tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69077473921389918072024-02-19T20:49:43.644-05:00a book a weekaka "I used to have a blog, let's see if it's still there"Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.comBlogger386125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-50468650422642512492018-01-31T12:59:00.001-05:002018-01-31T12:59:31.543-05:00The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1405802743l/6266872.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="317" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1405802743l/6266872.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>
<i>The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle 1)</i><br />
<div>
by Patrick Rothfuss</div>
<div>
DAW, 2007</div>
<div>
662 pages</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
I'm not going to write much here, but this is great and you should read it if you have any interest in fantasy at all. The reason I'm not going to write much is because I already talked about it at length with my friend Jessica over at Jessica Reads Things. On camera. Apparently.</div>
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<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LqW60p6lolA" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
But seriously. I know I'm late to the game, but what an excellent book. If you are also late to the game, don't let the size scare you. The chapters are short and it goes fast.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-15981876813418575002018-01-04T23:01:00.001-05:002018-01-04T23:01:33.303-05:00Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1481223015l/31920820.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Cover of memoir Priestdaddy by author Patricia Lockwood" border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="315" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1481223015l/31920820.jpg" title="Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood" width="132" /></a></div>
<i>Priestdaddy</i><br />
by Patricia Lockwood<br />
Riverhead Books, May 2017<br />
336 pages<br />
<br />
This book. Is so. Funny heartbreaking beautiful. It is about family, warts and all. It's about religion, and being female, and writing, and poetry, and memory, and growing up, and going home. It's about love, and all the good and all the pain that can bring.<br />
<br />
<i>Priestdaddy</i> is technically a memoir, but if you're looking for a straightforward, average memoir, this is not that. You had better be prepared to let Lockwood take you on her journey in her way, because she's not going to conform to your expectations. The writing is spectacular, unsettling, and bursting out at the seams. She spirals into digressions with the virtuosity of a scatting jazz vocalist, like she's galloping through the English language with her hands white-knuckled on the reigns, leaving this reader breathless and slightly disoriented and utterly thrilled. Sometimes she writes like her father, the titular priest, plays guitar: with gratuitous effusion in a way that almost (but not quite) makes sense.<br />
<br />
Lockwood's family has an astonishing number of warts. They are eccentric in a way that is so astounding, sometimes shocking, that it's almost hard to believe - Lockwood is a standard-bearer for the adage that "truth is stranger than fiction" because I'm pretty sure some of the things she writes about would be considered too outrageous to be allowed in a novel. Nothing escapes her sideways gaze; the gaze is both pointed and compassionate. Sometimes she is full of anger. But she also loves expansively, if in complicated ways.<br />
<br />
This whole book is complicated. It's funny and erudite and full of light and sometimes she's talking about things that are crass or horrible. She writes about her childhood in ways that the memories come across as both sharp and slightly unreal, as childhood memories often do. She indulges extravagantly in hyperbole, such that sometimes you're not sure when to take her seriously, and then she will reach right into your chest cavity and grab hold of your beating heart with a furious concision and you take everything absolutely seriously and feel sick. And then in the next paragraph you will love the people in her life, because she obviously does, and she is holding them tenderly so that you do too.<br />
<br />
I know this is not a book for everyone; if you are easily offended by coarse language or bodily functions or any whiff of blasphemy, you will probably not make it past the first chapter. Likewise if you can't handle chronological jumping, digressions, or someone poking and prodding at language just to see what she can make it do. But I loved it, and I can't stop talking about it or thinking about it, and I am delighted at the feeling that Patricia Lockwood is just getting started.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-56159285813744860092018-01-01T21:30:00.000-05:002018-01-01T21:30:09.410-05:00Love in Lowercase by Francesc Miralles, translated by Julie Wark<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1433123206l/25489399.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="English cover of Love in Lowercase by Francesc Miralles from Penguin Books (image from Goodreads)" border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="310" height="200" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1433123206l/25489399.jpg" title="Love in Lowercase by Francesc Miralles (image from Goodreads)" width="130" /></a></div>
<div>
<i>Love in Lowercase</i></div>
<div>
by Francesc Miralles, trans. Julie Wark</div>
<div>
Penguin Books, 2016; original publication 2006</div>
<div>
224 pages</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
I first heard about this book at the end of librarian Annie Spence's <i>Dear Fahrenheit 451</i>, which I could basically have read and called it work time. It's full of library shop talk, but anyone who loves books as objects would find something to enjoy about Spence's book. At the end, Spence puts together a series of reading suggestions - basically readers' advisory in book form, and I decided to try a couple of the books that she recommended.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I decided to try <i>Love in Lowercase</i> by Francesc Miralles, which has been described as a "<i>Rosie Project</i>-esqe" read. I wouldn't know, because I haven't read <i>The Rosie Project</i>, but lots of people seemed to like it, and Spence talked about how books, language, stories, and culture play a large role in <i>Love in Lowercase</i>, on top of it being a romance.<i> </i>Usually my sort of thing. Once started, though, this had more of a Paulo Coehlo-esque feeling for me, which - not my sort of thing. But there was enough to it, and it read easily enough, for me to keep going, and it's not very long.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It is a romance, but unlike my usual feelings about romance in books (which can be boiled down to "more please") I hardly cared what happened to this one. At the most it was a catalyst to get Simon, bachelor professor of German at a university in Barcelona, to get out of his comfortable routine. It was one of those insta-love (though with a small twist) things that seem so far-fetched that it stretches even my incredibly stretchy suspension of disbelief, and Gabriela doesn't quite get fleshed out enough to make sense, though - as I think about it, I suspect that's at least a little on purpose, because Simon doesn't know her at all either, despite being wildly in love with her. She puts up with it very well.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
More interesting to me was Simon himself, on his own. As the book begins he's a very crabby young-ish man who has a comfortable life: he's a professor, who teaches his classes, feeds himself, occasionally goes out for a drink or a walk on his own, likes classical music and film, and generally has a very low opinion of the rest of humanity. But at the same time, he misses human connection, and he almost knows it; he spends New Year's Eve panicking about his own mortality, but he doesn't seem to realize that what's missing is relationships that mean something to him. Enter the cat.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Simon doesn't like cats, of course; he thinks they're dirty, but out of some sort of soft, human impulse, he puts a saucer of milk out for an orange tabby that shows up at his door on New Year's Day, and suddenly things start to happen. Coincidence leads to coincidence, plus Simon actually starts trying, after finding himself drawn into relationships with both his elderly upstairs neighbour and the vet who gives Mishima the cat his vaccinations. His most fascinating interactions come in the form of Valdemar, a physicist-turned-fugitive author who may or may not be experiencing a serious break from reality.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
A warning for those of you who find unresolved endings frustrating: this is not the book for you. But it does leave the reader feeling like Simon's life is at least going to be quite a lot more interesting, and like he has the tools now to actually have friendships and relationships, as awkward as they're going to be while he's still learning. And by the end of the book I was glad of that; I didn't love this book, but I liked it, and enough that I can see myself picking up Miralles' book <i>Wabi-Sabi</i>, which also involves cats and relationships and will likely be a mildly entertaining and fast read.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-25487836528301954722017-01-06T21:16:00.002-05:002017-01-06T21:17:31.941-05:00a boatload of cookbooks<b>Books completed this week: </b><br />
<div>
<ul>
<li>none</li>
</ul>
<div>
<b>Books I'm currently reading:</b></div>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><i>if on a winter's night a traveller </i>by Italo Calvino (moved this to my work-break-book)</li>
<li><i>Difficult Conversations</i> by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patten, and Sheila Heen</li>
<li><i>Ranma 1/2 Vols 5-6</i> by Rumiko Takahashi</li>
<li><i>Soul Music</i> by Terry Pratchett (my January Pratchett - good so far)</li>
</ul>
<div>
<b>Books that made it into the house this week:</b></div>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>a boatload of cookbooks</li>
</ul>
<div>
<b>Picture books we like and must read multiple times this week:</b></div>
</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><i>I am Josephine (and I am a Living Thing)</i> by Jan Thornhill, illus. Jacqui Lee</li>
<li><i>One Some Many</i> by Marthe Jocelyn, illus. Tom Slaughter (we've had this for ages, but smallfry has recently realized she can read it by herself and so has been reading it to us; remains one of my favourites)</li>
</ul>
<div>
***</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Not much to say, other than that I continue to find a bunch of things to do other than read things I enjoy reading. I don't even know why. It's stressing me out a bit because I think of myself as a reader, but I hardly spend any time reading lately. I'm not even listening to audiobooks. After my rocket-like start last year, I was hoping for better this year. But there's still time...</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-36298935496257328672016-12-30T22:53:00.004-05:002016-12-30T22:55:19.227-05:00maybe I will, maybe I won'tLet's see what happens if I try something new.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Books completed this week: </b></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><i>Ranma 1/2 Vols. 3-4</i> by Rumiko Takahashi (graphic novel, reread, very enjoyable)</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Books I'm currently reading:</b></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><i>if on a winter's night a traveller </i>by Italo Calvino, trans. William Weaver (fiction, I'm enjoying it, but it's not going as fast as I thought it might when I started)</li>
<li><i>Difficult Conversations</i> by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patten, and Sheila Heen (nonfiction, professional development, very useful)</li>
<li><i>Ranma 1/2 Vols. 5-6</i> by Rumiko Takahashi</li>
</ul>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<b>Books that made it into the house this week:</b></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><i>Ghost Month</i> by Ed Lin (this is one of those books I was <i>super</i> excited to get and as soon as I held it in my hand I wasn't sure I wanted to read it right now... such is the curse of the librarian)</li>
<li><i>The Hidden Life of Trees</i> by Peter Wohlleben (this was the Christmas gift of choice in the family - there were four separate copies, including mine, given to immediate family members)</li>
<li><i>A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age</i> by Daniel Levitin (given to fishy, not me, but it's on my to-read list so I'll probably do that sometime too.)</li>
</ul>
<div>
***</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So the Calvino. I'm enjoying it, and it delighted me especially in the first seven to ten pages. A book written in the second person that can delight me is a rare beast indeed. But for whatever reason it's not grabbing me, in that I'm not desperate to get back to it, which I find I have to be these days in order to read at any speed. There are so many other things calling for my attention that I have to be hooked by a book, really hooked, in order to finish it within the three week library lending period. I need to want to read that book to the exclusion of everything else, and that alone seems to give me the kind of focus I need. The exception to this is nonfiction, which can generally be picked up and put down whenever, as long as it's non-narrative, so a few minutes here and there can be stolen out of a day to make a little progress.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Calvino has a narrative. I'm just not as wrapped up in it yet as I need to be. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-38562780203989060702016-01-31T22:58:00.000-05:002016-01-31T23:14:30.946-05:00Long Awaited Reads MonthSo, I did this, or my own version of it. I have so much to choose from, with books that I own that I want to read. I have a shelf full of them. I need to weed it. I'm in a weeding mood. I've historically been extremely reluctant to weed my own shelves, though, so we'll see how that goes.<br />
<br />
