REVIEW: Boxers and Saints

Boxers and Saints

by Gene Luen Yang

“What is China but a people and their stories?” 

Boxers and Saints are two companion graphic novels that tell the two sides of the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1898. Boxers follows Little Bao, a boy whose village is bullied and oppressed by Christian foreigners. Vowing to put a stop to it, he and his followers become imbued with the power of the ancient gods and fight the "foreign devils" and "secondary devils" -- the Chinese who converted to Christianity. Spurred on by the spirit of the Emperor who united China, his actions become more and more ruthless until he can no longer tell if his crusade is just. Saints tells the story of Four-Girl who is neglected and abused by her family and finds a home in the local Catholic Church. Baptized as Vibiana, she struggles with her purpose in life. Seeing visions of Joan of Arc, she wants to be a female warrior and lead her people to freedom, but the Boxer Rebellion is coming nearer and nearer, bringing death and destruction in its wake. When the time comes, what will her role be?

It has been a few months since I read these books, so please bear with me. These stories are beautifully told, but brutal and dark. Yang pulls no punches here. He does not flinch from letting his protagonists make very wrong choices. The images are beautiful and striking as each character is lead by visions of their own spiritual guide. I love watching how their two stories intersect and impact each other through life, both at odds, both with good intentions. 

The ending to Boxers leaves you with a kick to the stomach, as does Saints, but there is a kernel of hope at the very very end that makes you feel that people are not entirely terrible. 

REVIEW: The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell

The Death of Bees

by Lisa O'Donnell

"Today is Christmas Eve. Today is my birthday. Today I am fifteen. Today I buried my parents in the backyard.  Neither of them were beloved."

Marnie and her little sister Nelly bury their parents in the backyard on Christmas Eve. They were rotten parents, anyway. Marnie has grown up too fast, talking tough, wearing fishnets and short skirts and lipstick, selling drugs for a guy named Mick who she occasionally sleeps with, at the young age of 15. Nelly is younger and speaks like a grandmother with her "good gracious" and her "local constabulary." She sounds like a Jane Austen novel, and she is obsessed with Harry Potter. She might be a little off, but Marnie ferociously protects her. Lennie is the older next door neighbor who starts to notice that they are alone. He has a troubled past that will not let him be, and he invites the girls over to his home to care for them as much as they will let him. Then one day, the girls' grandfather comes looking for them. He ran out on their mother but he says he's changed. He is asking questions about their parents' whereabouts. Is he trustworthy? Will he find out his daughter is buried in the backyard? How did they really die? If all is revealed, will things get better for the girls, or a whole lot worse?

This book was the first book I read after the YA class, and it was fantastic! I loved the narration in three separate voices: Marnie as the slang-slinging tough girl, Nelly as the posh but vulnerable waif, and Lennie, speaking to his dead partner, as the emotional (not literal) grandfather of the girls. You would hear of the same event from all three different points of view and get drastically different information. It is amazing to hear their voices develop throughout the book: one becomes more natural, one becomes more assertive, one slowly looses their grip.

This book is about family. About how the family you get can be horribly broken, and how you survive and make a new one. And it's not just about the girls. It is about the whole community of poor living in Maryhill, Scotland. How they make the best or the worst of it. There is a beautiful passage about immigrants:

"It is dangerous and not because of the refugees they've housed there but because of the wee radges who don't like the refugees there. Glaswegians are very territorial, even in a shit hole like Sighthill. It never occurs to them the accents around them belong to doctors and nurses, teachers and lawyers, educated people forced out of nice homes in beautiful lands only to be stored in tower blocks in the northeast of Glasgow. I mean seriously. Imagine losing everything you are and everyone you know, to have survived rape, starvation, and homelessness, to have escaped death at the hands of genocidal maniacs only to end up in a moldy housing estate. Now we have immigrants with university degrees and doctorates prostituting themselves, selling drugs and doing whatever they must to survive the hell we call asylum..."

 Oh and the book is really darkly funny (and a bit gross in parts, so don't read it while you are eating). I highly recommend it! It is a fast read!

REVIEW: Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick

Never Fall Down

by Patricia McCormick

"I see all this, smell the blood, like raw meat. And my eyes see it. But I don't feel anything. If you feel, you go crazy."

Eleven-year-old Arn lives in his village in Cambodia, selling ice cream and listening to Elvis. There is a war going on, but it is distant. That is, until the Khmer Rouge, the communist enemy, come to his village claiming the Americans were coming to bomb it, and they "evacuate" the people to farming camps. The children are separated from the adults, and any intellectual or rich citizens are killed. The population becomes smaller and smaller as the Khmer Rouge find increasingly specific reasons to kill people. Arn does what he can to survive as his friends and family die around him in the Killing Fields. He volunteers to participate in a band that tours other camps, singing of the glory of the communist party and the paradise they have brought. He is soon able to protect a small group of kids because he has become "a little bit famous." But with so much death facing him every day, he must become like the Khmer Rouge to survive. Will he be able to ever find himself again?

This book was absolutely brutal. It was the most gory and graphic thing I have ever read, or seen, including Game of Thrones or Joe Abercrombie or Battle Royale. I do love me some dark and gory stuff from time to time, but it was too much for even me. I couldn’t go a page without someone drowning in shit, or having a person explode and parts of their body are hanging from the trees, or a kid shoots himself in the face. I felt like I was being sandblasted with violence, and the nonchalance with which it is treated in the narrative made it so much worse. It certainly put you in the mind of the character, where you had to at some point turn off your emotions or your attachment to anyone because they were going to step on a land mine sooner or later. Often, the writer would tease you with hope, only to have that hope snatched away offhandedly a page or so later.

The worst thing is, this happened. To a real person. I did not realize this until about ¾ of the way through the book. I thought the author was taking all the worst parts of what happened in Cambodia and giving it to one boy, but no, this is almost verbatim what happened to Arn Chorn-Pond, the real man.

That is the difficulty of this book. On the one hand, it is really brutal and gory and extremely difficult to get through, but on the other hand this happened to someone. The world needs to know that this level of evil happens in the world. We need to honor the dead by reading their stories and try to find ways to prevent this from happening again. I feel like people will have different reactions to this book: some will rise and fight against the evil, and some will feel overwhelmed and hide.

The most intriguing part of the book for me is the way Arn’s brain handles the situation he is in. In order to survive and protect the people he cares about, he plays along with what the Khmer Rouge want. However, after being given some small perks and power, he slowly begins to turn into them. He becomes what he hates most in order maintain his sanity and stay alive. Once he is safe, he struggles with who he is and what he has done. How do you have a normal life when you have seen what he has seen, and killed people?

It also makes me wary of believing what I hear or read. The Khmer Rouge used heavy manipulations, lies and propaganda to get people to do what they wanted, and there were deep consequences for those who believed them.

Hope only comes in the very end of the book, almost in the post script, where you find out how Arn decided to channel his anger and pain and use his experience for good. 

Here is an interview with Arn Chorn-Pond and Patricia McCormick:

I believe that this book is important for everyone to read, but you must be prepared for its contents. 

REVIEW: The Hate List by Jennifer Brown

Hate List

by Jennifer Brown

“I sat back and looked at it. It was ugly, dark, uncontrolled. Like a monster's face. Or maybe what I saw there was my own face. I couldn't quite tell. Was the face the image of something evil or the image of myself?

