REVIEW: Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Tiger Lily

by Jodi Lynn Anderson

“I'm not myself," she offered, guiltily. She softened around Tik Tok, and when she did she was, for those rare moments, girlish.
He smiled. "You can never say that. You're just a piece of yourself right now that you don't like.” 

Tiger Lily lives in Neverland, an island in the Atlantic where ships of Englanders occasionally wash up with pirates or children or folks who don't last very long. Englanders have a disease that makes them continue to grow older until they die, something the natives are not subject to. Tiger Lily is an orphan, adopted by the shaman of the tribe, a man named Tik Tok, who is "of two genders": he is a man who wears women's clothing. Tiger Lily lives up to her name: fierce, stoic, and unreadable except by those who know her well. She is a misfit in the tribe, so when she meets Peter Pan, the ominous and deadly boy in the woods, she is caught up in a world where she is needed, special, admired. Her relationship with Peter ignites with heart-thrumming intimacy.  But when Tiger Lily neglects her tribe to tragic results, and when a Wendy bird arrives, will they be able to maintain their connection, or will Tiger Lily lose everything?

This was such a fascinating book. It is narrated by Tinkerbell (not her real name, simply a name Peter condescendingly bestowed). She cannot speak, but she can sense the thoughts and feelings of those around her, making her a unique, slightly omnipotent storyteller. Neverland itself is a strange entity. It is set in our world. Their are fairies and mermaids, but no flying, no "second star to the right." And yet, Anderson manages to maintain what I loved most about the original story: the very real psychology of the characters.

This story also maintains the ache of the original. As an adult reader, you know what things mean. The larger implications of certain feelings become clear. You pity, envy, and are frightened of Peter. He becomes that boy. The one who cannot understand the feelings he is having. The one who shuts himself to any other reality but his own. The one who desperately means to keep promises, but then does not. The one who sends you to the highest highs but also deeply frightens you with what he is capable of. I understood Peter more in this book than in any other interpretation. Hook's desperation for Peter is not the comical Disney or musical version: it is dark and dangerous and self-destructive. Smee is still "lovable" but you remember why he is a pirate and not an affable accountant. He is still a murderer. Wendy is much stronger and also much weaker than in the original. She is so sure of herself because the world cannot be other than how she sees it. The lost boys are not romanticized as off on a camping trip. These boys act the way any children would if they were left to their own devices, forced to survive on their own. They hero-worship Peter, desperate to have some sort of direction, a compass to focus their days. But this, of course, takes a toll on a leader who is still very much a boy himself.

Tiger Lily is wonderfully complex and refreshing. She is not a preteen seductress, nor a silent generic "indian." She is guarded and pained and untrusting but also worthy and strong, and has the capacity for deep love. And she does not, as this book seemed to imply at the beginning, loose her mind, heart and need for life when she loses Peter (as all girls lose Peter).

The cast of new characters are more of a mystery to us, but they are no less compelling: Pine Sap, Tiger Lily's mishapen and introspective friend, and Tik Tok the shaman whose slow tragedy breaks our hearts.

This is a quality Peter Pan adaptation. Well-written and faithful to the spirit of the original.

REVIEW: Timeline by Michael Crichton

Timeline

by Michael Crichton

A team of archaeologists are digging up a medieval castle when their funders, the mysterious ITC, accidentally drop a hint that they know more about the site than they let on. The lead archaeologist, Professor Johnson, flies to New Mexico to find out what is going on and he doesn't return. Meanwhile, his team unearths an ancient parchment in the ruins, a document dating 600 years old, with the words "Help me!" in the Professor's handwriting. With the questionable aid of ITC, they must travel back in time and save the Professor. Will their expertise help them survive the dangerous middle ages, or will they be crushed underfoot by the march of history?

This is my first Michael Crichton book and I can't say I am a fan. I loved the movie of Timeline (warning, this review is tainted by that), and I hoped the book would be even better. I was surprised at how different the two were, and how the movie streamlined and improved upon the story Crichton told.

For example, time travel is not even mentioned until page 109. The first quarter of the book is taken up with wandering through ITC and the dig site. I honestly would have stopped if I hadn't known that time travel would happen, and the knowing made it even more excruciating.