But the thing is, on those shelves are a number of things that I keep putting off because for whatever reason, something else always seems more pressing. January, as Long Awaited Reads Month (thanks to <a href="http://www.thingsmeanalot.com/2016/01/january-is-for-comfort-reading.html">Ana</a> and <a href="http://irisonbooks.com/2016/01/05/long-awaited-reading-for-january/">Iris</a>) was the perfect time to forget more pressing and just go with what I knew I could love.<br />
<br />
Here's how I did:<br />
<br />
<i>Men at Arms</i> by Terry Pratchett<br />
<i>A Sand County Almanac and Essays from Round River</i> by Aldo Leopold<br />
<i>Disco for the Departed</i> by Colin Cotterill<br />
<i>Terrier</i> by Tamora Peirce<br />
<br />
That doesn't count me starting Wilkie Collins' <i>The Woman in White</i>, which I abandoned around page 70 for the third time in my life because ffs, Walter Hartright. And I also read Susan Dennard's <i>Truthwitch</i>, which can't be a LAR because it was released this month, except that it kind of felt like the book I've been waiting for so I'm going to count it for a half point.<br />
<br />
That's 4.5 books. In one month. That's amazing for me these days. It turns out reading books that fit like a comfortable pair of jeans helps me read more. And when I read more, I feel better about myself. So even though I have been as sick as possible without hospitalization this month - still coughing up goo and feeling exhausted five weeks in - I can't count this month as a total wash; I read some wonderful, wonderful books.<br />
<br />
I'll do little mini reviews because that's as much as I'm up to at this moment, but I may have more to say about each of these books as time goes on.<br />
<br />
<i>Men at Arms: </i>It's been a long time since I read a Discworld book. Too long, really. Plus it's a Night Watch novel, and I love the Night Watch. I read it in two days and it was the perfect way to start my reading year. Amazing how relevant Pratchett seems to be, no matter when he wrote the book.<br />
<br />
<i>A Sand County Almanac:</i> Putting my thoughts together on this one is going to be hard. Good thing I took notes. It was brilliant, the best thing I've read this month, and that's saying something. It was also the longest awaited of the long awaited books. I think I first heard of it when I was doing my undergrad and that is longer ago than I care to admit. It's surprisingly easy to read, given how dense it gets sometimes; the <i>Almanac</i> section is beautiful but regrettably short, the essays from <i>Round River</i> are deep and thought-provoking. Another book that is startlingly, and sadly, as relevant now as it was when it was written... which was the 1940s.<br />
<br />
<i>Disco for the Departed:</i> I can't believe how long it took me to get to this. I've had it home from the library at least four or five times, and never made it past the first couple of pages before it was due, entirely because of reading other things. Wonderful to be back in 1970s Laos with Dr. Siri. I'll go anywhere with Dr. Siri. One of my favourite characters of all time. Cotterill's writing remains just stellar and the characterization excellent.<br />
<br />
<i>Terrier: </i>Oh Tamora Pierce. If Robin McKinley started my life-long love of fantasy, Tamora Pierce's <i>Alanna</i> cemented it. But I haven't read much of her since that series, and <i>Terrier</i> has kind of called to me, since it was published. The first time I tried to read it I stumbled on some of the formatting stuff - different fonts for different prologue journals and I didn't like the fonts, which is a stupid reason not to read a book - but once I got past that this time I was in for good. Beka Cooper is fantastic and Pierce's sense of place, and use of language (oh my stars the slang) is everything I love. This is essentially a police procedural set in a fantasy world, exactly my catnip, and all tangled up in a coming-of-age story. Will be reading <i>Bloodhound</i>, hopefully won't take me until next January to get to it.<br />
<br />
I'll save ranting about how much I loved <i>Truthwitch</i> for later. I hope. I had meant to write up my thoughts on <i>Almanac</i> two weeks ago, which is not a great sign. I'll get to it! And this is technically the end of Long Awaited Reads Month for me, but... that's not going to stop me from sticking to things that will feel good to read. I need it right now, at least until my lungs stop pretending they belong to my grandfather.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-16555034665562847332015-12-26T21:40:00.002-05:002015-12-26T21:40:27.004-05:00seven years is what it isSeven whole years! Well, this last year was more like... a third of a year, by the output. But I'm still here and still thinking about writing about what I read. The days somehow seem shorter and the time is going faster, and I get neither as much reading nor anywhere close to as much writing done as I'd like to.<br />
<br />
I'm hoping to at least participate in Long Awaited Reads month, in what ever form that takes this year - I've got both Aldo Leopold's <i>Sand County Almanac</i> and Italo Calvino's <i>If on a winter's night a traveller</i> sitting ready to go. I've been reading widely, trying to keep up with my book club at work; I've started <i>A Reunion of Ghosts</i> by Judith Clare Mitchell for our February meeting already, which is way out of my normal reading way, but I'm cautiously optimistic that I'll get through it. Although I have been not-finishing a lot more than I used to not-finish too. I think if I can try to take notes on and write here about the book club books I'll lead a better discussion; that's how it seems to work, usually.<br />
<br />
So yes. You can be forgiven for wondering if anything was happening here at all lately. But it's been happening for seven years. Can't stop now!<br />
<br />
Thanks for reading, if you do, and wishing you all a happy holiday season and a new year full of good people and good books!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-36962464695781569042015-12-10T14:04:00.000-05:002015-12-10T14:04:02.083-05:00Kiss of Steel by Bec McMaster<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVZbB84JgF__qhszA7vIOsMpIsNeoJ1tFT-sinj5sYurFNJGER5tOHnN_B789sTjs9vo1nPzKZSfoHjeKtNOKbGqYNbIHpHOhjnJR1MZc15XCoxJPAcWwHWRQ2VCHOxQld9B22SuWiZ2Tv/s1600/mcmaster+kiss+of+steel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVZbB84JgF__qhszA7vIOsMpIsNeoJ1tFT-sinj5sYurFNJGER5tOHnN_B789sTjs9vo1nPzKZSfoHjeKtNOKbGqYNbIHpHOhjnJR1MZc15XCoxJPAcWwHWRQ2VCHOxQld9B22SuWiZ2Tv/s200/mcmaster+kiss+of+steel.jpg" width="121" /></a><i>Kiss of Steel</i><br />
by Bec McMaster<br />
Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2012<br />
423 pages<br />
<br />
Let me talk about the benefits of proper world-building in science fiction and fantasy.<br />
<br />
So in case you were thinking I've gone all Canliterary, with my Humphreys and my Thuy, I shall now discuss my most recent read, which was <i>Kiss of Steel</i> by Australian paranormal romance author Bec McMaster. I'm going to be honest: I picked it almost as a joke, because - well, look at that cover. Right? What is Honoria even <i>wearing</i>. And I know that authors don't always (very rarely?) get a lot of say in their covers, and frankly this is not the worst of the romance covers out there (so very not) and it obviously did its job. I wanted something over-the-top and steampunkish. I downloaded the eBook. I started reading it.<br />
<br />
And damned if it wasn't actually quite good.<br />
<br />
Soapbox time: one of my biggest problems with fantasy or sci-fi (or in this case, steampunk) in the Romance genre in general is sloppy world-building. I've just recently become familiar with the term "wallpaper historical" to describe [some of my favourite] historical fiction and it is <i>exactly</i> appropriate. And if "wallpaper sff" isn't a term it should be - the trappings can be there, the magic and/or the spaceships - but a lot of the time the world-building in books that are Romance first and sff second is hasty and extremely cliched. This always kind of breaks my heart because I happen to really love my fantasy with a strong romantic component. But it has so rarely worked the other way for me that I've kind of given up.<br />
<br />The problem for me is that I am extremely familiar with the fantasy genre. I grew up with it. It's in my blood right there with my haemoglobin. So I know when an author is just wallpapering over their books with fantasy cliches - they may be well-intentioned, they may even have a true fantasy story in mind - but dammit, <i>pay attention to your world</i>. If you have a Chosen heroine and a banished berserker hero, I want to know why she was Chosen and what for, I want to know about berserker culture, and I for sure don't want an Evil Mage arch-bad-guy. That's been done, and better than most people can do it. Your characters need to be a product of their environment, not the other way around.<br />
<br />
Steampunk, in my limited experience, can be a bit better at this - generally people who are writing steampunk are totally in love with their own worlds, fascinated by the ideas and the intersections of human stories and technology and history. Maybe it's too newly popular a genre to have spawned the same wealth of cliches that fantasy and science fiction have, forcing people to come up with their own ideas and explanations, not allowing them to use shorthand.<br />
<br />
Whatever the reason, McMaster has done it well. She doesn't do everything well. There was a bit too much repetition - I don't need to be reminded, all the time, that Honoria grew up in the hallowed halls of the Echelon, or that Blade killed his own sister. I got it the first two or three times. Also I actually really wanted more of Honoria teaching Blade how to read - that particular plot contrivance vanished, never to be seen again, after the scene where it first appeared. There are times when things go on a bit longer than they should.<br />
<br />
But the setting... McMaster's London is gritty, ugly, violent, and sometimes beautiful, and it makes sense. And Honoria and Blade and the rest of the characters make sense in the world. They've come out of it. This story wouldn't make sense anywhere else. And that, as much as anything else McMaster has done, makes this book worth the read.<br />
<br />
Setting/world-building isn't everything, to be clear. McMaster also has a good handle on the English language and uses it to her advantage; the prose is clear, quick, and supports the wonderful descriptions; the characters are entertaining and consistent; the plot is dramatic and clever, if a bit packed.<br />
<br />
The key here is that this book is a romance novel first and foremost. Even with the detail and depth of the world and the politics, this is essentially a book about two people finding each other, falling hard for each other, surmounting some critical obstacles, both internal and external (and the external ones <i>come straight out of the world they live in</i>), having some sex, and getting a happy ending. (Not uncomplicated happy. But happy.) Which means that it's got to be possible for someone out there to do the same thing with fantasy, too.<br />
<br />
Honoria Todd and her two siblings have fallen on very hard times, since her scientist father was murdered and a price put on her head by the villainous but politically well-heeled Vickers, a duke and leader of one of the seven ruling houses. Vickers and all the other rulers of London are blue bloods - humans who have been infected with the craving virus. Yes, it makes them drink blood to survive, heal quickly, have incredible strength and agility. It also happens that Blade, the Devil of Whitechapel, ruler of the most powerful gang in the city outside the city, is a rogue blue blood - he was pulled out of the gutter, infected, and enslaved. But Blade escaped. He knows who Honoria is, and he's going to use her to get at Vickers; she needs his protection to survive in the extremely dangerous slums. Cue the romantic tension as Blade discovers Honoria is more than she appears on the surface, and Honoria discovers that Blade isn't like the other blue bloods she's known.<br />
<br />
Blue bloods are not vampires, exactly - vampires are blue bloods whose virus has finally run its course, who no longer have control over their urges, who hate sunlight. They are extremely dangerous predators. And when a blue blood is to the point where he's (they're all men, because of Victorian ideas of female fragility) about to start turning vampire (determined by blood tests) he's beheaded. That's always going to be the end game for a blue blood, eventually. And once infected, there is no cure.<br />
<br />
What McMaster has done here is taken an idea - what if England was ruled by "vampires" - and spent a lot of time figuring out what the logical conclusions would be. Of course Victorian London would be home to "draining factories" where people go to pay their blood tax. (Of course taxes would be paid in <i>literal blood</i>.) Of course people who couldn't afford to eat would sell their blood to unscrupulous Drainers. Of course there would be roving gangs of Slashers, who pick the impoverished off the streets of the slums - or out of their own homes - at night and kill them, draining them of blood entirely for sale to the factories. Who of course wouldn't condone that sort of thing, but would pay for it quietly anyway.<br />
<br />
And it's all like this - all the little details thought out. Everything comes from somewhere, and everything makes sense. And that means the characters make sense, and the story makes sense, and since it's written well and the plot is interesting and the characters have depth - well, there you have it. A read I enjoyed far more than I thought I would, for more reasons than I expected to.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-6005337145384851912015-11-12T10:51:00.000-05:002015-11-12T10:51:01.076-05:00The River by Helen HumphreysOne of the things I'm going to have to do if I'm going to start updating again is be a little less rigid about how I update and when and for what. I used to go at this chronologically - that is, whatever I read first, I'd write about first. And I wrote about everything I read, regardless, except for the books I didn't finish. I have about 30 books I still need to write about, going all the way back to January of this year. I say "need" - but do I need to? Perhaps, at this point in my life and writing, the more appropriate criteria is "want" - which of these books that I have read do I most want to write about right now.<br />
