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| # | cover | title | author | isbn | isbn13 | asin | num pages | avg rating | num ratings | date pub | date pub (ed.) | rating | my rating | review | notes | recommender | comments | votes | read count | date started | date read |
date
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date purchased | owned | purchase location | condition | format | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1419701223
| 9781419701221
| 4.17
| 1,586
| Feb 01, 2011
| Jan 01, 2012
|
“How can writers create something so damn beautiful from something generally considered ugly…like pain?” It’s the first question that popped into my h...more
“How can writers create something so damn beautiful from something generally considered ugly…like pain?” It’s the first question that popped into my head after I flicked the last page of Antonia Michaelis’ The Storyteller. I have no idea what I was getting myself into when I started reading The Storyteller. Honestly, all I knew was that I picked up a nondescript young adult novel with a fairytale flavor. I was expecting the usual fare. How was I to know that this 400-page tome would make me crawl into my fortress of sheets and pillows, where I would curl up into a sobbing ball of despair? Even before you can read past its proverbial once-upon-a-time, you’d know The Storyteller is a bleak fairytale that would sooner or later knot messily into a happy-never-after. Anna Leemann is a seventeen-year-old girl who thinks she lives in a “soap bubble” of easy living. She’s the epitome of protected innocence, kept at a safe distance from life’s harsh realities. As she totters on the brink of adulthood, she becomes largely aware of the wall separating her from the world; it’s only a thin film, and she gets the urge to break free and experience more. The epiphany dawns on her when the mysterious school drug dealer, Abel Tannatek, unwittingly barges into her life as her first love. But Anna and Abel are as mismatched as a spoon and a screwdriver. Abel is an abused and self-abusive mystery. He listens to white noise in his old Walkman to drown out the world and wears an Onkelz sweatshirt so everyone would leave him alone. He is the yin to Anna’s yang, the razor-edged corrupt to her soft purity, the dark splotches of ugly truth to her whirlwind of white lies. But beneath all the layers of his murky chain-mail is a delicate treasure: a heart of a tale-spinner, a boy who creates stories from an unknown limbo of words. Anna discovers one day that he’s dedicating a fairytale to his six-year-old half-sister, Micha. Abel relates to Micha and Anna a multi-episode account of a little orphan queen pursued by hunters. It turns out the story has parallels in reality: social services and Micha’s violent, jailbird father could snag her away from Abel once they learned of the siblings’ impoverished state. Anna gets caught under the fiction’s spell, but when the people Abel includes in the story end up dead in real life, it’s Anna turn to be afraid. Has she fallen in love with a murderer? The thing about The Storyteller is that it never pulls any punches like most of its peers under the YA umbrella. Antonia Michaelis answers the question “how far can people go in protecting the ones they love?” by knitting a disturbing tapestry of brutal scenarios—the kind that we’ll cringe to look at, but ones we’ll acknowledge as honest without second thoughts. Michaelis’ prose sometimes curls with the waiflike elegance of poetry, and every so often ends with the jagged teeth of pseudo-journalistic bluntness. It’s couched in a language that would swallow you whole and wouldn’t spit you out until you can taste the intense tang of every detail it has to offer. The blending of fairytale and reality is seamless. Being a wet-in-the-ears pen warrior myself, I’m aware that it’s no piece of cake hooking a story with another without losing some of its identity. Michaelis does this with zero effort. The imagery can steal your breath away, no matter how gritty it may seem. Of all the facets of this book—romance, mystery, thriller—what I love the most is this, the enmeshment of contemporary realism with fantasy. Abel and Anna unite in a fractured love story that I can call my kryptonite. My immunity to cookie-cutter storylines crumbled right away after I learned about their star-crossed portraits. They refuse to be tethered to the usual Romeo-&-Juliet formula—they don’t act as if they can’t be complete without each other or would die if the other did. They are their own individuals with their own dreams and apprehensions. The story’s pacing gives them time to flesh themselves out. Anna is deliberately depicted as inchoate due to inexperience, but she’s struggling to grow out of her shell; she’s everyone’s image of the last dollop of naivety before we launched into the world. Abel is not your usual hero, because, well, Michaelis never really made a hero out of him. Damaged and unstable, he’s a proof that not every victim manages to escape from the shackles of his past, even if a potentially transformative love unfolds before his very eyes. He’s a proof that not everybody gets saved. In the end, I think this book has official turned me into a literary masochist. I’m not a happy-ending junkie to begin with, but it’s rare for me to marvel so much at something that stomped my heart to pieces and wouldn’t let me reassemble them. I was so torn between giving this book as a chew toy for our neighbor’s dogs and crafting a separate shelf for it after reading the epilogue. There are so many scenes here that I would never forget: Anna’s torn cloak of love, bloodstained poppies in the snow, Leonard Cohen’s lyrics thawing with the dreary atmosphere, the little queen’s journey, or the last tragic scene that sticks around my memory like a stubborn ghost. I would never forget that both Michaelis and Abel are tale-spinners of the most powerful kind. I’m a budding storyteller too, and in the most unconventional of ways, my belief for the magic of words—every bit of them that gets ploughed out from the imagination—is vindicated by this book.(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Dec 2012