Crichton loves to bathe in science. The book is saturated with it and it verges on fetishism. And yet the science is questionable. I know little about scientific theory, and even I could see that the logic was flawed. The theory of time travel is based on the idea of the multiverse. That (in an uber simplified version) because you shoot light particles through holes and some hit their target and some disappear, that something blocks them. Obviously, it is another universe getting in the way. It seems like that is the most complicated answer possible for such a phenomenon. The science behind the time travel that ITC uses is really moving a person from one universe to another. But also back in time in that universe. It is an unnecessarily complex method of time travel.

Crichton treats history almost the same way as science, reveling in explaining to the reader why everything we think about the middle ages is untrue. I quite enjoyed his fact dropping as history is more my scene, but at times it did verge historical masturbation. It is full of long anecdotes and facts that have little to do with the plot and more to do with how knowledgeable Crichton was about the subject matter.

The movie simplified a lot of convoluted plot points (ex. the Professor makes greek fire, rather than almost greek fire). Some of the adventures the heroes encounter feel like filler and provide a momentary inconvenience before setting them back on their path again.

The book did maintain an element of the movie I loved: the reality of the middle ages and how the modern archaeologists are completely out of their element. Kate, Andre and Chris each have their own baggage and their own area of expertise that ends up being indispensable to the mission.  Kate is an expert climber and architect. Andre is an expert on medieval life, culture, language and martial arts. Chris is an expert in the history of technology, and the workings of a particular mill that plays a pivotal role. Chris' journey was the most meaty as he goes through the crucible of medieval peril, transforming from a whiny serial dater to a solid, stouthearted friend.

There were some elements to the book that seemed entirely out of place. One adventure leads them to a green chapel where a knight waits with an ax to chop of their head.  Did you just read Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight, Michael? And the Lady Claire, a sweet, smart, and determined character with a clear goal and a clear purpose in the movie becomes an absolute baffling mystery in the book: a randomly sexualized scheming deus ex machina and reward for sacrifice.

In the end, this book had an interesting premise which crawled, stumbled, danced a jig, and then awkwardly sat down again. All in all, the story and the history ended up being entertaining, but I thought, with Crichton's reputation, we would get a better book.

Books like this (but better!)
The Domesday Book by Connie Willis

REVIEW: The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

The Wizard of Oz

by L. Frank Baum 

“I cannot understand why you should wish to leave this beautiful country and go back to the dry, gray place you call Kansas."

"That is because you have no brains," answered the girl. "No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home." 

The Scarecrow sighed.

"Of course I cannot understand it," he said. "If your heads were stuffed with straw, like mine, you would probably all live in beautiful places, and then Kansas would have no people at all. It is fortunate for Kansas that you have brains.” 

Dorothy lives in Kansas with her uncle and aunt. It is a grey little farm on a grey little plain. One day a tornado swoops down and takes Dorothy and the house up into the sky and down again, landing in the Land of Oz on top of the Wicked Witch of the East. Dorothy and her new friends the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman and the Lion travel through perils to the Emerald City to each receive what they most desire from the great and terrible Wizard of Oz. But will Oz's price be too much for them to pay?

Please do not read this if you are a part of my book club! This is my first time reading the books. I have seen the movie several times, and I have vague memories of reading Oz stories in picture book form, but I never had all of them, and the ones that stood out were the visit to Oz, the china town and the Hammer Heads. I had never read it all the way through.

I love it! The style is so charming. I shouldn't say that it reminds me of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairy Land in a Ship of her Own Making, it should be the other way around, but I hadn't read Oz yet!

I loved that the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman and the Lion weren't just Dorothy's backup dancers. They each had their own very specific talents -- ironically the exact talents they thought they lacked. On every adventure, the Scarecrow would come up with the plan, the Tin Woodsman built or used a tool to help with the plan, and the Lion had to complete the scary task. They used teamwork to solve problems and they could not have accomplished any part of their journey without the other. There were very few moments like that in the movie where they separately shone as part of the whole.