"Both," Bea muttered, as if I'd spoken my question out loud. "Of course, it's both. But it shouldn't be. Goodness, no.” 

Valerie and her boyfriend Nick are bullied in school so they create a "hate list" a list of all the people who make their lives miserable. Nick is funny and sweet and loves Shakespeare....and then on the morning of May 2nd he opens fire in the school cafeteria, killing the students who are on that list. When Val realizes what is happening, she tries to stop Nick and gets shot in the leg before he turns the gun on himself. In Hate List we jump back and forth between the morning of the shooting, Val's memories of Nick and the horrible consequences of the event. Val is seen sometimes as a hero, but more often then not as an accomplice. The book chronicles the healing process (or not) of Val, of the school, of the town. Emotions are so tangled up for the kids, the parents, the school officials that Val becomes a walking symbol of what happened that day. In the face of so much pain and hate, how can Val face another year at school?

Wow. This book was gripping, beautiful and moving. So very sad and hard and hopeful.  I loved how it was not just a story about a school shooting. It could turn into a voyeuristic slasher blood fest quickly. And it is not a sappy love fest where easy answers are found in platitudes.  It is about how you deal with something like that, not just the victims or the victims’ families, but the “culprits” and their families and survivors in all senses of the word. How the media spins it to make the country believe everyone has healed and accepted the loss when that is not the case, and probably will not be the case for a very long time. It does not make things simple either. Nick was a nice kid, a good boyfriend, intellectual and passionate. There is no cut and dried explanation as to why he did what he did. He was teased and he got angry and he took drugs, but plenty of people do that without shooting up a school. We never uncover the mystery. We never receive a satisfactory diagnosis of a disease that we can cure in our school system or society.

I very much appreciated how Brown wrote adults. I have noticed a trend in many YA books where the authors feel they have to remove parents from the equation in order for kids to strike out on their own. The parents and authority figures either are horrible people, ignore the kids, have died, or are unable to relate to the kids. This is why I really admire John Green when he has his characters sit down and watch TV with his loving parents and actually enjoy hanging out and talking with them. While I understand the trope, I also feel like it isolates kids from adults, making them feel like adults will not be there for them, or understand their problems. In Hate List, the adults were simply people. Flawed, yes, but well-rounded people. The teachers are not just authority figures. They are struggling through their grief and loss as well, and not in a generic way, but in very specific ways. Dr. Heiler, while idealized, is a SUPPORTIVE ADULT FIGURE that she can tell things too! Incredible! He has a mysterious family that Val wonders about, a life outside of his office. Val’s mother is both frustrating and heart breaking as she wrestles with the fact that her child inadvertently caused people to die. She blames her and protects her and protects other people from her and trusts her and doesn’t trust her. I appreciated the chaos of their relationship and how it developed, moving forward and then snapping backward throughout the book. Her relationship with her dad, though, was rather sickening and destructive and difficult to read.

Val herself is massively wounded and confused. I don’t know how she got through every day, but humans are built to be resilient. She is another badass heroine, not because she fought bad guys, but simply because she faced every day. She survived through time and sheer stubbornness and forcing herself to be vulnerable  when the survivalist in me would armor up. While I was not satisfied with the ending, which made me worry about Val more than feel confidant she was on the road to recovery, her journey of healing was inspiring.

One small note: this book makes me painfully aware of how casually we use language. Have a frustrating day, say “I’m going to kill someone!” Or miming putting a gun in our mouths and pulling the trigger. Some day someone might mean it, and we will not know. Or someone might have lived through a tragedy like this, and the reality of the phrase will slice their wounds open again.

REVIEW: Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson

Fever 1793

by Laurie Halse Anderson

“What did it feel like to die? Was it a peaceful sleep? Some thought it was full of either trumpet-blowing angels or angry devils. Perhaps I was already dead.” 

Mattie is a 14 year old girl who helps her mother run a coffeehouse in 1793 Philadelphia, the then capital of the United States and a bustling metropolis. Mattie is your typical teenager, sleeping late, grumbling about chores, crushing on the painter's apprentice down the block. There is faint news of a minor fever causing a few deaths in the city, but no one is really worried. Suddenly, the death toll skyrockets and Mattie finds herself struggling alone in an almost deserted city filled with the sick, dying, and desperate. She must draw upon every ounce of strength she has to survive the terrible plague and save those she loves.

This is another book that went so fast I didn't take any notes. It has a slow start, but I feel all plague or apocalypse books do. You don't want to hear about going to the market, you want to get to the DEATH! And once you get there, the story really picks up. There is danger and despair and loads of horrifying situations, and Mattie must rise up out of her slumpy lazy teenagerness to do what needs to be done. 

The grandfather is a refreshing and excellent character. He is bombastic and strong, friends with everyone, cheerful, silly and brave. While many of the other characters seemed like tropes, Captain William Farnsworth Cook was a delight!

I was happy that this book touched a little on every significant aspect of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793: everyone fleeing the town, people stopped from entering other towns, Bush Hill, the Free African Society, the food shortage, the looters, the debate between doctors, the newspapers, the lack of government. Mattie gets to experience all of those up close and personal. 

Compared to other plague books, it is a bit mild, but it is the first juvenile fiction plague book I have read, so it is certainly a dark kids book! A nice, fast, apocolypsey read with more of a happy ending than most plague books get.

Books Like This

An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 by Jim Murphy

Company of Liars by Karen Maitland

Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague By Geraldine Brooks

The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

I'm apparently a sucker for a good plague book. 

REVIEW: Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

 

"When I first proved unable to keep the tone light, Ozzie suggested that I be an unreliable narrator... 

Understand, I am not a murderer. I have done nothing evil that I am concealing from you. My unreliability as a narrator has to do largely with the tense of certain verbs.

Don't worry about it. You'll know the truth soon enough.

Anyway, I am getting ahead of my story. Little Ozzie and Terrible Chester do not enter the picture until after the cow explodes. 

This story began on a Tuesday.

For you, that is the day after Monday. For me, it is a day that, like the other six, brims with the potential for mystery, adventure, and terror.

You should not take this to mean that my life is romantic and magical. Too much mystery is mearly an annoyance. Too much adventure is exhausting. And a little terror goes a long way."

Odd Thomas sees dead people. They come to him for help, or just wave at him with their severed arm as he passes by. Odd lives a quiet life as a consummate fry cook in the small town of Pico Mundo (the dead of a large city would overwhelm him). Then, a man comes to town, surrounded by bodachs, dark spirits that feed on pain and destruction like vultures. He has a host of hundreds, hovering, waiting for tragedy. Only Odd can see them. With only this man and a ripped out calendar page (August 15th, tomorrow) as his guides, Odd must try to avert the worst catastrophe the town has ever seen.

This book blew my mind. It has such great characters! Good-hearted, troubled Odd, and his steadfast, strong girlfriend, Stormy Llewellyn. Little Ozzie, the 400 pound Oscar-Wilde-like author who is Odd's mentor, and his huge cat, Terrible Chester. The chief of police and the head of the diner who are Odd's father and mother figures. Rosalia Sanchez, Odd's landlady, who is afraid of becoming invisible. You fall in love with them. And that is part of the problem.