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Dec 03, 2012
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 0765328666
| 9780765328663
| 4.00
| 6,085
| Aug 07, 2012
| Aug 07, 2012
|
“I’d go through hell for you” is perchance one of the most hackneyed declarations of true love a person could ever concoct. But no matter how many lay...more
“I’d go through hell for you” is perchance one of the most hackneyed declarations of true love a person could ever concoct. But no matter how many layers of oozing cheese were dabbed on it, you got to admit that the volumes it speaks are not subdued one bit. Nothing beats the classic “I’ll do anything for you.” What more if someone means this literally? That’s practically the premise of Kendare Blake’s Girl of Nightmares. The novel picks up right where Anna Dressed in Blood left off, centering on teenage “ghost hunter” Cas Lowood. Anna Korlov, the homicidal ghost whom Cas fell in love with, opened a gate to Hell so she could drag the baleful Obeahman into it to save Cas and his friends. Months after the incident, Cas is continually haunted by images of a tortured Anna both when he’s asleep and when he’s awake. He will not be at peace as long as Anna isn’t, and he’ll do anything to pull her back. But Anna is already dead, and the world Cas lives in belongs to the living. Is he doing the right thing? Is it worth letting the new world he built around himself crumble, letting his loved ones down all for the sake of a ghost who had her share of murders? Amidst all the chaos going on in his life, there are a few things Cas is sure of: that he loves Anna more than anything, and he’s going to save her no matter what. With Girl of Nightmares, Blake spun a tale of “rescue the not-quite-damsel-in-distress” as a sequel to what was billed as her “average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people” story. Cas might have taken the spotlight solo this time, but the story never makes bones about the fact that the plot still banks on romance, though not as heavily as did its predecessor. Even if Anna is absent for the most part of the story (save from the tortured sightings), Blake managed to make it as though she’s there all the time, her presence heavy and ominous. Cas as a character hasn’t changed much. He still has that inner sarcasm factory inside him functioning every waking hour, his cynicism and superiority complex still his biggest features, and he still irks himself for being the miserable, lovelorn guy that he’s become. Despite all these, he’s surprisingly easy to like as a narrator. I think it’s because Blake made it so that his thought processes are bluntly honest and often hilarious. It’s not often that the readers are let into the mind of a character with zero walls to guard what other writers would rather keep behind closed doors. I loved how in the few chunks of Anna moments near the end, she proved that she would not fit into the mold of princesses who needed knights to save them. One character comments something to the effect of “You gotta act, we don’t need damsels-in-distress here.” Anna merely smirks and shows what she is really made of, fighting in the way she only knows how…after being burned, stabbed, broken, and exposed to several other kinds of torment. The plot is thankfully not dual in nature like that of Anna Dressed in Blood. Be that as it may, I liked the subplots that branched out, including the realistic repercussions of Carmel being catapulted from the high school Queen Bee to a ghost-buster team tagalong, how Cas dealt with everybody thinking he’s a special case of emo kid gone mental, and how the secrets of the Order of the Biodag Dubh are revealed. I find the new characters enticing as well; Jestine is admittedly annoying on her first appearances, but I gradually grew fond of her. Oh, and I think I love Aunt Rikka and her gingersnaps (those who’ve read it would understand). I guess what really took the cake are the author’s palpable descriptions. This is kind of hard to do when you’re speaking through the mouth of a boy who has no time for pretty words, but Blake pulled it off perfectly. She is able to deftly create what she wanted the readers to see and feel. She brings to life gory and bloody scenes, textures you’d shudder to feel, and scent you’d crinkle your nose at. Watch out for the scenes in the museum and the Suicide Forest. If you have an exceptionally overactive imagination, I don’t recommend reading the latter at night. There is a big possibility of robbed sleep. The story was carefully paced; it’s not slow to a point that you’ll be get wrapped with ennui, but it’s also not fast that there’s no room for the other story elements to develop. I became a tad emotional when I reached the part I consider the climax. And it’s not when they’re combating the Obeahman in Hell; it’s when Cas has to make the ultimate decision regarding Anna. He’ll consider it a wild goose chase if he’s selfish, but what I can say—love does unspeakable things to people. I wept a little at the end. Girl of Nightmares is a wildly unforgettable romp about love that transcends death, of unselfish devotion in the most dire of consequences. Four stars for an amazing read. (less) | Notes are private!