<br />
And right now, I want to write about <i>The River</i>.<br />
<br />
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<i>The River</i><br />
by Helen Humphreys<br />
ECW Press, 2015<br />
224 pages<br />
<br />
I have an odd reading relationship with the work of Canadian author <a href="http://www.bluepixie.com/search/label/Helen%20Humphreys">Helen Humphreys</a>, and this is yet another entry into that ongoing weirdness. (The weirdness is with me, not her books.) Previous to <i>The River</i> I have read <i><a href="http://www.bluepixie.com/2009/01/frozen-thames-by-helen-humphreys.html">The Frozen Thames</a></i> and loved it, and <i><a href="http://www.bluepixie.com/2010/05/lost-garden-by-helen-humphreys.html">The Lost Garden</a></i> and wanted to love it but had trouble with the subject matter and the prickly main character, Gwen. Humphreys tackles subject matters and writes characters that I find uncomfortable, and yet - I keep going back. I don't usually do this with authors who write characters I find uncomfortable or books that make me sad.<br />
<br />
I'm going to keep going back to her, too. There's no question. Even though I know what I'm getting into.<br />
<br />
I do this for the writing. Helen Humphreys is a poet and she writes prose like a poet. This will get me every time. I like good writing. A book doesn't tend to make it with me without it, regardless of how excited I am about the characters or the plot or the concept. And apparently really beautiful writing will draw me in regardless of how unexcited I am about the characters or the plot. So despite the detachment Humphreys writes with, and the often melancholy (sometimes very melancholy, sometimes downright sad) tone, and despite characters who can be hard to love, I read Humphreys.<br />
<br />
<i>The River</i> itself is as odd a piece as <i>The Frozen Thames</i>, a book that defies cataloguers to put it in a specific place on the shelves. Our library has decided it is a biography. Of... a river I guess? Because that is what it is - a word portrait of a river. In short passages, some a few pages and some a single line, Humphreys introduces the reader to Depot Creek, specifically to a little plot of land - her little plot of land - on the banks of said Creek. Using this as a jumping off point, we are introduced to the creek itself, the Napanee River, the town of Bellrock, the people who have used the river and inhabited the land where Humphreys lives now, the wildlife that use the river, and so on. In some cases she just describes something - the river, the history, a creature on the river - and in others she has written pieces from the perspective of someone who may have existed, or who did exist. These would be fiction, but they're still trying to do the same thing that the nonfiction descriptive passages are: get to the heart of what the river actually is, what it truly means.<br />
<br />
It's lovely. It's melancholy. It's a unique gem of a book. It's also beautiful as a physical item; the photographs and drawings strategically placed through the pages are perfect. This is not one to e-read; you will be much happier if you can have it in your hands. Recommended for anyone who loves beautiful words and is interested in history, natural history, and the attempt to peer into the heart of something so prosaic and so unknowable as a river. I didn't love it, because it's not exactly a loveable book. It's a bit prickly, a bit detached. But I will remember it and I will come back to it.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-69699709699068955892015-10-31T22:01:00.000-04:002015-10-31T22:05:45.187-04:00two books by Kim Thúy <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikJ9E3U-aKbGCO3Ws_DCzNxTTq91wcfCPjEi70wTF-G9x6eel_pO97tSG0gyGRKIbadfPZyo3p5ToLmFTO2z2pIaGcAa2UYgtq6D3PtqDVafOpAqVQ03AY1NjTdG7qCKxMh9S8Z7-Tkwdn/s1600/thuy+ru.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikJ9E3U-aKbGCO3Ws_DCzNxTTq91wcfCPjEi70wTF-G9x6eel_pO97tSG0gyGRKIbadfPZyo3p5ToLmFTO2z2pIaGcAa2UYgtq6D3PtqDVafOpAqVQ03AY1NjTdG7qCKxMh9S8Z7-Tkwdn/s200/thuy+ru.jpeg" width="128" /></a></div>
<i>Ru</i><br />
by Kim Thúy, translated by Sheila Fischmann<br />
Random House Canada, 2012 (originally published in French in 2009)<br />
141 pages<br />
<br />
<i>Mãn</i><br />
by Kim Thúy, translated by Sheila Fischmann<br />
Random House Canada, 2014 (originally published in French in 2013)<br />
139 pages<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpEoL9g-77ZNIgZxxftGB1oJQOnZUB-KWEtHrIyvdJPtEpTJVN551MoQ-Dkoah0SHyqetq_cvsrha19ul-LOruU6Zl80JUXQFRlkvvbyqZb6QzdA_PZcpN1vLwhTGB5Kl1Gjk7FyWgoKcE/s1600/thuy+man.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpEoL9g-77ZNIgZxxftGB1oJQOnZUB-KWEtHrIyvdJPtEpTJVN551MoQ-Dkoah0SHyqetq_cvsrha19ul-LOruU6Zl80JUXQFRlkvvbyqZb6QzdA_PZcpN1vLwhTGB5Kl1Gjk7FyWgoKcE/s200/thuy+man.jpg" width="124" /></a>Here's a thing I don't do often: read a book, and then immediately go out and find whatever I can by the same author and read that too. I did it in this case. And the strange thing is that - I liked <i>Ru</i>. I respected <i>Ru</i>. I didn't think I'd loved it. But perhaps, in some way that my own brain didn't quite clue in to, I did? It helped, too, that <i>Mãn</i> had just come out very recently, and working in a library, I had it to hand immediately.<br />
<br />
It's a little hard to hang on to either of these books in specifics, in that they don't have much in the way of characters or plot. But they do have imagery and tone, and somehow Kim Thúy has managed to make those the driving force of <i>Ru</i>, and to a lesser extent <i>Mãn.</i> The latter does have more plot, and significantly more character. This may or may not be a good thing; I liked them both, and originally thought of <i>Mãn </i>as being the stronger, and underrated. But it's <i>Ru</i> that has stuck with me more clearly. Both explore the life of a woman who has come from Vietnam, as a refugee (in <i>Ru</i>) or after the war (in <i>Mãn</i>). The war plays a large role in both these novels, as does the experience of coming to a new country - in this case, Canada - and making a life here.<br />
<br />
One of the meanings for the word "ru" is lullaby - Thúy explains this at the beginning of the book. In many ways, <i>Ru</i> struck me as a series of images that might bubble up before sleep. <i>Ru</i> and <i>Mãn</i> don't even really have chapters; they have paragraphs, or sections. Sometimes a section is a line or two long. Sometimes it's three, maybe five pages. I'm not sure there were any sections longer than that. Each is a painstakingly crafted image, memory, or moment, from a first person perspective. The narrator can be a bit dry, or maybe a better way to describe her is "reserved," but one gets the impression that she is always trying to be honest. Some of the sections are connected. Some of them are not, other than they have the same narrator.<br />
<br />
Both start fairly slowly, especially because (to me at least) the format can come as a bit of a shock. Because neither book is structured as a typical novel, and without the usual components like a solid, chronological plot or dialogue or conventional characterization to hang on to, one can feel a bit adrift for the first little while. I worried about this, when I started <i>Ru</i>, because it's not a long book. I needn't have worried.<br />
<br />
The books - most especially <i>Ru</i>, but <i>Mãn</i> as well, to a lesser extent - unfold like a series of beautiful blossoms, each page or section a memory, hanging off each other like a delicate string of pearls. If you hold them lightly, something wonderful happens. The reader does a lot of the work, filling in blanks. Nothing is explicit. But gradually a picture begins to develop - of Vietnam, of the life of a "displaced" person, of how a person can break apart and slowly be put back together, but never again without scars. <i>Mãn</i>, with its more explicit plot<i>, </i>does a lot more of the work for the reader. Which means that though I think it's stronger in some ways - it gives one more to sink one's teeth into - it also imposes itself on the reader, where <i>Ru</i> almost feels like it comes from within.<br />
<br />
Neither one of these books will take you very long to read. And both are worth it. But if you're going to read just one, read <i>Ru</i>. Be prepared to open yourself to it, no matter how slow or odd it seems at first, as a reading experience; you will be rewarded.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-61498795025389766812015-10-13T22:56:00.000-04:002015-10-13T22:56:35.504-04:00Fangirl by Rainbow RowellI have this little thing, called a blog? And I used to write about books? And then one day I just stopped.<br />
<br />
And then one day I just started again. So here we go. Bear with me, I'm incredibly rusty.<br />
<br />
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<i>Fangirl</i><br />
by Rainbow Rowell<br />
St. Martin's Griffin, 2013<br />
422 pages<br />
<br />
Once upon a long time ago I read a book called <i>Fangirl</i>. It was one of the first books I read this year, in fact. And I loved it. The end.<br />
<br />
No no, there's more - and I'm not going to do the book justice, of course, because I read it nearly a year ago, but here's the thing: I read this nearly a year ago, quite quickly, and I still think about it regularly and with a fair amount of clarity. The thing is, it's not just a nice book - and it is, a really nice book, where nice things happen and people are kind and awkward and lovely and maybe sometimes a bit mean but they aren't just awful for no reason. They all have reasons, and they are all sympathetic, even when they are not good reasons. There's no forced love triangle, there's no insta-love, there's no easy answers; there are just good people trying to work their way around being individuals and members of families and friends, which is not always easy and provides enough drama to make an engaging, charming, intelligent book.<br />
<br />More than just being a nice book, Rowell's writing makes the reading of it seem effortless. It's an easy read. It goes down smoothly. It's funny in the right parts, and tense in the right parts, and moving in the right parts. The pacing is absolutely dead on. I was worried that the excerpts from Cath's fanfic would stall things, or be uncomfortable to read (in the way that fiction-within-fiction can sometimes just be... weird) but those excerpts were delightful. I can see why people want to read more Simon Snow.<br />
<br />
Me, I'll be reading more Rowell, regardless of whom she's writing about. Thoroughly enjoyed, highly recommended.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-34232529633472044032015-02-02T22:52:00.001-05:002015-02-02T22:52:15.557-05:00Life After Life by Kate Atkinson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Life After Life</i><br />
by Kate Atkinson<br />
Hachette Audio, 2013<br />
12 discs, unabridged<br />
<br />
I'm really glad I chose to listen to this as audio versus reading it. This book tends to be a bit polarizing. People I talk to at the library seem to either love it or dislike it in the extreme, and I will be honest: I thought I'd be in the latter group. The last time I read some sort of critically acclaimed literary novel with some sort of fantasy/sci-fi time-bending twist it didn't really go well. Which is an understatement. So I was prepared for that this time, too. Also, I was pretty unexcited about reading a book where a child/young woman dies all the time - specifically, where the author has thought about all the terrible things that can go wrong, and variations on that theme. As the mother of a young child there are some things I don't really need help feeling anxious about.<br />
<br />
This was so different from what I expected, and part of it was the narration. Fenella Woolgar does an astounding job: she's pleasant to listen to, her inflection is perfect and added to my understanding of the story, and I never got tired of listening to her read to me. And because of the way I process audio information, the repetition seemed rhythmic. I think reading it I might have gotten bored with the repetition, but listening to it gave it a lovely sense of overlapping variations, like a fugue.<br />
<br />
I imagine most people are familiar with this book and its premise, but in case you are not: Ursula Todd dies a lot. Or she doesn't, really. What happens is that each time she does die - from the moment she dies at birth, the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, to the times she dies of Spanish Flu, to the times she dies throughout WWII - she starts over again. But Ursula sort of remembers some things, gets a feeling of dread when bad things are about to happen and is thus able to avoid them, is able to change things, is able to try and try again until she gets it right. Some things are harder to get right than others. It takes a long, long time for her to get through the Spanish Flu. It takes a longer time for her to get through WWII.<br />
<br />
But as morbid as that sounds, this isn't really a book about death so much as it is a book about life. It's a book about history, and a book about people. The fact that this is a concept book that is so well-rounded makes me understand why it's so successful. The concept is interesting (though don't go into this thinking it will be explained, or that it's a sci-fi or fantasy novel. It's not.) The characters are fleshed-out. The language is lovely. The history - it is so steeped in history without feeling like Atkinson wrote with a textbook beside her, I loved that. The plot is broken into tiny little pieces a lot of the time, and I find that interesting, not frustrating. But of all the things about this book that people might not like, I can see why that in particular is polarizing. In short, I think this book does have the total package: complex, in-depth characterization, interesting setting(s), great writing, and what I thought was an interesting plot.<br />
