Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale

I love these days off I have. I can finish a book in a day, when I get going. Nothing much else gets done, mind you, but I always feel quite satisfied to have finished a book, and a little lost once it is done. Today, in addition to getting the most fantastic haircut ever, I have finished my first book by Shannon Hale. It has been a good day. I could maybe deal with a thousand days like this one, but I might get bored. I would be decidedly less happy with a thousand days locked up in a dark tower with only one other person I don't really know and nothing but my own writing to read.

Hale is one of those authors I keep hearing about and wondering why I've never read; she seems to be right up my alley. So I grabbed this off the shelf. It seemed like the right time. I'm trying to do less "I should read this" and more "I feel like reading this today" and that seems to be working very well for me. As did Book of a Thousand Days.

Inspired by the Grimm fairytale "Maid Maleen," this story is told in the form of a journal. Dashti is a lady's maid, and her lady is Saren, a slip of a sixteen-year-old girl who is being bricked up into a tower for defying her father's order to marry Lord Khasar, a man she desperately fears. They are to stay in the tower for seven years, a thousand days, or until Saren repents and agrees to be married. Dashti agrees to be bricked up with Saren, having sworn an oath to stay with her; and Dashti, being able to read and write, keeps a record -- a book of a thousand days.

That summary is just the starting point, and does not encompass the incredible detail of the backstory and world that Hale has provided Dashti with. What's even better is the way this backstory and world and the current plot is revealed to us: the journal format is used perfectly. Sometimes we see events, sometimes we see Dashti's innermost thoughts and feelings, sometimes we get Dashti's history, sometimes we get conversations reported faithfully. Dashti even sketches, and her art is very simple but exactly the sort of thing one might find in a young woman's journal, and I think it really adds to the story.

Something else the summary doesn't get across, and something I wasn't prepared for, was Lady Saren. Who was not what I expected at all. What's interesting, though, is that she rang true, if slightly melodramatic, and after adjusting my expectations I thought the dynamic between Dashti and Saren was very well done. Dashti's optimism and fearlessness were refreshing, particularly in the face of the obstacles; her faithfulness and kindness were also lovely. Dashti bends, but she doesn't break. Additionally, the contrast between Dashti and Saren makes for very interesting characterization for the two of them.

The magic and the religious aspects were also really interesting. There was a kind of magic, but it wasn't flashy or overstated, and in fact seemed quite organic. Dashti swears by her gods, and she doesn't waver from that, either. But whether or not they hear her is something for the reader to interpret. There are never overt signs, which I think is a nice touch. Another nice touch: the culture and society of Book of a Thousand Days is based on an Eastern model, rather than a Western one. Hale lists ancient Mongolia as her big influence here, and I like that a lot. I like that she's willing to take us fantasy readers outside of our regular comfort zone and stretch a little. I like that she's willing to step out of the pack of fantasy writers to try something different, and I hope that soon becomes enough of the norm that I don't feel I have to comment on it. Until then, this book stands out as a great example.

Something else that I think is interesting is that there are a lot of wince-worthy moments; this book is occasionally like watching a train wreck, in that one can see the bad things coming, but one can't help but watch. The romantic portion of this story is a bit like that. I don't usually enjoy that sort of thing. It stresses me out. But Dashti was such an engaging narrator that I couldn't help but like this tale.

I'll be recommending this one. Oddly enough, I don't see myself immediately rushing out to buy everything Hale has written. I liked this book, but I wouldn't say I loved it. It was readable, intelligent, an interesting fantasy and a good tale with engaging characters. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for more Hale, but I've got a little ways to go before I'm convinced that Hale is an author I absolutely must read. That said, I'm keen to try out Princess Academy and/or the Books of Bayern at some point sooner rather than later.

I have one of my co-workers, largely, to thank for bringing this book to my attention. The co-worker in question is rapidly becoming as bad for my TBR as the entire blogosphere combined. She talked Book of a Thousand Days up to all of us children's programmers at one of our sharing meetings. Since then, we've been taking turns with the "Hey! Have you read this yet?! Ooooh, or what about this?" It's getting rather drastic.

