So, the Wolf Hall sequel. Without giving anything away (mostly because C has already read this, I think), we only get to the end of Anne's reign at the end of the second book. Is Mantel going to continue writing about Thomas Cromwell, or was that it? I feel like at the end of Wolf Hall it was clear there was a next book, but not so with this one...
Anyhow, it was good. Slower going than Wolf Hall, I think, because there was a lot of "this is what you missed if you didn't read the first book" type of catch-up references (throughout, not just at the beginning), but Mantel's Cromwell is just a fascinating and appealing character, so you're willing to put up with the ponderousness here and there. And because she focuses on the details and minutiae so much, it really doesn't matter that you know how the story ends (and develops), because a lot of stuff you don't necessarily know about.
If anything, I actually like knowing the end, I think it adds a weight to the story that's very compelling. It's the same way I accidentally, but providentially, took the Roman Empire class before I took the Roman Republic class, but then was pleased. Knowing how things can go so very, very wrong can totally heighten the sense of urgency and pathos in reading back into things. I'm not expressing myself well, but - it's so heartrending to read about the Roman people forming their republic, and having such lofty aspirations, and yet knowing all the while what is coming for them - dissolute absolute rulers, civil war after civil war, the crossing of the Rubicon. Knowing that Cromwell will eventually end up being executed himself, essentially just for pissing off the king and for making enemies at court, adds another layer to watching him discredit people with the king, and have them end up dead or destroyed, and making those enemies. And the thing is, Cromwell, at least Mantel's Cromwell, knows. He's seen other people raised up and brought down, and he's done it himself, not least with Anne Boleyn. He knows he might be smarter and tougher than many of his enemies, but he also sees - and especially in Bring Up the Bodies - how easily he could fall himself, and take those he loves down with him. I just checked online, and it looks like this is the second in a planned trilogy, so I'll be curious to see if in the final book he sees his doom coming or if hubris catches him up. I hope not, for his sake, as I've grown fond of the character, and for my own, because as a reader I'd rather watch him try to fight and then learn to accept, or not.
I had been wondering where the title, Bring Up the Bodies, came from, and I was intrigued to see that it's a reference to what they said when they were fetching prisoners (in this case Anne's co-accuseds) from the Tower. Is it because, as charged traitors, they're basically presumed to be dead men walking?
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
Awesome!
Is what I say about Swamplandia! by Karen Russell.
I really liked it, although I started it around 6pm on a Sunday night when I found out I had gotten into a book club that would be discussing it at 7pm on the upcoming Tuesday night, so I basically skimmed the last chapter sitting at the bar at 6:45 on Tuesday.
Too distracted trying to get out of here (Friday!) to say that much about it, but basically I thought the two main characters were really strong, all were well developed, and I appreciated that the story was spun out at its own pace, and not for the reader's benefit. I thought the beginning was way too jam-packed with adjectives - and that's coming from ME - but either Russell hit her stride, got more confident & streamlined, or I just stopped noticing. I was certainly engrossed in the story; Russell switches back and forth between her main character, a young girl, and the secondary (in my opinion) main character, the girl's somewhat older brother, and I think it's a testament to the book that as I was reading each character's chapter (the pov switched back and forth), I was torn between wanting to really sink in to the story and hand, but also race ahead to see what was going on in the other storyline, that we had just left.
It's also a HUGE thing that when the presumably (or so I thought, at least) child-molester character starts hanging around our young female protagonist, as much as I was shouting "RUN AWAY!" there was also part of me that was like "Sh*t - I know this is bad, but I really want to know where the author's going to go with this."
A lot of research, particularly into Florida's settlement history, clearly went into this, which I appreciated, although I think Russell did occasionally fall into the trap of "I found this fact, it's so cool, I need to use it!" when less might have been more.
The setting was fantastic, though, a family living on an isolated island (at a somewhat, and clearly deliberately, vague time) where they run an alligator theme park and pose (more or less) as an "Indian tribe" (kind of). Just very unique, and rich - much like the landscape she describes in loving and sometimes overwhelming (but not really) detail.
Certainly got a ton of - amazing - press when it came out, and it had been on my list to read forever, near the top always but never quite there, so I was really happy to have an excuse to finally make myself skip it to the front of the line.
I really liked it, although I started it around 6pm on a Sunday night when I found out I had gotten into a book club that would be discussing it at 7pm on the upcoming Tuesday night, so I basically skimmed the last chapter sitting at the bar at 6:45 on Tuesday.
Too distracted trying to get out of here (Friday!) to say that much about it, but basically I thought the two main characters were really strong, all were well developed, and I appreciated that the story was spun out at its own pace, and not for the reader's benefit. I thought the beginning was way too jam-packed with adjectives - and that's coming from ME - but either Russell hit her stride, got more confident & streamlined, or I just stopped noticing. I was certainly engrossed in the story; Russell switches back and forth between her main character, a young girl, and the secondary (in my opinion) main character, the girl's somewhat older brother, and I think it's a testament to the book that as I was reading each character's chapter (the pov switched back and forth), I was torn between wanting to really sink in to the story and hand, but also race ahead to see what was going on in the other storyline, that we had just left.
