perception of Noah through Chase's eyes is yet another item that goes under the "reasons why this book is brilliant" column. Chase calls him "my brother the flight risk", and if that isn't enough to get you interested in the relationship between these two brothers, then maybe this will be: they're both doing the girl next door, and they both know they're both doing the girl next door, and they both continue doing the girl next door in light of this knowledge. It's all very weird and gritty and makes you want to powerwash your brain. Or dry heave. Sorry, but I had a hard time stomaching the idea of so obviously sharing a girl. This didn't stop me from reading, though, and I still love the book enough to recommend it.

But again, that is just one element of the big picture.

Noah is a huge part of the story. He has real issues. Issues I can relate to, and I think that's why I fell for him so hard while reading this. We also have Chase's younger brother, Gideon. Oh God... where do I even start with Gideon. Well, he's only six years old at the beginning. And he's deaf. And stinking adorable. And wildly intelligent. I can't even... seriously, I can't even talk about Gideon without getting teary-eyed. How Hannah managed to portray such a deeply layered character through the eyes of someone else still has me reeling.

Then there's Claudia, Chase's younger sister, who is eleven years old at the beginning. She is, in a word, adventurous. Totally love her. The parents? Mom is pregnant during the first summer. So, another kid is added to this already large family. You'd think the parents just can't get enough of each other, right? Wrong. Hannah added huge parental issues to the mix. Again, brilliant.

The story is just one dynamite layer after another after another after another... until it all explodes.

I can't get into the minor issue I had with the ending without giving anything away, so I'll add one final remark on the Melinda thing. She was raped when she went to college -- I don't think saying that here will ruin your enjoyment of the book. It's made pretty obvious early on in the story.

The thing I want to comment on is that even though she was raped, and subsequently fell into a depression (which is expected), she didn't shy away from sex after that horrible experience. To me, this came across as REALISTIC. Yes, many girls who are raped can't stand the thought of going near a guy for a long, long time, after much, much therapy. But. That isn't always the case. Some girls then use sex as a way of staying in control. They had an "out of control" sexual experience, so they put themselves in situations where they are "in control of" the sexual experience. And that's exactly what Melinda does with Noah and Chase.

And I just want to personally thank Hannah for going that route, when most novels that include this touchy subject go the obvious route of the girl completely withdrawing from all forms of sex. It was refreshing to see something different, yet still real.

Okay, I think I've blabbered on long enough (no red squiggly line under "blabbered"? I give up). All that's left to say is READ THIS BOOK. 4 out of 5 stars.

~Lydia

The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson

2011-05-28T19:39:00.004-04:00

Where I got the book: from the library. It's been on my TBR list for a while, but when Holly Tucker started a history and science readalong on Goodreads, I knew its moment had come.

The Ghost Map is, in part, an account of a cholera epidemic that took place in London in 1854. I say in part, because the epidemic is really a springboard for a series of discussions. In a sense, this book is the history of an idea: that a disease could be waterborne.

Back in 1854, this idea was startling, and unacceptable to most of the medical and administrative establishment. Johnson does a good job of highlighting the work of two men, John Snow (who did a lot of the thinking that led to the understanding of how the epidemic grew) and Henry Whitehead, who confronted the disease at street level, talking to the survivors and collecting much of the informal data that helped Snow test his theories.

I found it very interesting to read about the struggle that Snow had with the proponents of the "miasma theory," the prevailing wisdom of the time. Back then, people believed that diseases were spread by smells traveling through the air; I've read a lot of Dickens, so I'm well acquainted with the notion of pestilential or noxious air. The fact that this belief seems so ridiculous to us now is evidence of the inroads science has made into our lives.

I had never really thought about the seismic shift that occurred when science began to understand nature at the microscopic level. And I had never given much thought to the correlation between clean water and the expansion of cities to the multi-million-headcount levels that are normal to us today. So on the whole, The Ghost Map was a pretty enlightening book. It's written in an easy to read style, and is a page-turner in its way.

The book ends with an extensive consideration of urbanization and what it means to mankind. I'm not sure whether this enhances the central story, or detracts from it. It's interesting, in its way, but in the end it's only speculation--and speculation is endless. So the end of the book seemed, well, endless. I probably could have stopped reading at around page 217.

Still, on the whole this was an interesting book, and I'm glad I finally read it.

GUANTANAMO BOY by Anna Perera

2011-05-28T06:43:00.005-04:00

"Welcome to Guantanamo Bay Prison. You're now the property of the US Marine Corps. Heads down!"

"It's not often that Khalid can look at his life from a distance. But, instantly, he can see himself clearly for once. He's another meaningless bent orange shape dropped into some weird world game, the sun fixing him here on this lump of tarmac like a dart in his back. He's nothing but an orange heap for soldiers to toss around because they think he's a terrorist who wants to blow up cites. Think he hates the West, even though he lives there and doesn't know anything about weapons of mass destruction or bombs or buildings crashing to the ground in New York."

There’s nothing unusual about 15 year old Khalid. He’d much rather be playing a computer game than polishing his school shoes. He hasn’t got a clue how to flirt with girls, and there is no way he’s leaving England to visit his father’s boring family in Pakistan. Especially when his football team is so close to being promoted.

Unfortunately for him Khalid’s parents disagree, and they soon arrive in the bustling Pakistani city of Karachi. What Khalid finds there is far from boring. The streets are filled with whispers of U.S troops and terrorist informers, and Khalid’s worst fears are horribly realised when he’s kidnapped and detained for questioning by U.S troops.

Surely they’ll quickly realise he’s innocent and release him? They can’t possibly send a 15 year old to Guantanamo Bay. Can they?

This book combines that chilling mixture of everyday normality and unimaginable horror. It’s the kind of story that really haunts you because it depicts a horribe situation that could so easily be true. As the author notes, ‘although Guantanamo Boy is a work of fiction, it is inspired by real events. It remains a fact that children have been abducted and abused and held without charge in the name of justice in Guantanamo Bay and many other secret prisons around the world.’

I certainly couldn’t put this down. I can’t say it was always an enjoyable read, but it was definitely immersive and thought provoking. Whilst this book carries a strong and valuable political message, the overriding sentiments are that of love and the support of family and friends. Khalid is well drawn and Anna Perera does a brilliant job of persuading even the most indifferent of readers to truly care about his wellbeing. She does this subtly over the course of the story, and I found my affection for him building slowly whilst my full attention remained centred on his inhumane treatment.

Unlike many other novels dealing with similar stories of abuse, the narrative of Guantanamo Boy is lightened by lifelike humour and small acts of kindness. This contrast allows the darker moments to retain their sharpness, and it allowed me to keep reading for long periods of time without feeling emotionally drained.

Anna Perera has highlighted the importance of human kindness in a truly remarkable setting. This book needs to be in every school library.

The Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale

2011-05-18T18:29:00.011-04:00

In a brutal and archaic punishment a beautiful young Lady is locked away in a rat-infested tower for 7 years. Her father imprisons her after refusing a favoured Lord's hand in marriage. The only one brave, or perhaps foolish, enough to accompany her to this prison is her faithful maid Dashti.

Dashti and Lady Saren live in a mystical land overseen by distant pagan gods who rule through the privileged gentry. Stripped of her family, Dashti has never known luxury and has faced a daily battle to stay alive. In contrast, Saren is a pampered princess to whom the squalor of the tower is a brutal shock.

Despite their differences the girls slowly build a routine and begin to fashion a home for themselves. At times their readiness to accept their situation felt slightly offbeat. However, it soon becomes clear that for both girls the prison develops elements of a sanctuary from the outer world as Dashti begins to suspect that Saren's extreme fear of her rejected suitor is far from natural.

Dashti is a mucker, a peasant class known for singing songs of healing. Her talent and empathy for healing the pain of others renders her blind to her own feelings and she soon becomes unwillingly entangled in a web of deceit and mistaken identities. Think Twelfth night meets Emma with a touch of Brothers Grimm.

Dashti's stubborn respect for the gentry verges on irritating and her patience with the pathetic Lady Saren is beyond understanding. This does make for an interesting take on the corruptability of religious belief but it did feel overdone at times.

That being said, Shannon Hale's engaging and humorous style kept me turning the pages and the book definitely lightens up in the second half. It's a sweet story with slightly gothic moments and a few twists and turns. Would recommend if you've got a weakness for fantasy teen romance

THE BERLIN BOXING CLUB by Robert Sharenow

2011-05-16T12:13:00.001-04:00

The Berlin Boxing Club by Robert Sharenow

Young Adult Historical Fiction

HarperTeen, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-06-157968-4

First edition, hardcover

Source: library

Fourteen-year-old Karl Stern has never thought of himself as a Jew. But to the bullies at his school in Naziera Berlin, it doesn't matter that Karl has never set foot in a synagogue or that his family doesn't practice religion. Demoralized by relentless attacks on a heritage he doesn't accept as his own, Karl longs to prove his worth to everyone around him.

So when Max Schmeling, champion boxer and German national hero, makes a deal with Karl's father to give Karl boxing lessons, Karl sees it as the perfect chance to reinvent himself. A skilled cartoonist, Karl has never had an interest in boxing, but as Max becomes the mentor Karl never had, Karl soon finds both his boxing skills and his art flourishing.

But when Nazi violence against Jews escalates, Karl must take on a new role: protector of his family. Karl longs to ask his new mentor for help, but with Max's fame growing, he is forced to associate with Hitler and other Nazi elites, leaving Karl to wonder where his hero's sympathies truly lie. Can Karl balance his dream of boxing greatness with his obligation to keep his family out of harm's way?

(book cover image and blurb are from goodreads)

This book is not what it seems. It's freaktastically better.

Don't be fooled by the title or the cover. I mean, I totally love the cover (that guy has really nice hands), and the title fits the story, but at the same time, they can be misleading. Although Karl's boxing training is a HUGE part of this story, it is about SO MUCH more than just boxing.

And this isn't just another "Anne Frank" book. In fact, it's nothing like the story of Anne Frank, despite being set in the exact same time period. Karl's experience as a Jew in Nazi-era Berlin is worlds different than Anne's. He doesn't practice religion. He doesn't even *look* like a Jew. This makes things extremely interesting as the story moves along. Secrets are kept and ultimately exposed, and I have to credit the author with how well he kept me guessing--I never knew how any one person was going to react when they learned of Karl's Jewish heritage. It truly kept me on the edge of my seat.

But the thing I liked best about this story was the portrayal of relationships between Karl and every other character he encounters, even the minor ones. Karl is 14 when the story begins and 17 when it ends, and his growth as a character is both external and internal. The relationships I thought were especially fabulous in this story were: Karl and his very Jewish-looking younger sister; Karl and his emotionally distant father; Karl and "the Countess", a homosexual cross-dresser; Karl and his stuttering corner-man, Neblig. I also really enjoyed Karl's sketches throughout the story, especially those of "Winzig und Spatz", as they relate to him and his sister.

The emotional impact of the story is compounded by the ever-increasing hate crimes against Jews. But again, it's not exactly like the story of Anne Frank. It is more outwardly public, since Karl and his family do not (technically) go into hiding. For this reason, and the others I mentioned above, I highly recommend this book for teens and adults. It is a serious contender for my "best read of 2011." 5 of 5 stars.

~Lydia

The Demise of the Soccer Moms by Cathryn Grant

2011-05-03T08:55:00.004-04:00

Where I got the book: won a free copy from the author's blog.

The Demise of the Soccer Moms is Cathryn Grant's debut novel. Amy, Jane, Kit and Rachel have been friends forever. Their kids have grown up together, and their lives revolve around soccer and suburbia. But the suburbs aren't as safe as they should be--there's a rapist and murderer on the loose. And then Charlotte shows up: spiky hair, no bra, Doc Martens and a very big camera.

This is a story that starts out feeling very mundane and then quickly turns dark. Amy's and Rachel's insecurities have formed a bond between them, but when Amy's fears of the twin threats of sex and violence begins to pervade their world, the reader is never allowed to recover a sense of normality. I felt as if the characters were all walking along the edge of an abyss, and yet all of them were instantly recognizable types of Suburban Woman, complete with their different insecurities and their ways of coping with the boredom of their lives. The neighborhood is in California, but it could easily have been my own; any affluent suburb in America, in fact.

I found it to be a compelling read, and stayed up late to finish it (always a good sign). Grant is an indie author, so there were some places where I detected technical weaknesses that the rigors of traditional publishing might have corrected (if she'd been lucky enough to get a good editor, which is not always the case). Still, they were comparatively minor and I have to give props to Grant for her professionalism and attention to detail. I have seen far worse products come out of traditional publishing houses.

Grant calls her style of writing Suburban Noir, and I would recommend it to all who enjoy a good psychological thriller made more menacing by its everyday setting. Grant avoids overblown descriptions of gore, leaving much to the reader's imagination, and the story's all the better for it. I'm giving it a "good" rating, and look forward to Grant's next book.

SHIP BREAKER by Paolo Bacigalupi

2011-04-29T15:29:00.001-04:00

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

Young Adult Sci-Fi

Little, Brown and Company, 2010

ISBN: 978-0-316-05621-2

First edition, hardcover

Source: library

Sometimes I wonder why the best books out there get the least amount of hype. If I hadn't seen Maggie Stiefvater talking about this book on GoodReads-- her comment just happened to be near the top of my "update feed" when I logged on-- I would have never picked it up. Her comments were mostly to the tune of, "This book is amazing." She then listed a few specific reasons why she felt that way, none of which gave away the story. So I checked out the book blurb and thought, sure why not? I like sci-fi. I like YA. This seems different from the majority of what's out there now. I'm in the mood for "unique."

From the inside jacket:

Even at night, the wrecks glowed with work. The torch lights flickered, bobbing and moving. Sledge noise rang across the water. Comforting sounds of work and activity, the air tanged with the coal reek of smelters and the salt fresh breeze coming off the water. It was beautiful.

In America's Gulf Coast region, where grounded oil tankers are being broken down for parts, Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging copper wiring just to make quota--and hopefully live to see another day. But when, by luck or chance, he discovers an exquisite clipper ship beached during a recent hurricane, Nailer faces the most important decision of life: Strip the ship for all it's worth or rescue a lone survivor, a beautiful and wealthy girl who could lead him to a better life....

After reading that, yes, I was intrigued, but it did not prepare me for the journey I took through those pages. The blurb does not even begin to scratch the surface of this multi-layered story. That final line made me think, oh dear, there is a corny romance thrown in the mix. But no, really, there isn't. And what I felt was a major plot point--the messed up relationship between Nailer and his father--is not even mentioned here.

This is not a cupcake read, people. It is DEEP and DARK.

The story is engaging, and the world-building... it's just so NATURAL. It's how I wish all sci-fi would read. It flows without the slightest blip. And the scariest part? The situation presented felt like something our world could realistically be headed toward.

No surprise, this novel won the Printz award and was also a National Book Award finalist. But I am surprised that more people in the YA community are not talking about it. Male protagonists are rare in YA. Even more rare is good YA sci-fi. This book has both, and I highly recommend it for teen and adult readers. 5 of 5 stars.

~Lydia

Grace Interrupted by Julie Hyzy

2011-04-27T19:52:00.003-04:00

Where I got the book: by winning an author giveaway. Release date is June 7, 2011.

Grace Interrupted is the second in Julie Hyzy's Manor House Mystery series, set in a large manor house which is one of the main attractions in a town that lives for tourism. The heroine, Grace Wheaton, appears to have just about got her act together as the new manager of Marshfield Manor when the arrival of a large group of Civil War re-enactors throws a spanner in the works. The murder of one of their number implicates Grace's love interest Jack, and Grace has to rely on some of her former antagonists to help sniff out the clues that could clear his name.

Meeting Julie Hyzy early this year was my first introduction to her line of cozy mysteries, and I haven't yet read the first in the Manor House series. But it was easy enough to pick up the gist of the characters: Grace has returned to her childhood home after a troubled past, and is trying to make her new life in her mother's tumbledown old house work, with the help of two roommates and the support of her boss, Bennett (who is interested in Grace, but not for romantic reasons). Her romance with Jack is at the will-they-won't-they stage, and relations with some of the people she met in the first book (Grace Under Pressure) are equally shaky. Plenty of room for growth in a series that looks quite promising.

I enjoyed Hyzy's breezy command of dialogue and skill in quick character sketches. The novel moves along at a good pace, and although I didn't warm immediately to Grace, I really enjoyed some of the other characters. Grace seemed a bit two-dimensional to me: her past troubles were hinted at, but she didn't show a whole lot of vulnerability in this book. Perhaps I need to read the first novel in the series.