With the impending doom of August 15th approaching, you know you love each of these characters too much. Something will happen to them. Their is a freight train coming, and not all of them will survive.

Yet halfway through the book, you look up and the freight train is not there anymore. You hear the noise, you know it is coming, but it is not on the track you expected it to be and you have no idea where it is coming from. Everything you were certain of, all the clues you gathered, mean something else entirely.

The tension and impending doom (and deeply disturbing sequences) are both broken up an enhanced by casual conversations that happen in between crises. The event approaches, but Odd finds the time to have a picnic with Stormy in the bell tower, or casually ask about someone's family and how they are doing. They are beautiful moments of normalcy and humanity, while at the same time, you are screaming "WHAT ARE YOU DOING, EVERYONE IS ABOUT TO DIE!" By the end of the book, though, you realize how important those moments were.

The ending is beautiful and it broke my heart.  It is set up so perfectly, and still it is a surprise. You go back and look, and see that Koontz has dropped clues through the entire narrative, and it could have only lead to this. And some mysteries still remain, which makes me excited to pick up the next Odd Thomas mystery.

That is not to say that the book is perfect. There are moments that I felt should have paid off somehow, or were building to something that never quite exploded. But they are threads that kept the suspense high and me on my toes.

I will end it with a sentence from the back of the book which sums up the experience perfectly: "[Odd's] account of two shattering days when past and present, fate and destiny converge is the stuff of our worst nightmares -- and a testament by which to live: sanely if not safely, with courage, humor, and a full heart that even in darkness must persevere."

REVIEW: After the Snow by S.D. Crockett

After the Snow

by S.D. Crockett

[Willo is wielding a torch made of a chair leg and pages he ripped out of a book. The first sentence of the book was "This is the book of the generations of Adam."]

"Down on my knees surrounded by the pack.
Aint today though. Aint gonna get me today...
The she-dog take a lunge but this time I got angry inside from somewhere-- and the anger make me strong, and I rise up from the ground as the slathering bitch leap up and when she do I hold the torch high and bring it down.
This is the book of the generations of Adam."

Willo and his family live in the mountains, hiding from the government, in a future where the land is covered in an eternal winter. Willo's dad remembers the old world and is passionate about books and ideas, but his son is only focused on survival and the present moment. When Willo's family get taken, it is up to him to rescue them. Forced out of his comfort zone, Willo confronts new people, environments and ideas. He struggles to cling to his old way of thinking as the world challenges him at every turn.

This book gripped me from the beginning. Willo had such a strong and unique voice. He is part of the first generation born after the world changed. His father and stepmother still live in the old world, quoting Star Wars and dreaming of a better life. They tell Willo stories of the world before, and declare that they are a "beacon of hope" to those under government control. Willo doesn't listen. He sees no point in the dream, the romance, the ideas, the past or the future. He dwells in the now. He sees the world in black and white: everyone is either an ant or a grasshopper from the fable. You work, or you die. He survives. He creates a hat out of a dead dog skull out of respect for the creature, and he takes advice from what he imagines to be the dog's voice. He lives almost a Native American lifestyle, saying his words over his prey and thanking them for what they give.

When he is forced out on his own, his focus and hard work are a blessing, saving himself, and a timid and starving girl he discovers (Mary) many times over from the cold, wild dogs, and cannibals. But when Mary and Willo enter the city, the tables turn and Mary is the one who knows how to survive. Willo is out of his element and helpless.

This is where the book went a little off the rails for me. When Willo enters the city, the story shifts from post-apocalyptic survival story to dystopia. Willo doesn't do much after a point and the story looses focus. Even after the story picks up again, and Willo takes his destiny into his own hands, the solutions seem almost too convenient, and Willo's final decision comes across as cyclical and cowardly. You wonder why this time his plan will succeed when it didn't before, and his other option seems to have so much change and forward momentum. I don't want to give too much away.

I would be interested to see this as a trilogy: Part I: Willo in the Woods; Part II: Willo in the City, Part III: Willo and the Resistance. That way, Crockett would have had room to flesh out the story, create more minor conflicts, develop characters other than Willo, and generate more complex solutions.

Still, it is an entertaining read, and a unique voice.

REVIEW: Company of Liars by Karen Maitland

Company of Liars

by Karen Maitland

"On that morning, I thought I was doing them a kindness, saving them from learning the hard way how to survive on the roads. I thought I was sparing them days of growling bellies and the nights sleeping cold and friendless.... But now, I live with the knowledge that it would have been kinder to have passed them by on the road then to draw them into what was to come."

Camelot, the old relic seller, travels alone through medieval towns, selling "hope" in the form of fake saints bones. By chance, he meets two minstrels from Venice, hard on their luck. Then, one, by one, as rumors of the plague approach, a small company gathers: a couple with a baby on the way, a charlatan magician, a storyteller, a midwife, and an unsettling little girl who reads runes. And they all have secrets. Secrets that, one by one, begin to destroy them as they are stalked by a presence even more frightening than the pestilence. 

This is an amazing book! A mix of the premise of The Canturbury Tales, the character dynamics of Lost, the brutality of Game of Thrones, and the spine-tingling horror of...something very scary (I don't usually watch or read anything scary, so I have no comparison).

First, the premise: a group of strangers from different walks of life travel together. Like in Canterbury  Tales, these travelers tell stories to pass the time. The stories both conceal and reveal the truth about the teller. They present who the character wishes to be, and yet you get a glimpse of who they are trying to hide underneath all the metaphor. 

Second, the characters were fantastic. All were flawed, but you came to see good in each of them as Camelot did. And yet, there are moments when you remember that you don't know them very well. Maybe all is not as it seems. The comradery and the infighting were a joy to read. They don't all like each other, but since they must survive, they are forced to forge an interdependence. 

Third, the medieval world pulled no punches. Two cripples in a town must get married and have sex in front of everyone because it is said to keep away the pestilence. Terror of the Jews runs rampant and they are blamed for deliberately causing the plague. Even those who might be Jewish are rounded up and tortured. Bodies lie in the street, dead from starvation or disease. Or from violent ends. It is not a Disney portrayal of the middle ages, to be sure, but there are moments of joy that shine the brighter for the darkness.

Fourth, the terror. I haven't been more scared of a book since reading The Chamber of Secrets as a kid. I knew that book had a happy ending, so I kept reading, but I knew that if I kept reading this book alone in my house at night that I would not sleep. Maitland leaves little breadcrumbs for you that all is not right. Sometimes it is a glance. Sometimes it is an omen. Sometimes it is the narrator reflecting on the story. She also has a talent for when to stop talking. When to leave a moment to the readers imagination. She knows how to end a chapter, not always with a cliffhanger, but often with a warning of darker things to come. And all the while, the howl of a wolf follows the traveling group from camp to camp, never showing a hair, but always stalking just out of sight. As the book progresses, members of the company begin to die one by one, and (spoiler alert) none of them are killed by the plague. As the evil keeping pace with them pushes the travelers further and further north, they are forced to examine if the evil is in fact already in their midst. 

I know that you will enjoy this book. Or if you don't enjoy it, you will at least finish it, close the book, swear under your breath, and then listen for a faint howl of a wolf for the rest of the night. 

