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Ready Player One by Ernest Cline / Review

9 Jan

  This was not a book that I expected to like, but, as it was our January book club pick, I tried it anyway. And, to my surprise, I liked it.

Now, I would not say this is a well-written masterpiece. Or really literature. And I spent the entire book confused about whether or not I was reading a young adult novel.  But I liked it.

Ready Player One is the boy-video-gamer equivalent of chick lit. In an America of the not-too-distant future, reality has become so unbearable that the world has submerged itself in a virtual reality called OASIS. When the creator of OASIS dies, he leaves his entire fortune and empire (Willy Wonka-style) to the player who can locate a hidden easter egg located somewhere in the game.  When teenage trailer-park-resident Wade Watts finds the firt clue — after the world has spent five fruitless years searching — chaos and virtual adventure ensues.

In spite of the fact that this novel revolves around video games, I found it interesting enough to keep reading.  And I read it pretty quickly. Though I don’t think Cline meant it to be a young adult novel, it plays to that audience. If nothing else, I’m glad I read this book because I have already recommended it to several students who loved it. 

Cline certainly doesn’t need my approval — or anyone else’s. There was a bidding war among publishers for the novel, and the following day the rights were sold for a film. Before the book even hit the shelves. Amazon listed it as one of the top books of 2011.  For me, there is nothing deep or literary about this book, and it falls squarely in the domain of beach reading, but it is an interesting read.

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain/ Review

19 Dec

 Hey, remember me? I used to blog here. In fact, I even used to read books from time to time!

And then I got pregnant and developed a tragic reading aversion. And then I had a baby. And the books — much less the blogging — were few and far between.

Well, the books are still WAY fewer and farther between than they used to be. You can just take the crown this year, George W.  I recently began another blogging endeavor with a friend, and I thought I was finished with this blog. But I do miss really thinking about the books I do read.  And I appreciate those of you who have actually stuck around and might just read this post! So I’m back to tell you about The Paris Wife, a book with an enormous library wait list!

I don’t know if you know, but I happen to be a tremendous Hemingway fan.  In fact, silhouettes of Hemingway and Jane Austen hang side by side over my daughter’s crib. Two years ago, I travelled to Paris and dragged by husband all over the city just to see run-down buildings he used to write in. I love him.  I love him the way girls always love bad boys — I know he’s not good for me, but that fact just draws me in all the more.

As soon as I saw the advance reviews of this book, I knew that whether or not I really liked it, I would read it.  Thus, I bought it for my grandmother for her birthday, knowing full well that the novel would eventually trickle down to me.

The premise is pretty much what you would expect — the novel follows Hadley Richardson as she meets, falls in love with, marries, travels, loves, and self-destructs with Ernest Hemingway.  The novel spends most of its time in Europe with the couple where they famously lived and caroused with the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein.

For lovers of Hemingway, there aren’t really any surprises in this book.  The events seem pretty true-to-bio. All of the hallmarks of Hemingway are present — drinking and philandering and bull-fighting in Spain.  And even though McLain doesn’t bring anything tremendously new to the table, her rendering of Hadley’s voice is impressive. It doesn’t feel over-wrought or cheesy as I expected. The novel is thoroughly believable, indebted to McLain’s obvious research and careful reading of Hadley’s letters. What did manage to surprise me was just how sad this book — its ending known from the get-go — felt. I found myself truly grieving for Hadley and for Hemingway and what was lost.

Whether or not you have a literary (and personal) crush on Hemingway, I think lots of people would enjoy this sad, sad story the same way we enjoy sad romantic movies. It’s the Titanic of the literary world. And it for what it is, it works.

 

 

The Singer’s Gun by Emily St. John Mandel / Review

28 Jun

  This is an absolutely beautiful book.  Technically a thriller,  Mandel’s novel defies simple categorization.  The story is complicated; the characters are nuanced. It’s part travel novel, part mystery, part post-9/11 social commentary. Can you tell? I loved it.