I found the Civil War re-enactors very interesting: I've seen re-enactors at work (play?) and was captured by the details about the levels of realism--or not--that can be achieved. I would have liked to have seen more about the realities of running a large tourist attraction with multiple events going on.

The climax of the action was excellent; the pace picked up very nicely, the identity of the culprit was not outrageously obvious, and the overall result was satisfying. There were some plot threads--including the ongoing romance--that pointed forward to some fun developments as the series progresses.

The overall taste of the novel, if I can describe it that way, was of a well-stacked sandwich paired with a glass of fresh, fruity wine--nothing heavy there, but a good, everyday literary meal to refresh me after a hard day's work. This is the kind of escapist story that I enjoy reading when I'm ready to relax, yet still want to engage my mind just enough to keep it ticking over. I think I'll persevere with Grace and see how things develop.

Oh yes, and there was a cat. I'm not one of those people who goes all soft over pets in novels, but the animal-lovers out there will enjoy the furry plotline.

Mary Doria Russell/CHILDREN OF GOD

2011-04-26T14:30:00.000-04:00

Spoilers alert: This book is a sequel to the same author's The Sparrow, reviewed here a few weeks ago. In that earlier review, I tried not to include plot details which would ruin first-time readers' appreciation of the book. Likewise, in this review, I'll resist including spoilers about Children of God. But I can't promise to avoid spoilers about The Sparrow here; my assumption is that if you're thinking of reading this one, you've already read the earlier book. Fair warning, okay?

The action in Children of God picks up where The Sparrow left off:

Emilio Sandoz has done his big reveal before the Jesuit inquiry into the disastrous mission to the planet Rakhat years before. Sandoz remains a proud but broken (and lonely) man, his faith in God shredded by all that he's been through. The same characters are in place around Sandoz: Jesuits Father General Vincenzo Giuliani, Brother Ed Behr and priest John Candotti, and the others participating in the inquiry and Sandoz's subsequent care and recovery. Sandoz continues to sleep poorly -- as who wouldn't, after having his hands maimed so horribly, to say nothing of years of gang rape by the Rakhati poet-singer Hlavin Kitheri and his carnivorous friends?

As in The Sparrow, Children of God's structure swings back and forth between events on Earth and events on Rakhat (and en route). Chapter headings continue to require both "where" and "when" details. And the "when" bits? Still stretched out over decades, thanks to the strange effects of Sandoz's near-light-speed travel to and back from the distant planet.

But these threads of continuity lead to a very different book.

Remember the surprise -- the shock -- from the first book, the discovery of how different things were on Rakhat than anyone had anticipated? (Alien, indeed.) Those surprises continue in the sequel; in many cases they overturn the surprising conclusions which themselves overturned our expectations while reading the first book. For in this book we spend proportionately much greater time in the lives and minds of the Rakhati themselves.

Particularly, Russell places us for long stretches in the company of the "villains" of The Sparrow. We learn what happens to Supaari VaGayjur, the ambitious merchant who delivered Sandoz to Hlavin Kitheri in exchange for social advancement. And long passages explore the everyday life and motivations of Kitheri himself. We learn a lot more about both the gentle Runa and the predatory Jana'ata, and why Rakhati society has evolved the way it has, and why it's stayed that way.

A less skilled author might communicate all this in long, dry expository passages, as in a history or geography textbook (with big swatches of text excerpted from psychological journals). Russell doesn't do that. She uses characters -- familiar and new ones -- as vessels of history and personality; the context soaks into our awareness gradually rather than being injected forcibly.

(On the other hand, she also continues her practice from The Sparrow, as I mentioned in the earlier review, of telling us about her characters' states of mind rather than revealing them through behavior. It's more understandable here, maybe; after all, we have no built-in inner compass to help us map Rakhati behavior to psychology. But at times it did require -- for me -- long patience.)

Children of God introduces us to new human characters, too, and these additions lead to further upheavals in Sandoz's assumptions about what God might or might not have planned for him. For Emilio Sandoz returns to Rakhat, and there faces the aftermath of his first visit. I loved this about Children of God: a common theme of science fiction is how human culture might be remade by a first visit from extraterrestrials, but we seldom get to see it from the other side. And as we might imagine with Earth's first unexpected contact, so with Rakhat's: many, many things are turned upside-down.

(Remember that Sandoz has made two near-light-speed journeys between Rakhat and Earth since leaving the former: one outbound and, now, one returning. Planetary time stretches out, so in what Sandoz perceives as months, over a decade passes back on both his home planet and on Rakhat.)

Finally, early on in Children of God we learn what we -- what I -- never suspected: Sandoz was not the only one to survive the earlier mission. What that survivor experiences among the Runa and Jana'ata races lies at the heart of what Sandoz comes to understand, not just about his two visits to Rakhat but about his entire life.

In a "reader's guide" section which the publisher added to the end of Children of God, Russell says she was surprised that its popularity seemed to exceed that of The Sparrow. I myself would not choose to take Children of God with me as reading material on an interstellar journey (although The Sparrow might make the trip). Much of the pleasure of the earlier title came from seeing the characters interact with one another. Those characters were not just fresh to me, but innocent of what they would find on Rakhat. Children of God is a book which must fight its way back from despair and terror, which makes it a book of a wholly different, a darker character. The narrative here spends much more time in the minds of institutions -- the Jesuits and the larger Roman Catholic Church, the Runa and Jana'ata cultures. Furthermore, The Sparrow's tone benefited from much light-hearted conversation and flirtation between men and women; in Children of God, you'll find almost none of that.

I also must mention that I found the passages focusing on Hlavin Kitheri... well, repellent. Even after coming to appreciate, objectively, how his mind worked and why it worked that way -- even after he goes a long way towards redeeming not just himself, but the whole of Jana'ata culture -- I still hated the character. (I did admire Russell's skill at bringing him to life.) It was like watching George C. Scott in Patton: I kept thinking, y'know, You monster. You S.O.B. Don't even try to justify what you're up to.

So, recommended or not? I gave The Sparrow 95 out of 100; Children of God, I'd probably place around 85. Still very happy to have read it, I hope to look into Russell's more recent work. (She didn't stick to science fiction; her latest is about Wyatt Earp's friend, Doc Holliday!)

Shift by Takumi Yamazaki

2011-04-19T15:58:00.005-04:00

Where I got the book: won from LibraryThing as an Early Reviewers giveaway.

As I worked my way through Shift, I kept wondering if Takumi Yamazaki had read The Secret (which I did not like, if you remember). There are some definite echoes of The Secret in this small tome, Yamazaki's debut in the Western self-help industry (he is, apparently, "a best selling author in Japan").

Or maybe he hasn't read The Secret. Maybe this style of self-help philosophy is just in the zeitgeist, a result of a generation that has been told, and told, and told that its wishes can come true.

The premise of Shift is that you can, by the power of thought, shift yourself up to where you want to be. Get that promotion, that house, that car (isn't it funny how these books are so often about getting money, as if money really solves problems?) You are impeded from reaching your potential by homeostasis (the idea that things find their own level, i.e. we are all much more comfortable in our comfort zone) and scotoma, which is a blind spot or mental block.

Shift is punctuated by little exercises, to be done alone or in groups, mostly in the form of writing down your goals and telling them to other people. It is a 200-page book, but contains an enormous amount of white space because it needs to pad out quite a small amount of writing into an acceptable format for publishing. To this end, it also contains a whole lot of little drawings featuring the guy usually seen symbolizing "Men" on a restroom door. Restroom Man gambols through the book supposedly illustrating the Deep Thoughts contained therein, but I frequently found it hard to make the text square up with the drawings.

All this could be a problem of translation; I get the impression that the text was translated fairly closely from the Japanese, instead of being rewritten with a Western audience in mind. In editing non-English speakers it's sometimes necessary to insert an extra sentence here and there to show thinking steps that are left out in the original language; I'm no linguist, but what little contact I've had with Chinese has taught me that a lot more meaning can be derived from context than is possible in English speech. Could be that the same is true for Japanese, and this makes Shift a very easy book to read if you don't pay much attention to logical sequence, but frustrating for those of us who like to dot our i's and cross our t's.

The fundamental message of Shift, as far as I could make it out, is similar to The Secret: Think positive and all things are possible. You can make things happen. I also spotted some of the same unfortunate advice: For example, if you want to be rich you should live as if you are rich (which is fine until you realize you just blew a month's salary in a day) and you should hang around with the kind of people you want to be (also an expensive proposition if your goal is to be a multi-millionaire).

I felt very sad when I read that if a friend comes to you with a problem, the solution is to say "Oh hey, that should be no problem for you!" and then start chatting about something else. In

other words, you shouldn't really listen to problems, because you should be too busy chatting up successful rich people instead. I'll be sure to do that the next time I see a friend who has cancer or whose husband just dropped dead. Yeah.

I've said it before: I have nothing against positive thinking, and nothing against people who are willing to work on their attitude to achieve their goals. I think that having goals is a good thing. But becoming the person you were intended to be goes a whole lot deeper than reading books like Shift. I wouldn't recommend it, even for the sake of seeing the Restroom Man drawings.

RIVAL by Sara Bennett Wealer

2011-04-13T10:32:00.001-04:00

Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer

Young Adult Contemporary

HarperTeen, 2011

ISBN 978-0-06-182762-4

First edition hardcover

Source: library

Meet Brooke: Popular, powerful and hating every minute of it, she’s the “It” girl at Douglas High in Lake Champion, Minnesota. Her real ambition? Using her operatic mezzo as a ticket back to NYC, where her family lived before her dad ran off with an up and coming male movie star.

Now meet Kathryn: An overachieving soprano with an underachieving savings account, she’s been a leper ever since Brooke punched her at a party junior year. For Kath, music is the key to a much-needed college scholarship.

The stage is set for a high-stakes duet between the two seniors as they prepare for the prestigious Blackmore competition. Brooke and Kathryn work toward the Blackmore with eyes not just on first prize but on one another, each still stinging from a past that started with friendship and ended in betrayal. With competition day nearing, Brooke dreams of escaping the in-crowd for life as a professional singer, but her scheming BFF Chloe has other plans. And when Kathryn gets an unlikely invitation to Homecoming, she suspects Brooke of trying to sabotage her with one last public humiliation.

As pressures mount, Brooke starts to sense that the person she hates most might just be the best friend she ever had. But Kathryn has a decision to make. Can she forgive? Or are some rivalries for life?

The story of Rival is more than just a simple rivalry. While the singing competition between Brooke and Kathryn definitely drives the plot, what really engaged me throughout the book was their relationship, both past and present.

I'm not usually a fan of the flashback technique, but for this story it totally worked. Wealer gives the reader just enough information at just the right times, about just the right things. You develop real sympathy for both Kathryn and Brooke--you want them both to win, but you know they can't both win. I honestly had no idea who was going to win at the end, or how it would all go down. Until the moment it happened.

As a former "dedicated violinist" and current "casual pianist" (playing music was 90% of my childhood and is now 10% of my adulthood), I tend to be especially critical of music-oriented fiction. Any misinformation or liberal stretching of the truth will immediately turn me off. Rival did not do that. Not one bit. Wealer even used musical terms as section headings, cleverly relating their definitions to the events of the story. For example, the first section is labeled, Dissonance: a harsh sounding of notes that produces a feeling of tension and unrest.

Love.

The skillful presentation of the story combined with Wealer's crisp writing style and clear musical know-how made Rival an instant favorite for me. 5 of 5 stars.

~Lydia

Brando Skyhorse/THE MADONNAS OF ECHO PARK

2011-04-03T22:34:00.003-04:00

A while ago, I heard this author do a very good reading, and decided to pick the book up. A couple days later, it was announced he'd won the PEN/Hemingway prize for first fiction, which boosted the book to the top of my TBR pile.

The Madonnas of Echo Park is a series of cross-sections of Mexican American lives in Echo Park, Los Angeles, with family and neighborhood threads that arc over the twentieth century. The book is a member of the burgeoning new genre of novels told through intersecting and overlapping short stories (like Olive Kitteridge or The Size of the World). I'm increasingly finding myself pleased by this format, which does everything a novel should in terms of world-building but allows the reader to inhabit multiple characters.

Characters range across the spectrum of southern California lives: an illegal laborer who faces deportation if he doesn't do something shady for his boss; his ex-wife, a maid for rich Hollywood types; their daughter, who as a teenager witnessed a gang shooting of a 4-year-old girl; a racist bus driver; a jolly ex-con; etc. My favorite story (of course, with my friendship fetish) was the one featuring two (female) best friends who fall out but can't forget each other--it rang true on many levels for me. I imagine individual readers will have a particular favorite based on what resonates for them.

I recommend the book particularly for the homage it makes to strong women (as implied by one of the several ways of interpreting the title). The stories are both accessible and touching, a necessary addition to American literature in the (very unfortunately) rare depiction of Mexicans in America--the often unrepresented fifth or quarter of US population. (Why haven't I encountered more books about the experience/history/culture? Any recommendations?)

Raymond Carver/WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT LOVE

2011-04-02T12:14:00.003-04:00

I picked this book, a very brief collection of short stories, up off a friend's shelf a couple days ago, remembering that I'd intended to read it for my gaps list, and decided now was my chance. I ended up finishing the whole book this morning in one sitting at a pastry shop. At first I thought I wasn't going to like it, but now I find myself so fixated on particular ideas that I needed to come home and blog about it.

The collection was first published in book form in 1981, but the stories were published individually starting in 1974 in different magazines. The stories vary in their darkness and hopefulness, but many are set in the Pacific Northwest and focus on traumas--small or large--in American lives and families. Most of the stories are very short--10 pages or so, some even less--so they are ideal for reading in short single sittings.

The story in the collection that made the strongest impression on me was probably "The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off," about a mute family friend called Dummy who raises a bunch of bass fish and then can't bear to see them fished. (In this example, as in others, the title of the story ignores the bulk of its content and instead focuses on an often side-stepping or mundane "take-away" from the overall story arc--a comment, I think, on how we tell stories to ourselves and others, how we recast the truth to suit our purposes, and how we try to hide what matters to us behind what we think is supposed to matter to us. That's only my editorial note, though.)

Another story I found very affective was "So Much Water So Close to Home," about a woman who is pretty sure her husband and his friends murdered a young girl whose body he reported finding in the woods. Although it was not my favorite, I feel obligated to mention the eponymous story, too, which features two couples, both remarried, discussing their previous loves and whether or not they were real or correct. In all three cases I've mentioned, the story isolates day-to-day moments and tensions and draws on very dark elements--murder, attempted murder, suicide, all of the above--almost as afterthoughts.

Not all of the stories are as dark as the ones I've mentioned: they also deal with quieter moments, haircuts, breakups, alcoholism, extramarital affairs, child-rearing, yard sales.

I'm glad I read this not only as a reader but as a writer--I think Carver offers a specific idea of what a short story writer can create in a small number of pages, and also suggests some boundaries for what needs to be expected of a short story writer. Although I didn't love every story, I did get the impression that Carver was very careful to never bite off more than he could chew. I would recommend the collection to anyone who is working on very short fiction of their own.

CHASING ALLIECAT - Rebecca Fjelland Davis

2011-03-27T20:54:00.000-04:00

Sadie, after being pawned off to her aunt and uncle's for the summer, cannot imagine a worse way to spend her time off. Then, she meets Allie, a pierced, spiky haired COW (chica on wheels) who begins training Sadie how to really kick ass when mountain biking. Then, as a summer schedule develops - with Sadie's crush on new roomie, Joe - the trio takes it off trail and find a priest beaten within a rosary of death. Sadie's life takes an abrupt twist from hero to huntress, as she and Joe begin chasing the secretive Allie around the Minnesota town. Why is Allie afraid? And, who would do this to a priest? This young adult novel, like Harry Potter, easily tricks readers into thinking they are reading adult fiction. The beautiful imagery and gorgeous language brings my back yard (west side southern MN - legit, yo!) to life. However, what is best about this novel is the dialogue. These are not your typical teens, but they do not speak like adults. Each brings such unique lingo that one could read the novel and know the character without looking at the tags. Only amazing writing like this could make me want to get off my keister and try biking and chasing AllieCat. 4.75 out of 5.0 Green and Gold Bloodys

Mary Doria Russell/THE SPARROW

2011-03-26T12:26:00.001-04:00

Contact, especially first contact, with off-world beings: can there be a more natural topic for science fiction? A more popular, even common one?