Dorothy, while still a child, is much more sensible than the Dorothy in the movie. As much as I love Judy Garland, she is very much the damsel in distress. Dorothy keeps a close eye on the food supply for the journey, and keeps her head down when she needs to. She deals with the supposed death or loss of her companions multiple times, and she handles herself in Oz with maturity. When the witch takes her prisoner, she obeys and comforts the lion (one of the more touching moments of the book for me). The end rescue happens in reverse from the movie. Dorothy has had enough and in a fit of frustration throws water on the witch and melts her (rather than as a desperate impulse in the movie). She rescues the lion and then goes to rescue the Tin Woodsman and the Scarecrow.

I was so shocked at the violence in this book. The Tin Woodsman kills a lot of animals with his ax. But I did appreciate how Baum handled Oz' request for Dorothy, a little girl, to kill the Wicked Witch of the West. She cries and states that she cannot kill someone willingly. I felt this was missing in the movie, the full weight of asking a child to kill someone.

I did feel that the adventures post Oz's departure were a bit too much. The movie handled it nicely, having Glinda appear at the balloon launch. Perhaps it was because I was used to the movie's ending that I didn't fully grasp the trajectory of this story.

I missed the parallels between farm life and the Land of Oz to show that she still carries some Oz with her at home. It makes me wonder if she will be as happy as she claims in the grey land of Kansas. And you do wonder, after the 100th time they repeat the brains, heart, courage, home mantra...what did Toto want?

I did love the book, however, and I will definitely put it on my shelf of classics I will read to my children, along with Peter Pan and the Secret Garden.

REVIEW: Stung by Bethany Wiggins

"As I jump out the window, I glance over my shoulder. The window frames a face with smooth skin and hollow cheeks -- a boy on the brink of manhood. He peels his lips back and growls, and I stare into his brown eyes. For a moment it is like looking into a mirror and I almost say his name. Until I realize his eyes are wild and feral, like an animal's...As I sprint across the empty schoolyard, past the silent, rusted playground, I dare a look over my shoulder. My brother is hobbling toward the fence, his angle hanging at an odd angle to his leg. His eyes meet mine and he holds a hand up to me, a plea to come back. A sob tears at my chest, but I look away and keep running."

Fiona wakes up in her bedroom. Everything is covered in dust. The world around her is lifeless, and there is a tattoo on her right hand. She is 4 years older than she was when she fell asleep. She steps into a world divided, where those bearing the tattoo must live outside the wall because they are infected with a deadly disease that could turn them at any moment into mindless beastly killing machines. Those within the wall are safe, but at what cost? When Fiona is captured by the militia, she is marked as a Level Ten, the deadliest of all the infected. Yet, she feels normal. As flashes of memories come back to her, she and her former classmate Bowen, now a hardened militia man, must discover her secret before it is too late.

This book was chilling. The opening images of a normal world gone wrong were nightmarish. Everything left as if the family had just stepped out, but dust-covered, broken, and warped. Vestiges of her old life present themselves in horribly twisted ways.

There are very few elements of the Sleeping Beauty tale in this adaptation, but they appear in the prick of a needle, the many-years sleep, and the healing power of a kiss, just not in the ways you would expect.

The story itself did not grab my heart the way Scarlet did. The bleak dystopia grabbed my brain, however, and I was moved by the dogged perseverance of Fiona towards the end of the book (after a few chapters of some wandering, and following). While her relationship with Bowen is compelling, I was more taken by her relationship with her twin brother Jonah, a Level 10 who has already turned into an aggressive killer, and how his repeat appearances change as the plot advances.

I found that the story meandered a little and the deus ex machina at the end was a little too abrupt and easy, but it was still a satisfying tale, and a fascinating world to explore. A solid sci-fi version of the fairy tale.

And the cover art is amazing, right?

REVIEW: Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Scarlet

by Marissa Meyer

“A sickening howl stopped her, sucking the air out of her lungs. 

The night's chatter silenced, even the loitering city rats pausing to listen.

Scarlet had heard wild wolves before, prowling the countryside in search of easy prey on the farms.

But never had a wolf's howl send a chill down her spine like that.” 

This second book in the Lunar Chronicles follows a delivery girl named Scarlet whose grandmother has been missing for two weeks. The police have given up, but she tenaciously searches for clues. When she meets a young, handsome, ambiguously affiliated street fighter, Wolf, who might hold the key to her grandmother's disappearance, they embark on a journey that might save her grandmother, or doom Scarlet to the same fate. In the mean time, Cinder (protagonist of the last book), is breaking out of prison with the charming, but rather self absorbed Captain Thorne. And poor Prince Kai is left to deal with the evil Lunar Queen alone. 