<br />
I loved the little things that changed, or the not-so-little things. I loved that one got the impression that Atkinson could have just kept going. Though I was pleased with the way the 11th disc ended, I wasn't exactly disappointed there was a 12th disc - though I wasn't exactly delighted with the prospect of what I knew was coming. More about the ending at the end of this review, with very mild spoilers.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
I found the characters captivating. Ursula herself is an intelligent, practical, only slightly odd protagonist; it is often (though not always) easy to sympathize with her and easy to root for her, to want <i>this time</i> for her to get it right. Atkinson doesn't go into detail with all Ursula's lives, but some of the things Ursula goes through are just brutal (another reason listening was a good choice for me - I didn't chicken out) and as a reader I was almost frantic that she not go down that path the next time.<br />
<br />
Further on the characters, I loved how we were allowed to get to know Sylvie, which allows us to have some sympathy for her when she is really unlovable, and how at the very end we see Hugh a bit better and he is a little less wonderful than he was. (And the mental gymnastics this then makes us do.)<br />
<br />
Now. The ending. It's hard to say whether there are plot spoilers, but there might be, so if you don't want those, be prepared to stop before the last paragraph. Just know that overall, I was so concerned about where things were going that I was wondering if I would actually end up liking the book. And by the end, I was so impressed that even though I didn't love the ending exactly, I was kind of amazed by the entire book. Books that amaze me are not as common as one might think from my sometimes superlative language when it comes to talking about them. This one left me feeling a little awestruck. Well worth the effort it takes, I'd say, though I think if you're the sort of person who requires an action-packed, linear plot, you'll be too frustrated to get much out of this one. Because really - it's not the ending that matters at all. It's all about the journey, again and again.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.aartichapati.com/2015/01/if-at-first-you-dont-succeed-try-try.html">Aarti also just recently wrote about the audio version</a> of <i>Life After Life</i>, and had a different experience (though gives lie to my "love it or hate it" thought, too.) Go see!<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
/begin mild spoilers<br />
<br />
The ending: SO INTERESTING. Really. Structurally, the ending ... kind of ... left me speechless? So here's the thing: when Ursula got to the point of killing Hitler, I thought, right. Yes. We knew this was going to happen, it happens in the first paragraph of the book, though I partially spent the entire book trying to forget about that. Because of course Atkinson would go there, and I was disappointed, because why wouldn't you go there - the predicability was disappointing. But then that wasn't the end, though it was the end of that particular life. Atkinson kept going, and I was really relieved that we weren't ending on that note, because the book got interesting again, immediately. And though the ending was confusing and maybe bit off a bit more than it could chew, it was braver than I thought it was going to be in my wildest dreams. I love unfinished business in an ending: this ending was entirely unfinished, and I loved it for trying that.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-59043277995423620832015-01-24T21:57:00.000-05:002015-01-24T21:57:12.004-05:00three great graphic novels<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EH353hAmgTw/VMRa8Yjp8iI/AAAAAAAAG6U/014zUKtU1jE/s1600/kibuishi%2Bdaisy%2Bkutter%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EH353hAmgTw/VMRa8Yjp8iI/AAAAAAAAG6U/014zUKtU1jE/s1600/kibuishi%2Bdaisy%2Bkutter%2B1.jpg" height="200" width="133" /></a></div>
<em>Daisy Kutter 1: The Last Train</em><br />
by Kazu Kibuishi<br />
Bolt City Productions, 2012<br />
153 pages<br />
<br />
So, I hadn't realized this was re-released. I first started following Kazu Kibuishi online <i>years</i> ago, before <i>Amulet</i> was a thing, by reading his Copper comics. (I've got those in printed form too, now, so that will be reviewed here at some point.) But by the time I realized I was in love with his style and his sensibilities, his first graphic novel, <i>Daisy Kutter</i>, was no longer in print and unavailable anywhere. I was always sad about that because it looked fantastic.<br />
<br />
Well, it is. One of my local comic stores supported Kibuishi's Kickstarter to reprint Daisy and I got their last signed copy, which you can imagine made me feel like queen for a day.<br />
<br />
It's a steampunk western. Daisy is an ex-con who owns and runs a general store. It's pretty clear she's bored out of her skull by it, but it's a legit living. Her excitement comes from playing poker. So when she loses the store in a high-stakes poker match, she has no choice but to take up the winner's offer to give her the store back - if she participates in one last heist.<br />
<br />
There are a few plot holes and the ending wraps up incredibly quickly, but this is the first in (I hope!) a series, and it was extremely enjoyable. Daisy's got depth, as does Tom McKay, the local sherrif who also happens to be Daisy's ex-partner in crime, and ex-partner, period. There are lots of questions to be answered, lots of fleshing out to happen with both characters. The world, while somewhat sketched-in for this first instalment, has a huge amount of promise. Very much looking forward to the next book.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu9BVQCCGuKL3PPZtbEy4p-sRIJWNIbCwGQSJbckrrJMZ-keDtm0bjmbhIMce_PFS5PHjM-M95cBMnDWbuaePFYZOuhnkjr2b6pQzbnk8d9JK30mJ-0UCMcJZ_EfSHIF2-fn9eDsxn-MIp/s1600/hicks+friends+with+boys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu9BVQCCGuKL3PPZtbEy4p-sRIJWNIbCwGQSJbckrrJMZ-keDtm0bjmbhIMce_PFS5PHjM-M95cBMnDWbuaePFYZOuhnkjr2b6pQzbnk8d9JK30mJ-0UCMcJZ_EfSHIF2-fn9eDsxn-MIp/s1600/hicks+friends+with+boys.jpg" height="200" width="141" /></a><br />
<em>Friends With Boys</em><br />
by Faith Erin Hicks<br />
First Second, 2012<br />
220 pages<br />
<br />
I find it hard to write about this one because all I want to say is LURRRRVE. This is a sweet, funny, quirky, sensitive, wonderfully-drawn coming-of-age graphic novel about a girl who is starting high school after being homeschooled her whole life. She has three older brothers whom she adores, and hasn't really ever felt the need for any friends outside of them. But they've all got their own lives and challenges at school, so she's kind of on her own. Lucky for her, she's not the only one in need of a friend.<br />
<br />
What's nice about this is that it's not really deep or difficult, but it's still a portrait of a kid trying to find her place and fit in, while dealing with stuff - some mundane stuff, like dealing her mother's decision to leave the family or her first year at school, and some not at all mundane stuff, like the strange ghost who keeps following her around. Maggie's got challenges but she's competent, and her family (with the notable absence of her mother) is loving and supportive. This makes the book feel safe and a bit gentle, which is sometimes a nice thing in a coming-of-age book about outsiders.<br />
<br />
This book is also really funny. The art supports the characters' development in the best way possible. Hicks can express a huge amount about a character just with facial expression and small gestures, and she uses that to full effect. It's an easy-to-follow style, too, meaning this is a great entree into the world of graphic novels. Excellent amounts of geek humour and an affirming message that being "weird" - however one defines it - is okay.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tZnar7ySBOA/VMRa4hXaQvI/AAAAAAAAG6E/8PIseskgzPE/s1600/wilson%2Bms%2Bmarvel%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tZnar7ySBOA/VMRa4hXaQvI/AAAAAAAAG6E/8PIseskgzPE/s1600/wilson%2Bms%2Bmarvel%2B1.jpg" height="200" width="130" /></a><br />
<i>Ms. Marvel Vol. 1: No Normal</i><br />
by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona<br />
Marvel, 2014<br />
120 pages<br />
<br />
I'm not sure I really need to introduce this book. It's gotten a lot of attention because Ms. Marvel is Kamala, an American-born Muslim teenager of Pakistani decent, who in addition to having to deal with the sudden onset of superpowers and the appearance of a supervillain, has to deal with obnoxious, racist classmates, a fairly traditional family, a diet that forbids bacon, and a curfew. It could have smacked of diversity lip-service, but it was so well-written it didn't.<br />
<br />
The book lives up to the hype. There are a lot of things to like here, from the fast-paced plot and the bright, stylized art, to the way it handles what shouldn't be a sensitive issue (Kamala's race and religion) but really is. But what I really appreciated was how realistic the whole thing feels from an emotional perspective, which is not something one can always say when reading superhero comics (or fantasy novels, for that matter.) While the title of the volume is "No Normal" what is refreshing is just <i>how</i> normal Kamala is, right down to the fights she has with her parents when she breaks curfew and is then punished for it. She's got superpowers and she handles their onset in a believable way. She's a teenager and she feels like a teenager.<br />
<br />
Also, on a very frivolous note, I dare you to read this one and not fall a little in love with Boris.<br />
<br />
Will definitely be following this series.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-84863939137887803192015-01-21T21:46:00.000-05:002015-01-21T21:46:07.006-05:00I wrote a little thing...... for <a href="http://ourinfinitelives.com/2015/01/21/top-5-childrens-books-that-we-are-enjoying-for-now/">another blog</a>, in which I discuss the top five picture books I'm enjoying reading to smallfry right now. You can go over there and read it if you'd like.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-64265067981806860412015-01-10T16:15:00.004-05:002015-01-10T16:15:48.755-05:00Rose in a Storm by Jon Katz<i style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="8138952" height="200" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320434692l/8138952.jpg" width="132" /></i><i>Rose in a Storm</i><br />
by Jon Katz<br />
Villard, 2010<br />
240 pages<br />
<br />
This was a fun and different quick read, good for a book club read over Christmas. It's a good winter read, too, for those of you who like reading "in season" - which is an interesting concept in itself. I generally prefer to read cold and snowy books in the winter; also I've noticed that in books set in the cold and snowy winter, the authors make the weather a big deal, not just background scenery.<br />
<br />
For a book that wasn't terribly difficult to read it did get off to a slow start. I'd say it took me close to 50 pages to really get into it, but once I got rolling it went fast. Rose is a dog, specifically a working dog on a small farm, where she helps farmer Sam keep the animals in line and occasionally does other useful things as well. She is more of a partner than a pet, and Sam tends to see her as such; she is useful, not to be coddled. One winter, some time after Sam's wife Katie has died of an undisclosed illness (cancer, almost certainly) there is a tremendous, days-long, dangerous winter storm. It's up to Sam alone - and Rose - to keep the animals (sheep, dairy cows and some steers, chickens, a donkey) safe and alive through it as one disaster after another strikes.<br />
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The book switches easily and rapidly between perspectives - almost always Rose and sometimes Sam and occasionally a few other perspectives for a very short time. Katz knows dogs, and has done a lot of research and work in the area of dog psychology, and Rose's perspective is as close to what a dog's might be as Katz can possibly make it, while still making it readable. We still understand Rose, while recognizing that she's a different creature from a human, and has motivations and ideas and understandings about the way the world works that are different from what a human's might be. I'd say this was really successful, and while I've always quite liked dogs I came away with a lot more respect for them as separate creatures with agency and intelligence than I had before.<br />
<br />
It's possible this was one of Katz's main aims in writing this book - and it occasionally reads like that, too. <br />
<br />
One of the things that came home to me is just how dangerous a big winter storm can be, especially to farmers. I think it's easy to forget this, living in the middle of a city where your water pressure isn't dependent on the power being on, and your house is insulated (mostly), and the only creatures dependent on you to survive are in your immediate environs. The chances of a coyote getting in to eat your fish are small, and the most personal danger you're likely to see (except perhaps carbon monoxide poisoning) is having a heart attack from shoveling too much snow, and if you're hurt your neighbours are right next door. In short, it's easy to forget, being in a city, just how powerful and powerfully dangerous nature can be.<br />
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Even the problems I had with the ending didn't spoil the read for me. But the ending did unfortunately have some issues. Slight spoilers for the ending follow...<br />
<br />
<br />
... ready? <br />
<br />
This is the most blatant example of a <em>deus ex machina </em>I've seen in a novel in ages. I'm pretty sensitive to these, and I don't like them at all. If anything is swooping out of the snowy wild to save Rose and the farm it had better be set up well ahead of time. (Interestingly, my book club actually had significantly less trouble with this than I did: they thought the <em>deus</em> was clearly Katie, the deceased wife. I can see where they're coming from but I didn't see it clearly enough ahead of time to make it better, and I'm still skeptical.) <br />