After all, the possibilities positively teem for both readers and writers, ranging from tabloid-level stimulation (wacky extraterrestrial anatomy! exotic customs! alien sex!) to the philosophical (or perhaps the merely anthropocentric: what will They think of us? will we live up to our own best selves, or our worst?)... I don't know: maybe eventually we'll all sit around Star Wars-style bars, bumping elbows and kreejaxes alike indiscriminately and without much thought. But the excitement and fear of our first time, the challenges to science and the spirit which we (and They) would have to face and overcome -- can you say "built-in drama"?

Nowhere does this inherently fraught sense gong more sonorously and portentously than in the prospect of collision between theology and alien contact. What we believe about the purpose of life, its meaning, and what happens afterward seems so bound up with the life we know, right? So what happens to those beliefs when they bump up against life we don't know?

Mary Doria Russell brings all these forms of drama to bear in her 1996 novel The Sparrow. Suppose, she says:

We first learn of the existence of aliens not via physical evidence -- a drop-in visit to our place or theirs -- but via sounds, music, transmitted from a nearby star.
Those who make this discovery are not scientists, but a small, tight group of friends -- smart friends, at that, of diverse social, intellectual, and professional backgrounds, and good people all.
One of these friends, the protagonist, has a direct pipeline to a source of almost unlimited wealth; this source -- the Roman Catholic order known as the Jesuits -- has critical reasons both to confirm the discovery and (at least initially) to keep it a secret.
The discovery occurs just far enough into our own future that our world seems familiar, while allowing the possibility of a crude sort of interstellar travel to be fashioned, ad hoc, from technology we ourselves don't quite yet have a handle on.
Only one human survives the encounter -- barely. And until he can provide a full report to the mission's sponsors, few if any humans will be prepared to regard him with anything but a mixture of pity and disgust. (No tickertape parade for this one; he wouldn't accept one if offered.)

Supposing all this, what might happen in all the years -- decades -- of the story's timeline to satisfy a reader's need for dramatic satisfaction?

Russell's answer to that last question is both emotionally and intellectually moving. She draws us in with interesting premises, true. But, more importantly, she draws us in with characters to care about: complex, very different from one another (even just the humans!), sources of vicarious pain and wonder, confusion and laugh-out-loud dialogue. She uses language just interesting enough to propel us from first page to last, while occasionally bringing us up short with responses like, "Whoa. Look what she did there!"

I found two problems:

First, I had difficulty completely accepting the ease with which even the Catholic Church (with its huge given resources: money of course, but also an almost military tradition of obedience) could pull off a secret mission like this one.

Second, structurally, the story arc felt slightly unbalanced to me. I didn't mark a place where things changed, but from initial discovery to actual encounter, events seemed to unfold in relative languor... and thereafter a wholelottastuff had to happenallatonce. Russell seemed (to me) equally good at both sorts of development, and thus the imbalance didn't seem fatal. (It may simply have been several firsts coming together: Russell's first book, my first encounter with anything she's written...) But I did notice it.

I noticed, too, that Russell -- again, maybe just in this book alone -- violated a hundred times one of the cardinal rules of writing fiction: show, don't tell. When a character's memory causes great pain, she doesn't simply describe what the character experienced, and then show us the evidence of horror and/or misery in his eyes and gestures, on his face and posture, through his words and silences. She tells us explicitly what he's thinking, and why, and what thoughts that thinking leads him to, and so on. On the other hand, I must add: I envied her ability to do this well -- readably, interestingly. I thought that she thus deepened my experience, my appreciation, of the characters: I don't believe I'd have become so attached to them otherwise.

Overall, I give The Sparrow maybe a 95 on a 100-point scale. (When I finished, I didn't hesitate even a moment to get the sequel, 1998's Children of God.) If I could do as well with a first novel (or a second, or third, or fourth...), I might be tempted to dance a little jig. But you know what? As in The Sparrow's story, the music I'd be dancing to might not be quite the music which the listeners thought they were hearing.

Tanith Lee/ WHITE AS SNOW

2011-03-25T09:21:00.004-04:00

This book is a retelling of Snow White, combined with Lee's take on the Persephone/ Demeter Greek myth and conflicts between Christianity and Paganism. It's part of The Fairy Tale Series created by Terri Windling.

Perhaps I should add that I have a huge bias in favor of Windling and her essay introduction to the book alone made it worth picking up. Be that as it may, by the end of this book, I wasn't going to recommend it to many people. And worse, I was depressed for several hours until I had some coffee and the sun came out.

The first line reads, "Once upon a time, in winter, there was a mirror."

I read that at about nine thirty at night, thinking to myself, "I just want to see how it starts."

About two hours and no less than one hundred pages later, I realized--with great irritation at the inconvenience--I had to go to bed.

The novel is broken up into three Books, and I found the first book absolutely fantastic. It was hauntingly and lyrically written. The images were gorgeous. There was an incredible magic and rhythm to Lee's use of the archetypal Snow White colors of black, white, and red. The "evil" queen of the tale was heartbreaking and real. I loved it.

But then it starts to get tangled up in itself and the myths it's playing with. I had read other reviews that complained of this, and dismissed them, thinking they were probably written by people who hadn't taken the time to appreciate the interplay of myth. In the end, I felt the same way. It just became jumbled with too many layers that didn't seem to enrich each other or enlighten the characters in any way.

The story is, at its heart, the tale of a mother and daughter. Both women are damaged but unfortunately both suffer from inertia and can't seem to help themselves--or even care to try--until they fall in love with a man. I found this frustrating since most of the novel seems to criticize the way men treat women, only valuing them for their beauty and their use as sexual objects. Lee seemed to be suggesting that both women were irrevocably broken because they had no relationship with their mothers. That would be fine, however, I was disappointed that their were no other positive relationships between women. To be honest, there are almost no positive relationships between anyone.

I would recommend reading the first section of this book. I can't recommend the rest. I will say that this novel made me want to read Lee's other work. I kept feeling that short stories or connected novellas would have been a better format for her writing and for this story. She's still a writer to explore and admire.

Liz Perle/MONEY: A MEMOIR

2011-03-21T21:43:00.002-04:00

This book was selected for me by my (new) book club. I would never have picked it up on my own, but am really glad I read it. It was a great discussion book, even with its flaws, and it's offered me a lot of fodder for other conversations since I read it.

Despite the title, this isn't exactly a memoir. It's a compilation of interviews, statistics, and anecdotes about women's various emotional responses to money (how they spend it, how they control it, why it makes them feel guilty, awkward, trapped, stifled, unhappy, uncomfortable, unworthy, and/or undervalued), knitted together with Perle's personal story of her own divorce and unexpected financial vulnerability.

From my perspective, this wasn't a perfect book. Sometimes, it feels like Perle forgets she is speaking from a place of incredible privilege, and that the majority of American women are dealing with a very different spectrum of choices and traps than the ones she's covering.

Also, much of the content was directed toward women of a certain mindset--one that I think is pretty common in America, but one I wasn't raised to subscribe to, so much of it wasn't resonant. The beginning chapters of the book had to do with women's emotional responses to being a complete dependent in a relationship, to women who were never taught to account for their own spending, and to women's emotional responses to spending.

I've always felt accountable and that I was entirely responsible for my own financial situation. I never imagined being financially dependent on anyone--haven't ever really imagined myself as a homemaker or in another financially dependent life role. I know it's a path many people choose (male and female!), and I respect their decisions, but those points didn't feel like they applied to me.

However, other parts were resonant, particularly the chapter that focused on career choices. Perle uses various anecdotal and statistical data to show that women are less able or willing to put a monetary value on themselves, to ask for as much money as men, to negotiate as hard for themselves in equal roles. However tough and confident I am--and I'm pretty proud of myself for being tough and confident--this definitely applies to me. Part of this is the way we're raised--in terms of what behavior is feminine, and what we learn to ask for, and how--but part of it also has to do with societal perceptions of women and how they should behave.

One point she makes is about mentorship--apparently, men are often franker with one another about, for example, salary. If Jim know Harry made $90k at his 5th anniversary, Jim will ask for $90k at his 5th anniversary. However, Mary doesn't want to be "awkward" with Nancy, so they don't talk about how each of them is making $45k--at the same job as Jim. Etc. When my book club talked about this, I noticed that even though everyone in the room claimed they wanted to overcome this wall of silence for the sake of helping us all, no one would actually go and mention their salary.

Another point that really resonated--I had seen this happen with one of my friends only days before I read the book--had to do with interviewing, and how women feel disloyal taking advantage of career opportunities, whereas men tend to be more open to change.

I think this is a great book for women to read and talk about. I don't think everyone will love it, and I think selective skimming may be in order depending on your own personal situation and interests, but I have many points I took from the book that have been useful for talking with friends, encouraging them at job interviews, speculating about and planning fiscal futures, etc.

DROOD/Dan Simmons

2011-03-17T17:37:00.002-04:00

Unease sets in at the beginning of Dan Simmons’s Drood when Wilkie Collins, novelist and narrator, remembers his friend Charles Dickens caterwauling for paper while sh*tting in a doorless privy, his pants around his ankles. You know then this will not be a story about a careworn friendship about to be born into new life, but one with sharp undertones of jealousy and possible insanity. And because Collins epitomizes the role of the unreliable narrator, you won’t be sure how much you should believe. Collins spends the novel plagued by his doppelganger The Other Wilkie, a green woman with yellow tusks, professional and personal jealousy of Dickens—and Inspector Field and his men, who shadow him constantly. Complicating Collins’s grip on reality is his laudanum habit, which he drinks by the gallon to control the pain of his gout. This is not a stable man.

We come upon Dickens and Collins in 1865, when their friendship is still very much intact, though Collins is already seething with resentment toward Dickens. They have assuaged their parallel lust for years by visiting prostitutes in the shadier parts of London (Drood does not flatter either Dickens or Collins as men). This is eclipsed when Dickens experiences a deadly train accident (“the Staplehurst accident”) and meets Drood, a half-Egyptian, half-Englishman with lidless eyes and filed teeth and ssssspeaks like thisssssss. Dickens’s curiosity is piqued, and he drags Collins far lower than Collins ever expected to go, into Undertown (as I remember, that's what it was called)—the London beneath London. There, the dregs of society smoke opium and talk about the figure named Drood, who is rumored to have died a Rasputin-like death long before the Staplehurst accident ever took place.

Yet Dickens is positive Drood is alive, and this seems to be confirmed by the appearance of Inspector Fields, who insists that not only is Drood alive and well, but is responsible for more than 300 murders in the London area.

Almost more interesting than the horror themes of the novel are the themes of jealousy and betrayal, which Simmons explores skillfully, not only letting them flow underneath the supernaturalness of Drood like the waves of a rising tide—dark and constant and increasingly threatening—but letting them rise the boat until they wash over it in the climax.

My only worry now is that this book will act as a virus and cast its shadow over every Dickens and Collins book I read. We sssssshalll sssssee.

I would love to see this made into a movie and/or a graphic novel.

THE IRON QUEEN by Julie Kagawa

2011-03-15T09:56:00.000-04:00

The Iron Queen by Julie Kagawa
Harlequin Teen, 2011
Young Adult Fantasy

Fans of the Iron Fey series are in for a treat with this one. In my opinion, it's the best book so far. Meghan's character grew in ways I'd been hoping for since book one, and also in ways I didn't expect. The love triangle between Meghan, Puck, and Ash reaches its boiling point. And the mystery behind her dad's disappearance when she was six is finally explained.

Plus there is a slew of new characters, new settings, and new drama. And the ending? Holy amazeballs, Batman, that was one awesome ride! Summer, Winter, and Iron face-off in every sense of the word. Can't say much more without giving anything away. Just... WOW.

If you haven't read this series yet, you are supremely missing out. This book ends with an epilogue that bridges into book four of the series, THE IRON KNIGHT, which looks to be just as delicious as the previous three... and it's told from Ash's point of view. Say what? Julie Kagawa, you are full of awesomesauce.

5 of 5 stars. Recommended for people who like fantasy, romance, combat, and fast-paced, intricate plots.

~Lydia

read my review of THE IRON KING (book one)
read my review of THE IRON DAUGHTER (book two - contains spoilers for book one)

visit Julie Kagawa's website
follow Julie Kagawa on twitter

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

2011-03-13T21:17:00.004-04:00

Where I got the book: from the library.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is Amy Chua's much touted (I could say notorious) memoir of how she raised her two daughters to become academic high achievers and musical prodigies using Chinese methods. Chua states up front that her sweeping assessments of the relative virtues of "Chinese parents" and "Western parents" are just that, very broad opinions, and that Chinese-style parenting can be found in many non-Asian homes, typically where the parents are first-generation immigrants.

Having a kid who spent much of middle school in gifted classes where the Chinese kids outnumbered the rest, I can confirm anecdotally that much of what Chua covers in her book conforms to the normal practices of Chinese parents. An extremely limited social life, "always programs" as one mother proudly told me, Chinese school at the weekend, hours of homework and extra drills were the norm; a grade below an A was unacceptable. My child hid her very first D from me because in her Chinese friends' world, a D meant a total parental meltdown and probably solitary confinement till the age of 25. When my kid grew away from her friends in high school she plunged joyfully into the Western model of underperformance, only to rediscover achievement all by herself in her senior year. She now tells me that I should have been more of a Tiger Mother and that she's going to raise her kids the Chinese way.

But enough about me! I really enjoyed Chua's book. I agreed with quite a few of her criticisms of Western parenting as selfish (she is particularly critical of mothers who neglect their children's education so that they can pursue interests of their own) and lazy (Chinese mothers are willing to invest every spare minute in their children's development, etc.) And she attacks the scary spectacle of self-esteem, which is producing impossible children unable to deal with authority. Believe me, I know. Sorry, me again.

I was interested in Chua's own overachiever, type A+++++ personality; she cheerfully admits to her tendency to spread tension over every family gathering and her inability to enjoy herself. Toward the end of the memoir she does come over as a bit more human, and begins to concede that Chinese parenting does not always work (it was not successful for her father, and only partially worked with her youngest daughter) and that some Western ideas, such as pursuing your own passions rather than your parents', have some sense in them.

Still, when you consider how limited our Western aspirations are for our children (most of us just want them to be happy and to have monstrous self-esteem like my kids SORRY) compared to those of Chinese parents, who see Yale, Harvard, Nobel prizes and Olympic medals in their children's future, you may pause for a moment. The Chinese parents I've met began saving for college when their children were foetuses, and investigating Ivy League institutions when their kids were in 7th grade. So now I don't feel so horrible after all for insisting that we start homework straight after school AND WE SIT AT THE TABLE TILL IT'S DONE (that lasted until high school, when I lost control).

I'm struck by how much this book made me reflect on my own parenting successes and failures, as illustrated by the way I keep interrupting this review with news about me. Battle Hymn was very nicely written, lively, and easy to read. I rather hope that some of Chua's ideas catch on.

Seasons in the Mist by Deborah Kinnard

2011-03-12T19:27:00.003-05:00

Where I got the book: a freebie from the author, who belongs to a group I frequent.

Graduate student Bethany Lindstrom travels to England to do research work at Oxford, but finds herself down in Cornwall where she crosses a time portal into the fourteenth century. Fortunately her research into the customs and languages of the period ensures that she can pass reasonably well as a stranded lady of good family, and she soon finds that she's attracted both to the medieval age and the lord of the manor.

Seasons in the Mist is an inspirational novel, and verges on the Christian side (not all inspirationals are strongly Christian, but this one definitely goes in that direction). I'm not a big reader of inspirationals, which I tend to find formulaic (stray from God, something major happens, go back to God and in the process find your dream man--who never, ever, gives in to the temptation to despoil your virginal dreams) so it's hard for me to judge how well this novel sits within its genre.

Speaking generally, though, this was a pleasant read. I enjoyed all the details about the costume, living conditions and food of the period, and the "period language" wasn't annoying (it's spectacularly hard to render the language of a period in a way that readers like me will really like). This kind of book is aimed at a particular audience, of course, and sells to Christian readers--it avoids sex and violence but leaves in plenty of sheer romance, which is refreshing when you've been reading too many historicals where the bodices are ripped and the blood spilled at a regular interval of 20 pages.

A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen

2011-03-12T19:07:00.004-05:00

Where I got the book: bought retail at an author event.

A Royal Pain is the second in the Royal Spyness series, set in the 1930s and starring Lady Georgiana, who is 34th in line to the British throne and thus has access to the Palace and the upper echelons of society.

Unfortunately, Georgie is flat broke but can't reveal the fact due to her social position, so she sneaks around London doing cleaning jobs for money. When the Queen orders her to take in a young German princess for a while, Georgie has to scramble to come up with the necessary servants and a suitable wardrobe for herself. Throw in a murder or two, a romantic interest and a whole series of intrigues, and she's kept pretty busy.