It's also a HUGE thing that when the presumably (or so I thought, at least) child-molester character starts hanging around our young female protagonist, as much as I was shouting "RUN AWAY!" there was also part of me that was like "Sh*t - I know this is bad, but I really want to know where the author's going to go with this."
A lot of research, particularly into Florida's settlement history, clearly went into this, which I appreciated, although I think Russell did occasionally fall into the trap of "I found this fact, it's so cool, I need to use it!" when less might have been more.
The setting was fantastic, though, a family living on an isolated island (at a somewhat, and clearly deliberately, vague time) where they run an alligator theme park and pose (more or less) as an "Indian tribe" (kind of). Just very unique, and rich - much like the landscape she describes in loving and sometimes overwhelming (but not really) detail.
Certainly got a ton of - amazing - press when it came out, and it had been on my list to read forever, near the top always but never quite there, so I was really happy to have an excuse to finally make myself skip it to the front of the line.
Dark Update!
I forgot I finished two books by Deanna Raybourne (or I am going to post this and realize I already wrote about them, and feel like an idiot) in her Lady Julia Grey mystery series a while ago. I read Dark Road to Darjeeling on my way down to D.C. (whoops, and, yep, suddenly this feels familiar - I seem to recall writing something like "D.C.!!! Whoo!!!" It bears repeating though, so: "DC! Whoo!!!), and started Dark Enquiry (the next in the series) in the airport on the way back. Both were fine, and passed the time, and while Lady Julia is a rather annoying character, the secondary characters have a lot of personality - especially her family - and her husband, Nicholas Bisbane, may be a super cheesy character (half gentleman, half Roma, tormented by his dark past and the gift of Sight he eschews - PUH-lease), but he does come across the page as pretty smokin' hot.
However, it wasn't until I was almost finished with the second book that I realized the reason that I was confused by the characters' chronology was that I was getting them, or at least Lady Julia, mixed up with the characters from another series!
So, in the Dark series, set in the Victorian age, Lady Julia's husband is murdered, Nicholas Brisbane is the hot guy from the wrong(ish) side of the tracks who helps her solve the mystery and then they fall in love, as and before they solve more crimes. She's young, smart, has a free mind and a great fortune. He's tall, dark, handsome and dangerous.
In Tasha Alexander's series, the Victorian Lady Emily's husband, who she doesn't know that well as it turns out, dies and she is left a young widow with a keen mind, independent spirit, and independent means. And along the way, of course, she and the "dashing" Colin Hargreaves (smart, respects smart women, not an aristocrat, kind of dangerous and wholly smokin' hot) do some crime (solving).
You can understand my confusion...
But, as I say, they're fun enough books (the Darks, I mean, but both too), and they're very good for things like airport / airplane reading. I would think if I were sick or hung over, too. Familiar but okay characters. Predictable but entertaining plots. Lots of discrete references to sex, but mainly TOTAL clothing porn.
However, it wasn't until I was almost finished with the second book that I realized the reason that I was confused by the characters' chronology was that I was getting them, or at least Lady Julia, mixed up with the characters from another series!
So, in the Dark series, set in the Victorian age, Lady Julia's husband is murdered, Nicholas Brisbane is the hot guy from the wrong(ish) side of the tracks who helps her solve the mystery and then they fall in love, as and before they solve more crimes. She's young, smart, has a free mind and a great fortune. He's tall, dark, handsome and dangerous.
In Tasha Alexander's series, the Victorian Lady Emily's husband, who she doesn't know that well as it turns out, dies and she is left a young widow with a keen mind, independent spirit, and independent means. And along the way, of course, she and the "dashing" Colin Hargreaves (smart, respects smart women, not an aristocrat, kind of dangerous and wholly smokin' hot) do some crime (solving).
You can understand my confusion...
But, as I say, they're fun enough books (the Darks, I mean, but both too), and they're very good for things like airport / airplane reading. I would think if I were sick or hung over, too. Familiar but okay characters. Predictable but entertaining plots. Lots of discrete references to sex, but mainly TOTAL clothing porn.
Growing on me...
I read Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall when it came out (who didn't?), and I liked it well enough. Then recently I was finally edging to the front of the wait list for the sequel, Bring Up the Bodies (Bringing up the Bodies? Sh*t, you'd think I'd know since I'm reading it right now), so I checked out Wolf Hall to re-read so I'd remember what was going on in the story.
Helpful, since it's a dense story, and especially since after watching The Tudors, my view of that period, and the major players, is always going to be colored by the BBC / Showtime (not that I'm complaining; God, but I sweat Jonathan Rhys Meyers - have since I was a teenager - and Henry Cavill is not too hard on the eyes, either). Turns out that Bring Up the Bodies (or whatever - that sounds more like one of Mantel's chapter titles from Wolf Hall, so it's probably right, but Bringing sounds more like Bringing Up Baby, so obviously I love it...someone should do a screwcap [screwball + madcap = how is this not a real thing?] version of Henry VIII! Genius!) has a lot of explanatory stuff in the end, so I probably didn't need to.