The Singer’s Gun begins with Anton Waker missing and an investigator trying to follow any lead possible to track him down. After all, he’s a criminal. However, when the reader meets Waker, he doesn’t seem like a criminal at all. Rather, Waker is a true believer — almost naively so — in the American Dream.   Without question, Waker engages in some highly questionable activities in order to achieve his dream, but his moral compass seems somehow undimmed.  Realizing that his behavior might be responsible for allowing terrorists into the US, Anton tries to duck out of the business only to be blackmailed by his cousin Aria.   Anton must choose between life he  (illegally) has built for himself and his (corrupt) family.

The story is certainly not a thriller in traditional terms. There are no high-speed chases, no explosions, no scenes of near-torture.  Neither is it a classic psychological thriller. Instead, it’s the kind of thriller that is beautifully-wrought, forcing you to read and savor every word.

French Lessons by Ellen Sussman / Review

14 Jun

 I was super-excited to receive French Lessons in the mail. “Ah,” thought I, “a book about Paris. The perfect, bookish way to release post-school year stress.” Sadly, I was disappointed. Disappointed to the point of barely forcing myself to finish it.

Sussman’s novel is framed around three French tutors working for an agency.  Involved in their own little love triangle, the French tutors meet clients during the day, teach them a little (very little) French, and then rendez-vous for drinks.  On this particular day, each tutor meets a different student — an unwed, pregnant teacher whose married boyfriend has just been killed, a miserable American expat housewife, and the husband of an American movie star in Paris for a film.

For me, this book had little heart, and, thus, had a very difficult time holding my interest.   I think Sussman aims for poignancy but instead lands on maudlin. None of the characters were very interesting to me, and Sussman provides no resolution to the novel, killing any bit of interest I had left.

I am sorry to say that I really didn’t like this book. Nothing about it was well-developed, the characters were flat, and the novel ultimately felt very pointless. Like a sad day in Paris.

 

In spite of my lackluster review, thanks to the publisher for sending me an advanced copy of this book for review!

If You Were Here by Jen Lancaster / Review

14 May

 I love, love, love Jen Lancaster!  Such a Pretty Fat is the first book I ever laughed out loud at in my whole life. She’s just one of those writers whom I will always read whether or not I’m interested in the book at face value.  But I was nervous when I heard she was writing her first novel and making the jump to fiction. (Perhaps it’s just book snobbery — if it’s a memoir, it’s okay if I read it. If it’s a novel, then I really am reading chick lit.)

I was pleasantly surprised with If You Were Here,  though. Semi-autobiographical, there is a lot of the real Jen and Fletch in this book.  In the novel, the first of three, the fictional Mia and Mac buy a serious fixer-upper primarily because it was featured in John Hughes’ Pretty in Pink. The renovation (rebuild?) that ensues challenges their finances, friendships, and their marriage.

Nothing about this book was particularly stunning, and I might not have liked it so much had it not been written by Lancaster. The things fans love about her are not lost — her signature snark, her love of animals, the dynamics of her friendships and marriage. It feels very much like what we’re used to, and that will make me pick up the next in the series … even if it’s chick lit fiction and not a memoir.

For your viewing pleasure, a picture of my mom and me with Jen at a book signing a few weeks ago!

Revenge of the Radioactive Lady by Elizabeth Stuckey-French / Review

11 May

 Elderly Marylou Ahearn moves from Memphis to Florida with one goal in mind: to murder Dr. Wilson Spriggs. 

Her plan is simple enough — she will move in, befriend the man and his family, force an apology out of him for treating her with poisonous radiation while she was pregnant, and then murder him. Probably through poison.  However, when Marylou – now under the alias of Nancy Archer — meets Spriggs she realizes that he is frail and his memory is completely devoid of any recognition of her or the experiements which he oversaw.  His family — daughter, son-in-law- and grandchildren — are equally broken in different ways.  Two of his grandchildren have Asperger’s, one grandchild (their hope for a golden child) has ruined her shot at making a pre-Olympic soccer camp, and infidelity and misery define the marriage of Caroline and Vic. As Nancy becomes enmeshed in the family she is trying to destroy, she slowly realizes who her true enemies are and who really needs her in their lives.

This book was quirky and funny. Bits ran on too long for me, and while there were certainly touching moments, the novel, overall, lacked a strong emotional core. Still, for a strange yet enjoyable read, I would definitely recommend it.

* Thanks to the publisher for an advance copy of this book! *

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel / Review

8 May

 Finally, after a little more than three months of serious reading, I have finished Wolf Hall. And this was my second attempt!