This book is a romp. I found it a little flat sometimes, but there was generally something funny coming along soon. It has elements of farce, and the Sloane Ranger tone (think Princess Di) of Georgie and her friends was spot on (Bowen--whom I met at the event, and who is a lovely lady--is the right sort of Brit to write this kind of book). We get a lot of color from the political and social stirrings of the period, which were pretty interesting, and get glimpses of the Royal Family at a time when the future King Edward VIII was about to be led astray by Wallis Simpson - very topical with The King's Speech (excellent!) getting awards all over the place.

The outcome of the mystery plot wasn't hard to spot, but the fun was seeing Georgie--who is a quick thinker in some circumstances and remarkably dense in others--get to the same point. A fun read, and I dare say I'll be back for more.

The Great Silence by Juliet Nicholson

2011-03-12T18:40:00.004-05:00

Where I got the book: bought retail with a Borders gift card, in a huge rush after the bankruptcy was announced. It had been on my TBR list for a while.

The Great Silence is a snapshot of Britain just after World War I. It covers the period from when the guns fell silent on November 11, 1918, to late 1920 when the body of the Unknown Soldier was interred in Westminster Abbey. It covers subjects as diverse as shell shock, plastic surgery for horrendous facial wounds, the Paris Peace Conference, birth control, and the recreational use of drugs by a generation who desperately wanted to forget the recent past.

One thing I really liked about this book was the way the lives and memories of ordinary and extraordinary people are tapped to provide juicy little snippets of information that brought me much nearer to the subjects under discussion. I felt that I got a good sense of what a period of intense mental and physical agony did to the psyche of an entire country. I've always loved the novels of that period for what they said and didn't say about the First World War: those four years were so clearly the dividing point between a strictly ordered world of class distinctions and certainty and the modern world of social mobility and experimentation. The Great Silence is a good companion volume for readers with an interest in the period.

It's not a deep work of history: I even found a couple of potential howlers and one definite one (a line suggesting that the Titanic sank in 1902). And yet The Great Silence had the considerable merit of being interesting and readable, and I'm a great supporter of popularizing history. We can always look up the exact facts on Wikipedia. Snort.

And Only To Deceive by Tasha Alexander

2011-03-12T18:11:00.004-05:00

Where I got the book: bought retail at author event

And Only To Deceive was Tasha Alexander's debut novel and the introduction of Lady Emily Ashton. It's the late 1880s, and Emily has been widowed soon after her wedding. As she only married to escape her mother's incessant matchmaking, she is not mourning her husband--until she begins to learn about, and share, his interest in Greek culture and antiquities. She then falls in love with him for the first time, until she begins to discover that he may not have been the pillar of society she thought he was...

Lady Emily Ashton has since become the heroine of a series of novels, and I can't help wondering if her tendency to be attracted to every man who shows interest in her (and there are lots, because she is of course rich and beautiful) will continue. In this novel there are three distinct suitors, including her late husband, and Emily oscillates between them as their relative merits and demerits are exposed. If that was meant to be as funny as I found it, then I have to congratulate Ms Alexander on her subtlety.

Otherwise, this wasn't a subtle book. The characters are a little two-dimensional and the writing a bit loose - but hey, it's a first novel by a fairly young author, and that's what I got from the book. I also spotted a few anachronisms and Americanisms (the heroine is British) but not so many that I got annoyed; and in any case, this is a lighthearted novel to be gobbled up on the plane, boat or train, despite the detail about the Iliad and Greek antiquities (not strictly necessary in my opinion, but I suppose a widow must have some interests other than men).

And I enjoyed the read. A good one for fans of Victoriana, Greece, and writing that's heavy on dialogue and short on emotional depth. I'm hoping that Emily, who seems more passionate about her clothes than anything else, will pick up a little steam when I pick up the next book--which I'm sufficiently intrigued to do.

P.S. Can anyone else figure out why Amazon is bargain-pricing fiction like crazy? What's going to happen when readers expect a price point of $5 a book? Comments please.

A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly

2011-03-12T13:27:00.004-05:00

Where I got the book: bought retail for my daughter's book club.

Sixteen-year-old Mattie Gokey is the oldest daughter of a motherless family. Her older brother has disappeared, and Mattie shoulders much of the responsibility for keeping the family's small farm going and looking after her sisters. She still finds time to go to school, and dreams of going to college in New York and becoming a writer. But her attraction to a neighboring farmer's son, and the hopelessness of her family's poverty, are obstacles to her dreams.

A Northern Light is set in the Adirondacks in 1906, and is inspired by a real-life murder case--the one that prompted Theodore Dreiser to write An American Tragedy in the 1920s. Mattie becomes a witness to the events that precede the murder; the tragedy, and its location, are a catalyst to Mattie's own final decision as to her life's direction.

I enjoyed Donnelly's writing very much. It rang true as the voice of a young girl surrounded by poverty and vice, but with enough education to see a way out of her situation. The secondary characters were nicely drawn, and I got a real sense of the setting.

I'm not sure if Mattie's story blends entirely satisfactorily with the murder case, though. I felt that Grace Brown's letters drew me away from Mattie's far more interesting surroundings. Still, all in all I found a great deal to enjoy in this book, and tended to read on past the time I'd allotted--always a good sign.

Great Decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court - Edited by Maureen Harrison and Steve Gilbert

2011-03-08T02:15:00.008-05:00

You may notice that this book doesn't really have an author, as such. There are only 'editors', as they have humbly named themselves; they've cut the text of the decisions way down, and added some background information, but that's it. The real authors, of course, are the supreme court justices who made these decisions.
That's what makes this book so interesting. As a book concerning America's history - or at least a facet of it - it's much closer to the original firsthand source material that histories are made of than any textbook you can find.

This isn't really a history of our country in a general sense. It's exactly what it says on the cover, which is a history of the supreme court, and to lesser extent our legal system. You get to see why and how the whole concept of judicial review developed, and how the sometimes stupidly complex system of legal precedent works. You get to read firsthand the reasoning behind some of the greatest injustices ever perpetrated in the name of the law in this country - Dred Scott v. Sanford and Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld the notions of slavery and 'separate but equal', are fascinating in a terrible sort of way, if you can get past the 19th century legal prose. 19th century legal prose, by the way, isn't gripping.
The more recent cases are the really interesting ones - issues like slavery and segregation are long dead, but things like the constitutionality of prayer in schools and whether or not it is legal for the press to publish information declared confidential by the government are still very much being debated today, and many people who have strong opinions on such matter don't know exactly what the law has to say (including myself. It isn't like this book gives you a comprehensive understanding or anything.)
Overall, if you're a human being that is capable of reading and has any spare time at all, I recommend this book to you.

________________

Pros See above.
Cons Shipped with bobcat.
______________

China Miéville/THE CITY & THE CITY

2011-02-23T06:24:00.000-05:00

People who wear bifocals eventually acquire the knack: you turn your eyes straight ahead or a little up to focus on things at a distance; you look down to focus on things close to you. With so-called progressive lenses, it gets a little trickier. Somewhere between the see-far and see-near portions of the lens is an area on which you can't focus at all; you learn where it is, so you can avoid it and not walk around in a blur.

China Miéville's 2009 novel, The City & The City, posits a world in which a similar skill is practiced by the entire population of two neighboring cities, Besźel and Ul Qoma, in what seems to be Eastern Europe.

At one level, The City & The City is a murder mystery, a noir-ish police procedural narrated by Tyador Borlú, an inspector in the homicide division of the Besźel police. He's investigating the murder of an unknown woman whose body has been dumped in an empty lot. In the course of his investigation, he must deal not only with his colleagues and the criminal element in Besźel, but with other interested parties: his counterpart in the Ul Qoma police force; archaeologists exploring a mysterious, extensive dig in Ul Qoma; the governing body -- The Committee -- which oversees relations between the two cities; and the shadowy and apparently all-powerful agency known simply as Breach.

At another level, the book is a dark urban fantasy. No -- no magic-users and mythical species here. What makes the world of Besźel and Ul Qoma a world of fantasy is a single, enormously weird feature: the two cities are (as Borlú says) geographically distant... but occupy the same geographical location: physically overlapping, yet functionally separate.

(It's like the opposite of that old Gertrude Stein quip about Oakland: in both Besźel and Ul Qoma, there are always two theres there.)

No one knows how this came to be. They know only that long ago, either a single city split into two, or two separate cities became somehow co-located. The event is known as Cleavage -- cleverly, one of those words which means both something, and its opposite. (And yes, British Miéville's protagonist acknowledges the unfortunate coincidence with the American slang term.)

What these people do know is that legally, they may be in only one city or the other. They may stand in Besźel, say, and from there they can look at and see Besźel... but not Ul Qoma, although they can sense it out of the corner of their eye, so to speak. Citizens of each city have trained themselves to unsee the citizens, buildings, and roadways of the other. (Importantly, this is a learned mental unseeing, not a physical one. Driving in one city is nerve-wracking, because drivers must avoid pedestrians and other vehicles in both cities.) Moving from one city to another by any means other than the most tightly controlled is a crime even more serious than murder, called breaching.

And breaching is dealt with swiftly, irrevocably, finally by the ever-watchful Breach...

You now understand, I hope, why I opened this review with all that about eyeglasses. On one hand it sounds strange -- impossible -- that two worlds should overlap so completely, yet be able to be "seen" separately; on the other, it's perfectly natural -- just a matter of training your eyes. (There are even blurry zones, not completely in one city or the other, called "crosshatches.")

I don't want to dwell too much on this device, lest I ruin someone else's pleasure in discovering the nuances for themselves. I will say, though, that Miéville has done an amazing job of working this all out. A good thing, too: the murder which Borlú investigates was committed in Ul Qoma; the body was then moved to Besźel. Imagine trying to understand geographic clues if the author had only a loose grip on his own gimmick.

That word "gimmick" raises an important question, though. Imagine The City & The City without it; does the book still work?

I think the answer is yes. Miéville's prose does just what you want the prose of a contemporary police procedural to do: explain clearly (and within the limits of first-person narrative) what Borlú and the other characters are up to; trigger empathy for the protagonist (and those he comes into contact with, however different they are from one another); give the detective amazing, but not too amazing, deductive powers; match mood and rhythm to the exposition or action of a given paragraph or scene; and lead to a satisfying cluster of conclusions (both for the characters, and for the mystery itself).

Yet the unique premise allows occasional small flourishes of language like this one, describing a park where foreign archaeological students working on that dig take their leisure -- and push the limits of what the no-breaching laws allow:

Maps made clear to walkers where they might go. It was here in the crosshatch that the students might stand scandalously, touching distance from a foreign power, a pornography of separation.

Finally, I imagine yet another possible reading of The City & The City: as a metaphor for real cities, inhabited by multiple classes and populations who carefully refrain from interaction. That might justify a second review, or a third. But this one is already long enough: let's just agree to unsee that other possibility for now.

RED MAFIYA/Robert I. Friedman

2011-02-13T08:34:00.003-05:00

I'm giving this a higher star rating than it probably deserves. It's scattered, as if Friedman is trying to cram as much as possible into the book about all the different crime figures he knows. You can feel Friedman racing. He was: he had contracted a rare disease while on assignment for Vanity Fair in the slums of Bombay and was dying as he wrote this. Friedman died in 2002. Given his ballsy way of handling himself when confronting Russian mobsters, I'm not wholly convinced they didn't get him in the end.

It's been approximately ten years since this book was published. How much more firmly entrenched is the Russian mob in our culture? I would guess much more so. Ten years is a long time to operate in the shadows, especially when there's very little reporting going on regarding their activities. (And why would anyone want to take them on? One reporter had acid thrown in her face for doing so.) Their influence is probably double what it was ten years ago, when they were, on the whole, making billions of dollars off of huge scams. As a matter of fact, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if Wall Street and the like didn't take lessons from them before bringing down our economy in a crash two years ago.

The FBI was woefully slow in catching on to their presence, and their usual turf war mentality kept them from working with local and international authorities in compressing Russian mob activities, thus allowing this ruthless mob—one so violent it makes the Italian mafia look timid by comparison—to flourish. Local authorities in Brighton Beach, New York, could never get a foothold. Prosecuting members of the Russian mob is very difficult: they don't hesitate to go after cops, their families, prosecutors, and judges. Some convictions have taken place, but the mobsters often end up dictating mob activities from within the confines of their cells.

For all its flaws, the book is an engaging and terrifying—if slightly confusing—read. Friedman only gives us some broad brush strokes of how the Red Mafiya operates, giving us anecdotes of just how ruthless the Russian mob can be. Each chapter focuses on a major player of the mob. Some are linked to each other, some seem to stand alone. At any rate, the book is a good primer for getting an idea of what goes on behind the scenes. If you're a mystery or a thriller writer, I'd definitely recommend this. Four stars.

The Emperor's Body by Peter Brooks

2011-02-11T16:26:00.003-05:00

Where I got the book: another LibraryThing Early Reviewer win.

The Emperor's Body is a début novel by a professor who has published several works of non-fiction. So I'm going to assume that the historical detail in the book is reasonably accurate.* It is set around true events of 1840, and makes use of many of the personages involved in those events.

What happened in France in 1840 was that King Louis Philippe I, France's last king, took the slightly dodgy decision to have the body of Napoleon Bonaparte brought back from the island of Saint Helena where he had died in exile. It was a political maneuver at best, and at worst could be seen as a cheap publicity stunt (depending on where you stood at the time as to whether France should be ruled by a king, an emperor, or the people).

Into these events Brooks weaves a love triangle involving the real Philippe de Rohan-Chabot, the young diplomat placed in effective charge of the mission, the real writer Henri Beyle (better known as Stendhal) and a fictional young woman called Amelia or Amélie.

And this is the point at which I ask, why?

As far as I'm concerned, the return of Napoleon's remains is a pretty interesting story to begin with. Brooks is a good writer and dramatizes the political intrigues well. There's a nice gloomy atmosphere of wet weather and big useless marble buildings, exactly like visiting certain parts of Paris on a cold day, and I could hear the ringing of spurs and the grinding noise of carriages on cobblestones. I would have thought that all this could have provided enough material for a pretty good political novel.

And yet somehow we have this story about this girl who doesn't really want to marry Philippe, quite fancies Beyle but isn't sure whether she should sleep with him, and would kinda rather write books anyway. Jane Eyre meets Days of Our Lives. And the POV jumps around between all the characters PLUS Older Amelia who is looking back on the whole episode. It just doesn't work for me. And there's something about paunchy, balding Beyle being a chick magnet that has me murmuring "wish fulfillment." Which is a pity, because as books go it's very well written and intelligent.

I'm going to check out Brooks' non-fiction work, though. He seems to have an engaging knack for telling a real story.

*No writer ever admits that another writer could possibly be extremely accurate. It's just not done.

Dancing With Max by Emily Colson

2011-02-10T21:05:00.003-05:00

Where I got the book - a review copy from the LibraryThing Early Reviewer Program. Which is a great way to try out books you wouldn't necessarily buy, by the way. Give it a go.

I have a developmentally disabled child, and found myself nodding in understanding as I was reading Dancing With Max, Colson's account of what she has learned from life with her autistic son. The memoir also touches briefly on her childhood and her father Chuck Colson, who was implicated in the Watergate scandal, became a Christian in jail, and went on to become a well-known author and speaker. He writes the prologue and epilogue to the book, presumably to give it more heft in Christian circles. I'm not sure that was a good decision. Emily Colson's account stands quite nicely on its own, in my opinion.

And yet there's a fitting parallel between Colson's youth, living with the stigma of her father's very public jail sentence, and the feelings of humiliation and high visibility that she recounts when she describes what it's like having a child who melts down regularly in public. "It's remarkable how quickly space clears around you when your autistic child explodes in public. I tried not to care about the people staring at us. . . . I tried not to lose an ounce of energy to humiliation."

Colson's faith is evident in Dancing With Max, but she doesn't overemphasize it. Her tone is matter-of-fact and down to earth, and her theme - that Max brings out the best in people who have the best in them - does not need a faith-based filter to work.

I enjoyed Colson's writing, which is unpretentious and easy to read. I would recommend this book to anyone trying to understand more about the autism spectrum.

HATING OLIVIA by Mark SaFranko

2011-02-03T14:52:00.000-05:00

Hating Olivia by Mark SaFranko
Literary Fiction
Harper Perennial, 2010
ISBN 978-0-06-197919-4

*I received a free copy of this novel from the publisher for the purpose of writing an online review

From the back of the book:

Max Zajack's life is cheap rooms, dead-end jobs, and suicidal fantasies until he meets the alluring and mysterious Olivia Aphrodite, and everything goes to hell.