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1
| not set
| Nov 02, 2012
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Nov 04, 2012
| Hardcover
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| 0761163581
| 9780761163589
| 3.87
| 612
| Sep 22, 2011
| Sep 22, 2011
|
A chance encounter with someone you think could be your soulmate holds an almost magical charm. If your mind lingers on it long enough, your imaginati...more
A chance encounter with someone you think could be your soulmate holds an almost magical charm. If your mind lingers on it long enough, your imagination will start churning out what-could-have-beens, coupled with a wish that the other person is thinking of you too. All you could do is punctuate it with longing sighs…or perhaps you could cram an ellipsis on it instead by posting a “Missed Connection” online. Missed connections often crackle with the electric current of romantic possibility, but they may also be a way to reconnect with an old friend, to look for a relative you’ve lost touch with, or just to express gratitude to a stranger. Whatever its purpose is, one thing is clear: there’s really no stopping the mushrooming of these cyber messages in the bottle. Confession: one of my guilty pleasures is spending a sizable amount of time reading missed connections online. I never fail to have my daily dose of fiction, so I think it wouldn’t hurt reading tidbits that happened in real life. They’re tale fragments that my writer side would consider ultimately fic-fodder, but my cheeseball side would think as sparks of hope of connecting in a bleak world wrapped in a general atmosphere of pessimism and selfish disengagement. They’re like fairytales-in-making, and there’s really no telling if they’re going to end up with a happy-ever-after or just stay unfinished forever. Missed Connections: Love, Lost and Found is one “picture book” I really treasure. It contains a bunch of missed connections from various online sites, this time partnered with paintings of the award-winning illustrator Sophie Blackall. To say that Blackall’s artwork fully captures the weight of every missed connection is an understatement. Through strokes of Chinese ink and water color, she added quirky, wistful, poignant, comical, and tender flavors to the posts. But what I love the most about this book is that most of the time, Blackall managed to insert her own version of “what if” into each message. This was done not through illustrating scenes of the possible future, but by merely depicting the exact moment boxed within the four corners of that missed connection. My favorite in this verse would be the “I Wish I Could See Your Head” one, where Blackall drew a girl with the parts of her head portrayed as if it were in a clinic poster. Cradled in the cranium section is an unmade bed with two pillows, suggestive that it had two occupants not so long ago. I think it’s cleverly peculiar, how Blackall supplied an answer of some sort to post writer who wished he could see inside the beautiful stranger’s mind. Oh, and I like the fact that Blackall didn’t bother to go Grammar Nazi on all posts. The misspellings and misplaced punctuations are kept where they originally are, and I think it added to the credibility and reality of the missed connections. Anyway, describing all my favorite illustrations would just “spoil” it for you; I want you guys to check out the illustrations yourselves. In all honesty, words can’t equate to the paintings’ exquisiteness. In fact, seeing them kind of rekindled the frustrated painter in me. I’ve gone back to painting recently, and I make it a point to always make time for this artistic endeavor. I’ve also scribbled a new item on my bucket list after finishing the book: to write and illustrate a book for my future kids. :) It’s overall a book worthy of appreciation and the time you’ll spent flicking through it. “If a picture is worth a thousand words,” Ilene Beckerman says, “Sophie Blackall has created a bookstore you’ll fall in love with.” I couldn’t agree more. (less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Nov 2012
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Nov 04, 2012
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 0307931889
| 9780307931887
| 4.00
| 19,909
| Aug 28, 2012
| Aug 28, 2012
|
Admit it: at one point in your life—that specific point when you find yourself scooped up by the gigantic hurricane of all the mess you’ve made in you...more
Admit it: at one point in your life—that specific point when you find yourself scooped up by the gigantic hurricane of all the mess you’ve made in your existence so far—you’ve wondered what it would be like to wake up as another person. You’ve longed to restart. You’ve longed to get the chance to draw your life once again on a clean slate because you can’t handle this trouble-jumble anymore. You’ve longed for an escape. David Levithan toys with this idea and throws in a poignantly ironic spin on it for his latest novel, Every Day. Blurbs say that this is Levithan’s most ambitious work yet, and I can see where they are coming. While we accept the old dogma “life doesn’t come with an instruction manual” as true with bittersweet acknowledgment, sixteen-year-old A sort of wishes it to be true, literally. After all, a concrete compilation of precise instructions on life would be a big help to someone like A…that is, someone who wakes up in a different body, in a different life every morning. There’s never any warning about