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The other thing is that I don't think a rescue was necessary; I did think Katz had built up to an unsustainable level of tension and conflict, and I think if he'd dialed things back a bit before the climax he wouldn't have needed a <em>deus ex machina</em>, explained by Katie or otherwise, to wrap things up. He could have dialed things back without losing the forward momentum or the dramatic tension, too; things were plenty dramatic as it was. And then he wouldn't have needed something out-of-the-ordinary to rescue his happy ending. <br />
<br />
... /end spoilers<br />
<br />
Overall, aside from the ending, this is an entertaining and interesting book, something outside the ordinary. Recommended to animal lovers for sure, and people who like snowy rural stories. It's an easy read and a worthwhile one. I'll definitely be reading more of Katz, though I think I may stick to his nonfiction.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-68721703404757647972015-01-05T21:44:00.001-05:002015-01-05T21:44:32.666-05:00Kim by Rudyard Kipling<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wsV2eN2YqBY/VKtKd32VMPI/AAAAAAAAG2g/JUIXLX86Xw4/s1600/kipling%2Bkim.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wsV2eN2YqBY/VKtKd32VMPI/AAAAAAAAG2g/JUIXLX86Xw4/s1600/kipling%2Bkim.jpg" height="200" width="130" /></a></div>
<i>Kim</i><br />
by Rudyard Kipling<br />
Vintage Books, 2010 (originally published in 1901)<br />
265 pages<br />
<br />
Full disclosure: my favourite audiobook of all time is the reading Jack Nicholson did of Kipling's story <i>The Elephant's Child</i>, with music by Bobby McFerrin. Ever since that transcendent experience as a child, I've been rather predisposed to like Kipling, warts and all. (All that spanking = not cool, Rudyard.) When a friend mentioned I should read this and then provided a copy, I took a long time to get around to it - but I'm glad I finally did.<br />
<br />
<i>Kim</i> is the tale of young Kimball O'Hara, an orphaned white boy living and thriving on the streets of Lahore. His life changes forever when he is about ten years old and attaches himself to a naive but wise elderly lama from Tibet, who is searching for the river created by the Buddha's arrow so he can immerse himself in it and become enlightened. Kim also attracts the attention of the British spy network in India, earning himself a place of respect through his escapades running messages.<br />
<br />
I really, really liked this book. It's a fascinating and vivid window into a time and place that really does not exist anymore. It's also a bit of a primer on how colonial racist attitudes were so commonplace and ingrained that someone like Kipling, an intelligent, compassionate man with a deep respect and love for the culture he's depicting, could still say things that are glaringly patronizing, ugly, racist, or pseudoscientific, and his audience would be right there with him. It makes me wonder, sometimes, what prejudices and errors will be exposed when someone looks at our contemporary literature one hundred years from now. Maybe (one hopes?) the idea of a person's physical sex determining their behaviour and outlook on life will seem as ridiculous and wrong-headed?<br />
<br />
As an example of the sort of thing I mean, Kipling relies, sometimes quite heavily, on Kim's "white blood" to form his character. This is a child who has grown up on the streets of Lahore with children of many races and religions, has next to no experience of white culture or people, and yet does things that Kipling ascribes to his being white despite the fact that <i>Kim himself doesn't realize he's white. </i>Being white is almost a kind of short-hand for Kim being brave and clever, superior in these qualities to the "natives" around him. This despite the fact that Kim is surrounded by brave and clever people who are not white; I guess those characters had to earn their badges, rather than being born with those traits. And sadly Kipling also occasionally falls into using other characters' races for short-hand for their less desirable qualities - being deceitful, belligerent, or cowardly, for example. Ouch.<br />
<br />
Clearly, for Kipling to write that so blatantly and unironically, he understood that being white included certain personality and biological traits other than skin colour. This was a common view supported by scientists of the time, and frankly still is in certain dark corners. The idea of biological determination is insidious and hard to shake. These days, many of the characteristics that Kipling ascribes to racial biology would be ascribed (and described, in building a character in a reader's imagination) to nurture, environment, and societal structures.<br />
<br />
But all of that considered and aside - this book is a joy to read. Kipling's language is perhaps not quite as inventive in <i>Kim</i> as it is in some of the <i>Just So Stories</i>, but it can be, and it is always beautiful. The plot is, for a spy adventure, rather slow; but I drank up the descriptions. The colours, the smells, the tastes, the voices and beliefs, the multitude of people and the delight Kim (and Kipling) takes in the diversity. This world is messy and beautiful. And it doesn't exist anymore, except in books, and this is a good one to immerse yourself in whether you're interested in this time and place in history or not.<br />
<br />
The characters are as bright and vivid as the rest of the book. Kim is a fantastic lens to experience his world through. And though, as above, the plot is a bit slow, it is not boring if you adjust your expectations to its pace. Very glad I read this, and recommended for the armchair time-and-space traveller, among others.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-50257891992659072952015-01-03T22:47:00.002-05:002015-01-03T22:47:59.061-05:00the wild reading yonder was kind of tame actuallyThis time of year tends to have a lot of expectations heaped upon it. We're to celebrate, enjoy the magic, love the togetherness, and eat the food - and that's just the secular bits. Once we're through with that, we're to take stock, set goals, reflect on the year that was, and ruminate on the future. Currently all I want to ruminate on is the leftover cheese and cookies and chocolate and whether or not it will make me desperately ill if I attempt further eating. My poor overfed brain is barely up to the task of celebrating, much less ruminating on the future. All it thinks is: cheese cheese cheese sleep cheese chocolate? cheese...<br />
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<br /></div>
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But let us attempt this anyway! First, the taking stock:</div>
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This has been an interesting reading year for me. It's hard not to feel that I have failed a little bit; I haven't managed to read as much as I wanted to, numbers-wise. (I will <i>never</i> read as much as I want to, numbers-wise. There are just not that many minutes in the day, or days in the week, or weeks in the year, or years left in my life.) But I have noticed a shift in my reading, something that hadn't really dawned on me until a couple of weeks ago. My reading, though quantitatively not stellar, has been qualitatively really interesting this year: I'm reading much more widely, and much more challenging stuff, than I have in years.</div>
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<br /></div>
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What many term "escapist reading" is great and I enjoy it - my easy and happy and predictable romance novels, my genre-conforming, conventional, not-too-gritty fantasies, my cosy, comfortable mysteries. I know what I like in those books and generally "challenging" is not it, and those books hold a very important, and fundamental, place in my reading. But what seems very strange to me is that lately I have enjoyed those books less, and actually found "challenging" to be more enjoyable.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Unpacking "challenging": I think what I mean by this is books that require a little bit more mental attention, books that maybe have dense language (I'm reading Proust, and loving it) or that have complicated, unpredictable, and not always snuggly-puppy-happy plots (there will, eventually, be a review of Kate Atkinson's <i>Life After Life</i>, and the plot-light but language-and-image-heavy <i>Ru</i> by Kim Thuy). I had been staying away from books of this type, that will require close attention or demand some sort of emotional toll of me, because those books have not made me a happy reader for a long time. I think that's changing. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Some things are not changing. Language is important in a book for me - I want good writing. That's pretty key. But also incredibly important is characters. I need to like the characters. I need to be able to get behind them. I need to connect with them in some way. I can't get around this. I am not one of those people who can honestly say "I don't have to like the characters as long as..." because every time I've tried that, I've disliked the book. I also generally don't want my likeable characters to suffer horribly or die in some sort of unredeemable way. I recognize this makes me a bit of a chicken, but I'm prepared to live with that. I can read about a character going through something difficult, but there had better be some hope at the end of the tunnel; otherwise the book isn't for me.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Next: numbers, numbers, numbers!</div>
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(Feel free to skip this part. I record this for my own benefit. Numbers are fun for me; I am one of those people who likes data entry and pretty graphs. I also find it interesting to summarize my year in reading this way, because it helps me see the bigger picture.)</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Books read in the past year: </b>40</div>
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<b>Fiction: </b>36</div>
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<b>Nonfiction: </b>4</div>
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<b>Adult books: </b>27</div>
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<b>Young adult books: </b>8</div>
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<b>Middle grade books: </b>5</div>
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<b>Graphic novels: </b>7</div>
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<b>Audiobooks: </b>6</div>
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<b>eBooks: </b>10</div>
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<b>Series started: </b>12 (Oh man. Ouch.)</div>
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<b>Series finished: </b>1 (WOOOO!)</div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b>Author's nationality: </b></div>
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<b>Canadian: </b>6 (incl. 1 French-Canadian novel)</div>
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<b>American: </b>21</div>
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<b>British: </b>9<br />
<b>Japanese: </b>3<br />
<b>French:</b> 1</div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b>Decade of first publication:</b></div>
<div>
<b>2010:</b> 22<br />
<b>2000: </b>10<br />
<b>1990: </b>3<br />
<b>1980: </b>1<br />
<b>1950: </b>1<br />
<b>1900:</b> 2<br />
<b>1870: </b>1<br />
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One big change, though it doesn't show so much in the numbers, is that I'm not reading nearly as much middle grade fiction. In fact, all five of those books were read before March of this year. This has to do with some changes at work: I'm not currently running a middle grade book club. My ratio of eBooks to traditional formats is exactly the same, which is kind of an interesting trend to note too. Perhaps that's my threshold?<br />
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My favourites of the year (more reviews forthcoming):<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.bluepixie.com/2014/04/the-age-of-wonder-by-richard-holmes.html"><i>The Age of Wonder</i> by Richard Holmes</a> is my clear top book of the year. It's hard to choose favourites, but this book really stood out. Marvellously well-written, fascinating, well-researched, and while it was long I enjoyed all of it. Science biography mixed with history and synthesis of culture and scientific discovery. Incredibly well done. Excellent as audio, too.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.bluepixie.com/2014/09/the-bird-of-river-by-kage-baker.html"><i>The Bird of the River</i> by Kage Baker</a> is for sure my top fiction. It's a perfect coming-of-age fantasy, without the epic trappings of many of these sorts of books. No giant world-shaking quests here, though the main character is an orphan, and she does have a role to play in connecting and stopping a series of bandit raids. I loved the world-building and I find Baker's writing goes down really smoothly.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.bluepixie.com/2014/06/three-for-price-of-one.html"><i>The Governess Affair</i> by Courtney Milan</a> was excellent, even though I squished it into a review with two other not-as-great books. My favourite romance read of the year and maybe of the last several. Smart, funny, thoughtful, and exceedingly well-written.</li>
<li><i>Friends With Boys</i> by Faith Erin Hicks was my top graphic novel of the year, which is saying something since I finished <i>Cardcaptor Sakura</i> finally. (Loved those too.) It was sweet and funny and interesting and I love Hicks' drawings. It made me laugh out loud without being too saccharine or trying too hard. Some of the solutions and resolutions seemed a bit too easy, but that didn't ruin the read for me.</li>