Other books like this:

The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

An American Plague by Jim Murphy

Re-Read: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Frankenstein

by Mary Shelley

“I expected this reception. All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind. If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.” 

Walton is a young, passionate explorer on an expedition to the Arctic. He is consumed with his own trials and tribulations and loneliness, until one day, a bedraggled, dying man crawls aboard his ship. Thinking he has finally found a friend, Walton is horrified to hear the haunted story of the man, Victor Frankenstein, and the monster he created.

I remember absolutely loving this story in high school. It was all about how man should not play God or the consequences would be dire. We learned all about the sublime, the concept of something so beautiful and awe-inspiring and terrifying at the same time. It was certainly the best monster book I read (Dracula was too weirdly sexy and Jekyll and Hyde was boring if you knew the twist at the end). Reading it again, however, I was struck by so many new things! 

I can see why high school me was so in love with it. It is the perfect book for a high schooler. Everything is so dramatic! Victor is the center of his own universe. Everything lives to serve him. Everything that happens to him is either the best thing in the world, or the worst thing of all time. Granted he is dealing with a bit more than high school politics, but it is a very high school state of mind. Very melodramatic and full of big, juicy ideas of fate and death. 

During this re-read I was shocked to realize that the book was about something completely different than what everyone told me. It was not about how a scientist tried to play God and was punished for it. Victor succeeded in playing God. It worked. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Even though the creation is a newborn, and is unable to articulate or comprehend on an adult level, he grows quickly in mental and emotional capacity, so that within a year of being born, he can express himself better than I can! He is fully human. He is thought of as sublime, like the mountains or a thunderstorm, all naturally occurring things. The only downside is that he is ugly (rather than the angelic, noble visage Frankenstein intended), and those seeing him for the first time run in fear or hurt him. The resurrection process works. Frankenstein is not punished for trying to create life, for creating an unnatural aberration. He is punished for not taking responsibility for it. 

Victor spends a lot of this book avoiding things. When he first see's the monster, he faints, and then goes and takes a nap. And then is sick for a long time. He never thinks to ask where the monster went, he is just glad he is gone. In fact, he spends a lot of this book unconscious or on vacation in beautiful places, trying not to think about the monster. If I was the monster, I would get frustrated with him too!

It is assumed that the monster is responsible for the deaths of everyone in the book. And that is technically true. He does kill all but one of them. However, in each case, Victor could have prevented the death by taking responsibility for his actions. William's death is the result of Victor not taking responsibility for the care of the monster immediately upon creation. Justine's death is because Victor would not stand up before the court and say "I created a monster, and I saw him in the mountains where William was killed," because he thought people would think he was crazy. So Justine died for the murder of William because Victor did not speak up, even to say "I saw a scary man on the heath." His reputation was more important than Justine's life. 

Victor refused to make a bride for the lonely monster. He makes excuses, saying that the monster is evil, and so she will be evil, and they will have thousands of evil children (can they reproduce?), or they might not even like each other. Much flawed logic there. The monster is lonely and cruel because he has been treated with cruelty his whole life. He is not inherently evil. If anything. he is inherently good, and has learned cruelty from never having been treated with love. He has the most human-like war of love and hate within himself. He has as much of a chance as any other human has to be good and happy, perhaps more so, as he is so much more self-aware than many humans I have met. While I understand that it would suck to be the bride of the monster and wake up to a husband you hated, I say, give the crazy kids a chance? The monster takes full responsibility for the situation, and all Victor has to do is make her, and the monster will stop killing his friends and move to South America. But Victor throws a hissyfit and destroys the bride, and so Clerval dies. And then Frankenstein's own bride, Elizabeth (the epitome of all things good and angelic and flat) dies as well. 

As you can see, the monster has convinced me. While he does some horrible things, I know exactly why. He explains himself clearly, calmly, and logically, appealing to emotions as well as reason. He states, "If you would only accept me, I would be amazing and good and love you and everyone! I would frolic in the fields and pick daisies and put the star on the top of the Christmas tree" (not a direct quote). But Victor flails and blames fate and calls the monster names, and does not address any of the monster's concerns. Honestly, the monster makes a better argument. 

I am not saying that he should have killed everyone. I am saying that Victor needed to grow some balls and stop avoiding his responsibilities as creator. 

I was also rather surprised to realize that Victor creates the monster in an apartment in the city, not in a castle. There is no mention of electricity (aside from the fact that he is inspired by lightning striking a tree); he flatly refuses to tell us any details of how he did it. There is no Igor. The monster is afraid of fire when it burns him, but then he learns to make it, and it is all fine. He is initially inarticulate, but then learns to speak and read. There are no angry villagers, or pitch forks of any kind. No one even knows the monster exists. It is just Frankenstein vs. the monster pursuing each other until death. A tale in two strong voices wrestling with each other for all time.

I would love to see a faithful adaptation of the book, not a faithful adaptation of the original movies that were only based on the book in so much as there was a guy named Frankenstein who made a monster. The ideas of fate and responsibility are so juicy that it doesn't need to be "improved upon" by completely disregarding the stuff already there for new made up stuff. Anyway, that is a rant for my Dark Forest blog when I talk about Frankenstein in Once Upon a Time. 

REVIEW: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation

Taken from Accounts by his Own Hand and Other Sundry Sources

Collected by Mr. M.T. Anderson of Boston 

Volume I: The Pox Party

“At long last, you may no longer distinguish what binds you from what is you.”

Octavian is a prince. He, and his mother, the princess, are cared for by a house of scientists and philosophers who study the world and perform meticulous experiments. Octavian is given the very best classical education, and learns to play the violin exquisitely. However, after a while, Octavian notices that he is not like other people. Only a few people have his dark skin color. No one else is evaluated like he is; even his poop is measured and examined daily. As Octavian grows older, he realizes how very wrong his world is, and he must break his bonds or die in the attempt.

This book was incredible, and not at all what I expected. A boy in a mask on the cover. A society of scientists with a secret. All during the American Revolution. I don't know why I had the impression that this was a fantasy novel. It is not. It is pure grade historical fiction.

The style sucks you back like a time machine. Anderson meticulously uses 18th century vocabulary, capitalization, and sentence structure, and apologizes in the Author's Note for the few moments he does not. More than once, I squeed about a word and vowed to use it more often. Anderson treats the novel as if it were compiled from primary sources. The first half of the novel is Octavian's written testimony. After an emotionally shattering event takes place, Octavian no longer writes, and the only information we receive about his adventures are from letters written in different voices from different parts of his journey. Only later does Octavian take up the quill again to tell his own story.

I do not wish to give too much away. The joy of this novel for me was in the discovery, in shifting my perspective with each new clue that something was not quite right.

It is also an incredible examination of slavery in Revolutionary America, when some were fighting for the freedom of people, others were fighting for their freedom to own property, and the slaves were caught in the deadly crossfire of words and bullets. Though I knew how slaves were treated, I was still shocked by the language and accepted dehumanizing mentality held by Colonial America. The book is an awesome assertion of individuality, an inspiring and brutal journey to freedom.

I can't wait to read the next one!