where the “transfer” will occur or who the next “host” will be. A doesn’t have an idea why or how it happens; he doesn’t even know what he actually is! For almost two decades, he eventually learns to make peace with this fact. He even established his own rules: don’t get too attached, don’t get noticed, and don’t interfere. But everything changed when he opens his eyes one day and finds himself in the body of Justine, Rhiannon’s boyfriend. He falls in love with Rhiannon in a flash, and he knows he has to dismantle the guidelines he set for himself. But is love really possible in this strange setup? Even if it’s been a while since I last read something written by Levithan, I was a tad astonished to find how he deftly builds one intricate inkscape of a story with the simplest of words. His prose here is very much reminiscent of The Lover’s Dictionary: straight and to-the-point, yet with hem that is swaying with subtlest hints of romantic poetry. I read somewhere before that music is love in search of words. Upon reading this book, I know that it somehow contains that music. His sentences sing, and anyone who doesn’t mind having loads of saccharine in their read would have a good time with this book. Every Day, however, is not all cheese. Levithan deliberately uses the novel’s narrative force as a tool to explore issues regarding sexuality. The main protagonist fully accepts whatever the gender of his host is; A himself is fluid, and more than once he (thinks he) falls in love with people regardless of their sexuality. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual…he knows these are all just trappings around our true selves, and he gets passed through them to see the core. As he uses this to make some pseudo-commentaries, you’ll know that Levithan obviously still leans on some hope of an LGBTQ utopia, one that we took a glimpse of in his other novel Boy Meets Boy. It’s hard to make a verdict when it comes to the characters, though. I can’t consider A fully fleshed out—and this has very little to do with his actually not having flesh. To be fair, not having a permanent body affects one’s identity as a character. A’s nature requires him to adapt; he holds nothing but his ideals and self-imposed laws that define him as a dignified entity. But I noticed that while his voice effectively exudes the biting tang of adolescence—being witty one minute and being heart-meltingly romantic the next—there are a few parts where he lacks the solidity of a strong narrator. It’s like, he’s already had his hooks on the reader’s interest, and then the hooks would slip out of their grip without any warning. But I guess it’s understandable, since it mostly happens when A’s doing his transient transfer to unremarkable people (with appearances ranging from three paragraphs to two pages, obvious unnecessary slice-of-life fillers). As for Rhiannon, I think it’s safe to say she’s a clear case of Mary Sue. It will stay the same even if we see her through an alternative POV, even without A’s love-struck goggles of perception. The plot is twisted in a sense that it’s practically a labyrinthine bulk of little detours and turns—sans losing the main point, of course. Levithan managed to make the main storyline magnified. He didn’t exactly paint a portrait of ideal love. In a way, I think that A’s feelings for Rhiannon for the most part of the book are self-destructive. When I say self, I mean both A’s self and the body he’s occupying. The moment he disregarded all the rules, he has also disturbed the “harmony” of the owners of the bodies he wore. He managed to save one life, yes, but compared to the others he used as tools so he could follow Rhiannon around? For the record, I’m not one of those girls who consider stalking as romantic. But hey, it’s young love. For A, the world is practically a fleeting concept—we can’t blame him if for once, he found something that he wanted so badly to hold on to for more than 24 hours. Or forever. A soon realizes that what he’s doing is selfish (and sort of “evil”), but even with this little epiphany he didn’t seem that well-developed. The novel’s ending wrapped up nicely, though: knotted with a heart-wrenching bittersweetness of letting go, and the silhouettes of hopes and possibilities looming beneath the last sentence. Despite its flaws, I still consider this book one of David Levithan’s bests.(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| not set
| Nov 30, 2012
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Oct 24, 2012
| Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||
| 0812978390
| 9780812978391
| 3.70
| 2,606
| Jan 01, 2008
| May 24, 2011
|
Precocious doesn’t begin to cover fifteen-year-old Welsh boy Oliver Tate, protagonist of this offbeat coming-of-age novel by Joe Dunthorne. But even w...more