Max is a struggling musician and wannabe writer. His life is in a rut until one night, while playing a gig at a local club, he gazes out into the crowd and sees Olivia. Before long, they are sharing a bed and host of dark vices that begin to consume them. Their love turns toxic, sending them spiraling downward toward the inevitable. Violently romantic, viscerally honest, Hating Olivia is the story of two loners whose obsessive love brings them to the edge of destruction.

Even after reading the summary above and a handful of reviews on GoodReads, I still wasn't quite sure what to expect from this book. Within a few pages, I was hooked. The writing style and narrative voice in this story kept me turning pages without regard for the little number in the upper corner. Before I knew it, I'd blown through nearly half of the book in a single sitting, breaking only because the fam needed dinner. Those of you who have been following my reviews for a while know that I'm generally a slow reader. You probably also noticed that I don't usually read literary fiction. So for me to finish this book inside of two days is like watching Porky Pig win the hundred-yard dash.

A bit unreal. But I assure you, it happened.

This story is not for those who are sensitive to the intricacies of toxic relationships. It is raw and powerful, and intelligently presented. You start out thinking that Max is the hopeless case, but the more you see of Livy, the more you see what a whackjob she is. It's clear from the beginning that their relationship is far from healthy, driven only by sexual desire, and it is prime real estate for the wedge of financial hardship, yet you still have this niggling thought in the back of your head that maybe... maybe it'll get better and they'll be okay. Happy, even. For years, they ride a rollercoaster of volatile emotion together, and by the end of the book you're just hoping they get off the train alive and in one piece.

The core conflict is highly relatable. Max has dreams he's reaching for that keep getting pulled from his grasp by the realities of everyday life. You can justify his hatred for Livy and at the same time understand why he can't let her go. If you can stomach the darkness of their relationship, this book is definitely worth reading. It is one of those stories that sticks with you long after finishing the final page-- a masterfully woven web of awesome. 5 of 5 stars.

~Lydia

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY / Suzanne Collins

2011-01-31T06:48:00.001-05:00

This captivating thriller completes the best-selling Hunger Games trilogy. Katniss Everdeen is again pitched against the might of the Capital, but this time she has the sinister underground rebel force of District Thirteen on her side.

Katniss is chosen as a mascot to promote the rebel cause and her every move is once again directed, manipulated and controlled for the benefit of the watching pubic. Her partner in the games, Peeta, has fallen into the hands of the Capital and Katniss's every move endangers him.

The revolution against the Capital is in full swing and has broken out onto the streets. As the rebels descend upon the capital they must battle through a series of macabre booby traps, a bloody war which Katniss describes as a real life hunger games.
If you've already read the Hunger Games then you've probably not wasted any time getting your hands on this latest instalment. Suzanne's style is dangerously addictive, and the pace of her writing makes them really difficult to put down. Mockingjay is by far the darkest of the three and for that reason it was slightly less enjoyable to read.

In this book, the weight of all that Katniss has been through and done really begins to take its toll. As the battle wages on, her sense of what she is really fighting for and who is on her side is shaken. With so much of her former life destroyed, Collins subtly starts to question Katniss's own motives in still fighting. Does the rebel cause really justify the loss of human life?

Although this type of psychological debate isn't usually associated with easy reading, I honestly could have finished this in one sitting if life would let me! Collins's style is light and flows so well that I just find myself turning one more page and then just one more and then.. Katniss's inner struggle didn't hamper the plot at all, and allows Collins to flesh her heroine out without idealising her.

I'm not a 100% sure how I feel about the ending of this book, and would love to hear the thoughts of any other Hunger Games addicts. The epilogue felt off beat to the rest of the novel to me, it just didn't feel like the Katniss of the earlier books. I guess I'm just being stubborn, having never been a complete lover of happy ever after.

Overall though, this book still delivers the thrills, gore and suspense of the earlier books and I still can't recommend this trilogy enough.

Far North by Marcel Theroux

2011-01-29T11:58:00.005-05:00

Where I got the book: my own selection, from the library.

Makepeace is a survivor in an age where drought and famine have wiped out most of the population. A remnant of a religious community that settled the farthest northern reaches of Asia, Makepeace struggles with the choice between isolated self-sufficiency and reaching out to other humans in an age where brutality is the norm.

Far North is a compelling book. I've always loved end-of-days novels, and if you've ever read John Wyndham's 1950s classic The Chrysalids (and if you haven't, you're missing out on a great book) you would probably, as I did, place Makepeace's society a couple of hundred years before the farming communities of that story, and find an echo of the older book in Theroux's novel.

What kept me turning the pages of Far North was the writing. Theroux's descriptions are wonderfully evocative, his writing crisp and unadorned. This keeps the story moving along at a fast pace, and I stayed up late because I just had to finish the last hundred pages.

Far North is a little short on plot, in my opinion, and the narrative takes sudden, unexpected turns that are both frustrating and intriguing. So if you're the sort of reader that likes all loose ends woven in and tied with a neat bow, you won't find that here. If you're of the camp that believes a novel should reflect life's untidiness, you'll love the meandering action. I hope that, like me, you'll grow fond of the unlovely Makepeace and find yourself projecting the character into the future.

I'm giving Far North an "excellent" rating for the writing and the author's imagination. It stopped short of rocking my world, but I'll be looking out for more books by this author.

TWENTIES GIRL / Sophie Kinsella

2011-01-26T10:48:00.003-05:00

I don't normally go in for so-called chick lit but I've got an unashamed book crush on Sophie Kinsella and I don't care who knows it.

Twenties Girl tells the tale of Lara Lington; daughter to two anxious parents, niece to one awfully rich uncle, ex to the devastatingly handsome Josh and great niece to a rude and unassuming ghost.

Yep that's right- ghost. Despite never meeting her great aunt Sadie when she was still alive, Lara now can't seem to get rid of her. Sadie, appearing as a lithe and mischievous 23 year old, is determined to retrieve her favourite necklace and won't leave Lara alone until she's found it. After the initial shock has passed, Lara begins to realise that having a ghost around can actually be quite an advantage. But how will she ever find the necklace, and why does it mean so much to Sadie? And more importantly, has she gone completely off her rocker or do ghosts really exist?!

Like her other novels, this is a light read with plently of laughs. If I have one criticism it's that her narrative voices all seem identical. It's no wonder though since her characters are all instantly likeable: funny, human, quirkly, slightly obsessive and ever so real- even if the subject matter is exactly the opposite of that! Even though the plot is pretty daft, I loved how refreshingly different it was.

Sophie Kinsella is a pro at writing romance and this book is no exception. She knows exactly how to write real chemistry, and yet often has it pop up naturally where you weren't expecting it. She allows real emotion to build up between characters and doesn't just limit this to love interests. Her writing style is easy to read, and the dialogue light and funny, if slightly predictable.

Well worth a read if you fancy being distracted for a couple of hours but not one to treasure a copy of forever. Warning: not to be read when you're due to catch a train. I made it by the skin of my teeth.

The Ask and the Answer

2011-01-26T09:13:00.004-05:00

This is the second book in the Chaos Walking Trilogy, and I must say, it's my least favorite. It has some cool features, such as the young main character discovering he has powers he can exert with just thoughts--which Ness actually fits into the story world rather than adding them simply because they're cool.

The frustration comes in with the two main characters' apparent inability to stand up for themselves. Time after time, they do things they disagree with or even find repugnant, with their only opposition being some denial that the acts will change them.

I still think it needs to be read in spite of the flaws, though, as the trilogy wouldn't be the same without it.

POSSESSION / A.S. Byatt

2011-01-24T18:45:00.005-05:00

Today I finished POSSESSION by A.S. Byatt and the more I think about the book, the more I cherish it. It's richly imagined, and richly written and involves many characters who are all likable and recognizable, if not always (though they are often) lovable.

The subtitle "A Romance" may imply a love story, which it is in part--it follows academics Maud Bailey and Roland Mitchell, who fall for each other while on the trail of a love affair between the two Victorian poets they study respectively. But it's so much more than that. It's also about the love of language and poetry, the love of writing and creating art, the love you may feel for a particular time and place, for solitude, for learning. Well, you get the idea.

A warning: the beginning can be off-putting. There are poems by each Victorian poet, letters, excerpts from scholarly works by certain characters. There's also a wide cast of characters, all of whom get their time in the spotlight. The result of all this, is that you can't get into a quick reading rhythm. I think it's important to know this going in. Take breaks. Read at your leisure. The plot picks up in a natural way, eventually.

Byatt knows she doesn't have to pull any tricks to keep you reading. Every word and character is a piece of mosaic and Byatt has the pattern all worked out. Trust me, it's worth a little effort for the piece of art you can step back and admire at the end.

The ending, too, is pitch-perfect. When I finished this book I had no thoughts of, "I wish she had done this differently." Instead, I thought, "It's so sad that this happened but I was so happy about this other thing."

And perhaps the highest praise of all: When I finished POSSESSION, I felt like it was all real and true and that the story had always been there, waiting to be told.

CRASH INTO ME by Albert Borris

2011-01-24T11:19:00.000-05:00

Crash Into Me by Albert Borris
Young Adult Contemp
Simon Pulse, 2010
(paperback edition)

Suicide is something quite personal for me, having been a suicidal teen once myself and now married to someone who deals with regular bouts of suicidal depression (he has bipolar disorder), so I was a little leery to read this book. Not because I thought it would rouse up those feelings inside me again, but because I was afraid that it wouldn't do them justice.

I've read about suicide in fiction before, and it always goes one of two ways. 1) The author portrays it so well that it makes you sick. 2) The author portrays it so poorly that it makes you angry.

I'd prefer the first one. When feelings of suicide are presented realistically, not sugar-coated or preachy or just plain wrong, it makes for an engaging read. The problem is, it also makes your stomach churn because you know it's real. There are really people out there who feel this way and believe they would be better off dead and/or the world would be better off without them in it.

This story is so real in its portrayal that it did, indeed, make me sick to my stomach at times. But that is the very reason why I'm recommending it, especially for teens. What I loved the most about this story was that it explored more than one aspect of what it's like to be suicidal. Not all suicidal teens are the same. Not all become suicidal for the same reasons. Some want attention. Some want to disappear. Some can't deal with life. Some can't deal with death.

And that's why this story is genius. Because it follows not just one but FOUR teens on a "celebrity suicide road trip", in which they have all agreed that at the end of the trip they will off themselves in Death Valley, California. It also flips back to their online chats that led to them deciding to do this in the first place, intertwining both stories until they finally mesh. The tension is always high. The feelings are always raw. And by the time you get to the end, you've become so attached to these people that you're trying to physically reach your hand through the pages and pull them out of the story so you can save them.

Favorite quote (p. 145):

"No one stays suicidal forever. You either die or you get over it."

Cover Art: 3 stars
Title: 3 stars
Writing: 4 stars
Story: 5 stars
Characters: 5 stars
Ending: 5 stars

Overall Rating: 4 stars

~Lydia

FEVER CRUMB / Philip Reeve

2011-01-23T18:17:00.002-05:00

This book has got me so confused! Normally I form an opinion about a book in the first chapter, and yet this book has me still undecided after the last page.

Fever Crumb is an extremely rational girl who is abandoned as a baby and brought up by an eccentric but kind engineer. Set thousands of years in the future, the novel opens in the London ruins of a civil war. A superior race, the Scriven, have been outnumbered and ousted by the underdog humans.

Fever Crumb emerges for the first time from the protective bubble of the engineering world to become technical assistant to the illusive archaeologist Kit Solent.

On the journey there Fever's distinctive looks and mismatched eye colour rises the suspicions of the last of London's Scriven hunters, and they begin to follow her. The bookish Fever begins to realise how little she really knows about her own life. Is Fever really Scriven? What is Kit Solent hiding? And why does he seem to have been waiting for her?

The presence of an invading nomad army hovering on the outskirts of London soon ties all the elements of the story together. However, I did really have to force myself to preserve with the first half of the book and came very close to abandoning it. Although it's great that the characters and the setting are so unique and fresh I found them very hard to relate to and emphasise with. The language is playful but sometimes erred on the wrong size of irritating for me.

I was disappointed since I'd read some great reviews, but I had a real difficulty maintaining an interest in the story. Perhaps it's down to the fact that I read in short bursts a lot, or that I've never been crazy about science fiction.

Nevertheless, the ending is cleverly thought out and original and the action did speed up towards the end. Would still only really recommend to those lovers of teen science fiction. I know you're out there!

The Dragon Reborn - Robert Jordan

2011-01-21T02:09:00.006-05:00

This is a review of the third book of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. If you haven't read the first two, I suggest you go do that, but only if you have no responsibilities in life at all. Don't pretend you can read this series and be productive. You can't. Learn from my folly.

One thing strikes me about every single book in this series I've read. As I'm reading the book, I have hundreds of niggly little complaints to air, but by the end of the book they're all gone. I can't go into much detail without ruining things, but the point is that if you have any spare time at all you should really read these books.

One of the things that really shines in every book in the series so far is the originality of the basic conflict. (The setting is great, too. See: the review immediately before this one.) In most epic fantasy series, up to and including The Fantasy Series, The Lord of the Rings, the conflict can be outlined as an ultimate battle between good and evil in which some magical widget is crucial to the outcome. In the Wheel of Time series, there is indeed an epic battle between good and evil, but the outcome is in no way dependent on a single magic sword. Or ring, for that matter. No, the fate of Robert Jordan's world rests on the fates of his main characters, who are central threads in the pattern woven by the Wheel of Time. I think this, together with the worldbuilding, is the reason why these books are so great. Jordan successfully extracts all the wonder involved in showing us around this new globe he's build while deftly avoiding the whole focus on a Great Battle Between Good and Evil and instead focusing on telling the stories of his characters.

...I can't even think of anything to criticize. Buy this book and the two before it; then put them in a safe till your next vacation.

________________________

Demerits Uh.

Merits Everything.

Verdict Can't be arsed to write this bit. Must start book four.

_________________________

The Great Hunt - Robert Jordan

2011-01-18T13:34:00.006-05:00

This is a review of the second book of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series; if you haven't read the first one, I suggest that you go do that.

We pick up where we left off; the Dark one was bound in Shayol Ghul from the first moment of creation, and our hero Rand may or may not be the umpteenth incarnation of the Dragon, who opposes the Dark one. Or maybe he doesn't, I don't know.

This book was frustrating, because it was close to perfect. Robert Jordan was a hair's breadth away from creating something that could very well stand the test of time and become a classic, and he didn't, which makes his few mistakes the more irritating. I will only mention the good parts in passing, because if I described them fully I would break our sacred 60,000 word limit. Jordan's world continues to be realistic and original, and the plot develops the characters and is engaging while still avoiding dei ex machinae. All in all, The Great Hunt is a very natural continuation of the threads begun in The Eye of the World.*

Now for the Sins. Firstly, there's something that has bothered me since the first book. For the most part, we don't get any explanation of how the evil characters think, what their motivations are, or any indication whatsoever that they're anything more than cardboard cut-outs. Why is the Dark One evil? Why does he even exist? Why do the Trollocs and Fades serve him, and from whence did they spring? Why does he want to ruin the world? It is very possible that all these questions will be answered in later books, but there should at least have been some hints by now. I hate to be a one-string harpist, but Tolkien, who created the granddaddy of all black-and-white good-versus-evil books, gave the evil characters complex and real back-stories and motivations.

Secondly, I know I rave about the worldbuilding, but there is a discordant note in this symphony. Actually, there are several bits and pieces that don't quite seem to fit. The world seems to exist in a technological stasis that has been maintained for more than two thousand years, which strikes me as unrealistic. Also, the Seanchan from over the western sea have apparetly, as a society, been able to maintain a single purpose for thousands of years: to reclaim the lands of Artur Paendrag. Really? An entire nation devoted to a single goal for century after century? We Americans can't keep going in a single direction, politically, for more than a decade or so.

But enough of my complaining. The few flaws that there are do nothing to change the fact that that the fundamentals are sound.
_______________________
Demerits: Two-dimensional evil characters. A few isolated things didn't make sense.
Merits: Everything else. Robert Jordan can join the very thin ranks of true high fantasy authors.

Verdict: A case of Poblano sauce with no milk.
_______________________

*Keeping your reviews spoiler-free is hard, man.

HOW THE HANGMAN LOST HIS HEART / K.M Grant

2011-01-17T17:10:00.005-05:00

The wooden steps creaked as Dan sat down, his legs two solid logs in front of him. He found an apple in his pocket, inspected it and rubbed at the blood splatters. 'Bite?' he offered. Alice made a revolted face and he shrugged. 'I haven't had any breakfast yet,' he told her, basking in the feeling of a job well done. 'Never do, somehow, on execution mornings, although I make sure the wife gives me a good dinner after. Mutton pie tonight.