<li><i>Life After Life</i> by Kate Atkinson was just spectacular. I listened to it, which I think helped; the repetition was rhythmic, not tedious, and Fenella Woolgar is a perfect narrator. The concept never got old for me, Atkinson's writing style agreed with me, and the historical detail was really interesting. I liked Ursula more and more as time went on and I kept listening even through the really emotionally difficult parts. Pitch perfect.</li>
<li><i>What If? </i>by Randall Munroe is more popular science. The subtitle says it all: Serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions. This is science writing at its absolute best and the only thing wrong with it, as far as I can tell, was that it ended.</li>
</ul>
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<br />
Finally, here's what's up next. Last year's list got polished off with the exception of five... uh, I guess that's half of last year's list? But some of those I'm still working on, like the Virginia Woolf. I'll finish it one of these days. Let's put her first, anyway.<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>The Common Reader Volume 1</i> by Virginia Woolf</li>
<li><i>Swann's Way</i> by Marcel Proust (the Lydia Davis translation)</li>
<li><i>Fangirl </i>by Rainbow Rowell</li>
<li><i>The Name of the Wind</i> by Patrick Rothfuss</li>
<li><i>Sanaaq</i> by Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk</li>
<li><i>Us Conductors</i> by Sean Michaels</li>
<li><i>The Sea Among the Rocks</i> by Harry Thurston</li>
<li><i>The Duchess War</i> by Courtney Milan</li>
<li><i>The Anvil of the World</i> by Kage Baker</li>
<li><i>The Woman in White</i> by Wilkie Collins</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
Lots there to look forward to. My book club is reading heavy on the WWII stuff this coming year, which will be interesting, I think. Even though I'm not actually attending the meetings currently I'm trying to keep up with the reading, and I've been really enjoying that exercise too.<br />
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So, as previously discussed... it's not likely to get a lot more rowdy over here any time soon, but I'll keep plugging away. Thanks everyone for reading and for dropping a line every once in a while. I think a common theme with my generation of book bloggers (we can call ourselves a generation, right?) is that many of us are slowing down a bit, finding it harder to keep up with both reading and with the blogging especially, as our lives and priorities change. I don't think this is a disaster, but I'm certainly glad people keep posting. I'll try to keep up my end too. Happy new year!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-73810734672214085852014-12-26T09:00:00.000-05:002014-12-26T09:00:01.427-05:00bittersweet sixIt's gotten a little quiet around here lately. I can't even suggest that it's the calm before the storm, because I'm not sure when I'll have the focus and energy to write more consistently. The sad truth is that I have six books with partially finished reviews sitting in my queue here, going back to October, and about as much motivation to finish and post those reviews as numbers like that would suggest.<br />
<br />
This is not the end - this is a blogiversary post, after all, if sadly uncelebratory - and I'm likely to still keep posting as I can, but I can't see the pace picking up any time soon. I am reading - I am almost always reading - but the energy to write about it seems to have vanished almost entirely.<br />
<br />
But here is the good: I still get a lot out of writing these pieces, when I do get to them. I get a lot out of reading them years later, too, even when I'm dissatisfied with what I've said. I still delight in meandering around the (admittedly much, much smaller) circle of book blogs that I like to read daily or weekly or whenever the authors post. I still think about books exhaustively, I still love planning out and tracking my reading, I still love that feeling I get when I clear out my TBR stack in despair and try something completely random and new.<br />
<br />
To those of you who have stuck with me, and continue to wander by every once in a while: thank you. Those of you whom I know, I consider to be my best bloggy friends - many of you I have known, through your writing, for as long as this blog has been around or longer. I'm inspired by your erudition and your commitment to reading and to writing about your reading, and I hope to be able to continue to share our love of and our thoughts on books for another wonderful year.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-81546061267623072752014-12-12T20:29:00.001-05:002014-12-12T20:55:07.175-05:00The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2aBq2bZK5SY/VIuUKezKC1I/AAAAAAAAG1Y/m9n00qPQHgs/s1600/okorafor%2Bshadow%2Bspeaker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2aBq2bZK5SY/VIuUKezKC1I/AAAAAAAAG1Y/m9n00qPQHgs/s1600/okorafor%2Bshadow%2Bspeaker.jpg" height="200" width="133" /></a></div>
<i>The Shadow Speaker</i><br />
by Nnedi Okorafor<br />
Hyperion, 2007<br />
336 pages<br />
<br />
Okay. This review is so unbelievably overdue, given I read this book for Aarti's initiative, <a href="http://www.aartichapati.com/2014/08/diversiverse-sign-up-post.html">A More Diverse Universe</a>. But maybe I can get it into the same year. I had kind of hoped that this book would grow on me when I left it, but unfortunately that didn't happen. I was really excited to read this story, and I think in the end I was disappointed partially because of that.<br />
<br />
Ejii is growing up in what used to be West Africa - and still is, but not any West Africa we recognize. After a cataclysm of proportions we start to recognize only as we get further into the book, magic has returned in a big way to Earth. Portals between Earth and other worlds have opened in places, animals speak, and certain humans have magical powers. Ejii is one, a shadow-speaker. She communicates with the shadows, which gives her some powers of telepathy and precognition. She is also the daughter of a man who was a violent, dictator-like, fundamentalist chief of the village, before he was slain by Jaa, the Red Queen. When the shadows tell Ejii that she must follow Jaa to an important meeting between the leaders of Earth and the other worlds, Ejii is torn. She's afraid to go, but curious and determined. So she sets off on the back of her talking camel, Onion, and soon realizes that her journey is going to be stranger, more dangerous, and more important than she could ever have fathomed.<br />
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It's not that the whole book was disappointing. So I'm going to start with the disappointing bits in a bid to end on a high note.<br />
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This wasn't a good book for me, personally, and I think it basically boils down to the fact that I'm about twenty years too old to really appreciate it. When I'm reading, characters are a key component of my enjoyment; these characters were extremely plot-driven, as opposed to having a plot driven by the character's choices. Characters did things that were utterly in service to the plot and seemed bizarrely out of step with what I thought their characters would do, which meant I was constantly reevaluating my understanding of each character. Not in a good way. It felt very disorienting and I didn't end up very attached to any of the characters. This is usually a death-knell for any book for me.<br />
<br />
The thing is, if I was thirteen years old I would have loved this. The characters are BIG - everything is very melodramatic. The teens act like young teens - which would be great, except that most of the adults did too. As an adult I tend to like my characters more nuanced and less shouty and more emotionally consistent, especially if they are supposed to be important and intelligent world leaders.<br />
<br />
What saved it for me was that the concept and the world-building are top-notch and really interesting. The setting was gorgeously-described - the descriptions of the colours and the smells and the sights were fantastic and fantastical. I also absolutely loved the language Okorafor uses: there are untranslated words that add so many layers of sound and tone to the writing, and the words that Okorafor makes up for the fantasy elements are magnificent and playful. I liked how the magic worked, I loved that it was never fully explained (because it wasn't ever entirely clear to the characters how they were able to do what they did, or how it was supposed to work - this, however, didn't feel lazy on the author's part, but carefully considered) and I was really interested in how the technology and the magic met and negotiated each other in this world.<br />
<br />
But unfortunately, I do prefer my books to be more heavily weighed towards the character than the plot, and this was backwards for me. I think as an angsty pre-teen I would have just eaten this up - I've always been a sucker for interesting world-building, and the cultural background, so different from my own, would have been a huge plus - but as an adult it fell flat for me. I would, however, read more Nnedi Okorafor - I've got both <i>Akata Witch</i> and <i>Zahrah the Windseeker </i>on my list. Those are both books written for a younger audience too, so I'll have a better idea of what I'm getting into this time. I like her ideas and I'm hoping I can find some more consistent characters.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-76716066032213678252014-12-02T20:48:00.000-05:002014-12-02T20:48:10.491-05:00Redshirts by John Scalzi<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Redshirts</i><br />
by John Scalzi<br />
Tor Books, 2012<br />
318 pages<br />
<br />
Oh John Scalzi. You are one of the big Good Guys in my world. There are so many reasons to be impressed with Scalzi and his writing, most of which one can glean from <a href="http://whatever.scalzi.com/">his blog</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/scalzi">his Twitter feed</a>, both of which I follow daily. He's not universally loved - someone with a blog tagline of "Taunting the Tauntable since 1998" is not going to be universally loved - but for someone with my sense of humour and sociocultural views, he's brain candy.<br />
<br />
So are his books. They are clever, funny, extremely well-written, entertaining, thoughtful, and often moving. Well, the three I have read, one of which was non-fiction, so I suppose my sample size is limited, but I have faith. <i><a href="http://www.bluepixie.com/2013/10/old-mans-war-by-john-scalzi.html">Old Man's War</a></i> remains one of my favourite science fiction novels ever (and it's military SF, no less!) and holds the distinction of being the most fully genre-y book that my entire adventurous book club agreed was great. <br />
<br />
Those of you who have watched Star Trek (any iteration) will be familiar with the concept of the redshirt, whether you know it by name or not. These are the minor characters, the ones who might not even have a name, who are along for whatever away mission might be happening, and who generally end up dead in order to prove that there's some sort of danger. Notice that with extremely rare exceptions, the main characters don't end up dead. They might end up injured, but not dead. It's the low-ranking extras who bite it.<br />
<br />
<i>Redshirts</i> is about the ones who end up dead. Scalzi imagines them with real lives and loves and ideas, histories that are more than just pertinent to the storyline, and a realization that the way things are happening on their ship, the <i>Intrepid</i>, is statistically totally improbable. They are fighting to regain control of their lives, which means they are literally fighting for their lives - fighting The Narrative, an unseen menace that takes over people's minds, bodies, and even the laws of physics with disturbing regularity. And what's worse, as Jenkins, the conspiracy theorist who eventually convinces our main characters says, is that the sci-fi television show they're all living in <i>isn't very good</i>.<br />
<br />
This is very clever, loving satire. It pokes gleeful holes in all the SF television tropes, but it does it in a way that is thoughtful - it really follows the consequences through - and what I really appreciated was that it wasn't only about the satire. It was also a book about friendship, love, and loyalty; about peeling back layers and asking the important and sometimes difficult questions. It was about fate versus free will, and even about what it means to die, and what it means to live.<br />
<br />
I think having more than a passing familiarity with <i>Star Trek</i> in its many incarnations helped in the enjoyment of this book, because I really got it. I got the jokes, I got the references, and I appreciated all of them. It added an extra layer of glee.<br />
<br />
But - and this is important - because of all the other wonderful things about this book, and the fact that it isn't <i>just </i>about the satire, you don't have to be familiar with <i>Star Trek</i> to enjoy the story. Or even get most of the jokes, because the relevant parts are explained. This is a funny book whether or not you know the backstory, and it contains far more than it appears at first glance. Highly recommended for science fiction buffs, and definitely readable for those of you who don't read sci-fi but think you might like it. It's an excellent entry into the genre.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-24927094745177346442014-11-22T21:40:00.001-05:002014-11-22T21:40:23.727-05:00The Briefcase by Hiromi Kawakami<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>The Briefcase</i><br />
by Hiromi Kawakami (translated from Japanese by Allison Powell)<br />
Counterpoint, 2012 (originally published in 2001)<br />
176 pages<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"But of course, if I really paid attention, there were plenty of other living things surrounding me in the city as well. It was never just the two of us, Sensei and me. Even when we were at the bar, I tended to only take notice of Sensei. But Satoru was always there, along with the usual crowd of familiar faces. And I never really acknowledged that any of them were alive in any way. I never gave any thought to the fact that they were leading the same kind of complicated life as I was."