The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys

I have been meaning to read something else by Helen Humphreys for a long time, since I first read The Frozen Thames, which remains a book that I love and will read again. Happily, the book club I am now leading (I have never even been to a book club meeting, and I am leading one now, so we'll see how that goes) was reading The Lost Garden this month and so I had to read it too. I'm glad I did, although it is one of those cases where I wonder if I would have liked this book better if I'd picked it up of my own accord. It's also one of those cases where I'm not sure I would have picked it up of my own accord at all, even though Geranium Cat's review certainly put it on my list, but I'm glad I did pick it up even if the timing wasn't optimal.

Gwen Davis is an horticulturalist working for the Royal Horticultural Society in London during the Blitz. She volunteers to take her skills out to Mosel, an estate far removed from London, where she will be heading a group of the Women's Land Army, growing vegetables for the war effort. She does this so she won't have to watch her beloved city be destroyed around her, but she is not terribly well-suited to the position, at least at first. This story is an extended set of musings on love and its forms, its pains, and its beauty. It's also about Gwen's journey into becoming whole; she seemed so fragmented and hollow at the start of the book, and she is changed by the end.

The language in which this story is told is often beautiful, so much so that it is sometimes distanced from real life. The dialogue in particular does not ring true, but it's not supposed to. As a narrator, Gwen puts a veneer on her memories for us, I think. The story it tells is somewhat indulgent, somewhat predictable. It may have been meant to be predictable -- I kind of feel like it was set up in such a way that I was supposed to know what happened pretty much from the beginning. I wonder, too, if I had read Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse, which figures prominently (Gwen is a big fan of Woolf) if I would understand more about the story than I do. I do have enough of an understanding of gardens that the flower and gardening references integral to the text worked very well for me. Interestingly, I didn't enjoy that aspect of this book as much as I expected to, given how much I love reading nonfiction about gardening. I haven't quite decided why that is yet. The writing in general is occasionally a little off-putting, almost too self-consciously poetic. Overall, though, I think it works.

If we get down to the fine grain, I don't think I can say I liked this book, although it certainly made an impression on me. I wasn't terribly fond of Gwen, particularly at the beginning, and that was certainly deliberate. She changes over the course of the novel to the point where I am glad I met her, glad I got to know her. She's still not entirely a comfortable character, but she's less prickly than she was in the beginning. She has a lot of baggage, does Gwen, and she doesn't carry it lightly.

I don't think it's a spoiler (but stop reading here if you don't want any hints)...

... to say that this is a terribly sad story. It's about the war, and there's not a lot of emotional good that comes out of a war. Though this is a story about love, it's not romantic, and the way the war is portrayed is not romantic in the least. And here, of course, is my big problem with this book: I don't like sad stories. I really don't. And I do avoid them pretty scrupulously. They make me unhappy and not in a cathartic way. I am a wimp about this, I know. (I have to read The Time-Traveler's Wife next, guys -- this is going to be a disaster. I don't think I can take two in a row.) A review blurb I found from NOW Magazine gets it right: "Emotional ache, fear, loneliness, Helen Humphreys evokes these sensations with unsettling clarity." Consider me unsettled. I do it to myself enough without reading books that do it to me.

And this, in the end, is why I didn't like this book so much; I think I could have appreciated the language and setting and the characters and the structure of the story, but I knew it wasn't going to end happily and I was right. It would have felt extremely incongruous for it to have ended happily; the entire book is tinged with a painful melancholy. But it was worth reading, and I do recommend it for people who aren't as wimpy as me about sad stories. Humphreys' writing does take some getting used to, but I have decided I like it, and am quite keen to try Coventry next time I feel like I need to make myself sad. Because that's also a war story, and chances are it's not going to end happily either.