Alice Granville's determination to recover the recently severed head of her beloved Uncle Frank wins her an unlikely accomplice in the shape of his executioner, Dan Skinslicer. Uncle Frank has been declared a traitor to the English throne and his head is morbidly displayed as a deterrent. Alice drags Dan on a fast-paced and slapstick quest to steal back the head and reunite it with Uncle Frank's body.

As you can probably tell, this is a light-hearted and tongue-in-cheek read. Although my local library had it listed as a teen book the simplistic style, slapdash humour and blood n' guts gore would probably better suit the 10-14 range.

It's a fast read with likeable characters and K.M Grant's humour shines through in the ironic and ridiculous dialogue and narration. Grant saves the best lines for Alice's clownish and aristocratic relatives:

Lady Widdrington, hearing the rumpus, ordered Ursula to throw open their windows. She was fond of riots and this sounded like a good one. As Alice and Dan galloped by a second time, the old lady recognized them and waved. 'That's my girl,' she cried, imagining that she was at the racecourse. 'Did we have a gamble, Ursula?'

The language and style is fresh and imaginative throughout, and the ridiculous plot becomes part of the story's charm. Parts of the narrative did become repetitive and the sub-plots were a little disjointed at times, especially that of Lady Widdrington and her hideous wigs! The romantic storyline came across to me as inauthentic and out of place. Barring that though, this is a easy, charming and funny read for gruesome kids and the young at heart.

ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS by Stephanie Perkins

2011-01-16T12:18:00.001-05:00

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
Young Adult Romance
Dutton Books, 2010

Blurb from GoodReads:

Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris—until she meets Étienne St. Claire: perfect, Parisian (and English and American, which makes for a swoon-worthy accent), and utterly irresistible. The only problem is that he's taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her almost-relationship back home.

Oh, dear sweet novel, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

1. A viewpoint character you can connect with right away, feel concern for, and who you want to succeed. (She has a gap between her front teeth and she's a film fanatic. Win.)

2. Beautiful detailed descriptions of Paris without crossing into "boring, let's get on with it" territory. I felt like I was there.

3. An LI (love interest) who you can justify being an LI. Meaning, you want these two to be together in the end. You can see why they're a good fit. The romance is deeply justified, not shallow.

4. Supporting characters who each have their own unique personalities, their own issues, yet they do not overshadow the main issue at hand, the romantic tension between the MC and the LI. Every character in this book has realism. There are no cardboard cut-outs or unpurposeful stereotypes.

5. Subplots that make sense and feel relevant to the main plot.

6. Full of "take your breath away" moments. Too many to count.

7. A refreshingly natural writing style. Not over-the-top, or in-your-face, or being sarcastic for the sake of being sarcastic. The writing is fluid and easy to read.

8. High tension and fast pacing without leaving you exhausted from reading. You just feel like you must keep reading... one more chapter, one more chapter, just one more chapter... and then suddenly, you're done.

9. The pages feel like silk (not even kidding. That was the first thing I said to my husband when I started reading the book-- were these pages printed on silk? This is the silkiest paper I've ever felt in a novel. My fingertips are in love.)

10. The typeface adds to the overall adorableness of the story. How often do I mention page texture and typeface in a review? Yowza. This book has it all. The whole package is amazing.

I could go on. But then I'd give too much of the story away. This novel deserves every bit of the high praise it has received. And it's a debut! I cannot wait to read Stephanie's next two novels, which are companions to this one, and whatever she has in store for her readers down the road. She is definitely one to follow.

Cover Art: 5 stars
Title: 5 stars
Writing: 5 stars
Story: 5 stars
Characters: 5 stars
Ending: 5 stars

Overall Rating: 5 stars

I borrowed this book from the library, but I have put it on my "absolutely must purchase whenever I have the extra cash" list. Because I already want to read it again.

~Lydia

Vladimir Nabokov/LOLITA

2011-01-15T11:56:00.000-05:00

Back in the fall, when the American Library Association sponsored its annual "Banned Books Month," I told The Missus that I planned to participate by reading a banned book.

"Which one?"

"I'm not sure yet. But I think it's gonna be Lolita."

"That figures," she said, smirking.

A while later, I mentioned on my blog that I was well into the book. One commenter -- a woman -- said:

I don’t like to admit to many that I liked [Lolita's protagonist] Humbert in that weird and terrible way. I mean, I know he’s awful and everything. I know he is wrong, and I don’t exactly want him to win, but…

Let's pretend we've never heard of Lolita. So then what was going on here? Why might anyone have banned Lolita in the first place? Why would my wife say that it "figured" I'd select it, from among all the banned books which I hadn't read? Why would my correspondent hate to admit that she liked a fictional character, even an awful one, and why the "weird and terrible" disclaimer, and especially, what, oh what could she have meant by that "exactly"?

Enough pretending. Even if we haven't read it ourselves, and don't know the details, I think many -- most? -- reasonably well-read readers will know of Vladimir Nabokov's notorious novel. In brief (and please skip the following paragraph if you want no spoilers at all):

Late 1940s. Middle-aged Englishman who calls himself "Humbert Humbert" narrates the story. Humbert has a thing for young girls, between the ages of 9 and 14 and of a certain type: slightly built, most often blonde, flirtatious -- perhaps without knowing it -- but virginal (not necessarily in fact). He calls them "nymphets" (a term which Nabokov apparently invented himself, just for this book). Humbert moves to a suburb in the northeastern United States, taking a room with a young widow, Charlotte Haze. Discovers that Charlotte has an unconsciously seductive 12-year-old blonde daughter, Dolores -- "Dolly" to her mother, but dubbed by Humbert "Lolita." Humbert eventually marries Charlotte, expressly for the opportunities it may provide him to be alone with his stepdaughter. Charlotte is struck by a car and killed. Humbert takes off in his battered car, with Lolita, on a cross-continental odyssey during which he gets what he thinks he wants. Things turn out to be not so rosy, especially (although not exclusively) for the person whom Humbert ends up killing. The end.

Right off the bat, then, we have the ingredients to answer all those "why" questions -- the principal ingredient being: Humbert Humbert is a manipulative pedophile. In the mid-1950s, when Lolita was published, just saying the word "pedophile" in a non-clinical context was probably enough to make people recoil; placing one at the center of a first-person narrative back then probably guaranteed opposition to the book.

Nowadays, while we live in a nominally more "liberal" culture, "Think of the children!" may be a phrase which invites satire but pedophilia remains maybe even more firmly on the list of taboo subjects for conversation and even private reading. The Ick Factor is off the charts for everyone but its disturbed practitioners, regardless of our positions on the yardsticks of morality or politics; we simply know too much about the long-term consequences of the sexual abuse of innocents to find thinking about it at all "entertaining."

So how on earth could my friend claim that she -- she! -- liked such a monster, even in a weird and terrible way? Was it really necessary for her to qualify I don't want him to win with that exactly?

Um, well... yeah.

Because the thing about Lolita, especially because of its (theoretically more disturbing) first-person point of view, is the extent to which it summons empathy for the narrator. Almost none of us will share his particular lust; nearly all of us will know the experience of lusting, unhealthily, for something which is unhealthy in the first place. Humbert can no more resist his obsession for nymphets in general (or, of course, for Lolita in specific) than he can resist the urge to show off, verbally, bursting pretentiously and reflexively (for example) into weird esoteric words or untranslated passages of French whenever he feels the normal range of English doesn't suffice. In that range of yielding to uncontrollable impulse -- whether trivial or monstrous -- lie the rest of us.

And I think that's why we respond to Humbert. We don't want him to "win," to commit the sin or to get away with it, but we recognize the tug of the forbidden something. We don't him to win... but...

A note on the language: Nabokov, a native Russian speaker, sometimes complained about the relative clumsiness of English. But ye gods, could the man construct some beautiful sentences. I can't remember reading a book recently in which I highlighted so much. Here's one brief passage, chosen at random from midway through the book (it wasn't even one of my highlights):

She had entered my world, umber and black Humberland, with rash curiosity; she surveyed it with a shrug of amused distaste; and it seemed to me now that she was ready to turn away from it with something akin to plain repulsion.

The wordplay, the rhythms, the progression of meaning and tension from start to finish: if I could regularly construct sentences which so perfectly balanced all those elements, I think I could go to my grave a happy man. (As I said: we all have our unreasoning lusts.)

So do I recommend Lolita?

I never insist that people should read a book just because it's regarded (by critics or the public or, well, by me) as a "classic." With Lolita, maybe more than with most books, I'd think carefully before diving in. What's the threshold of behavior which you'll accept in your characters? Can you get past the nominal subject of a novel like Lolita? Are you after a quick read, or a book which will equally compel reading for a half-hour burst and then being put aside for an hours-long inner Hmmmm...?

Depend on how you'd answer those questions: that's the best advice I can give. I didn't find Lolita an easy book to read, and I'll probably never read it cover-to-cover again. But I'm very very happy, yes, happy that I have read it. And I can easily imagine dipping from time to time back into its (weirdly, terribly) bracing waters.

Robert Jordan: The Eye of the World

2011-01-13T22:50:00.006-05:00

The blurb on the front of this book - at least, the edition I have - says that "Jordan has come to dominate the world that Tolkien began to reveal." This is a bad blurb, because it's misleading. If you go into this book expecting a modern Tolkien, as I did, you'll be disappointed and unhappy and will become cross. Even now, when I'm able to enjoy this book on its own merits, I am doomed to write this review by comparing it to the Lord of the Rings.

Robert Jordan seems even more unsure of his books's relationship to Tolkien than I am, which contributes to the book's lurching start. Like the Fellowship of the Rings, this book begins with a group of untraveled country folk led on a desperate flight from a dark lord by a wise mage, and there are a few moments that I could swear were copied from the Lord of the Rings frame by frame. In this early phase, even the worldbuilding (which later on is the strength of the novel) is clumsily done.

About two hundred pages in, Robert Jordan suddenly finds his feet and from then on the book is amazing. Like most fantasy novels, The Eye of the World can be judged by its setting, which is complex, well developed, and impressively not really Tolkienesque at all. Where the tales of Middle-Earth focus on an inexorable and slow fall from grace, Robert Jordan's world moves through a repeating cycle of seven ages. There are no grim men returning from the wild to lead kingdoms and find elven wives here, but there are men who were once kings wandering around killing Troll-things. And so on.

Along with their setting, epic fantasy novels live or die by their endings; since these types of books focus on some great and terrible evil, there are many unique ways for them to mess this up. Some sort of a magic power that the hero pulls out of his hat with no foreshadowing, the plot strangling itself through its own complexity, the Great Dark One Beyond the Ken of Mortal Man being killed in a brawl - none of these things happen at the end of The Eye of the World. What does happen is well-executed and satisfying without falling into the trap of obsessively tying up every single plot thread.

All in all, this is more than just a fun read, although it is that. Robert Jordan has written a book that adds to the lore of fantasy without being overly derivative. You should read it. (If you're reading epic fantasy, you should also read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and A Song of Ice and Fire, by the way.)

____________

tl;dr:

Demerits: Starts off thinking it's Tolkien. Stumbles a bit.

Merits: Everything else.

Verdict: Cake.

Sherwood Smith/INDA

2011-01-13T13:55:00.000-05:00

Inda is the second son of a Marlovan prince. His destiny, to be the military commander for his older brother, who will succeed his father as prince, has been set for him since his birth, and Inda is shaping up to be a military genius in training. The summer he is ten, Inda is sent to the Marlovan capital city to train at the princes' academy with a crop of other noble second sons from around the kingdom. It's clear that war is on the horizon, because this training of very young boys is unprecedented. Threats are escalating from pirate attacks, neighboring nations, and most frighteningly, the mysterious Venn from the north. The young princes may be playing war games, but the pressure they feel to master the art of war is very real.

Inda immediately begins to shine as a star pupil at the academy, and to win loyal friends among the other second sons. But the royal city is a dangerous place, and adult politics trickle down quickly to the young princes. Inda and his friends, particularly the king's second son, are being targeted, by both older princes and by adults. When unthinkable tragedy strikes, the blame falls unfairly on Inda, whose life is upended in a most dramatic way.

Inda is the first book in a four-book epic fantasy series, and follows Inda from ages 10 to 16. It's not a Young Adult book--it's epic fantasy, written in the style of adult epic fantasy, and is certainly morally complex enough to read as an adult novel. I do think there is crossover potential, though.

The book is packed with rich characters and high adventure, battles, romance, pirates, politics, duty, and ghosts. There is very, very little magic, and to me it almost reads like historical fiction (albeit the history of a made-up world). I haven't read any other of Smith's books, but from what I've read about her oeuvre, her series are all set in different epochs of this world she has been building and writing about for the past forty years--in other words, a very richly developed and highly consistent premise.

Since I finished reading Inda in December, I've recommended it to (or bought it for) about fifteen different people, all for different reasons--there are many facets of appeal.

I confess that I found the first 50 pages difficult to navigate, just because of the many names (the characters all have titles as well as first names and family names, and just about 100% of them have nicknames, too). But on the advice of a friend I put aside worrying about all the details and kept reading--and am very, very gratified I did. The sheer number of characters becomes manageable as you get to know them all and see how their lives intersect, and Smith has such fine-tuned commitment to character development that I became rather emotionally attached to an awful lot of them. I would recommend this series wholeheartedly, and just advise readers with less exposure to/stamina for epic fantasy to keep plowing through the first 50 pages. Smith and her fans have also compiled online databases where you can see all the characters listed and grouped, if you are the kind of reader who is helped by visual aids. I do think the accessibility of the book is a flaw, but I hope it won't prevent readers from experiencing the richness of the story.

One thing I really appreciate about Sherwood Smith's world is how it scrupulously avoids the black/white good/evil hero/villain stereotypes that pervade the fantasy genre (think of almost all the big players, like Harry Potter or The Wheel of Time series). All of the characters in Inda, even the archvillains, are nuanced characters with complex motivations. Everyone is redeemable, which makes the adventure have much higher stakes, and the tragedy even more tragic. Because of the wide cast of characters and broad scope of the story, I realize my synopsis fails to even mention a lot of my favorite characters.

It's a complex novel, and I hope if you've read it (or end up reading it after this) you'll come back here and chat about it--I find it's hard to write up a concise review. But this is really special fantasy, and I hope if that's a genre of yours you'll give it a shot!

Jane Austen/PERSUASION

2011-01-10T09:19:00.002-05:00

Anne Elliot, the second daughter of the struggling Sir Walter Elliot, is 27 years old the autumn her father is forced to move out of his house because he has run out of funds. The family is very ancient and has a very high opinion of itself and its connections, although reality is gradually setting in.

Eight years ago, Anne Elliot was pressured by her status-conscious family to reject the hand of the man she loved, a young naval officer named Frederick Wentworth. Unfortunately, the broken engagement wasn't as easy to recover from as Anne would have hoped, and she never received any other offers, and now it is perhaps too late. By a cruel trick of fate, Wentworth's sister and brother-in-law, Admiral Croft, are to be the new tenants in Anne's old home. It's inevitable she will have to cross paths with Wentworth--who is now Captain Wentworth, a wealthy man of very different fortune and standing--and be reminded of her weakness in being persuaded by her friends and family not to marry him.

This was my last Jane Austen. I'm not going to pretend to review this book, since I'm not an Austen scholar and don't feel like I belong in the conversation. So instead a bunch of tibits/impressions. I studiously avoided any media representations (eg avoided films, plugged my ears and sang "Lalalala" to myself during the part of Jane Austen Book Club when they read Persuasion, etc. I wanted to be fresh and open-minded. (Incidentally, it's also the first published novel I ever read on my Kindle.) I've intended to read it anyway, but this was also on my Fill-in-the-Gaps list.

I really enjoyed the read, although I will admit it is not my favorite among the Austens. In fact, now I can make a hierarchy of my favorites:

1) Pride and Prejudice, which in my opinion is just the richest and bears the most revisiting. I know it was Jane's favorite, so I think that's a good reason for it to be mine, too :)

2) Sense and Sensibility is my favorite story, with my favorite characters. I don't think the writing is quite as rich as P&P, but Jane was younger when she published it, and still had stuff to learn.

3) Emma, because (to me) it's maybe the funniest. So even though Emma herself is SO despicable, I still love her narrative.

4) Mansfield Park, because even though Fanny can be a real trial to read about, I relate to her on a lot of points.