But I still enjoyed it. Too much probably, because I'd curl up with it in bed and then go to sleep way too late (there were also only like, seven chapters in a huge book, so it was hard to find a natural stopping point). I didn't love the way it was written in so far as it wasn't always clear who was talking, or what was being said out loud versus thought, or who the "he" was in ever other sentence (generally Cromwell, not always), but I get that the kind of dense, occasionally crude text was a deliberate choice, and I can respect that.
Did make me wonder though, as most things about Henry VIII and his wives do - Anne always ends up coming across so badly, like a shrewish wh*re. Which, maybe she was, but there had to be more to it, no? I mean, Henry may have been king, but he was no prince. Everyone seems pretty clear that he screwed around on her. Then again, everyone seems pretty clear she did to, and possibly with her brother... I don't know. She probably was a huge raging b*tch, but when EVERYONE dumps on her, it makes me want to stick up for her, or read someone that does... I mean, was she just the Hilary Clinton that everyone got mad at because she wasn't a "nice" lady? And did crazy things like go after what she wanted and insist on being treated with the respect given to other leaders?
Anyhow, it was good, and i actually think I like it better than I did last time, which is very cool.
Helpful, since it's a dense story, and especially since after watching The Tudors, my view of that period, and the major players, is always going to be colored by the BBC / Showtime (not that I'm complaining; God, but I sweat Jonathan Rhys Meyers - have since I was a teenager - and Henry Cavill is not too hard on the eyes, either). Turns out that Bring Up the Bodies (or whatever - that sounds more like one of Mantel's chapter titles from Wolf Hall, so it's probably right, but Bringing sounds more like Bringing Up Baby, so obviously I love it...someone should do a screwcap [screwball + madcap = how is this not a real thing?] version of Henry VIII! Genius!) has a lot of explanatory stuff in the end, so I probably didn't need to.
But I still enjoyed it. Too much probably, because I'd curl up with it in bed and then go to sleep way too late (there were also only like, seven chapters in a huge book, so it was hard to find a natural stopping point). I didn't love the way it was written in so far as it wasn't always clear who was talking, or what was being said out loud versus thought, or who the "he" was in ever other sentence (generally Cromwell, not always), but I get that the kind of dense, occasionally crude text was a deliberate choice, and I can respect that.
Did make me wonder though, as most things about Henry VIII and his wives do - Anne always ends up coming across so badly, like a shrewish wh*re. Which, maybe she was, but there had to be more to it, no? I mean, Henry may have been king, but he was no prince. Everyone seems pretty clear that he screwed around on her. Then again, everyone seems pretty clear she did to, and possibly with her brother... I don't know. She probably was a huge raging b*tch, but when EVERYONE dumps on her, it makes me want to stick up for her, or read someone that does... I mean, was she just the Hilary Clinton that everyone got mad at because she wasn't a "nice" lady? And did crazy things like go after what she wanted and insist on being treated with the respect given to other leaders?
Anyhow, it was good, and i actually think I like it better than I did last time, which is very cool.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Sometimes I make myself laugh...
At the utterly random reading I do. Case in point, the varied assortment of books that were waiting for me when I got back from my long weekend in D.C. (WHOO! Amazing as always!)
Lincoln Child, The Third Gate - I am sure I had requested this one because going on plane trips always makes me think of / want an Preston-Child (Agent Pendergast) book, and the latest one must not have been available. So I settled for a just-Child one. (Thanks for the picture, Amazon!)
Karen Engelmann, The Stockholm Octavo - I have no idea what this book is, much less why I requested it. Times review, maybe?
Tupelo Hassman, Girlchild - this is supposed to be excellent, I am so excited.
Claire Vaye Watkins, Battleborn - I think this was something that was mentioned when I went to a talk by book review editors, and someone asked what was one of the books that they really loved this year...
Rachel Sarah O'Toole, Bound Lives: Africans, Indians, and the Making of Race in Colonial Peru - came across this somewhere, and I just always love books on the history/complexity of racial definitions.
Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall - this one I just want to re-read so that I'll remember the first half of the story when I finally get Bring Up the Bodies in my hands.
Jane, Duchess of Northumberland (hilarious - really??) and Colin Stimpson, illustrator, The Poison Diaries
As best I can tell, an illustrated fiction story about a poisoner, based on the research of an actual poison-gardener? It's confusing, but I can figure it out later...looks cool for now!
Lincoln Child, The Third Gate - I am sure I had requested this one because going on plane trips always makes me think of / want an Preston-Child (Agent Pendergast) book, and the latest one must not have been available. So I settled for a just-Child one. (Thanks for the picture, Amazon!)