Precocious doesn’t begin to cover fifteen-year-old Welsh boy Oliver Tate, protagonist of this offbeat coming-of-age novel by Joe Dunthorne. But even with his booming IQ, Oliver isn’t exempted from toiling to trudge the dangerously rocky roads of adulthood. He naturally dons the confidence of a self-styled social scientist and arms himself with a cautiousness that being an explorer of an emotional landscape requires. With these in hand, plus a couple of printouts from various instructional websites, Oliver plummets into the adult world to complete two self-assigned missions: (1) get rid of the reasons ungluing his parents’ marriage and (2) discover what makes Jordana Bevan—his pretty (and pretty oddball) muse—tick. In Submarine, Dunthorne takes us into one roller coaster of a ride that anyone who has passed (or is currently in) the transition of being callow to grownup would be familiar about. A mishmash of laugh-out-loud comedy, valuable introspections, and teenage inanities, Submarine is a true portrait of modern adolescence that isn’t easy to forget. I’ll make no bones about it: I found out about Submarine through Arctic Monkeys vocalist, Alex Turner. It is his music that backdrops Richard Ayoade’s big screen adaptation of this novel. Sheer curiosity pushed me to search for what’s really behind the poetic subtleties of the songs “Piledriver Waltz,” “Stuck on the Puzzle,” “It’s Hard to Get Around the Wind,” and “Hiding Tonight.” And I want to find these out not from the movie but the original source material. The book is a mixed bag for me. I quite liked its sharp crudeness, its unashamed hormone-driven absurdities, and its uncensored representations of things we prefer to keep behind closed doors. With that said, I did enjoy the all-access pass into Oliver’s mind. This mainly roots from my penchant for believably bright heroes. His amusing quirkiness—akin to many others I’ve read in other books—is a passport straight to my heart. But unlike other precocious protags, he managed to carve a special space in it for one reason: his intelligence is coupled by a funny kind of coldness. Dunthorne expertly conveys this to the readers as only superficial. Oliver scientifically speculates about and explores emotions of other people, but never does he do it to himself. His thought processes are basically robotic comedy, but the readers could see easily through him via his actions and offhand reactions. Nonlinear narration is no problem with me. However, there are certain parts in the book that swerved off a little too far from the straight path that their cohesiveness is sacrificed. I understand that it’s a part of Oliver’s personality-tinged narrative devices, but I thought Dunthorne could have a little more control on it. But yeah, perhaps it’s only a pet peeve. The book is overall a crudely charming treat. With an array of literally new words (Oliver is practically a human dictionary and thesaurus), this romp in an angsty young adulthood is a remarkably twisted contribution to a gamut of formulated YA tales gracing our bookshelves nowadays. Oh, and of course: it’s a love story too, but one that doesn't even get near the cheesy side. That said, I’m going to end this review with one of my favorite quotes from the book: “She’s the only person I would allow to be shrunk to microscopic size and explore my body in a tiny submersible machine.” Oh, so Oliver.(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Oct 05, 2012
| Oct 20, 2012
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Oct 05, 2012
| Paperback
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| 0575096802
| 9780575096806
| 4.17
| 4,382
| Apr 03, 2012
| Apr 19, 2012
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Once upon a time, I mentally festooned Holly Black with the Goddess of Fictional World-Building sash when she gave me two tickets to her alternate uni...more
Once upon a time, I mentally festooned Holly Black with the Goddess of Fictional World-Building sash when she gave me two tickets to her alternate universes, also known as the official receipts for my copies of White Cat and Red Glove. After finishing Black Heart, the third installment of this underrated trilogy, I figured I’ll have to give her a trophy now because she totally wrapped this series up nicely—and not just in the setting development part. A brief peek for those who don’t know what this series is all about: Cassel Sharpe comes from a (dysfunctional) family of con artists and “workers,” or people who can control your emotions, dreams, luck, and memories, alter your physical condition, kill you, and even transform you into anyone or anything with just a touch of their fingertips. This is why ungloved hands are deemed as dangerous as unsheathed knives and why workers are commonly considered as criminals. Cassel, after many years of believing he’s the only non-worker in the family, finds out in the worst possible way that he’s the most powerful worker in his generation: he has the power of transformation. White Cat and Red Glove revolve around Cassel’s once nondescript-turned-extraordinary life when it was peppered with problems involving his deceptive brothers, his ‘engineered’ memories, some murder mysteries, his love life, and his future. Black Heart deals mostly with the last two. I have to confess, it took me a while to get myself to write a review for this book because it rendered me incoherent for a few days. First, because it’s the conclusion of one of my favorite trilogies out there—surely, you bookworms know how hard it is to say good bye to your beloved stories (Last Book Hangover, anyone?). Second, I initially can’t form a concrete verdict because the things I love about it and the things I’m disappointed with in it are trying to eclipse each other. And third, I keep rereading and rereading parts of it so I can resolve reason number 2. When I finally broke it down, I think the best thing about this series is still the world-building. I’ve encountered stories whose authors try to establish lands of make-believe that end up too shabbily constructed that they appear cartoonish against the “serious” plots they accompany. Black’s is not