REVIEW: An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 by Jim Murphy

An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793

by Jim Murphy

I absolutely loved this book. I was shocked that it was for kids! It was so gory and psychologically scary, and utterly compelling and informative. I definitely recommend it for people who love zombie plague stories. Or the 1700s. Or both!

This book tells the story of the 1793 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia. It starts out slow, listing one death, then several in a boarding house. Then, it spreads down the street and to other portions of the neighborhood until the entire city is infected. It chronicles the panic, how people left the city in droves, and abandoned family members. It describes in detail the horrifying symptoms (complete with illustrations), including vomiting black blood and bile. And it tells of the heroic efforts of those who stayed in the city to help, which to me was the most interesting part of the book: the survival efforts, what happens when government breaks down, the unlikely heroes. It concludes with the sociological aftermath, those who wished to forget the plague, those who pointed fingers, those who had to defend their actions. As an afterward, it tells of the discovery of the causes of yellow fever a century later, and a vaccine in the mid 20th century. It ends with a warning that there has been no recent vaccine for yellow fever, and if it reemerges, we would be almost powerless to stop it. Upbeat ending for a children’s book, huh?

And that is exactly why I loved it. I enjoy kids books that don’t pull punches. They tell it like it is. I feel that what kids fear most is the fear of the unknown. The things parents are whispering about, but won’t tell them straight up. The monster in the dark that you can’t see. I feel that adults are this way too. Once you know what something is, once you can name it, once you know how to fight it, it loses some of it’s power.

This book is not only compelling, but it is highly informative. Jim Murphy did extensive research into primary sources, including letters, diaries and personal accounts of those who were there. Because of this, he was able to build a very intimate and highly descriptive narrative without embellishing with fiction. It does what the best nonfiction does: place you there in the dirty, quiet street, watching another cart full of dead bodies creak by. You feel you know the historical figures personally.

I would recommend this book to my adult friends too! Nowhere in this book did I think for a moment that it was “dumbed down” for children. I think it is comparable to John Adams by David McCollough (though a lot shorter) or Devil and the White City by Erik Larson (but with less speculation)!

If you want a quick, informative, highly disturbing glimpse into a moment of real life in the 1700s, this is the book for you!

I recommend this book if you liked:
Devil and the White City by Erik Larson
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

REVIEW: Kraken by China Mieville

Kraken

by China Mieville

“And the continual non-up-turnance of so valuable a commodity as a giant squid—the thought of getting their alembics on which made the city’s alchemists whine like dogs—was provoking more and more interest from London’s repo-men and -women.” 

Billy Harrow works at the Darwin Centre, a museum and research facility in London that is focused on evolution. Their prized possession is a dead, preserved giant squid. When the giant squid suddenly disappears, Billy is thrust down the rabbit hole (so quickly I had to put the book down for a sec) into an insane London underbelly full of magic and cults, criminals and police. Along the way, he discovers that the theft of the squid somehow sets off the chain of events that will lead to the end of the world. He must learn the rules and break them all if he is to save London, and the world, from a fiery doom.

Did you understand that synopsis? I'm not sure I did.

This book is insane, and often you have to do mental backflips to grasp what is going on, who is fighting who, who did this horrible thing and why? But it is really good.

It's China Mieville, who gave us the equally complex Un Lun Dun. He loves himself some London underbelly. They also share themes: the importance of words, the un/destined hero, and prophecy informing present action. He also gives us a giant new helping of world building, species and rules. Some are similar, like the house that contains a forest in Un Lun Dun vs. the Embassy of the Sea (a house that contains the ocean) in Kraken.

Other things are completely new: reading the future of the city through cutting open the (literal) guts of the street, the Tattoo (a parasitic villain who lives on a man's back), Chaos Nazis (those who believe that the core value of Nazism is decadence and dress like deranged clowns), Goss and Subby (a nightmarish duo: a man who talks mostly nonsense and a silent boy who are responsible for most bloody catastrophes in history), angels of memory (the anthropomorphic protectors of museums and libraries), and most importantly, the cult that worships all things squid-related.

No, not Cthullu, though that is what I thought for the first few chapters. And the strange thing is, Mieville manages to take us from laughing about the ludicrousness of worshiping cephalopods as gods to being incredibly moved by the devotion of one particular devotee (I won't give away who).

There are so many joyful and clever inventions in this book, and often they don't feel like belong to the same world. You wonder if Mieville has all these crazy ideas in his head and then decides to take all of them and funnel them into one book. But somehow, he makes every single one of the crazy ideas relevant to the plot, even unnamed characters you gloss over for the first 3/4 of the book. As far out as it goes, he manages to tie it all back together. When the climax finally comes, you realize where everything was going and that it could only end this way.

And I love that Mieville is a NERD. He sprinkles so many references to nerd pop culture in there (some of them very obscure). One entire segment is devoted to a man who is so much of a Star Trek fan that he basis his magic on Star Trek's technology.

The characters are incredibly exciting too: Wati (a Egyptian spirit created to serve the dead in the afterlife who rebelled and is now a union organizer), Collingswood (a sassy and brassy doesn't-give-a-fuck cop chick with self-taught magic mojo), Smiley the Chameleon (a man whose power it is to make you think that you probably know him, doesn't he work in the office down the hall?).  It was a joy to watch Billy Harrow transform throughout the book, not through a one time test, like with Bilbo and the Spiders, but gradually, absorbing information and strategy as he goes. He begins as protectee,  walking behind his guide and protector, then beside, then offering plans as a co-combatant, then leading the group against the apocalypse.

While Mieville has this crazy, brainy, intricate and often perplexing style, he sprinkles in moments of whimsy, like "squididity" and "squid pro quo." Silly little puns to make your turning brain go "meh heh" and give it a break.

All in all an excellent book. Bit of a steak meal, though, so I'm going for something lite next.

REVIEW: The Magician King by Lev Grossman

The Magician King

by 

Lev Grossman

“Quentin had an obsolete sailing ship that had been raised from the dead. He had psychotically effective swordsman and an enigmatic witch-queen. It wasn't the Fellowship of the Ring, but then again he wasn't trying to save the world from Sauron, he was trying to perform a tax audit on a bunch of hick islanders…” 

The Magician King pretty much picks up where The Magicians left off. Quentin and his friends are kings and queens of Narnia-- I mean Fillory. Everything is pretty much perfect, and there is not much for them to do. Quentin longs for adventure, but the best he can come up with is an unnecessary trip to collect back taxes from an island territory. From there, the book is basically The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, with some side excursions and the mysterious Julia (self taught witch friend of Quentin)'s back story woven in.

Well, Lev Grossman does his brilliant and frustrating thing again. He lets the story meander leisurely. There are some frustrations along the way, but nothing too big. People live their lives. You come to love them, and the world they inhabit. You know something horrible is going to happen because that is what Grossman does. However, in this book it takes so long for something horrible to happen that you think, maybe this time it won't! You come to love the natural rhythms of the story, and accept the Narnian logic of things. And then within the last 100 pages, he takes everything you love, locks it in a house, and burns it to the ground. Metaphorically speaking. And damn it, it is satisfying.