Karen Engelmann, The Stockholm Octavo - I have no idea what this book is, much less why I requested it. Times review, maybe?
Tupelo Hassman, Girlchild - this is supposed to be excellent, I am so excited.
Claire Vaye Watkins, Battleborn - I think this was something that was mentioned when I went to a talk by book review editors, and someone asked what was one of the books that they really loved this year...
Rachel Sarah O'Toole, Bound Lives: Africans, Indians, and the Making of Race in Colonial Peru - came across this somewhere, and I just always love books on the history/complexity of racial definitions.
Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall - this one I just want to re-read so that I'll remember the first half of the story when I finally get Bring Up the Bodies in my hands.
Jane, Duchess of Northumberland (hilarious - really??) and Colin Stimpson, illustrator, The Poison Diaries
As best I can tell, an illustrated fiction story about a poisoner, based on the research of an actual poison-gardener? It's confusing, but I can figure it out later...looks cool for now!
Friday, January 4, 2013
Spellbound?
So, this is almost embarrassing.
I read a book last night.
Like, I got into bed, started a book, finished a book about ninety minutes later (I hope it was an hour and a half, and not two hours - I'm not totally sure), then went to bed. Way too late. Was I entranced? Perhaps by the herbal spells that feature prominently in the book?
The book was Garden Spells, by Sarah Addison Allen. It's been on my to-read list forever, so long I had forgotten why I had added it (probably one of those "other people who viewed this title also viewed..." listings), but Widener didn't have it, and I never remembered to go to the BPL and get it. But I was wandering around the other day, after picking up Swamplandia! and remembered & found it.
It's a not-very-long novel about a family that seem to be some kind of witches, that live in the South, garden, and have a magical apple tree. There's also, of course, romance, sisters, endearingly batty old ladies, a bad guy, a precocious child and...hmm, I think this story is called Practical Magic, no? But however formulaic and predictable it might have been, it was engaging and I tore through it. It was a perfect bed-read, I was sated and sleepy at the end - I just wish I had split it into two or three sessions!
The way the book was written, and the cover blurbs or something, made me think this is part of a series, maybe about the town, if not the same two sisters who are the protagonists in Garden Spells... I think it was the way that different families around town were given different characteristics, it's just asking to have spin-off after spin-off. Or you could mosey through the main family's family tree (literally, too, their apple tree is a character itself) generation by generation of strong-willed women who eventually find the right man. Or maybe not a series, but a lot of similar books? Certainly the author had a TON of books spread over a couple shelves in Copley.
I believe my original notes on the to-read listing were that this sounded like a beach book, and I was right, more or less - beach, bed, lazy day wherever. Not great literature, but if there are more out there, it might be worth sometimes having one on hand for when I don't really want to think, but just want a nice story about nice people.
I read a book last night.
Like, I got into bed, started a book, finished a book about ninety minutes later (I hope it was an hour and a half, and not two hours - I'm not totally sure), then went to bed. Way too late. Was I entranced? Perhaps by the herbal spells that feature prominently in the book?
The book was Garden Spells, by Sarah Addison Allen. It's been on my to-read list forever, so long I had forgotten why I had added it (probably one of those "other people who viewed this title also viewed..." listings), but Widener didn't have it, and I never remembered to go to the BPL and get it. But I was wandering around the other day, after picking up Swamplandia! and remembered & found it.
It's a not-very-long novel about a family that seem to be some kind of witches, that live in the South, garden, and have a magical apple tree. There's also, of course, romance, sisters, endearingly batty old ladies, a bad guy, a precocious child and...hmm, I think this story is called Practical Magic, no? But however formulaic and predictable it might have been, it was engaging and I tore through it. It was a perfect bed-read, I was sated and sleepy at the end - I just wish I had split it into two or three sessions!
The way the book was written, and the cover blurbs or something, made me think this is part of a series, maybe about the town, if not the same two sisters who are the protagonists in Garden Spells... I think it was the way that different families around town were given different characteristics, it's just asking to have spin-off after spin-off. Or you could mosey through the main family's family tree (literally, too, their apple tree is a character itself) generation by generation of strong-willed women who eventually find the right man. Or maybe not a series, but a lot of similar books? Certainly the author had a TON of books spread over a couple shelves in Copley.
I believe my original notes on the to-read listing were that this sounded like a beach book, and I was right, more or less - beach, bed, lazy day wherever. Not great literature, but if there are more out there, it might be worth sometimes having one on hand for when I don't really want to think, but just want a nice story about nice people.
Cleaning house - Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders
I didn't totally love Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders (Gyles Brandreth), but I'm going to probably end up reading the other books in the series. I think I actually picked up the fourth or fifth in the series, but it was a totally random grab. I saw the title while browsing for something else at the BPL (Swamplandia!, I think?), and it caught my eye, and I liked the idea of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde running around solving crimes in Rome.