like that. Her intelligent, multi-plotted story fits the world she crafted with utmost care. If she ever pens spin-offs set in the same universe, I’d gladly surrender my whole purse and piggy bank to immediately acquire copies of those. Character-wise, Cassel’s growth seems barely noticeable, but it is there. I’m thinking his development has not been that obvious to me because there are moments I got a tad annoyed with him for being such a cheesy lovesick lad, so, my bad. Anyway, I think he’s still a good albeit unreliable narrator. I love how the readers have access to his mind but he still gets to keep the major stuff behind closed doors and reveal them for climax (this is attributable to Black’s storytelling prowess, which we’ll touch later). What I’m not so happy about is Lila’s character. I used to love this soon-to-be mob princess in the previous books—I even love Lila Zacharov in 13 Pieces!—but my hopes for a fully-developed feminine character were crushed. I was expecting her to be explosively powerful, not just an entity that was breathed into life with foundationless adoration. The other characters were molded fine, though I think they are not particularly memorable. If I were to rank all the books in the trilogy based on the best plots, Black Heart would come second, right next to White Cat. Black played the conman-turned-FBI agent angle very well, but whatever magic she put to focus on this, she didn’t apply it on the minor plotlines. Unresolved mysteries involving an important gem, clouded identities, half-baked new characters, and a seemingly misplaced storyline about blackmail are just some of the rough story fragments strewn throughout the book. Questions crop up upon the introduction of a new issue, but almost all of them remained unanswered till the end. The major plot’s still satisfying, though. I guess aside from world-building, the other thing I liked the most about this is Black’s writing style. The way she writes in simple vocabulary contrasts brightly against the intricate twists she puts into the story’s major plot. And as I’ve mentioned earlier, I commend how she can deftly let us into a con artist’s mind—including most of his plans—but still manage to surprise us when the biggest secrets are finally unveiled. Over all, I still think this is a very good read. :) (less) | Notes are private!
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1
| not set
| Sep 22, 2012
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Sep 11, 2012
| Paperback
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| 0575096764
| 9780575096769
| 4.06
| 8,072
| Jun 16, 2011
| Jun 14, 2011
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Perhaps my favorite new alternate world is the one Holly Black created in the Curse Workers trilogy. I just loved how she created a stew of crimes, po...more
Perhaps my favorite new alternate world is the one Holly Black created in the Curse Workers trilogy. I just loved how she created a stew of crimes, politics, honor, love, and robbed youth that she set against the backdrop of her too-real setting. My opinions from my previous review (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...) are unchanged. The beauty of anticipation--that's what rereading Red Glove showed me. On to the third book! :)(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| not set
| Sep 08, 2012
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Sep 11, 2012
| Paperback
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| 0575096713
| 9780575096714
| 3.89
| 16,157
| May 04, 2010
| Jun 2010
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My thoughts are still the same as in my previous review (I pasted the link below). This time around I appreciate the beauty of anticipation, watching...more
My thoughts are still the same as in my previous review (I pasted the link below). This time around I appreciate the beauty of anticipation, watching how the things I already know unfold dangerously. There's something about the art of con that I really like even before I got a hold of this book, but having the bitter, sarcastic Cassel to explain it gets my excitement meter shot up a notch higher. I really love this series. :) http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| not set
| Sep 2012
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Sep 01, 2012
| Paperback
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| 0689875347
| 9780689875342
| 3.77
| 108,100
| Dec 09, 2003
| Dec 09, 2003
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The year is 1895. After witnessing the suicide of her mother and being smothered by cryptic visions, sixteen-year-old Gemma Doyle was transported from...more