</i></blockquote>
<br />
I've wanted to read this book for years, but I didn't realize it was actually released on this side of the pond with a different title and I've been spending a lot of time waiting for the book <i>Strange Weather in Tokyo</i> by Hiromi Kawakami to make it over here. Turns out it's been released for a couple of years in North America as <i>The Briefcase</i>. Either title is apt. Glad I finally found it.<br />
<br />
Of course, as is always the case with books that one waits ages for, I'm not sure this one quite lived up to the hype in my head. I think part of that was the translation, which didn't seem quite as... lyrical as I'd hoped and expected, but a little more workmanlike. Which is fine, and may reflect the style of the original writing, but wasn't exactly what I was hoping for when someone compared this to one of my all-time favourite books, <i>The Housekeeper and the Professor</i> by Yoko Ogawa - the only things in common I see between the two is that they are by contemporary female Japanese authors, and feature a female first person narrator.<br />
<br />
<i>The Briefcase</i> is, however, as advertised by its UK title, strange, and once I was rolling with it there was a lot to like about it. Tsukiko, our narrator, is a Japanese salarywoman - we never hear exactly what it is that she does - she is single, she is idiosyncratic, she is emotionally detached, and she knows it. She struggles to connect and yet she's not really all that interested in connecting. She drifts around but she's not really interested in putting down roots. She's inexperienced, emotionally and in most other ways, but she's not really interested in getting experience, other than because she thinks she probably should.<br />
<br />
It is also a love story; Tsukiko meets the man she thinks of as Sensei, a retired high school teacher, at the local bar, where she often spends her evenings. It might complicate things that he used to be <i>her</i> high school teacher, but they are both well beyond those days (Tsukiko is in her late thirties, Sensei in his seventies), and didn't much like each other back then if they thought about each other at all. It is Tsukiko who finally breaches the gap between them, who declares herself, much to her own chagrin and even surprise. They are both terribly awkward and somewhat wounded, though Sensei doesn't appear to let either of those things bother him at all.<br />
<br />
If anything, this is a study of loneliness and quiet, and the difficulty of connecting with others in the world. It's not depressing, is the interesting thing, or sad. It is melancholy and contemplative, but it's also a little bit funny at points, and it celebrates certain aspects of life - food, mostly, and the brief, transitive connections we do manage to make. Tsukiko is frustrating as a narrator, but she's frustrating in a believable way, and she's interesting, despite the fact that she herself would certainly deny that characterization. The reader hopes for the best for her, even as we realize that she's probably going to sabotage herself. It might not be serious sabotage; but it will be a sort of sabotage that always leads her back to her dreary, lonely status quo. There is something strangely poignant in that.<br />
<br />
In the end, I don't quite know whether to recommend this or not. It has stuck with me, since I finished reading it months ago (took notes! hooray!) and I found it a relatively quick read. There's not much plot (always okay by me) and the character development is... elliptical, might be the best word, though Tsukiko's character is strong and unique. The language is workmanlike. But it's unusual, and a little haunting, and probably worth a read if you're interested in contemporary Japanese fiction.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-63190603402014402802014-11-04T21:30:00.001-05:002014-11-04T21:30:35.247-05:00All Men Are Liars by Alberto Manguel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>All Men Are Liars</i><br />
by Alberto Manguel<br />
Riverhead Books, 2012 (originally published in Spanish in 2008)<br />
224 pages<br />
<i><br /></i>
Well, it's been months since I finished this book. Luckily I took good notes.<br />
<br />
Originally published in Spanish, this is a novel in five distinct parts. An investigative journalist, Teradillos, is trying to get to the bottom of the story of a famous literary figure by the name of Alejandro Bevilacqua, an ex-pat Argentine who died under mysterious circumstances in Madrid. The first person interviewed is Alberto Manguel himself (in case anyone is curious, Bevilacqua is indeed a fictional character). Manguel tries to distance himself from Bevilacqua, whose body was found under Manguel's balcony when Manguel was out of the country, but is not very successful at it. The second part is told from the perspective of Bevilacqua's lover, the third from a character Bevilacqua spent time in an Argentine prison with, the fourth from another person in Bevilacqua's past, and the fifth and shortest from Teradillos himself.<br />
<br />
Hmm. My notes begin: "I am too stupid for this book" which is an interesting statement. Let's dissect it a bit.<br />
<br />
This is indeed literary fiction, and I don't read a lot of that. What's more, it's interesting and ambitious literary fiction that winds, maze-like, around itself. It doesn't take itself too seriously but it is serious. I haven't read widely enough to be able to follow all the perambulations and permutations, and I'm only just familiar enough with Latin American history to understand a little of what is happening. This is a novel about Argentina under a dictator, a novel about disappearances and corruption, exiles and torturers - even at a remove, being set as it is in Spain and France thirty years on from the events so central to the tale. What's more, it's about the ordinary faces each of these things have, about the banal people behind the atrocities, about the banal people who get caught up in them. And how those ordinary, seemingly boring people, can be fascinating in and of themselves.<br />
<br />
It's also about how we tell stories about ourselves and others, and sometimes we know that we're crafting fictions and sometimes we're blissfully unaware of it, but we are nothing but our stories either way. It helps our case if we are in control of our own stories - the author and wordsmith in the third section, the man who was a prisoner with Bevilacqua, presents the most coherent and convincing tale of all of them, and yet because of the structure of the novel we're aware that it is just a story, even as we fully believe it.<br />
<br />
In short, I'm not sure I am in fact too stupid for this book. I think I did pretty well with it, for all my inferiority complex about reading literary fiction. And I enjoyed it, too. Something I did do, though, was spoiled it a bit for myself, which <i>was</i> objectively stupid - don't read ahead in this book if you can help it. And even if you can't. Part of the enjoyment of it is letting it unfold slowly, letting the mystery slowly solve itself. I learned a fact too early by seeing something quite a bit further along in the story than I was myself, and I think I would have enjoyed it much more if I'd let it unfurl in the way Manguel meant for it to unfurl.<br />
<br />
My notes on the first two sections are incredibly detailed, and then I read the third and got totally swept up in it such that I didn't bother taking notes, but it's the section I remember most vividly. 'Apologia,' the first, is told from Manguel's own "perspective" and while we learn the basic details of Bevilacqua's life through him, we also gain an incredible amount of insight into the character Manguel has created of himself - that he is a little self-indulgent, a little delusional, not entirely in touch with his own feelings. He repeats multiple times that he was not fond of Bevilacqua, that Bevilacqua foisted himself on Manguel as an unwanted guest; but one suspects Manguel was more fond of Bevilacqua than lets on even to himself.<br />
<br />
The second section, 'Much Ado About Nothing,' is an about face. Manguel is a liar and a sad sack, full of himself and totally useless, generally. Andrea, the narrator of this section, is at least as delusional as Manguel, and less self-aware; she's a narcissist. Everything that matters, matters on her terms. She was Bevilacqua's lover, but it's clear to the reader that she was in love with her own idea of the man, not the man himself. The Bevilacqua she discusses is a very different one from the man Manguel tells us about - the two are almost irreconcilable, but because of Andrea's inability to countenance that anything beyond her own version of events and people might have merit, we give more credence to Manguel's version despite the fact that Andrea was objectively closer to Bevilacqua.<br />
<br />
There's more to say about Andrea, but I can't without major spoilers. Suffice to say that even though she's not a terribly subtle character, there are some subtle ways in which Manguel (the author) reveals her to us. This story, though technically about Bevilacqua, tells us more about the people around him than about he himself.<br />
<br />
The third section, as I say, is the most self-aware and the best-written, and the quality of the writing leads us to believe it almost unconditionally even though we know these are personal accounts by people with vested interests. We remain objectively aware that we are reading a story, one person's version of events, but we cannot help but lend this particular person weight because of the way he tells his story. There's quite a lot to be said for this.<br />
<br />
The fourth section was where things fell down for me a bit, told as it was from beyond the grave. It explained a lot of things that were left as mysteries in the first three sections, and while it was... fine? I would have been okay if those things were left unexplained, or ... explained in a more subtle way, like the rest of the story had been up to this point. This section felt kind of heavy-handed, unlike the earlier portions. It was well-done for what it was, but I wasn't sure it fit.<br />
<br />
The fifth section, Teradillos' own, was a satisfying, solid ending, but there's not too much else to say about it beyond that.<br />
<br />
Do I recommend this book? I certainly read it quickly and I enjoyed it. What's more, I think I have enjoyed thinking about it even more than reading it. I don't think it's absolutely brilliant but it was engaging and thought-provoking, and it's hard to ask too much more from a book. For fans of historical fiction, Latin American fiction, and literary fiction especially, but even if you're none of the above, this is an easy read to help you stretch out of your comfort zones.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-57769752651104941862014-10-04T22:11:00.002-04:002014-10-04T22:11:49.676-04:00The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>The River of No Return (River of No Return 1)</i><br />
by Bee Ridgway<br />
Dutton Adult, 2013<br />
452 pages<br />
<br />
I cannot figure out for the life of me why I didn't like this better than I did. Which is not to say I didn't enjoy it; I stayed up until 1:30am to finish it, and it kept my attention, and I didn't ever feel like throwing it across the room or giving up. I just didn't <i>love</i> it and I can't figure out why. And unfortunately I didn't take adequate notes, and so this review is going to be an awful lot shorter than it might otherwise have been.<br />
<br />
It's exactly my kind of candy - historical romance (Regency, even), plus mystery, plus science fiction/fantasy. There are spicy bits, believable spicy bits. And it was smart and well-written, too. I did find it sagged in the middle, but to be honest, a lot of what I'm reading these days seems to sag in the middle and that suggests to me that it's more me than the book.<br />
<br />
Nicholas Davenant used to be a marquess. He used to be fighting Napoleon, an officer in the British Army. But then one day, a Frenchman was about to cut him down - and instead of dying, Nicholas disappeared, jumping ahead in time to the twenty-first century. He is greeted there by a representative of the Guild, an organization devoted to finding, rescuing, and helping acclimatize those who make the jump from the past. He is taught how to build a new life, and while there are hints that things might not be perfect and he misses his family and his old life, he spends ten very happy years in Vermont, farming. But then his suspicions bear out - things aren't entirely right, he hasn't been told the whole truth, and he's about to learn all sorts of new and unsettling things from the Guild.<br />