Addendum to Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede

Nymeth made a comment that got me going and thinking seriously and now that I'm done with it, I'm not sure I want all that work to stay hidden in the comments. So here we go:

Nymeth's comment:

On the one hand, this book really appeals to me. On the other hand, I'm a bit put off by a heated debate that followed its publication. I'm not sure if you heard of it, but many readers were upset that Wrede completely suppressed Native Americans from the world she created, especially as this decision was apparently accompanied by some comments about how she wanted to create an alternative American where magical beasts lived alongside with people, but other than adding the magic, she didn't want to make any changes that would have much of a cultural impact. People were of course very upset with the implication that the non-existence of Native Americans would be just a small detail without much of an impact at all. As you're someone whose opinion on these things I really value, I thought I'd ask you how you felt about this aspect of the story.

My response:

I didn't know about the controversy (I missed it completely, and am somewhat chagrined that I did) but I'm not in the least surprised that there was one, because I did notice the lack of Native Americans and I did wonder what happened to them and why they weren't involved, even mentioned. I thought it strange. I thought about writing about it in the review, but then I couldn't think of exactly what to say. So now that you've prodded me into it (and thank you for that), here are my thoughts for now:

Let me say first that I'm pretty sure it would be irresponsible of me to speculate on Wrede's motives, not having read any of the printed material surrounding this, nor heard Wrede herself say anything. But aside from my own personal suspicions about what she was thinking, something does occur to me: I can see, without too much difficulty, that adding that dimension to the story would have complicated it into something much bigger and different from the tale Wrede obviously wished to tell. Any inclusion of anything regarding Native Americans would have made a point in one way or another. It would have added an extra layer of complexity and this was already a story more complex than any other Wrede I've read.

I don't know much about the frontier at all, but my understanding is that the Natives didn't populate North America nearly as densely as we do now. There would have been large swathes of unpopulated land. I suspect, though I am not certain, that it would have been possible for people to live their entire lives as settlers in a large, well-established frontier town without ever encountering a Native, or even really thinking about them. If Wrede decided not to add that aspect to her story, I don't think that's so far-fetched. And her alleged comment could be interpreted in that light, too.

It's true that the exclusion was noticeable. Taken in another way, her comment could smack of entitlement: that whole "wild uninhabited west ripe for settlement" attitude when in fact the west was perfectly well inhabited and settled before Europeans got here, densely or not. When basing an alternate history so closely on ours, I do think it a strange choice to include notable historical (white, male) characters and yet also exclude an entire group of people. Particularly since the group excluded has a long history of discrimination against them -- it's hard not to view it as yet another discriminatory act, even if it is in a world that is recognizably not one we inhabit.

This is the first of a trilogy and it's possible that in Eff's travels she will encounter that alternate universe version of Natives. It's also possible she won't ever meet or hear of a Native American equivalent, that it won't ever be addressed. Wrede might decide that it's not part of what she's working with in her story. I think it is her authorial prerogative.

I loved the book, and I noticed the exclusion and yet decided to go with the story anyways and enjoy it. I don't regret that decision. I still love the book. I do hope that the exclusion and the comment wasn't out of either overt or subliminal racism, but more a conscious decision, based on reasonable information, not to complicate the story and turn it into something different from the story she wished to tell. But, either way, I think the fact that the exclusion was noticeable, and that there was pushback about it, is a good thing.

Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede

How does Patricia C. Wrede do it? After not reading anything by her for years, I've read two books by her (or one half-by her, I guess) recently and decided upon completion to immediately purchase them both. With this book the compulsion was even stronger than with Sorcery and Cecelia. This book is just brilliant. It is compulsively readable, understated, and deeply interesting. There is humour, there is pain; there is beauty, there is ugliness. Although I think, in keeping with how I feel it's understated, we are left to imagine the pain and the ugliness, and this is not by any means a dark book. I first learned of this book back in April 2009 from Abby (the) Librarian, who wasn't as effusive in her praise as I am about to be, but enjoyed it enough to pique my interest.