5) Persuasion, which is many other people's #1 favorite. I see why--the more mature romance, and the history of having messed up one's own life offers nuance some of the other books don't--but, as my roommate has pointed out, Anne Elliot is an introvert, and maybe doesn't speak as directly to my personality as some of Jane's other heroines.

6) Northanger Abbey is the only one I really didn't enjoy. I don't like satiric novels and Catherine is insufferable. But hey! I'm still glad I read it.

And those are my random notes. Please feel free to tell me your feelings :) I'd love to hear them.

THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE by Suzanne Collins

2011-01-09T12:53:00.006-05:00

Not only are we in the districts forced to remember the iron grip of the Capital's power each year, we are forced to celebrate it. And this year I am one of the stars of the show.

Katniss Everdeen is once again fighting for her life in this nail biting sequel. Despite surviving the deadly Hunger Games against all odds Katniss and fellow tribute Peeta are far from home safe and dry. Their survival is a direct threat to the Capital which rules them, and the gamemakers are out for revenge.

Fearing for their families' lives, Peeta and Katniss are again forced to play their part as star crossed lovers in the Capital's games. Will this be enough to keep their loved ones safe? And will Katniss succeed in her plan to keep Peeta alive by sacrificing her own life?

The incredible Hunger Games is a hard act to follow but Suzanne Collins has maintained her distinctive adrenaline fuelled pace in Catching Fire. The sequel delves deeper into the relationships between characters, especially the twisted love triangle of Peeta, Katniss and her best friend Gale.

In any other situation Katniss would come across as a spoilt brat with the choice of all the cookies in the jar. Instead, her dilemma is a direct result of the controlling and manipulative Capital. Katniss's frustration at living a life restricted by others is one which I'm sure many teenagers can relate to.

The boundaries between friend and foe blur in Catching Fire, as Katniss struggles to hold on to her sense of who and what she is fighting for. Katniss's most endearing qualities are also her faults. She is stubborn, impatient, quick to judge and completely human. By placing this apocalyptic story in the hands of such a realistic character, Collins is able to question human morals without preaching. And more importantly, this is done without interrupting the fast paced action.

A must read if you loved The Hunger Games.

MATCHED by Ally Condie

2011-01-04T19:26:00.002-05:00

Matched by Ally Condie
Young Adult Dystopian Sci-Fi
Dutton Books, 2010

I just finished reading this book earlier today, and it still has me spinning. So forgive me if this review comes off a little fangirl-ish.

The Society that controls Cassia's world (appropriately termed, the Society), is kind of freaky when you look at it from our modern point of view. But the people living in it, at some undetermined point in the future, feel it is... well, perfect.

All of the things that were shown in early studies to be good for longevity--happy marriages, healthy bodies--are ours to have. We live long, good lives. We die on our eightieth birthdays, surrounded by our families, before dementia sets in. Cancer, heart disease, and most debilitating illnesses are almost entirely eradicated. This is as close to perfect as any society has ever managed to get.

Which is all well and good. If you're a ROBOT.

But Cassia never questioned anything that was her "normal" until something "abnormal" happened. On your seventeenth birthday you are introduced to your perfect match. Your future significant other whom you will have children with and share the rest of your life with whether you want to or not.

The story begins at Cassia's Match Banquet. And I don't even want to tell you what happens, even at this early part of the story, which is just the tip of the iceburg of awesomeness. I honestly want you to discover all these things for yourself along the way, as I did.

Things happen quickly for Cassia from that day forward that make her wonder. You're not supposed to wonder about things. When you wonder it leads to questioning. When you question it leads to desire. When you desire it leads to impulsive actions...

I knew nothing about this story when I started reading it, other than that it had received a lot of praise from online reviewers, and that it had something to do with a so-called perfect society where people are genetically matched for optimum health in their offspring. That's it.

So it was a pleasant surprise to read this story and be amazed with each turn of the page, full of intensity and emotion and unexpected twists. I couldn't devour it fast enough.

Cover Art: 5 stars (beautiful and clean; relevant)
Title: 5 stars (snappy; relevant)
Writing: 5 stars (refreshingly crisp and easy to read; no fluff or overwriting)
Story: 5 stars (romantic tension at its finest. and the rest is simply amazing)
Characters: 5 stars (realistic and relateable. wouldn't want any of them done any differently)
Ending: 5 stars (even though you are left hanging a bit because this is the first of a series, the ending is still superb, in my opinion)

Overall Rating: 5 stars (obviously. but I wish I could give it more)

~Lydia

Sarah Waters/ FINGERSMITH

2011-01-03T11:09:00.005-05:00

Hello! This is my first review for The Book Book so here goes...

I had never read Sarah Waters before and--I feel I must be honest--I've never read any Dickens. The friend who gave me Fingersmith seemed to think this might make it difficult for me to enjoy the book, but I had no such difficulty. As other reviews have noted, Waters does a wonderful job of sewing period details into the story without ever letting the seams show or making you feel that she is merely showing off.

The story revolves around two young women with highly unusual upbringings: Susan Trinder, an orphaned thief, and Maud Lilly, born in a madhouse and raised by her uncle in the requisite mildewing, creepy house we expect from Gothic novels such as this. Both women were interesting, complex, and likable characters.

As some of you may have already suspected, there is a lesbian romance in the book. As a Waters' novice, I wasn't looking for it, but early on I found myself hoping that the two women would end up together. I think this speaks to the genuine, natural development of their relationship. This provides the sweet and hopeful core of the story.

I will resist saying more because the back of the book sort of ruined some of the twists in the plot for me. Thankfully even if you have a tendency, as I do, to try and fish out the twists before they come, you can still enjoy the ride. One caveat: if you read too slowly, you may find the story drag at times. Devour it in a week, and you'll feel satisfied.

This book is a Gothic treat: there are madwomen, murderesses, creepy gloves, reedy walks, wicked plots, twisted caretakers, and one rotten house. Curl up on a rainy day and revel in it, knowing that the end will leave you feeling as warm as a cup of English tea.

FIXING DELILAH by Sarah Ockler

2010-12-30T09:46:00.000-05:00

Fixing Delilah by Sarah Ockler
Young Adult
Little, Brown and Company, 2010

Fixing Delilah is a story about discovering buried family secrets and mending present relationships. The story begins when Delilah Hannaford's grandmother dies, and she and her mother spend the summer in Vermont preparing for the funeral, prepping her grandmother's house for sale, allocating assets, etc. Delilah and her mother clearly have a strained relationship at the start. But we soon learn of a big family fall-out at her grandfather's funeral when Delilah was eight, between Claire Hannaford (Delilah's mother), Rachel Hannaford (Delilah's aunt), and their mother, which, Delilah guesses, had something to do with the third Hannaford daughter, Stephanie, who died as a teenager before Delilah was born.

Following all that? This story is an intricately woven web and masterfully presented. It's more difficult to try and tell someone what it is about than to simply read it and learn these things along the way. However, it wasn't until about a hundred pages into it before I felt like I had to keep reading. But that feeling did come. I finished the final two-thirds of the book in record time (for me, that is. I'm a slow reader).

Through Delilah's discoveries of the events leading to her aunt Stephanie's final moments, there is also a romance ignited between her and a boy she hadn't seen since she was eight (the last time she'd been to her grandmother's house). It's clear from the moment he is introduced that there is going to be something big between them, and because it was so obvious it fell a little flat for me. I wasn't impressed with the romance aspect of this story at all, which made some sections feel like they were dragging.

There is a huge twist near the end that I totally didn't see coming, which reveals a gargantuan secret Delilah's mother had been keeping since before Delilah was born. This scene was powerful and nearly brought me to tears. Very well done, and completely unexpected (in a good way). Don't go reading ahead to see what it is, that will ruin it. Just trust me. It's brilliant.

Cover Art: 3 stars (relevant but not very eye-catching, in my opinion)
Title: 3 stars (it gave me the impression that Delilah is severely broken, but really it was her mother who needed more fixing than anyone else. kind of misleading, but still relevant)
Writing: 4 stars (beautifully written but some areas were overworded for my taste)
Story: 5 stars (emotionally compelling from start to finish)
Characters: 4 stars (excellent but I don't like it when the supporting characters clearly outshine the main character. Delilah was bland compared to the others around her)
Ending: 4 stars (excellent climactic peak, but the denouement seemed to go on forever. I prefer a punchy ending with a quick wrap-up)

Overall Rating: 4 stars

~Lydia

LOSING FAITH by Denise Jaden

2010-12-24T10:38:00.002-05:00

Losing Faith by Denise Jaden
Young Adult
Simon Pulse, 2010

This was one of my favorite reads of the year, which re-emphasized why I adore Simon Pulse books (a YA imprint of Simon & Schuster). I have yet to read anything published by them that I don't absolutely love.

Losing Faith covers some heavy issues, not the least of which is the mysterious death of the main character's sister, Faith. As the story moves along, Brie copes with this loss, deals with her parents' depression, faces her own disinterest in all things Biblical, and works to unravel the events that led to her sister's death. Many claimed it was a suicide. A martyrdom, even. But even though Brie admits she and Faith weren't as close as they once were, she cannot believe Faith would ever take her own life.

Brie would have gotten nowhere in her "investigation" without the help of Tessa, a girl from school who is the last person she would have considered saying two words to, let alone becoming friends with. Tessa is the typical bad girl character, dressed all in black, but Brie soon discovers that they have a lot in common.

I'm not sure why this book hasn't received more attention. If you're shying away from it because of the religious themes, you're severely missing out. It is presented in a way that, in my opinion, does not feel preachy or shoved down your throat. The story reads like an intense mystery/thriller/suspense novel. You won't be disappointed.

Cover Art: 3 stars (beautiful, but could have had more intrigue)
Title: 5 stars (I love titles with double meanings)
Writing: 4 stars (good but some parts felt a bit dry, unstylistic)
Story: 5 stars (full of twists and intense emotion)
Characters: 5 stars (realistic and vivid)
Ending: 4 stars (satisfying but somewhat predictable)

Overall Rating: 5 stars

~Lydia

The Book Book Reviewers' Favorite Reads of 2010

2010-12-19T12:08:00.000-05:00

In December, of course, everyone publishes "best books of the year" lists. Here at The Book Book, we don't review only new books; we go with whatever a reviewer chooses to review, regardless of year of publication.

Below appear some of our favorite reads from our reviews of the last twelve months, regardless of when the books in question came out. The order in which the books appear below is alphabetical, by title. Each link from a book title takes you to a full review (in all but one case, at The Book Book); and each link from a reviewer's name will take you to his or her own Web site.

From Claire Dawn:

My nomination goes to Anna and The French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. It's YA Contemporary. From the review at Claire Dawn's site:

Stephanie Perkins has the strange and dubious distinction of being the first author to ever make me cry in the acknowledgements.

To her husband, Jarrod: "Thank you for being you, because you are my favorite."

If that's not a person meant to write teen romance, I don't know who is.

From Lydia Sharp:

Before I Fall, by Lauren Oliver

Samantha Kingston dies in a car accident after a party one night, then keeps waking up to the same day over and over again -- the day she dies. The only way to end this cycle is to figure out who and what needs to be saved. Her life? Her reputation? Her friends? Or maybe it's that someone/something she'd never noticed until she'd been forced to relive the same events day in and day out.

I selected this book as my favorite because the story has stuck with me long after finishing the read. Oliver's writing style and storytelling skills are in a class all their own.

From Jane Steen:

In The Convent by Panos Karnezis, six nuns inhabiting a decaying Spanish convent find a baby in their midst, and the seeming equilibrium of their lives is shattered by jealousy and madness. A simply-told tale with chilling undertones.

From JES:

Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan, is nominally a YA fairy tale which you may not choose to share with your children when they're very young. (And I wouldn't blame you.) But its dark, dark surface masks a gentle and whimsical -- even playful -- heart, and it rewarded me on every page. A powerful, wrenching story, told in an exhilarating melange of not-quite-medieval English, set in a world at the very border of real and fantastic.

From Moonrat:

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell

Set in 1799 on an artificial island off the coast of Nagasaki, Japan, this novel is a story of the Dutch East India Company, Tokugawa Japan, colonialism, oppressed minority Christians, slavery, love, medical history, forgotten religious sects, miscegenation, racism, and war. Mitchell flexes his brawny fictic muscles for 400 pages here, and doesn't cut his readers any slack, so don't embark lightly. But if you have the chance to read and savor it, The Thousand Autumns may rock your world like it did mine.

Portrait of a Holocaust Child: Memories and Reflections by Rita Kasimow Brown

2010-12-18T14:27:00.004-05:00

Where I got the book: acquired through the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program.

Portrait of a Holocaust Child is a very personal memoir of a survivor. When she was a young child in 1942, Rita Kasimow Brown's family escaped from their Polish ghetto and spent nineteen months hiding in a tunnel dug beneath a farmhouse, unable to stand, living on scraps and crawling with lice.

Then they escaped. And Brown eventually moved to Israel. Where, in 2001, she processes the emotions still left over from her childhood experiences through writing about them and dialoguing with an imaginary character named Jay.

And that, really, is that. This is a very fragmentary memoir, made up as it is of the relived past, snippets of the present, and the dialogue with Jay, who talks a bit like a therapist. Which is not surprising because Brown is a therapist.

I'm left with the impression of a psyche caught in the past, unable to get free of the memories and move on to any kind of resolution. Brown's artwork, on color plates in the middle of the book, reinforces that impression: while the abstracts have an adult feel to them, the people in her paintings are childishly represented.

I found Portrait slightly annoying and somewhat disturbing. If you are studying severe, lifelong post-traumatic stress disorder, it might be interesting. If you're a Holocaust junkie, you might like it. Otherwise, I'd pass.

Nemesis by Philip Roth

2010-12-18T11:34:00.005-05:00

Where I got the book: my own choice from the library.

I've only read one other book by Philip Roth, The Human Stain. And I wasn't crazy about it, although I thought the writing was superior. (And I guess a few other people thought so too, since it won a PEN/Faulkner Award.)

I liked Nemesis a whole lot more, even though I thought the novel was structurally flawed. Or is that genius, to build flaws deliberately into a novel and then get away with it? It's a fine line.

[SPOILER ALERT] Nemesis is set in Newark in the hot summer of 1944, specifically in the Jewish community in Weequahic. It begins in an expository style, explaining the origins of the polio epidemic of that year, before introducing the main character, Bucky Cantor. This young man, a superb athlete but barred from war service by poor eyesight, works as a playground supervisor and has a passion for helping children grow as athletes. He is a model citizen: brought up by his grandparents, he grew up working in their business and did well at school. He is small, tough, and respected, and his relationship with a doctor's daughter promises a rise in society.

But the polio epidemic hits Weequahic hard, and the playground is particularly badly affected. Children sicken and even die, and Bucky Cantor's faith in God is shaken as he tries to comfort the families and puzzle out why "his" children should be the victims of such a virulent strain. When he finally gives in to the temptation to leave it all behind and join his girlfriend at a camp in the mountains, Bucky's nemesis follows him and destroys his life.

This is a great story told mostly in a tight narrative style interspersed with dialogue. I loved the affectionate descriptions of the community and its people, and really got a sense of the suffering of the families. The writing is excellent: tight and compelling, it sketches scenes with great economy of detail but considerable power, and the dialogues and action are completely convincing.

Where the book fell down, for me, was the odd shock of discovering, about halfway into the book, that the narrator is not the anonymous "omniscient" so useful to novelists, but one of the polio victims; he tells Bucky's story (so that we see Bucky mostly as "Mr. Cantor") but really tells us almost nothing about his own part in it. The idea that he would have become friends with Bucky later in life and is now narrating what he has learned from him just doesn't strike true. I would have been OK with an omniscient narrator, but I find a second-hand narrative through a very minor character rather jarring.

The second thing I did not like was precisely the account of Bucky later in life, when he has turned his back on his former love and all that connected him with the playground. The embittered invalid is a familiar enough trope, but the way this section of the novel is sandwiched between the actual story and a final description of Bucky in his glory days (which strikes me as an attempt to balance out the present-day section) doesn't work for me. Bucky's anger against God is explored in this section, but I think it could have been worked more satisfactorily into the main narrative given Roth's great ability with the pen.

But I could be wrong. Maybe the flaws are deliberate attempts to break the rhythm of the narrative and shock the reader out of complacency. If they are, then I respect them. My overall impression is still of a powerful piece of writing that is well worth reading, and for that reason I'm giving Nemesis an "excellent" rating.