<br />
And that's only the summary of one character - Julia Percy, being the other, is an orphan, and neighbour to Nicholas' family. We meet her just as her beloved grandfather is dying, and she is about to be alone in the world, faced with a desperate, and desperately mean, cousin taking over the estate. The narrative switches back and forth between these two.<br />
<br />
I didn't particularly love any of the characters, even though I enjoyed them and particularly Julia. I did love that Ridgway made things so complex; none of the characters are black and white, evil or not - even Mr. Mibbs, who does veer very close to irredeemable villain, has enough mystery surrounding him that I'm prepared to concede that he might have some sort of reason for being so thoroughly horrible. Arkady, for example, could have been a creepy, frightening, powerful villain - but while he's slightly creepy, and frightening, and powerful, he's not entirely villainous. His motives are clear and his actions, while repellant to the mains and therefore the reader, make a kind of sense. I believed that he believed he was doing the right thing, or at least, the righteous thing. That's not always an easy thing for an author to pull off.<br />
<br />
The twists were varied and some of them I saw coming, and others I did not. It's a bit of a maze of a book, but it never really seemed to lose its way, if that makes sense, despite my feeling that things got a bit slow in the middle. The ending was a satisfying cliffhanger, if that makes sense. There's a lot to explore in the next book, and nothing feels quite safe or secure, which is exactly as it should be.<br />
<br />
So why didn't I love it? I still can't say for sure. That I never really connected firmly with any of the characters is probably the big reason, but I'm not sure what it was that kept me from connecting. Certainly the plot was well-done and the historical bits very well-done, and the characters were interesting. It just didn't connect. So don't let me stop you from reading this, is what I am trying to say, if it tickles your fancy - you'll probably have better luck than me. But there is something mildly disappointing about finding book likeable when I really expected to love it.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-81745384376407967972014-09-14T23:00:00.000-04:002014-09-14T23:08:42.203-04:00The Bird of the River by Kage Baker<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>The Bird of the River (The Anvil of the World 3)</i><br />
by Kage Baker<br />
Tor Books, 2010<br />
272 pages<br />
<br />
I cannot possibly be objective about this book, because it is all my favourite things. It breaks my heart that there will be no more books in this series, and that this particular book has gone out of print without even a paperback run. Why, for gods' sakes, is no one reading Kage Baker?<br />
<br />
Books like this only come along once in a very long while for me. And on the surface, Kage Baker's writing is... different? I want to say "workmanlike" but that doesn't do it anywhere near justice (though to be fair to "workmanlike" I actually very much appreciate writing that does what it's supposed to do without being fancy about it, even though I appreciate the fancy stuff too.) It's very <i>storyteller</i>-like. It's propulsive without being manipulative, it's clear, it's concise, it's descriptive in the ways that mark the important details and give the reader enough to build a sharp, clear picture without being overbearing. It's unsentimental but deeply respectful of her characters. It's simple without being patronizing. The pacing is spot-on.<br />
<br />
Writing this makes me want to read it again right now.<br />
<br />
Baker's writing is utterly unlike much of what I read, even though this book employs several familiar fantasy tropes. It felt new, though. I surprised myself by how much I loved this book in particular, even though I really liked <i><a href="http://www.bluepixie.com/2011/10/hotel-under-sand-by-kage-baker.html">The Hotel Under the Sand</a></i> and <i><a href="http://www.bluepixie.com/2011/10/nell-gwynnes-scarlet-spy-by-kage-baker.html">Nell Gwynne's Scarlet Spy</a></i>. But the idea of the book appealed to me. One of the things I love about it is that it is so unsentimental, which it shares very much in common with the first two Bakers I read. I said it's propulsive without being manipulative and I think that's one of the things that appeals so much to me about Baker's writing: she can make me feel attached and concerned and interested, without feeling like I've been told either implicitly or explicitly how I should feel. She was a writer who took her reader's intelligence and compassion for granted, and I like that very much.<br />
<br />
The premise of this book caught my attention immediately. Eliss and her family, her younger half-brother and her drug addict mother, are trying to find work for her mother so that they can survive. Her mother is a diver and they're looking at river boats because in her mother's condition she isn't strong enough to dive in the sea as she used to. They find themselves upon the enormous barge <i>The Bird of the River</i>, a ship so large as to be a floating village unto itself. The crew's job is to clear the wide, slow river of snags and underwater hazards, so they need divers; Falena is hired, and Eliss and Alder start finding their own way upon the boat as well.<br />
<br />
There's quite a lot more to the plot, and it explores themes of loss, racism (Alder is of mixed race, and part of the reason they can't settle down is because of the colour of his skin), violence, addiction, loyalty, family, poverty, love, coming-of-age. Which makes this book sound heavy and overloaded, but it simply isn't. This isn't an issues book - it's well-rounded and the issues are there because the world and the characters are rich and well-developed. None of them weigh this book down in the slightest.<br />
<br />
I really, really loved this book. I'm hoping to find a paper copy even though the book is out-of-print. I know I'm going to want to read this again and again. Possibly tonight.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6907747392138991807.post-60333820320580867852014-09-09T22:38:00.001-04:002014-09-09T22:38:57.667-04:00Naked in Death by JD Robb<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Naked in Death (In Death 1)</i><br />
by J.D. Robb<br />
Brilliance Audio, 2010 (originally published in 1995)<br />
5 discs, abridged<br />
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Welp, that was another abridged audiobook. It wasn't supposed to be, but it was what I could get, and I've wanted to try this series for a while now. For those not sure, yes, JD Robb is a different incarnation of redoubtable, prolific romance author Nora Roberts. This series is exceedingly popular and long-lived, and incredibly all 40 (<i>40!!</i>) entries in the series have above a 4 star rating on Goodreads. The setting appealed to me - I like mysteries, and the idea of a series set in a futuristic New York City, but still a police procedural and a romantic thriller, really tickled my fancy.<br />
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Lieutenant Eve Dallas is a young and very successful police inspector with the New York City Police and Security Department in the year 2058. After a particularly messy episode with a domestic assault and murder, in which she's been responsible for the death of the murderer, she's immediately called in to a top secret investigation involving the gruesome murder of the prostitute (legalized, now) granddaughter of a very powerful, very right-wing Southern Senator. The top suspect is the charming billionaire Roarke, a man with deep secrets. But as Eve grows to know Roarke she becomes convinced that his secrets don't include coldblooded murder (this one, at least.) And she finds herself increasingly fascinated by this contrarian, handsome, and likely very dangerous man.<br />
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I know why this series is so popular. It ticks off alllll the fantasies: young, scarily competent, slightly maverick, and secretly scarred detective; fancy gadgets that do cool things; a possible conspiracy of the powerful and a hard-ass boss for our detective to fight against; and very rich, very good-looking, very alpha male hero. The writing is extremely competent and even excellent in places. The tone is perfect. The plot is... not a big surprise at any point, exactly, but there's enough tension to keep it interesting. In short, this book is straight-out escapist fiction and it doesn't pretend to be anything else, and it's very, very good at what it does.<br />
<br />
Any problems I had with this book really had to do with the abridgement I listened to and nothing else. And that's not even saying that the abridgement was poorly done; it wasn't. It's just that any romance that is abridged feels too fast, and mysteries that are abridged often leave clues that the author might have buried a little better feeling pretty bare. The predictability of both the plot and the identity of the murderer are partially due to the format I chose.<br />
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So I need to talk about Roarke and the alpha male hero. Intellectually I find myself pretty conflicted about this, but in some ways Robb(erts) has made this easy: Eve is not a wallflower, nor is she too perfect. She saves herself when she needs saving, but she's messy, and she makes an acceptable number of mistakes. I say "acceptable" because I really think that this kind of story needs a protagonist who makes errors, but she can't make too many because otherwise the story stops being enjoyable because the reader is too worried - Eve hits these notes perfectly and manages not to be either one-note or stereotypical; she's very likeable and she's very competent and she's not a push-over.<br />
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This is important, because Roarke is super-alpha. In his desire to take care of Eve and help her out, he does a couple of things that are pretty creepy if one thinks too hard about it. To the author's credit Eve calls him out on these things, but she doesn't do the sensible thing and get him out of her life entirely. And this is where I have trouble. I feel that, by enjoying the alpha male, I am somehow buying into a misogynistic social construct, and I don't like that. On the other hand, I also feel like it's unhelpful to suggest to women that certain avenues of fantasy or desire are off-limits or shameful. I don't have the background to be able to take this discussion too much further, and I obviously still have a need to work through it.<br />
<br />
But simply: I enjoy Roarke as a hero, and I find the scenes with him romantic and sexy, and as a fantasy his behaviour doesn't creep me out, even if I encountered someone like him in real life I'd stay as far away from him as possible. I can spend as much time as I would like trying to justify this, but I think I just maybe need to own up to it: as a fantasy, this works for me. It can be borderline - there are alpha males I find just insufferable and not attractive at all - but something about this combination, Eve and Roarke, I find sexy and believable enough as a fantasy to enjoy the relationship.<br />
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If it's not clear from all of the above, I really enjoyed listening to this, and I'll definitely read/listen to more of the In Death series. Do I have the need to read all 40+ books? Maybe not, but I'm glad I've started. A solid mystery and vivid characters, with the bonus of a well-realized, very interesting and fun setting. If you're not a fan of the alpha male romance, steer clear, but this is a good bet for those who like that sort of thing. Even if you're a bit conflicted about it.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10330550798080469047noreply@blogger.com0