I first picked up Wolf Hall soon after it won the Man Booker Prize for 2009. I like historical fiction. I like the Man Booker  Prize. I’m a pretty solid reader; I should certainly be able to dominate this, right? Nope. I wanted to put it down almost immediately after flipping through the six pages of introductory Cast of Characters and genealogical charts!  This is pretty much why I don’t read nonfiction history; I’m not interested in books that require quite so much flipping just to keep track of who’s who.

But then, this winter, I found Showtime’s The Tudors, and with all of the hard work of learning history and learning the characters behind me, I grabbed Wolf Hall again.  But this time I was determined.

It really is seriously historical historical-fiction.  The pace is incredibly slow. Focusing her narrative on Thomas Cromwell, Master Secretary (among other titles) to Henry VIII, the book travels from Cromwell as a boy all the way to the death of Thomas More in 1535.  At over 600 pages, though, there is no detail left uncovered.

In spite of all of that, I found this book to be completely arresting me.  The first time I ever read Cormac McCarthy, I found myself holding my breath and thinking, “I have never read anything like this before.” So it goes for Hilary Mantel. The prose is utterly original — feeling modern and authentically sixteenth-century all at once. It’s authoritative and self-consciously speculative. Fascinatingly, it’s also written in the present tense.  I have never read anything like this before.

Time now to consider the compacts that hold the world together: the compact between ruler and ruled, and that between husband and wife. Both these arrangements rest on a sedulous devotion, the one to the interests of the other. The master and husband protect and provide, the wife and servant obey. Above masters, above husbands, God rules all. He counts up our petty rebellions, our human follies. He reaches out his long arm, hand bunched into a fist…

It is time to say what England is, her scope and boundaries: not to count and measure her harbour defenses and border walls, but to estimate her capacity for self-rule. It is time to say what a king is, and what trust and guardianship he owes his people: what protection from foreign incursions moral and physical, what freedom from the pretensions of those who would like to tell an Englishman how to speak to his God.

While following Cromwell and his rise to influence,  the novel is primarily concerned with Henry’s separation from the Pope and his efforts to divorce Katherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. In this novel, Anne never even makes it to the Tower. That’s for the sequel. In fact, the actual Wolf Hall is never seen in this first installment. The novel ends with the suggestion that a trek to Wolf Hall should be made. And who’s to say how many volumes it will take Mantel to finish Cromwell’s story. But in spite of the time it took me to get through this singular novel, I am already anxiously awaiting the sequel. Wolf Hall is a novel who makes you work for it and enjoy it … and makes you not want to pick up any other book for a very long time.

Noah Barleywater Runs Away by John Boyne / Review

4 May

 While I continue to crawl (in the most wonderful way) through Wolf Hall at home, I picked up John Boyne’s newest, Noah Barleywater Runs Away, at school while my students silently read. Reading the cover, I wasn’t immediately drawn to the young adult (very young?) novel. The blurb reads:

Eight-year-old Noah’s problems seem easier to deal with if he doesn’t think about them. So he runs away, taking an untrodden path through the forest.

Before long he comes across a shop. But this is no ordinary shop. It is a toy shop, full of the most amazing toys and brimming with the most wonderful magic. And here Noah meets a very unusual toymaker.

The toymaker has a story to tell, and it’s a story of adventure and wonder, and broken promises. He takes Noah on a journey. A journey that will change his life. And it could change yours too.

I teach high schoolers, so it’s rare that I will pick up a young adult book unless I think I could use it with my students in some way.  This didn’t seem to fit the bill. Still, I was completely arrested by Boyne’s previous novel The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Stunned.  So, I picked up Noah Barleywater, if for no other reason than out of admiration for the author.

I would tell you more about the plot (it’s actually better than the blurb makes it sound), but that would give away some really neat surprises that this book delivers well.

While entirely different from The Boy, Noah Barleywater plays on the same mix of whimsy, fairy-tale-esque storytelling, and real, human darkness. No, there are no concentration camps this time around, but the emotional depth of the story is nearly equal in its poignancy.  Thus, much like a Pixar movie, it is a book for early chapter-book readers, and a book for teenagers, and a book for adults, too. A younger reader will really enjoy this book, and might even learn som important life lessons. It’s so true, I cried.