It differs from The Magicians in a few ways, though. First, Quentin is no longer a dick. He has grown up into a decent person, still a little haunted by the events of the last book. Second, Julia (a minor character in the first book) comes into her own in this incredible journey of power, addiction, and transcendence as she teaches herself the magic denied to her when she failed the Brakebills exam in the last book. Third, Grossman seems to trust in Fillory just a bit more. It really comes into its own as Narnia, the land you love and long for, rather than a cardboard cut parody of Narnia. The scenes where Quentin is sailing on the ship are saturated with peace mixed with salty adventure, exactly what you wish for in a Fillory adventure.

It really takes a long time for Grossman to pull the rug out from under you, but when it happens he nails you not once, not twice, but three times in quick succession. Just when you think everything is safe (though you have a small voice telling you it might have been too easy) he will get you, but never in a way that you expect.  The ending is desolating and painful, but strangely right. Almost like Eustace scratching away at his dragon skin to become a new man in Dawn Treader. 

Another brilliant book from Grossman. I can't wait for the third!

REVIEW: A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz

A Tale Dark and Grimm

by Adam Gidwitz

“You see, Hansel and Gretel don’t just show up at the end of this story. 
They show up. 
And then they get their heads cut off. 
Just thought you’d like to know.”

It is true. Hansel and Gretel get their heads chopped off. And then their story begins. Hansel and Gretel were the son and daughter of a king and queen. In order to save the life of a loyal servant, they had to chop their children's heads off, so the children thought that after that, they should probably go and find new parents. 

They travel through different, more obscure fairy tales with themselves as the main characters, starting with "Faithful Johanness," "The Seven Swallows," "Hansel and Gretel," "Brother and Sister," etc trying to find a better family to take care of them, and in the process, they grow up. And they deal with some pretty deep stuff. Each of them makes mistakes with deadly consequences, but they learn from them. Each of them have to make terrible sacrifices. But they gain strength, intelligence, and willpower so they can safe the kingdom and come to grips with their horrible parental trust issues. 

This was a fantastic book! The style was delicious! Each section begins as a fairy tale; "Once Upon a Time, there was a ______" It continues in that style with frequent interruptions from a very chatty narrator, snarkily judging the character's decisions, explaining to the reader the feelings the characters must be going through, and most of all, vehemently warning of the impending gore and frightening subject matter, employing the readers to take the children out of the room, etc. It is absolute genius. It warns them, but then dares them to read on, and when bad things occur, the reader is prepared and brave, and is able to go on. They are not shocked by the horrible things happening and have to put the book down. This is juvenile fiction after all. 

In the back, the writer tells the story of how someone came into his second grade classroom and read "The Seven Ravens," in which a girl cuts off her finger. After being assured that he was not fired, he realized the kids got a lot out of it, and they begged him to tell more stories, asking questions, shouting responses, and getting involved in the story telling. 

With all the discussion recently about if kids can handle dark fairy tales, I think the answer is a resounding YES. This book shows that kids can have the strength to go through dark times and come out the other side. Kids need dark stories to know that people can survive and be better for it. If they don't put themselves in the right story when they encounter a dark time, they will crumble. If they think of themselves as a hero with a possibility of winning, they will fight. 

This is my favorite quote in the book:

“There is a certain kind of pain that can change you. Even the strongest sword, when placed in a raging fire, will soften and bend and change its form. So it was with Hansel. The fire of guilt and shame was just that hot.

Trust me on this one. I know this from personal experience. I hope that you never will, but, since you're a person, and therefore prone to making horrible, soul-splitting mistakes, you probably will one day know what this kind of guilt and shame feels like. And when that time comes, I hope you have the strength, as Hansel had, to take advantage of the fire and reshape your own sword.” 

Oh and check out the trailer. It is awesome!

REVIEW: A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

 

A Monster Calls

by Patrick Ness

Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd

"What do you want from me?" Conor said.

The monster pressed it's face close to the window.

It's not what I want from you, Conor O'Malley, it said. It is what you want from me. 

"I don't want anything from you," Conor said.

Not yet, said the monster. But you will. 

13-year old Conor O'Malley has a nightmare every night. He is in the dark surrounded by wind and screaming, trying despirately to keep hold of someone's hand, but that hand slips out of his grasp. It all started when he was told his mom had cancer. So you can imagine when a monster visits his house in the middle of the night, his response is, "I've seen worse."

The monster makes him a deal. He will tell Connor three stories of times when the monster walked abroad and meddled in the affairs of men. Then, Conor must tell the monster a story. Conor's story. The truth about himself. Only then will the monster leave. 

I went through a roller coaster with this story. I was excited and thought "What a terrifying-looking book" when I discovered it. When I got it out of the library, I was a bit surprised and disappointed when I found it in the juvenile section. Then I read it, and it was everything I could have hoped, and more. It was really dark and often cruel. It didn't talk down to kids, or soften terrible events because the author thought they couldn't handle it. It told them the truth. 

Conor has had to take care of himself since his Mom started the chemo. She's often too tired to make breakfast or clean the dishes. He does what needs to be done. His best friend, Lily, told everyone at school about his mom and now everyone tip toes around him. The teachers don't call on him, and when he acts out, he isn't punished because of his "special circumstances." He is almost invisible, and he can't forgive Lily for that. His mom is trying to be brave and optimistic for him, and he is trying to be brave and optimistic for her. The grandmother is trying to make him see the reality of the situation, that he needs to start preparing for "after," and he angrily shuts her out. His father doesn't want him.

When the monster visits, you are always questioning his motivations. His stories are ambiguous fairy tales, no clear heroes or villains, and sometimes the "wrong" person gets punished. As he tells the stories, the monster guides Conor through his grief, sometimes tenderly, sometimes brutally. Through the magic of a story, the monster often makes Conor act out violently, with real-life repercussions. It is a wrenching process for both Conor and the reader, and you don't know if the monster is causing more damage than good. At the end, you see, however, that it is exactly what Conor needed. 

This story is beautifully told, the way the colors of a bruise are beautiful, or a deadly blade is beautiful. It hurts you as it heals you. 

The illustrations are terrifying silhouettes, almost like Sin City for kids. The artist makes a lovely transition from the monster being a figure of fear to a figure of comfort.

Check out the beautiful book trailer to see some if the illustrations animated: 

a Monster Calls from eric guémise on Vimeo.

I have never really read another book like this, but books that teeter on the edge of this are:

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

This Dark Endeavor by Kenneth Oppel

Miss. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

REVIEW: This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein by Kenneth Oppel

This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein

by Kenneth Oppel

Young Victor Frankenstein and his twin brother Konrad live in a large mansion in Bellerive with their mother, father, two young brothers, their cousin Elizabeth, and occasionally their best friend Henry Clerval. While their lives are relatively happy, there is tension between the twins: Konrad the bright shining one, and Victor, his darker, more ambitions shadow. When Konrad falls ill, Victor is consumed by the mission to save him, even if it means delving into mysterious and potentially dangerous science.

This book is a very quick read! It is an adventure story, through and through, with intense and gripping action sequences as Victor, Elizabeth and Henry make a deal with a shady former-alchemist and fight to get the ingredients for Konrad's cure (high treetops with vicious vultures, deep and treacherous caves, and a final very personal ordeal).