The problem is, I think the author may have also really liked the conceit, maybe a little too much. He just can NOT let go of this whole thing with Wilde being, basically, Holmes, and Doyle being, more or less, Watson. I swear to God, I wanted to start a drinking game - a shot every time Doyle declares he is a man of regular habits, or refers to the crisp/cool white sheets of the hotel. The former is almost every other page in the second half of the book!
But Wilde is a good character, poking at Doyle with humor and affection, and stands in as a good Holmes.
The problem is, I think the author may have also really liked the conceit, maybe a little too much. He just can NOT let go of this whole thing with Wilde being, basically, Holmes, and Doyle being, more or less, Watson. I swear to God, I wanted to start a drinking game - a shot every time Doyle declares he is a man of regular habits, or refers to the crisp/cool white sheets of the hotel. The former is almost every other page in the second half of the book!
But Wilde is a good character, poking at Doyle with humor and affection, and stands in as a good Holmes.
Cleaning house - The Dark Monk
The Dark Monk is the second in the "Hangman's Daughter" series by Oliver Potzsch. No witchily murdered children this time, but someone still gets poisoned within the first couple of pages, so it wasn't exactly Christmas reading, but that's when I read it!
It wasn't exactly a Yuletide miracle, but it was okay. I read the first one (The Hangman's Daughter) because it was at Mom's, and it was fine, but I didn't love it. I feel like I actually thought to myself that I wouldn't rush out and read another one, but then I saw this one when I was meandering down the new-books self at the BPL, and grabbed it. I figured it wouldn't suck, and it was a paperback, so it wouldn't be too heavy... Not exactly a glowing recommendation, but it really DIDN'T suck.
The hangman himself is a strong character. His daughter, on the other hand, is probably meant to be smart and strong and feisty, but she actually feels kind of familiar. I mean, these days, is a smart, strong heroine, even in the seventeenth century, supposed to be a new thing, or a big strength of a book? I could even live with her though - which is good, since she's pretty prominent, and on her own a lot, in this installment - but it's the third main character, Simon the doctor, that bugs me. I don't know why, except maybe that he's a bit of a self-involved idiot, but he just rubs me the wrong way.
It wasn't exactly a Yuletide miracle, but it was okay. I read the first one (The Hangman's Daughter) because it was at Mom's, and it was fine, but I didn't love it. I feel like I actually thought to myself that I wouldn't rush out and read another one, but then I saw this one when I was meandering down the new-books self at the BPL, and grabbed it. I figured it wouldn't suck, and it was a paperback, so it wouldn't be too heavy... Not exactly a glowing recommendation, but it really DIDN'T suck.
The hangman himself is a strong character. His daughter, on the other hand, is probably meant to be smart and strong and feisty, but she actually feels kind of familiar. I mean, these days, is a smart, strong heroine, even in the seventeenth century, supposed to be a new thing, or a big strength of a book? I could even live with her though - which is good, since she's pretty prominent, and on her own a lot, in this installment - but it's the third main character, Simon the doctor, that bugs me. I don't know why, except maybe that he's a bit of a self-involved idiot, but he just rubs me the wrong way.
Cleaning house - Beauty Queens
Another Young Adult book!
This one is Beauty Queens, by Libba Bray.
I first read Bray's trilogy about girls playing with magic - and then losing control of it - at a boarding school at the close of the nineteenth century. It was a while ago, so I don't think I talked about it (or the later ones?), but I loved the title when I walked by the book one day (A Great and Terrible Beauty) and there were elements that seemed, and were, appealing.
Besides also being about teenage girls, and teenage girls facing up to serious crises, Beauty Queens is totally different, but I still really enjoyed it. This one is about a bunch of beauty pageant contestants stranded on a desert island, and forced to survive on their wits and handiness with a curling iron and homemade tanning beds. Just that premise alone would be funny enough, and Bray is definitely funny. But then she adds on to it a Corporation, with its hand in every pie in America - corporate, political - that needs to take out the teen queens before they ruin its plans to infiltrate a small dictatorship and the rest of America it doesn't yet own.
The overall book isn't quite as hilarious as it thinks it is. The "inserts," fake ads for Corporation products, get to be a little much, and feel a bit like heated over Fforde (then again, even Jasper Fforde re-hashes are still better than a lot of other stuff), but not really a problem. One character, the leader of the pageant pack, is just hilarious, utterly memorable. The character who I think is supposed to be the main character wasn't my favorite, but she has some good moments. What I really liked about the book, puns and lame-awesome jokes aside, is that all of the main characters actually grow and develop, not just one or two. It's really a ensemble piece, and Bray's girls are a strong team. And since they are, of course they thrive and then start kicking some a**.The lessons are kind of predictable, but it doesn't matter; even if we know where we're going, there are some twists along the way, and getting there is fun (secret bad-guy lair in a volcano!).
I'm still waiting to get my hands on Bray's other book, Going Bovine, but so far we're 4 for 4!
This one is Beauty Queens, by Libba Bray.