I was really moved by this book and charmed once again by Boyne’s narrative voice and his ability to so fully capture the naiveté and heartbreak of childhood. In weird ways, it sort of reminded me of Mantel’s Beatrice and Virgil — a quasi-fairy tale that’s not a fairy tale at all. (However, if you did not love Beatrice and Virgil like I did, don’t let my mental comparison scare you off.)  I have used The Boy in the Striped Pajamas with my high schoolers in a Holocaust literature unit; I’m not sure I would go so far with Noah Barleywater Runs Away, although it would be interesting to use it as a mentor text for fairy tale writing.

I highly recommend this book, and it has persuaded me to pick up anything John Boyne writes,  seemingly juvenile or not!

Thanks to the publisher for an advanced copy of this book!

The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney / Review

18 Apr

  Alex is a junior at a prestigious, progressive New England boarding school when she wakes up, disoriented, in an unfamiliar dorm room next to a naked boy whose name she can’t remember. She remembers going to the concert. She remembers playing drinking games. After that — nothing. When Alex makes her way back to her room, her roommate suggests that if she can’t remember having sex, she was probably date raped. Though Alex initially hesitates to accept this diagnosis, bits and pieces of the evening — of her fear and resistance to Carter’s sexual advances — come rushing back to her.

But what to do? If she calls the police, it will simply be a case of he-said-she-said that will quickly become very public and include involving her parents. The school disciplinary committee is notoriously hands-off.  Instead, Alex appeals to The Mockingbirds — a group of student advocates who monitor and punish the student body for various offenses.  They take their name from To Kill a Mockingbird, believing that doing the right thing for victimized students on campus is their raison d’etre.  The Mockingbirds spring into action to defend Alex and all girls who have been date raped at Thamis Academy.

This book has won a number of Young Adult awards over the last year — and I find it hard to pass up anything inspired by Harper Lee. This book was really better than I expected.  Sort of like a more gown-up Speak, the issue of rape has become a familiar tune in YA lit. Though this book is no exception, it’s slightly edgier than what I’ve read in the past. The writing — though not revolutionary — is pretty good.

I really only have a couple of complaints about this book. First, the language — a perennial concern in YA. Though there is not too many obscenities, there is enough to make me hesitate to send it home for something like summer reading.  And in this book, it’s really unnecessary. Ditto on the sexual content. It’s not too graphic, but it’s just descriptive enough to make me uneasy.

My other concern was simply a round dislike of the little love story. It was trite and too trite for a book with a bite. Moreover, having a new love interest seemed to make Alex’s ordeal somewhat easier — she has a defender, a powerful defender at that.  And it also seems to ignore some of the more nuanced issues about intimacy that often come out of sexual assault.

All in all, for a young adult book, I liked The Mockingbirds. I will definitely put it on my bookshelf at school and recommend it to my young readers. It has a great lesson for teenagers to absorb.

Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis / Review

11 Apr

 I have not been a very good reader recently for a variety of reasons.  And I’m sorry for that. I have a huge stack of books that I really want to read and little motivation to pick them up at all.  (I am in the middle of a book that I am super-slowly savoring that one day I will finish and review.  Just so you know.)

But, in the meantime, I just needed something light and mindless to read whilst my student teacher is teaching.  Jill Davis’ Girls’ Poker Night was passed around at this year’s Book Club Christmas Book Exchange.  My friend Shannon, whose sense of humor I thoroughly enjoy, said she laughed out loud reading it! I did not.

The thing is — I’m not even opposed to chick lit on principle. Sometimes — times like now — I even seek it out. I need a reading break every once in awhile. But this book just did not do it for me. Written as a series of vignettes, Ruby Capote, emotionally crippled, details her move from Boston to New York to write a Sex and the City-esque column for a NYC newspaper.  Through therapy and turmoil, she finds herself. And she also plays poker in Wednesday nights.

Nothing about this book rang true — characters, plot, nada. At times, I wasn’t even exactly sure what happened since the vignettes jump around so frequently and without clarifying transitions. At other times, I was bored.  I’m sorry to say, even for chick lit, Girls’ Poker Night is not a winner for me.

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