FREEFALL by Mindi Scott

2010-12-14T19:03:00.002-05:00

Freefall by Mindi Scott
YA contemp
(Simon Pulse, 2010)

Seth was the last person to see his best friend, Isaac, alive. And the first person to find him dead. Now he's dealing with careless friends and a girl he may or may not have slept with and failing grades and stagefright and no one seems to care that Isaac is dead and everything is spinning out of control...

...then he meets Rosetta. And little by little, as they're forced to help each other face their issues in an elective course called Interpersonal Communications, things start to turn around. For both of them.

This novel gripped me from beginning to end. Mindi Scott's writing style and constant story twists keep you turning pages. An amazing debut. Four out of five stars.

~Lydia

The Brontës by Juliet Barker

2010-12-13T23:06:00.004-05:00

Where I got the book: a gift from a friend (see below).

While I was engaged in the writing marathon that is NaNoWriMo, I was also caught up in a little personal reading marathon. Juliet Barker's The Brontës, published in 1994, is a humungo 830 pages, followed by 170 pages of notes. It is frequently, so it seems, referred to as the "definitive" Brontë biography, which is why I asked my friend The Blond Knitter to buy it for me when I won her blog contest. (I like to think of the writers of definitive biographies crying "Follow that!" as they write the final line. I would.)

The Brontës totally lives up to its billing. Between the text and the notes (which I only dipped into), I really did feel that Barker had explored every possible source available to her. And yet not once, not once, I am not kidding you, was I bored. This could be due to my fascination with all things 19th-century-literature, but I think I'll put it down to good writing.

And I discovered so many interesting things, especially about Patrick Brontë, the father, and his most famous daughter, Charlotte. The book begins with the transformation of Paddy Branty, a poor but highly intelligent farmer's son, to the gentleman who outlived his wife and all six of his children; in some ways, he is the star of the narrative just by reason of his longevity.

Barker sets out to set the record straight about Patrick, who in Brontë legend is usually seen as mad and bad; in her book you get a portrait of a deeply devout clergyman (with a few foibles, such as a tendency to brag about himself and his children to the family he left behind in Ireland) who greatly loved his children, encouraged them to think and write, and was constantly worried about their ill health (which mostly seems to have been due to Haworth's generally unhealthy environment. The water supply was bad, and disease was rife in the village). Charlotte, on the other hand, comes across as less saintly than she usually does: she was rather on the bossy side, prone to outbursts and sulking, and decidedly manipulative.

Barker quotes extensively from the Brontës' letters and early poetry and prose, showing every alteration and insertion so that I got a real sense of their writing process. Fascinating. Her notes are detailed and written in just as lively a fashion as the text.

As the book advanced, it became increasingly hard to put down. A very nicely done treatment of a fascinating group of subjects. I'm actually racking my brains to think of a criticism, but the only one that comes to mind is that the collection of photos is a little idiosyncratic. But I've read enough about the issues surrounding the publication of photos in books to understand that this may have been a situation beyond the author's control.

I'm happy. Except that I have to inform you, dear reader, that this is a hard book to obtain. I was lucky and located a good copy at a reasonable price, but I see that on the day of writing we're talking about "collectible" (i.e. exorbitant) prices. I hope you have better luck.

Catherynne M. Valente/PALIMPSEST

2010-12-12T16:23:00.002-05:00

One night, four very different individuals fall asleep to be inducted together into a world they each think is a dream. The four people are Sei, a 20-year-old Japanese woman who works as a railway employee on the Tokyo-Kyoto bullet train; November, a thirty-something San Fransisco woman who works as a beekeeper; Oleg, an ethnically Russian man who works as a locksmith in New York; and Ludo, an Italian man who collects and repairs old books. They have nothing in common except Palimpsest, the world they are brought to. When they wake up in their respective beds the next morning, each has a mark like a new tattoo somewhere on his or her body. It is a map of a tiny section of Palimpsest, the invisible dream city. The only way back is to find other marked people--and to have sex with them.

Palimpsest the city is like a strange sexually transmitted disease of the mind, an obsession with a brightly colored and strangely textured dreamworld where the thing each person is missing in their life can be found. Oleg can be with his long-dead sister. Ludo can find his beloved wife, who left him without explanation. November, an incurable introvert, can be Queen of a society ruled by insects. And Sei, who really loves nothing but trains, can devote her life to loving them. But the happiness lasts only the length of the night, and the "real" world becomes harder and harder to choke down for each of them upon return.

I had to look up the word "palimpsest" while I was reading--it was one of those words I thought I knew, but realized I didn't. A palimpsest, it turns out, is a page of a book (think old-style velum) that has previously been written or printed on, but has now been scraped or wiped blank so it can be recorded on again. I think this gets at the core idea of people trying to create their own stories while never quite managing to escape the residue of their pasts, or the pasts of others, which interfere with their lives. But also, the word kind of sounds diseased, doesn't it? I like to think that echo is deliberate.

The book reminded me in pieces of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities and Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale, only much sexier, given that every chapter needs to have at least one act of sex in it to transport the character from the real world to Palimpsest. While Valente's writing is certainly sensual, though, I wouldn't describe the book as erotic--there is an increasing sense of desperation in the characters' quests for map-marked partners. Valente creates some thought-provoking implications about why humans pursue what they do, and how happy it really makes them.

The writing is lush, indulgent, and episodic. I was to some extent frustrated by the source of the world, and felt like when I got to the end I hadn't completely wrapped my head around its origins or meaning--perhaps a deliberate effect of Valente's writing, since that frustration of half-grasped information feels a lot like dream-frustration, when nothing quite makes total sense.

Bob Harris/WHO HATES WHOM

2010-12-07T06:56:00.000-05:00

Inhabitants, famously, of a country surrounded by oceans and allies, Americans have a reputation for not knowing what's going on in the rest of the world. While not exclusively for U.S. readers, Bob Harris's Who Hates Whom tackles such ignorance from an idiosyncratic angle, per the subtitle: Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts, and Various Things Blowing Up: A Woefully Incomplete Guide.

As the tone of that title (and subtitle) indicates, you should not expect from Who Hates Whom a formal -- or even TV documentary-style -- study of the causes of war, despotism, and long-simmering international hatreds. To the extent possible with such a cheerless topic, what you actually get here is a breezy race through large-scale violent current events, and the history behind them.

Harris makes no secret of his "qualifications" for writing this. He's been a television host (for a show about urban legends) and writer (for CSI, Bones, and other shows), a stand-up comedian, a successful game-show contestant (according to his Web site, he's accumulated cash and prizes worth over $350,000 on Jeopardy! and other shows), and a designer of puzzles. His educational background? Electrical engineering. His previous book, Adventures in Trebekistan, recounted his history of success (and otherwise) on Jeopardy! All of which, he notes, "qualifies me for squat. I'm lucky I'm allowed to drive."

But as I knew before picking this up, he's also an incisive commentator on current events. On the right subjects, politics and current events among others, he's less joke machine than satirist.

In working on this review, I couldn't think of a single example of the book's major shortcomings which Harris doesn't concede right at the outset. Yes, it was out of date the minute it came out. (Publication date: 2007.) True, he's a US citizen (and has lived here most but not all of his life), born in 1963, and this can't help biasing his choices and his observations. And fair enough: at 218 pages, Who Hates Whom can't present a complete picture of a single conflict, let alone dozens of them.

None of those problems prevents it from achieving its central aim: to provide a clear, concise understanding of the world's major trouble spots. "This book is meant to be handy when you see something explode on CNN but they switch to Anna Nicole Smith still being dead before you're sure what went kaboom."

Right. He jokes about Anna Nicole Smith media coverage. (And that, from the Introduction, was just the first of numerous references to it.) But that the joke is dated doesn't make it unfunny, and it doesn't invalidate the joke's point, and it didn't weaken my desire for even a superficial, not too out-of-date understanding of the subject.

The book is organized geographically. It covers conflicts, first, in the Middle East and central Asia, moves on to Africa, then to south Asia, east and southeast Asia, the Americas, and wraps up in Europe. Reading about so many different historical and current events, in so many countries, one after another, can be exhausting: it exhausts the mind (the "my brain is ready to explode" effect), and it exhausts the soul ("human beings sure are cruel and they sure are stupid"). You may begin thinking that kidding at all about such stuff trivializes it; yet you may come (as I did) to look forward to the next joke, even a weak and easy one, just for a little psychological relief.

One of the best things about Who Hates Whom, for me, was -- despite Harris's built-in and unavoidable biases -- its neutrality:

I have come to recommend strongly against looking for "good guys." Conflicts often aren't two-sided, and our capacity for rationalization means even the "right" side usually does lousy things. So be ready for conflicts with two marginally bad guys, three bad guys and no good guys, etc.

(See that cover? The two opposing forces are identical; they're differently-colored mirror images.)

If you seek ammunition for a current-events debate about which side is "right," in other words, you need to look elsewhere. Harris does note paragons of nobility and innocent victims. It's just that they all turn out, or so it seems, not to be the principal parties in any conflict. They're individuals. Exceptions and bystanders.

So do you put down Who Hates Whom in despair, believing that nowhere is safe and sane? Not if you read it through the last chapter, which notes:

Get an atlas and cross off the countries that you'd really never visit any part of because you know that they're just too dangerous. There may be dozens, but even then, you'll be surprised at how little you trim.

The book's last few lines may strike you as insufficiently cynical, given all the mass murder and insanity, fear and egotism and self-certainty in the world which you've just read about. Hope and common sense may feel like pretty flimsy weapons to be matched up against bullets and machetes. But really, y'know? They're the only things that have ever worked, consistently. And they have worked: despite official assurances to the contrary, the world has grown demonstrably safer over the course of decades and centuries.
_____________________

Note: You can preview Who Hates Whom on Google Books, if you'd like a peek before committing to the whole thing.

N.K. Jemisin/THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS

2010-12-06T18:00:00.002-05:00

Yeine is the princess of Darr, a "barbarian" kingdom far from the administrative capital of Sky, but her life is disrupted when she is called to Sky following her mother's death. Yeine's mother had been the heir to the powerful Arameri family, who rule all of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms from Sky, but had given it all up to flee to Darr with her Darre husband. Now that her mother is dead, Yeine's grandfather, the king, has called Yeine to the capital to compete for the unwanted privilege of being his heir.

The more Yeine learns about the Arameri capital, the less she likes it--it is a city of cruelty and oppression, where no one's life is sacred and where power is maintained through a distasteful pact with Itempas, the Skyfather, one of the three gods. (In the pact, the Arameri keep a second god and the gods' children as slaves; the third god was murdered in the war for power.) And now Yeine is being forced to compete for the dubious distinction of heir to this realm, and for her life.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms was recommended to me separately by several different people, at least two of whom said it was the best thing they had read this year. I definitely enjoyed it and would recommend it to all fantasy and scifi readers--it's innovative but epic, with plenty to chew on. It's adventurous, sexy, and morally fraught--basically everything one looks for in meaningful new fantasy novels. This is an idea book, with many powerful allegories, and if I had one gripe with it it was that it could have been longer and let me indulge in those ideas a little longer. But that's ok, I'll forgive the author, since she's written two more books in the series.

The Knife of Never Letting Go

2010-12-02T15:40:00.007-05:00

By Patrick Ness

This is the first Young Adult book in the Chaos Walking Trilogy. Though the MC Todd's narrative got annoying at times (he is a teenage boy, after all), this is one of the only books I have recently read that I can say is truly unique.

All of the characters, at least to start, are male, and all possess an illness they caught from the planet called, "Noise", which makes their thoughts open to all around them in both word and picture. This leads to some funny moments when the MC's thoughts (the book's narrative), are answered by the characters around him.

Even the animals can talk, and Todd's dog, Manchee, has some hilarious moments, including where he has to admit he was going, "Poo, Todd" instead of watching his back.

The positives far outweigh the negative portions, and it does take a dark turn in the last third of the book. I have to recommend it for its uniqueness and because it needs to be read to appreciate parts of the rest of the trilogy.

POSITIVELY by Courtney Sheinmel

2010-11-13T10:50:00.000-05:00

Positively by Courtney Sheinmel
Middle Grade Contemp
Simon & Schuster, 2009

Every so often I come across a book by accident that ends up being one of my favorite reads of the year. This is such a book. It's not exactly new, but for some reason it was still featured on the "new release" shelves in the YA section of my local library. I had no idea what to expect just by looking at the cover, but I like pink so I picked it up.

I know. That's a silly reason to read a book blurb. I've never denied the spell that book covers cast on me, though. For this one, it was just the overall cleanness of it (and the pink bubbles) that got my attention.

Once I cracked it open and read the blurb, there was no turning back.

Emerson Price cannot remember a time when life was ordinary. She was four years old when she and her mom were diagnosed as HIV-positive -- infected with the virus that causes AIDS -- and eight when her parents divorced. Now she is thirteen and her mother is dead. Emmy moves in with her father and stepmother, but she feels completely alone. Even though everyone has always accepted her, no one -- not her father, or stepmother, or even her best friend -- understands what it's like to have to take medicine every single day and to be so afraid of getting sick. Now Emmy misses her mom more than she ever thought she would.

When Emmy's dad and stepmother send her to Camp Positive, a camp for HIV-positive girls, Emmy is certain she is going to hate it. But soon she realizes that she is not so alone after all -- and that sometimes letting other people in can make all the difference in the world.

It's a bit chilling to think of this girl's situation. Even more chilling was the opening sentence:

When my mother died I imagined God was thinking, One down, and one to go.

The story that followed did not disappoint. Something like this has the potential to smack you around with ideals, but the author never once did that. It was raw and real, and at times, a bit unreasonable. But I wouldn't expect a 13 year-old girl to be reasonable, especially when she knows she might not live to see adulthood, she might not ever have a first kiss, let alone have sex with anyone... she might not ever know if people are nice to her because they feel sorry for her or because they actually like her as a person.

These are not small things.

And yes, this book made me cry, but probably not for the reason you're thinking. When Emmy goes to camp she starts to see things differently, about herself and others. What really got to me, though, was how her view of her mother remained consistent through the entire story. She never got upset with her mom for passing on this death sentence to her. She cherished what they had together while they had it. She remembered the good things about her mom, and if she realized she was forgetting something specific, like the sound of her mom's voice, it saddened her.

There are so many things to love about this book. I'm sure I could read it again and see things I didn't see before. It is one of those rare reading experiences that has a truly resonating quality, which is why I'm surprised I'd never heard of it before.

Please read this book and tell others about it. I've added it to my list of recommended reading for teens, but I think adults should read it, too. Everyone.

~Lydia

George Friedman - The Next 100 Years

2010-11-08T03:11:00.005-05:00

TL; DR : Worth reading, if you can take it as speculative sci-fi rather than a history of things which haven't happened yet. Buy it if you're looking for something interesting and feel like stepping off your beaten literary path.

For some reason, it's become really popular to predict the coming fall of America. China is rising, we're falling, our age of dominance is over and we'll soon be playing but a bit part on the world stage. Depressing stuff. Which is why this book was, if not always completely believable, at least a refreshing read.
In this book, George Friedman first claims that he will draw a rough outline of how the next hundred years are going to play out, and then proceeds to draw a ridiculously detailed one. I won't pick apart all of his core assumptions here, because I would be in serious danger of breaking the strictly enforced 60,000 word limit. Suffice to say that, if you write a future history based on the assumptions that China and Russia will both fall apart, and America will continue to rise, you're building on shaky ground.
But let that go. Predicting the future is really a hopeless enterprise, and reading a book of predictions as a graven list of Things That Will Happen can only be annoying. That isn't to say, however, that The Next 100 Years isn't worth reading. Friedman starts with a valid (if not perfect) set of assumptions, and reasons forward along the most rational path - as far as any of history's twists can be called 'rational'. The result is a sprawling tangle of future wars and politicking that makes for a good story if you can get past the fact that you're supposed to take all of this seriously.
In the end, there's nothing more fun than reading about the US squaring off against Japan, and winning. Again.

Patrick Lee/THE BREACH

2010-11-06T12:44:00.005-04:00

I just finished this and I'm not sure I can formulate any coherent thought other than YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK RIGHT NOW. LIKE STARTING YESTERDAY.

This one took me by the throat in the first sentence and didn't let go until the last. Actually, it didn't let me go at the last sentence. It didn't let me go at all. Luckily there's a sequel coming out at the end of December, titled GHOST COUNTRY.

Read this. If you have to sell a kidney (to steal Simon's suggestion) just to get the mass market paperback, do it. If you love thrillers, you'll love this. If you love SF, you'll still love it. If you love taut, no-nonsense writing that tells the damn story, you'll love this.

BIG new fan of Patrick Lee. One of the few books I've read in a while that left me shaking.

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