I often view Wrede as a light read, which is not entirely true. Yes, the Enchanted Forest Chronicles are pretty light, a whimsical and entertaining retelling and re-imagining of fairytale and fantasy conventions. Thirteenth Child, on the other hand, is an entertaining pioneer story, a western with a healthy dose of magic. The world that Wrede creates is fascinating, tied to our own by familiar names (only Pythagoras and Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were also extremely powerful magicians) and concepts -- the push of settlement to the west, the pushing back of the wild frontier. And though she doesn't delve deeply into issues like destruction of wildlife and habitats, and human hubris and blinkered thinking, it's touched upon, brushed upon in such a way that it's there to be thought about if the reader so chooses. She also deals outright with bullies and human potential, in a much more obvious but only rarely heavy-handed way.

Eff is a thirteenth child. In Avrupan culture, the culture in which she grows up, the thirteenth child is terribly unlucky at best and outright evil at worst; there are hints that these children would be killed at birth, at least in the past. Luckily for Eff, her parents will have no stock with that, nor will her twin brother Lan, a lucky and powerful seventh son of a seventh son. But Eff does have to deal with the taunts and worse of her extended family and the other children until her father accepts a position out west teaching magic at one of the new colleges, and the Rothmer family (those young enough to still be living at home) picks up and moves to Mill City. Here no one knows Eff is a thirteenth, although Eff herself can't forget it. The story chronicles Eff's life from the time she's old enough to remember anything at roughly three or four to eighteen as she starts to come in to her own. It's told in first person, in Eff's wonderfully distinctive, practical and variously wry or earnest voice. It's a marvelous tale and I love it.

We see through Eff's eyes, and she's a perceptive little thing. Through her we get a feel for many of the other characters around: her twin Lan, who she adores and who adores her, but neither are without their flaws; Papa and Mama, the centre of the enormous Rothmer family; Eff's siblings, some of whom we get to know better than others; Eff's aunts and uncles, the awful lot of them (though, again there are shades of awful and some are not as they seem at first); the professors at the college, Eff's teachers, and their fellow students. William, Lan and Eff's best friend, who grows and changes as Eff and Lan do, and is one of the better fleshed-out characters. It's a big cast, but the important players are real and wonderful. There are no straight-up villains, either, except for perhaps Eff's Uncle Earn, who plays a relatively small role except in Eff's head. The struggles come more from Eff's own complex about being thirteenth (brought on by Earn) and from nature.

Which gets me into an aspect of the book I really liked. I've always wished that someone could turn back time and tell the settlers that killing everything is perhaps not the most intelligent way to go about things; watching this story unfold was interesting, because those thoughts are addressed mostly obliquely, but I think they're there. Towards the end with the introduction of the naturalist and travelling magician Wash this issue gets a bit more attention. There's no denying that the frontier, the world outside the Great Barrier, is a very dangerous place; it makes me wince, in Wrede's history as in ours, that the solution to the problem is killing the creatures, eradicating them entirely so that they won't be a problem. The dangers are given mythic status by the settlers and those back home, largely due to ignorance. Even right on the frontier the wild animals, both magical and not, are feared absolutely and those who willingly go outside the Barrier are viewed with awe. The disaster at the climax of the story is environmental in nature, and was handled in a way that makes the reader think about who is to blame for it, and what lessons might be learned in this alternate history from it. It's never shoved down our throats, though.

And imagine my delight when I discovered that this is the first of a projected trilogy, all to be narrated by Eff. I'm really, really looking forward to the next one. Highly, highly recommended. I hope this series finds a wide audience.

Hearts at Stake by Alyxandra Harvey

For my final trick of reviewing vacation reads, I have for you Hearts at Stake by Alyxandra Harvey. As Harvey's a Canadian author, I was quite keen to try. I'll admit: I'm still not quite tired of the sexy vampire trope. I know it's been done and I know the vampire/horror purists out there are pretty appalled by it, but I enjoy it when done well.