The most compelling element for me was how Oppel takes the older Victor, Elizabeth, and Henry of the classic story and works backwards to extrapolate how they came to be who they are in Frankenstein. Victor is the most successful of all. He is both protagonist and antagonist. He has good intentions, but his passion, selfishness, vanity, and blind ambition distort his thoughts. He is a villain who doesn't know he is a villain; my favorite kind. And in many ways, he is your typical teenage boy, full of jealousies and too many hormones for his rational mind to handle.  It is easy for me how this Victor became the Victor of Mary Shelley's horror story. His need for power and dominance, his obsession with science and of gaining mastery over life and death to save his brother, his disregard for the effect of his actions on others are all classic Victor. He will sacrifice anything, even himself, to get want he wants. 

Oppel also allows us some wonderful and gruesome moments of the sublime. The sublime, as defined to me in school when we studied Frankenstein, is something that instills a mix of awe and terror, which often occurs when you see the Monster. Like a gristly car crash from which you cannot look away. They are scattered sparingly through out the book, but when Victor is confronted with one of those gristly images, or participates in a horrific act, you can see the subtle fascination it holds for him. Skin separated from bone, cutting through innards to get to the contents of a stomach; it attracts him as it repulses him. 

While there is less existential discussion in this one as there is in Mary Shelly's book, it is perfect for middle school and early high school students wrestling with issues of their own, and a great entry point for the classic Frankenstein.

Books like this:

All Men of Genius by Lev AC Rosen

The Final Solution by Michael Chabon

REVIEW: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

by Ransom Riggs

“And that is how someone who is unusally susceptible to nightmares,night terrors, the Creeps, the Willies, and the Seeing Things That Aren't Really There talks himself into making one last trip to the abandoned, almost-certainly-haunted house where a dozen or more children met their untimely end.” 

Jacob grew up listening to his grandfather's stories about how he escaped the war in Europe and hid from monsters in an idyllic home for children with strange powers. As he got older, he started to realize that there was probably no such thing as girls who could levitate, or boys who could pick up giant rocks, or the mysterious caretaker of the house, "The Bird" - Miss Peregrine. Or child-eating monsters with tentacles coming out of their mouths. He distanced himself from his grandfather and ignored his desperate phone calls, blaming it on senility... until his grandfather ends up brutally murdered, and Jacob sees a glimpse of a monster disappearing into the dark woods. After many visits to a therapist, Jacob embarks on a quest to find the house, find Miss Peregrine, and get some answers. He gets more than he bargained for. 

I have a problem with expectations. I expected that this book would scare me shitless. That it would be full of thrills and chills, and that I would not be able to sleep. Like a weird mix of X-Men and the Woman in Black. That is not at all what this book is, and I was kind of disappointed. 

Don't get me wrong, this is a great first book for Riggs! He has some fun prose, like "The sky was the color of a new bruise." The beginning is fantastic, setting up his listless life, the shock and horror of his grandfather's murder, and the aftermath where everyone thinks he is crazy. I love his initial investigations when he sleuths around the Welsh island. I got some minor thrills when he is exploring the dark, musty ruins of what once was Miss Peregrine's Home, trying to solve the mystery of their fate, while hoping their ghosts did not kill him in the process. The last 50 pages are chock full of thrills, murder, monsters and bombs. 

However, (spoilers) he discovers the pocket of endless summer that is "the loop," an idyllic haven for the peculiar children who are now in their 80s, but eternally in children's bodies, still approaching the world as children. This was less satisfactory for me than if their was some element of Claudia from Interview with a Vampire in there. Fun, fucked-up psychology of an 80 year old trapped in a child's body. Anyway, this is where the story stops dead for me. They go swimming, and fall in love, and yes there are interesting characters to be introduced to, and lots of explaining, but other than that, not much happens for a good 100 pages. 

One interesting fact about the book is that all the photographs are real. He pulled them out of archives, yard sales, and personal collections. Sometimes I felt he was writing to justify the picture's presence in the book, but other times they creepily supported and expanded upon the text. 

It is a charming book (which is not what I expected to say about it), and a well-written first part of a series. At least it reads that way. I hope there are more books coming that can get into the guts of the action, mystery and horror without the weight of exposition. 

I said the same thing about the last book. Am I growing impatient?

Regardless, here is the awesome book trailer:

And here is the making of the book trailer:

REVIEW: Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

Shades of Grey 

by Jasper Fforde

“The safest course was actually the simplest-do nothing at all and hope everything turned out for the best. It wasn't a great plan, but it had the benefits of simplicity and a long tradition. ” 

Edward Russett lives in a future where everything is governed by color. "Something Happened" a long time ago that messed with everyone's vision. Now people can only see one color, and the color you see, and how much of it, determines your place in society, from the lowest Grey to the highest Purple. Nighttime is an empty time, as everyone has lost their night vision. It is socially important to marry within your color, or up-spectrum to either maintain or improve your social prospects. 

Everything is governed by the rules of "Our Munsell," a leader from centuries before when the "Something Happened." He had an "Epiphany" and brought order to chaos, regulating every aspect of the community, from high values (like politeness) to what people should wear on what occasion (for excursions into the wild, people must wear "Outdoor Adventure #9s). Rules cannot be changed. There is a spoon shortage because he forgot to include spoons in the list of utensils to be manufactured. Or he could have left it off on purpose. Munsell works in mysterious ways. 

The story follows Edward as he travels with his father to East Carmine to conduct a mandated chair census as punishment for a prank so he will develop some humility. He makes friends and enemies, and starts to uncover the dark secrets that serve as the basis for the society. 

Long synopsis, I know, but it is Jasper Fforde, and I am not even touching the tip of the iceberg on this one. Animals have barcodes. Most people die of Mildew or giant swan attack or balls of lightning. There is a place called High Saffron from which no one returns, but legend says has lots of color to harvest. Tip of the iceberg.

Happily, Fforde seems to have learned how to time-release information. His witty, intricate world-building is not as overwhelming as it is in the Thursday Next books and crops up at an appropriate time, with an explanation reasonably close behind it. 

The pacing was a little strange. The whole book takes place over the course of the week, but enough happens that you think he's had to have been there at least a month. At the same time, not much of "oh my god the society is horrible, and we need to do something about it" occurs until about the last 50 pages. 

I loved this book at first. Fforde gleefully plays with the reader's expectations. It made me happy to see that he couldn't resist literary references (a layover from Thursday Next and the Nursery Crime books: he includes a strange empty library, over-staffed by librarians with nothing to do (Munsell-regulated staffing rules). He even put in a few literary jokes here and there (list of approved sports includes "reeling and writhing" though no one knows what it is - Alice in Wonderland reference), and there is a memorial statue to Oz, though its meaning is lost to the citizens). They have "Leapbacks," where technology deemed too unnecessary or progressive is taken away... like light bulbs, or any car above a Model T. Same with books. Catch-22 is gone, legend says it was a very popular fishing book in a series. No one knows why Little Engine that Could was so subversive, nor what it was the little engine could do. It is Fforde at his comic best, an equal of Douglas Adams or Christoper Moore. 

However, the ending is very dark. In a book like this, you think it has two possible outcomes: 1) the main character reveals the evils of society and starts a revolution or 2) the main character discovers horrible things, but is too overpowered by society to effect change, and is absorbed back into it's rhythms or is killed. This one ends with a rather stomach-turning bastard child of the two. 