I believe I loved this book even more than Cinder! Marissa Meyer creates awesome heroines, all of whom have very strong objectives having nothing to do with love. Any love that they may come across is secondary to their main drives. And so far they have each held jobs traditionally given to men (that of mechanic and delivery person) with unconscious aplomb.

The gentlemen, Thorne and Kai, are given equally complex treatment. Even though Thorne is shallow, you can tell he is capable of more than he gives himself credit for. And Wolf. Oh Wolf. I am a sucker for the primal but sweet and funny but also not-certain-if-he-is-going-to-eat-you wolfman (see Wolf in 10th Kingdom). And may I say, without giving too much away, that damn the romance in this one is passionate.

This book is action-packed with highly creative fights, chases, interrogation scenes, and brawls. The science fiction is deftly woven into the plot so that it is never to exposition or world-building heavy; it just flows with the story. I also appreciated how both the Scarlet story line and the Cinder story line were both equally as strong.

The Lunar Chronicles, Cinder and Scarlet, are probably some of my favorite fairy tale adaptations out there. They give nods to the important elements of the fairy tale: the pumpkin, the shoe, the searching prince, the red cloak, the wolf, the grandmother. Yet they are not slaves to them. They creatively interpret them to create new and compelling stories. As these ladies join forces, I am excited to see who fills out their crew of powerful fairy tale heroes and heroines. The next book, Cress, comes out soon!

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Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
Terrier by Tamora Pierce
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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: Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork

Marcelo in the Real World

by Francisco X. Stork

“I deal with people like him a hundred times a day. They look at me and naturally assume I'm not as smart as they are. God help us. But think about it, it's a tremendous tactical advantage, not to mention personally liberating, to have others think I'm a dummy.” 

Marcelo is somewhere on the autism spectrum, close to Aspergers, but his doctors have been unable to clearly diagnose him. His special interests are religion and his internal music which sings in the back of his mind and no one else can hear. He is looking forward to spending the summer caring for the ponies at Paterson, the school for developmentally challenged kids he has been attending his whole life. However, his father thinks that he needs time in "the real world" and tells him he has to take a summer job at his father's law firm. Confronted with the real world, Marcelo must squelch his natural interests (talking about religion makes people uncomfortable) and learn the complex rules of the office. He meets Jasmine, his boss, and Wendell, the privileged son of another lawyer, and they help him to see, for better or for worse, what the real world is like. One day, Marcelo sees the photograph of a girl whose face has been sliced in half by a faulty windshield, and he must wrestle with what the real world thinks is correct, and what his heart tells him to do.

Marcelo was a beautiful book! I loved his unique voice right from the start: his need for clarification, his precise imagery (the phone ring sounding like it was full of rage). It was so unfamiliar and yet familiar at the same time. I too have a need for schedules and routine, and sometimes feel overstimulated or unwilling to venture into unknown places.

I was expecting the journey of an autistic boy learning to relate socially to people. I did not expect the deep spiritual elements in this book. And I did not expect the journey of a person from weakness to strength. I didn't expect Marcelo to become a hero with more clarity and self-awareness than most people I know.
I was profoundly impacted by his relationship with Rabbi Herschel and the moments they wrestled with the will of God: the tree of good and evil, and the final scene when they discuss how to listen to what is right, the fact that the right thing might hurt people, but we must trust that God will use the hurt in a positive way. They both touched me deeply.

I was not expecting Wendell the predator. He was such a danger, lurking there in the back of every moment Marcelo’s father was such an intriguing and multidimensional character. I don't want to give too much away, but somewhere he takes a wrong turn and has a difficult time getting back on track. That story is not quite resolved to my satisfaction, but real life never is.

This book is an amazing peak into someone's head that on the street might appear very different to you, but Marcelo struggles with the same things everyone does. He just comes at it from a different perspective. I was sad that towards the end, he begins to loose some of his uniqueness in favor of fitting in, but he develops a gentleness and a strength and a clarity of purpose that I envy. This book is great for those who are searching, for those who do not always fit in, and for those who struggle with what is right and wrong.

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