I first read Bray's trilogy about girls playing with magic - and then losing control of it - at a boarding school at the close of the nineteenth century. It was a while ago, so I don't think I talked about it (or the later ones?), but I loved the title when I walked by the book one day (A Great and Terrible Beauty) and there were elements that seemed, and were, appealing.
Besides also being about teenage girls, and teenage girls facing up to serious crises, Beauty Queens is totally different, but I still really enjoyed it. This one is about a bunch of beauty pageant contestants stranded on a desert island, and forced to survive on their wits and handiness with a curling iron and homemade tanning beds. Just that premise alone would be funny enough, and Bray is definitely funny. But then she adds on to it a Corporation, with its hand in every pie in America - corporate, political - that needs to take out the teen queens before they ruin its plans to infiltrate a small dictatorship and the rest of America it doesn't yet own.
The overall book isn't quite as hilarious as it thinks it is. The "inserts," fake ads for Corporation products, get to be a little much, and feel a bit like heated over Fforde (then again, even Jasper Fforde re-hashes are still better than a lot of other stuff), but not really a problem. One character, the leader of the pageant pack, is just hilarious, utterly memorable. The character who I think is supposed to be the main character wasn't my favorite, but she has some good moments. What I really liked about the book, puns and lame-awesome jokes aside, is that all of the main characters actually grow and develop, not just one or two. It's really a ensemble piece, and Bray's girls are a strong team. And since they are, of course they thrive and then start kicking some a**.The lessons are kind of predictable, but it doesn't matter; even if we know where we're going, there are some twists along the way, and getting there is fun (secret bad-guy lair in a volcano!).
I'm still waiting to get my hands on Bray's other book, Going Bovine, but so far we're 4 for 4!
Cleaning house - Grave Mercy
I've been going a little nutty at the BPL/Copley recently, so I've got to get down some notes about stuff and then get rid of the books - my bookcase & bedside table are overflowing!
A long time ago (shortly after my trip to San Diego, so mid- to late-November?) I read the first installment in the "His Fair Assassin" series, Grave Mercy (Robin LaFevers, 2012). Normally a paranormal young adult book would not exactly be up my alley, but there was an intriguing review in the New York Times, and the idea of a band of teenage girl assassins running around fifteenth-century Brittany is kind of hilarious.
The protagonist, Ismae, is a young woman who was nearly aborted by her mother and left with horrible scars and is more or less an outcast from her village and abused by her father. After she's sold in marriage to a boor who attempts to rape her, and she violently defends herself, she is packed off, through the aid of some semi-mysterious semi-strangers, to an island abbey where she is healed and then taught that she was actually fathered by the god of death (more or less), who the initiates of the abbey serve, travelling throughout the countryside killing people who need to be killed.
Ismae, as it turns out, is naturally immune to poison, so she's apprenticed to the poison-mistress, as well as being trained in martial arts, stiletto-play, and seduction (glossed over). Of course, just how you know (or the abbess knows) who needs to be killed is a bit trickier, as Ismae learns when she is sent on her first assignment, to the court of Anne of Brittany. And of course the hot-but-grumpy guy she has to both work with and spy on, Anne's b*stard half-brother, complicates things too.
There were a lot of cute, snappy little one liners and the politics of the court read believably, although I only know the very barest of outlines of the actual history, so I couldn't speak to the author's accuracy. The romantic angle was suuuuper predictable, but it didn't distract too much from the main (or other) story line. Hell, I just like titular puns :)
Overall, I'm definitely going to try to remember to read the next book in the series when it comes out in April.
A long time ago (shortly after my trip to San Diego, so mid- to late-November?) I read the first installment in the "His Fair Assassin" series, Grave Mercy (Robin LaFevers, 2012). Normally a paranormal young adult book would not exactly be up my alley, but there was an intriguing review in the New York Times, and the idea of a band of teenage girl assassins running around fifteenth-century Brittany is kind of hilarious.
The protagonist, Ismae, is a young woman who was nearly aborted by her mother and left with horrible scars and is more or less an outcast from her village and abused by her father. After she's sold in marriage to a boor who attempts to rape her, and she violently defends herself, she is packed off, through the aid of some semi-mysterious semi-strangers, to an island abbey where she is healed and then taught that she was actually fathered by the god of death (more or less), who the initiates of the abbey serve, travelling throughout the countryside killing people who need to be killed.
Ismae, as it turns out, is naturally immune to poison, so she's apprenticed to the poison-mistress, as well as being trained in martial arts, stiletto-play, and seduction (glossed over). Of course, just how you know (or the abbess knows) who needs to be killed is a bit trickier, as Ismae learns when she is sent on her first assignment, to the court of Anne of Brittany. And of course the hot-but-grumpy guy she has to both work with and spy on, Anne's b*stard half-brother, complicates things too.
There were a lot of cute, snappy little one liners and the politics of the court read believably, although I only know the very barest of outlines of the actual history, so I couldn't speak to the author's accuracy. The romantic angle was suuuuper predictable, but it didn't distract too much from the main (or other) story line. Hell, I just like titular puns :)
Overall, I'm definitely going to try to remember to read the next book in the series when it comes out in April.