All I'm saying is that there better be a sequel where something satisfying happens. 

You might like this book if you liked:
A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde
Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde

REVIEW: Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti

Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti

by GeneValentine

"Ladies and gentlemen," she calls. Her voice fills the air. It feels as if the tent grows to accommodate the words, the circle of benches pushing out and out, the tinny Panadrome swelling to an orchestra, the light softening and curling around the shadows, until all at once you are perched on a tiny wooden seat above a vast and glorious stage. The woman's arms are still thrown wide, and you realize she has not paused, that her voice alone has changed the air, and when she goes on, "Welcome to the Circus Tresaulti!" you applaud like your life depends on it, without knowing why.

The Circus Tresaulti has been traveling for a long time, watching wars waged, regimes fall, and new corrupt ones rise. Sometimes they come across a town that seems familiar, but it is an old ruin, so it couldn't have been the town they visited before, could it?

The performers have been with the show for an age (or maybe a few). There are some who come and go like mayflies, but others choose to be augmented by the Boss, and they stay forever. The Boss gives them new hollow bones (the aerialists) or massive gears in their back (the strong man), or, only once, a set of singing wings. They are tied together tighter than family, tighter than blood. They know every gesture, every molecule of each other; they hate it, they love it, and they would die for it.

I must admit I started out not liking this book. It felt like faded footage of a circus: you got to observe, but never touch, never delve. The narrator was uninteresting. Then, about halfway through the book,  shit hits the fan, when the government man comes to the circus. Suddenly, secrets that you kind of knew, but didn't really, explode in your face, and there are dark revelatory flashbacks and loyalties are tested to the breaking point.

The book feels very post-modern, switching perspectives from first to third person, or maybe you are still in the head of the first person but he happens to know everything in retrospect? Its confusing for a while, and then you just stop caring and go along for the ride.

Valentine is the master of the subtle essential detail. She will drop a tiny sentence at the end of a scene that changes the game completely, though you may not know it until a few chapters later.

For a while, the performers seem a bit crazy, like bitchy Elena who may or may not have let someone fall from the trapeze on purpose, the beautiful Winged Man who may or may not have committed suicide, Stenos the acrobat who hates his partner to the point of obsessive devotion, Bird, the ex-soldier, who will do anything to have the wings. But as you marinate in their lives, you begin to see why this all emotionally, if not intellectually, makes sense.

The most compelling character is that of the Boss. She (yes, she), is the ringmaster, the creator of the circus, the mother of all. Her word is law, and in many scenes she seems invincible, but the revelations of her vulnerability are the most resonant parts of the book.

And it has a slam bang, guns blazing, last-stand, everyone you loved is here for you but may die for you kind of ending. Makes me cry every time.

Its not set in any time period, or in all time periods, so I wouldn't call it steampunk, though for moments it has that feel. At other times, it seems like an ageless, more sympathetic Mother Courage and her Children.

I was lucky! This was a book I picked off the shelf for its cover as the library was closing.

Read this if you liked:
Dream of Perpetual Motion

ARCHIVED REVIEW: The Sherlockian (10/6/11)

The Sherlockian

by Graham Moore

"There had been a time when the world was full of blank spaces, and in which a man of imagination might be able to give free scope to his fancy. But... these spaces were rapidly being filled up; and the question was where the romance writer was to turn?" - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I picked up this book just before the cold snap, and believe me, that is the perfect time to read it. A cold night outside, while you are warm by the light of a fire. Or central heating.

Harold White has just been inducted into the Baker Street Irregulars, the elite Sherlockian scholarly society, and he is their youngest member to date. His dizzying first days as a member grind to a halt when it is discovered that the most prominent Sherlockian scholar was killed in his hotel room just as he was about to reveal his newest discovery: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's missing diary. Who killed Alex Cale? Why did they scrawl "Elementary" in blood on the wall? What in the diary was so great and terrible that they wanted to keep it from being revealed? Where is the diary now? Only Harold White can find out.

In the mean time, Arthur Conan Doyle is having trouble of his own. His story starts when he gleefully writes the death of Holmes over Reichenbach Falls. Alas, poor Conan Doyle was not expecting the societal backlash: old women accost him on the street, the newspaper writes an obituary of Holmes, the nation wears black arm bands as a sign of mourning. Then, someone sends a bomb to him in the mail with the word "Elementary" and some newspaper clippings about a murdered girl. After extricating himself from the rubble of his study, a reluctant Conan Doyle is launched into his own investigation with his own Watson, an unexpected, but well-cast Bram Stoker. They hunt the suspect through the foggy streets of London during the time the missing diary was supposed to chronicle. The author volleys back and forth between the two eras like a jaunty yet foreboding tennis match.

It is not a bone chilling mystery by any means. There are moments of action and thrills, but it is a leisurely mystery, as mysteries go. Harold falls into the job of detective rather by accident: he wears the biggest fanboy pants (or in this case, deerstalker hat), and he's the only one crazy enough to actually interfere with a police investigation. You have to admire his enthusiasm, though! With HIS Watson-like only-just-met reporter companion, Sarah (who is a vaguely suspicious character in a way you know will pay off later), Harold follows the trail of literary clues to find the murderer and the diary.

One failing I would have to say is that this book struggled with trying to be Holmes, but from inside the would-be detectives head, rather than Watson's. Holmes is a fascinating enigma because he sits in silence for a few days, and then jumps up with the answer, and then has to explain to us how he got there. Since we are in Harold's head, we get him deep-thinking quite a bit, trying to emulate Holmes, thinking detailed, but unhelpful thoughts. Then, he jumps up with an epiphany, and we think it has come out of nowhere, because the thought process we heard did not lead him there. He then, like Holmes, has to explain this sudden outburst with thoughts to which we were not privy to his slower Watson, and it comes across as a bit conjecture-y.

Some of the twists were obvious, some seemed weak, and and others seemed unrealistic. Still it was a fun ride!

I liked the Conan Doyle sections, as he is a grouchy, yet earnest unlikely hero. He comes across as a stick-in-the-mud, and then puts himself through incredible indignities to sink his teeth into a criminal. The author also does some delightful name dropping: Bram Stoker (along with J.M. Barrie and Oscar Wilde) were historically friends with Arthur Conan Doyle. Bram also worked as theater manager to a playhouse where Henry Irving and Ellen Terry performed. It was like a delicious literary figure parade! Once the story revs to life, however, frivolity is gone, and the game is afoot! It is thrilling to follow the twists and turns, speckled by murder after murder, as Arthur Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker speed closer and closer to an ending that someone would kill Alex Cale to hide.

Woven through this tale is the sad thought that Holmes and Watson could not survive the electric lamp. That their London thrived in the romance of fog and shadow. That the world now is too complicated. We trust Holmes to take us through uncertainty to a satisfactory ending where everything is clear. In the real world, left to our own devices, we are not so lucky.

One extra juicy bit of trivia is that this is based on true events. There was a Sherlockian scholar who was killed in the same manner which sparked a worldwide Sherlockian search for his killer.

A delectable easy read, chock full of noms for Sherlockians, mystery fans, and literary buffs!

If you liked this book, you may like:

The Final Solution by Michael Chabon