The year is 1895. After witnessing the suicide of her mother and being smothered by cryptic visions, sixteen-year-old Gemma Doyle was transported from India to Spence, an all-girls academy where she receives a chilly reception. Her terror-meter didn’t drop even a single notch however; the visions kept their claws on her, and there’s a mysterious Indian boy following her around. These things refuse to be pushed into the backburner even as she adapts to the world that will supposedly prepare her as a lady worthy of acceptance into the society. She juggles these two worlds, trying to understand both—making friends, unveiling secrets, treading the ground where the society’s leash leads her. When Gemma and her pseudo-rebellious clique find a way to eschew their plights regarding their freedom, they make an irrevocable choice. Is the freedom they opt for worthy of the consequences they have to face? Before picking up A Great and Terrible Beauty, the fact that Libba Bray is a force to reckon with is already embedded in my head. I vowed to read more from her after I turned the last pages of Going Bovine. Picking up the first book in the Gemma Doyle trilogy seems to be the next best move, since the series has quite a huge following both on- and offline. The premise sounds promising too: a coming-of-age, Victorian gothic treat with rebellious femmes in the forefront. However, what I got after opening the package is totally different from what I expected. (Hint: it’s a mix of good and bad news.) I’m going out on a limb here: for me, Gemma isn’t much of a likable character. Save for the vague visions, she’s akin to any ordinary teenage girl—naïve, stubborn, and prone to throes of angst-ridden musings. Having read a lot of YA books, I remember liking narrators with the same qualities. There is just something about her that I couldn’t quite grasp, like she filled the ‘character container’ only to a quarter. Half-baked is the right word, as she hasn’t reached the three-dimensional stage yet. “That’s why the sequels exist,” one might tell me. But doesn’t that only prove the first book fails in being the foundation-setter of the whole trilogy? Theme-wise, I commend Bray for tackling the issue of refusing to be pigeonholed in the era the novel is set in. Women here are groomed to be perfect housewives for rich men; they are “programmed” to take the submissive role. Bray’s clique of girls shakes off the leash. They don’t want to be treated like wind-up dolls whose value lies only in how good their male partners would look with them hanging off their arms. I like how Bray explored the topic, how her heroines find a new option when they came to know what the other Realms are and what can happen inside, and how they deal with the consequences of their actions. I also love how the theme of the famous Spider-Man line, “With great power comes great responsibility,” plays a big role in the story. It’s nothing new even with all the supernatural thingamajigs, but I guess reading it in a YA noir lit is a breath of fresh air. Aside from those—and I will not lie—a big chunk of the novel seems a bit underwhelming for me. The whole thing is chock-full of tropes, which I have no problem about if they’re toyed with unconventionally to come up with something new. I enjoyed the atmospheric prose (I’m a big fan of world-building) and some o f the witty banters, but I find myself constantly checking the page numbers and wondering when I will finish the book. The second part was peppered with more action, mystery, and twists, but nothing happens that I couldn’t have seen coming toward me in a fog. I also would have liked it better if Bray chose not to execute elements of her “fusion cooking.” I understand that women will always be women and feelings are timeless, but I’d rather hear them talk like real girls in early 1890s than characters in some kind of a Mean Girls parody. But don’t get me wrong—I don’t think this book is bad, I think it is just not for me. As of now I have no plans of reading the sequels, but hey, I have a fickle brain. If my curiosity gets the better of me, I might pick up Rebel Angels and A Sweet Far Thing in the future.(less) | Notes are private!
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| Jun 2013
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Sep 01, 2012
| Hardcover
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| 0765328658
| 9780765328656
| 4.01
| 26,028
| Aug 30, 2011
| Aug 30, 2011
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(4.5/5 stars) The Saga That Must Not Be Named left many things in its wake, and I used to think that one of them is the holocaust of paranormal romance...more (4.5/5 stars) The Saga That Must Not Be Named left many things in its wake, and I used to think that one of them is the holocaust of paranormal romance in literature. Every YA bookshelf I checked became so crammed with mediocre girl-meets-(insert monster here) stories. The novels’ backbones were offshoots of offshoots, and the overly enthusiastic blurbs plastered on their backs did nothing to my doubt meter but shoot it up one notch higher after another. Once, when the don’t-judge-a-book-by-its-synopsis adage got my conscience tingling, I actually tried reading one. It didn’t work out. If unfinished readings were akin to relationships with no closure, I knew I was the jerk for breaking it off…and I didn’t care. I realized a long time ago that a bookworm’s life is too short to be spent on terrible books. But then came Kendare Blake’s Anna Dressed in Blood. Even if I swore not to flip open any YA paranormal romance novel again, I made an exception and picked it up. There were very good rumors about this novel floating in my trusted bookwormverse, so I think, “why not?” Also, I know that my love for Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom-type necromancers—those who instead of reviving the dead are actually putting the revived dead back to rest—will get the better of me. No point in even trying to resist the urge once I saw the book’s premise. Anna Dressed in Blood follows the story of sixteen-year-old Cas Lowood. After his father’s demise in the hands of a murderous ghost, Cas has inherited an unusual vocation: killing the dead with a mysterious athame. With an oath to avenge