Hearts at Stake has an interesting take on vampires, too. Vampires aren't out to the general population, but there are humans who know who and what they are. Most have to be made, but in some families vampirism is hereditary, and the Drake family is one of those. Solange Drake is days away from sixteen years old, the time at which she will turn from human to vampire. It's a difficult transition, and Solange is the first female vampire to be born, not made, in 900 years. This is complicated by a prophesy that a born female vampire will become queen -- and there already is a queen, Lady Natasha, who is very jealous of her power. So Solange has suitors, those unhappy with Natasha's rule and those attracted by her powerful vampire pheromones, as well as assassins from various quarters on her tail. She has seven older brothers, fiercely protective and well-trained to do it. And luckily for Solange, she also has Lucy, her human best friend, to keep her sane. This story is told in alternating viewpoints, switching chapter by chapter between Solange and Lucy, as they each work their way towards Solange's dangerous transition.

I feel like kind of a heel for saving this review for last, because while I can say I enjoyed the read, overall it didn't really work for me. It's one of those books that starts to work less for me the longer I think about it, too. There were a couple of reasons. First, and very minor, the book starts with a prologue that might as well be the first chapter. Why it isn't called the first chapter, I don't know. That kind of thing bothers me straight off the top; it seems pretentious, somehow, or disingenuous. That's quite minor, and I was prepared to ignore it.

More major is the fact that while I liked Lucy very much, I couldn't really get into Solange. She seemed bland, somehow, or hollow; not a terribly engaging character to me. I could understand Lucy's friendship with her, I could see that Solange might be an interesting and entertaining friend to have; I just felt we didn't see that much of Solange's personality other than modesty, frustration with her situation, and a weary determination to get everything over with. I think I could have liked Solange, but I didn't feel we knew her well enough even though we spent half the book in her head. This leads to the unfortunate situation of about half the book being far more engaging to me than the other, in alternating chapters.

My biggest complaint, though, is the battle scenes and what I think is a pretty clear inconsistency of character with Lucy. There is lots of action, and especially towards the end vampires die. A lot. Lucy, all through the book, has been pushing the "vampires are people too" angle, and though she is belligerent and violent (in a fun way -- that may seem counter-intuitive, but I enjoyed her personality) she's also a bit of a softy when it comes to killing things. Particularly animals, but I didn't see any indication that it didn't extend to humans. Except it really doesn't extend to vampires, despite her earlier stated attitude towards them. The vampire battles are described in a nonchalant way; Lucy doesn't seem too traumatized by any of it.

I don't think I'm explaining myself too well; what I am annoyed about is the too-common trap that fantasy and adventure novels seem to fall into, where fighting and battle is a way to generate excitement, and isn't portrayed in an even remotely realistic (or in this case, even emotionally compelling) way. The characters who previously seem compassionate and caring don't react in any sort of internally consistent way to what is described as carnage. Hearts at Stake isn't unique in this mistake, it just bothers me every time.

Anyway. Though these were some pretty major hurdles for me, they seemed to come after I'd closed the book for the last time. I did enjoy the read, largely on the strength of Lucy. I really enjoyed her interactions with Nicholas, Solange's brother, and I liked her gutsy take on things. Further, I did find the plot engaging -- I wanted to know what happened to Solange and her family, how it all worked out. What's interesting about this is that I usually think of character as a major driver for me to be invested in a plot, but in this case I don't think that's what happened. I found the plot twists and turns interesting enough on their own.

This one didn't work terribly well for me, but as far as I can tell a lot of other people have liked it very much; Kristi and the GreenBeanTeenQueen feel differently than I did, for example. It's very light, an easy read, and if you're looking for something fast, vampiric, and romantic, this would be a fine choice. It's entirely possible that young adults will respond to this better than I have, too, and be more able to sympathize with Solange especially, where I wasn't able to.