Surprisingly good?
So, somehow I stumbled across a reference to a book written by a Harvard Extension Museum Studies professor / maritime studies somewhere else, Mary Malloy. I think it was a comment someone posted on a Harvard Magazine article about university novelists or something? Or an article about Extension authors? Anyhow, I figured out that Prof. Malloy had written a historical mystery type book featuring a historian from New England. And, as anyone who read this blog knows (so, hi, C, if you're still out there!), I am a sucker for anything along those lines. So I read it, and, honestly, when the book came from deposit and I saw the sort of garish, sort of generic cover I was like "uh-oh." And then the summary on the back made no sense, academically speaking - she (main character) studies 18th century Pacific explorations, but then the story ends up in the Crusades? She would not know the relevant source material!!!
BUT, then Malloy totally acknowledged that, worked it into the story, and also turned out a pretty legit book. The protagonist tackles a set of unknown papers and materials that literally had me drooling (it's the same as the Pink Carnation books - previously untapped archives are history nerd porn), that leads to an older, generations- & centuries-old family-based mystery (love those too), and THAT ended up with the Crusader stuff. There's also a little bit of romantic/sexual tension, decently well fleshed out secondary characters, and a more contemporary "mystery" that plays out well. Good stuff.
I'm definitely going to try to get my hands on the next book in the series, which I think just came out recently. It's not in Hollis, but the BPL in West Roxbury has a copy, so I'll head over there at some point - maybe stop in at the fire station down the street where a very nice man tried valiantly to cut the stuck-on ring off my swollen finger the other night, before the guys over at the Newton Centre station finally managed to finish the job...
Anyhow, the book is The Wandering Heart.
BUT, then Malloy totally acknowledged that, worked it into the story, and also turned out a pretty legit book. The protagonist tackles a set of unknown papers and materials that literally had me drooling (it's the same as the Pink Carnation books - previously untapped archives are history nerd porn), that leads to an older, generations- & centuries-old family-based mystery (love those too), and THAT ended up with the Crusader stuff. There's also a little bit of romantic/sexual tension, decently well fleshed out secondary characters, and a more contemporary "mystery" that plays out well. Good stuff.
I'm definitely going to try to get my hands on the next book in the series, which I think just came out recently. It's not in Hollis, but the BPL in West Roxbury has a copy, so I'll head over there at some point - maybe stop in at the fire station down the street where a very nice man tried valiantly to cut the stuck-on ring off my swollen finger the other night, before the guys over at the Newton Centre station finally managed to finish the job...
Anyhow, the book is The Wandering Heart.
We The Animals
We the Animals, by Justin Torres, was fantastic.
I read it because V and I were going to the Grub Street book club / author q&a, and I am so glad I did - actually, so glad I did all of those things. The Grub Street book club was a new experience, but overall I liked it. Naturally, there were a few people I wanted to murder, since they just kept talking about themselves, or talking about the book but monopolizing the conversation, but for the most part it was really interesting. I very much appreciated the approach, which was looking at the writing of the book - the language, the images, the character development, what decisions the author made and why we thought he made them - as opposed to just talking about the story, which I imagine would have been the focus of a "regular" book club, or one not meant to be filled with aspiring (or realized) authors. The craft was definitely the main point here, which was an engaging way into the book, as well as an interesting conversation on it's own.
The leader of the session, one of Grub Street's instructors, had us start by talking to the person next to us about one scene we really loved, and then we all said them to the group and she put them on the board. I was skeptical at first, but just that alone ended up being cool, because there were some that I had already thought of, some that were like "oh, of COURSE, had to be up there, can't believe I forgot that," and other scenes or lines I seriously didn't remember (but in one case - a scene at Niagara Falls - I thought "I need to go back and read that right now!"). I think starting by talking just to our neighbors before speaking to the whole circle was a good way of breaking the ice. I actually didn't talk much or at all in the larger group, in part because I was getting testy at some of the others, but I think I would have felt comfortable doing so, after having come in, not being sure what was going on, but then having a really animated conversation (well, on my side) with the woman next to me (didn't turn to V, who was on the other side, since it seemed like cheating - we already knew each other, and had already discussed our favorite scenes over the wine we chugged before heading into the meeting).
The rest of the first hour was the group discussion, pretty well moderated, although some people could have been shut up more, and then the author of the book came in to speak with us, answer questions, and then finally do a brief reading. Hearing Torres speak about the book, and, more importantly, the process of writing the book, was great. I was a little disappointed in the reading; someone suggested the scene that was my favorite in the whole book (when they're dancing in the kitchen), but the way he read it just seemed wrong. It wasn't at all the way it went in my head. I know that's dumb, since he wrote it and all, but V felt the same way. It was just...it's a really intimate, strong, gentle/brutal, vivid book. And that scene was all of those things and then some, full of love with danger and uncertainty looming over it, but he read it in this very hushed, polite, friendly, sing-song-y kind of voice, more like a poem about birds or daffodils or something. But maybe that's the way the scene is in his head, I don't know...
As far as the book itself...yeah. Just amazing. It's nominally the "story" of a young boy and his brothers, and their life when they were children. It's hard to say more than that without spoiling one of the main strengths of the story which is how the characters, and their backgrounds, are slowly and very deliberately revealed.
Slim, a quick read, but packed with fantastic images and languages; characters, too, but less so. This isn't really as much a story, I don't think, as it is a series of heart-wrenching (not necessarily in a bad way), gorgeously honed scenes. I remember thinking as I read that he either is or had - or both - an amazing editor, because the book is so very pared down, lean like some sort of ridiculous athlete, just muscles and sinews and a little skin on top, no fat, nothing extraneous, and so very, very strong.
There was one scene with the mother and a co-worker that I didn't understand; that is, I thought it was going to lead to something more (no thoughts on what, just more), but it sort of drifted around by itself. Kind of that, if you show us a gun, someone should get shot thing. A small nit-pick, though.
Most of it, I loved. I loved the way the story starts off with a collective narrator, in a sense - the "we" of the title - and how and why that evolves, I thought he did a fantastic job of parceling out information so it unfolds in a totally organic way but also surprises you and makes you re-evaluate what you've already read... Love :)
I read it because V and I were going to the Grub Street book club / author q&a, and I am so glad I did - actually, so glad I did all of those things. The Grub Street book club was a new experience, but overall I liked it. Naturally, there were a few people I wanted to murder, since they just kept talking about themselves, or talking about the book but monopolizing the conversation, but for the most part it was really interesting. I very much appreciated the approach, which was looking at the writing of the book - the language, the images, the character development, what decisions the author made and why we thought he made them - as opposed to just talking about the story, which I imagine would have been the focus of a "regular" book club, or one not meant to be filled with aspiring (or realized) authors. The craft was definitely the main point here, which was an engaging way into the book, as well as an interesting conversation on it's own.
The leader of the session, one of Grub Street's instructors, had us start by talking to the person next to us about one scene we really loved, and then we all said them to the group and she put them on the board. I was skeptical at first, but just that alone ended up being cool, because there were some that I had already thought of, some that were like "oh, of COURSE, had to be up there, can't believe I forgot that," and other scenes or lines I seriously didn't remember (but in one case - a scene at Niagara Falls - I thought "I need to go back and read that right now!"). I think starting by talking just to our neighbors before speaking to the whole circle was a good way of breaking the ice. I actually didn't talk much or at all in the larger group, in part because I was getting testy at some of the others, but I think I would have felt comfortable doing so, after having come in, not being sure what was going on, but then having a really animated conversation (well, on my side) with the woman next to me (didn't turn to V, who was on the other side, since it seemed like cheating - we already knew each other, and had already discussed our favorite scenes over the wine we chugged before heading into the meeting).
The rest of the first hour was the group discussion, pretty well moderated, although some people could have been shut up more, and then the author of the book came in to speak with us, answer questions, and then finally do a brief reading. Hearing Torres speak about the book, and, more importantly, the process of writing the book, was great. I was a little disappointed in the reading; someone suggested the scene that was my favorite in the whole book (when they're dancing in the kitchen), but the way he read it just seemed wrong. It wasn't at all the way it went in my head. I know that's dumb, since he wrote it and all, but V felt the same way. It was just...it's a really intimate, strong, gentle/brutal, vivid book. And that scene was all of those things and then some, full of love with danger and uncertainty looming over it, but he read it in this very hushed, polite, friendly, sing-song-y kind of voice, more like a poem about birds or daffodils or something. But maybe that's the way the scene is in his head, I don't know...
As far as the book itself...yeah. Just amazing. It's nominally the "story" of a young boy and his brothers, and their life when they were children. It's hard to say more than that without spoiling one of the main strengths of the story which is how the characters, and their backgrounds, are slowly and very deliberately revealed.
Slim, a quick read, but packed with fantastic images and languages; characters, too, but less so. This isn't really as much a story, I don't think, as it is a series of heart-wrenching (not necessarily in a bad way), gorgeously honed scenes. I remember thinking as I read that he either is or had - or both - an amazing editor, because the book is so very pared down, lean like some sort of ridiculous athlete, just muscles and sinews and a little skin on top, no fat, nothing extraneous, and so very, very strong.
There was one scene with the mother and a co-worker that I didn't understand; that is, I thought it was going to lead to something more (no thoughts on what, just more), but it sort of drifted around by itself. Kind of that, if you show us a gun, someone should get shot thing. A small nit-pick, though.
Most of it, I loved. I loved the way the story starts off with a collective narrator, in a sense - the "we" of the title - and how and why that evolves, I thought he did a fantastic job of parceling out information so it unfolds in a totally organic way but also surprises you and makes you re-evaluate what you've already read... Love :)
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