his father clutched to his heart, he travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat, dispatching the vicious ghosts they manage to keep up while following local lore and legends. Pesky things like the future and friends are kept at bay, though Cas has to put up friendly veneers to coax out the information he needs from other people. Cas doesn’t expect anything out of his three-step routine—track, hunt, kill—when he arrives in a town where the ghost they call Anna Dressed in Blood resides. But he finds out that Anna is quite different from the other phantoms he encountered before. Sure, like ordinary ghosts we hear of in urban legends, she’s still wearing the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder—once white, now drenched red with blood. But that’s where the similarities stop. More than anything, Anna is a cursed entity, and she has killed everyone who ever dared to step into her home…except Cas, for some reason. Anna Dressed in Blood singlehandedly restored my belief that there is no holocaust for paranormal romance lit. It isn’t perfect by any means, but I enjoyed every bit of it. To be fair, it wasn’t the kind of book that zeroes in solely on romance; two-thirds of the whole thing exuded an ambiance that is full of more profession-related obsession rather than romantic ones. I became a little too fascinated with Cas’ love for death itself, which subtly took center stage in those parts. With his superiority complex, self-destructive antics, and an inner sarcasm factory working 24/7, Cas is definitely going to be added to my favorite snarky antiheroes roster. His narrating voice is fun to read, though there are a few parts that I think would be better if written from someone else’s perspective. While I knew beforehand that it’s going to be a horror story with a dangerous ghost in the forefront, I was still caught off guard by how it turned out to be a blood fest and gore galore. Kendare Blake takes “detailed writing” to a whole new level when she describes the murders. I commend that, and also the fact that she’s not afraid to kill off characters in a blink of an eye. That seems to be a little problem with YA books lately, I came to find: writers are so in love with every character they make—regardless if they’re good or bad—that they just don’t have the guts to wipe them off via death. Anna Korlov’s character starts off as intriguing, and I gradually grew fond of her. I may be a little biased, though; I have a penchant for cutesy characters with a berserker’s streak, and Anna just happens to fall into that category. She isn’t like any girl protagonist whose bad deeds are sugarcoated so they can still pass as the heroine. Anna is Anna—she may once have been innocent, but her hands are forever dirtied with the blood of everyone she’s killed. I yearned for more of her ‘living human’ time, but I still thought she’s three-dimensional even in death. The other characters are amazingly colorful too, although I think they need a little more fleshing out. Carmel comes off as a flat “Queen Bee” character, and Thomas doesn’t seem to have any remarkable role other than the Side Kick who offers deus ex machina more than once. To be quite honest, the other minor characters like Gideon and Mofran sound more interesting than them; I wish these good ol’ men have more screen time (or page time, whatever you prefer to call it). The plot can keep you up at night—not because it’s the kind of story that can instantly make you retreat to your pillow-and-sheets fortress with a wish of a nightmare-free slumber, but because it’s too engrossing that if you don’t finish it in one reading, you’ll definitely think about what will happen next before you go to sleep. When romance finally bloomed in the story, it did so without so much cheese. And excuse me for fangirling but I have admit, I root for Cas and Ana! My only issue with the plot is that it is actually dual in nature. Three fourths of the book was trained on Anna’s enigmatic story, and I liked its pace and the direction it is going. Needless to say, I was quite disoriented when the focus shifted on something that I know is important, albeit one that looks better as a subplot till the end of the book. I would have liked it better if it was addressed in the sequel, but Blake has another plan in mind. It wasn’t so much of a big deal, really, but I think the transition would be smoother if it was done that way. All in all, I liked Anna Dressed in Blood so much. I have a skyscraper-high to-read pile on my bedside table, but no one can stop me from reuniting with Anna Korlov on my next pay day. I’m going to purchase its sequel, Girl of Nightmares. (less) | Notes are private!
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| Jul 19, 2012
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Jun 10, 2012
| Hardcover
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| 9712725852
| unknown
| 4.07
| 61
| Jan 01, 2011
| 2011
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“Pareng Nick” is a frequent companion of mine when I was in high school. I remembered burying my nose in a dog-eared copy of Manila, My Manila and sta...more
“Pareng Nick” is a frequent companion of mine when I was in high school. I remembered burying my nose in a dog-eared copy of Manila, My Manila and staying in the library after classes just to search for his anthologies. It’s been ages since I last sat down and binge on some of his works, so the *roundhouse kick* of nostalgia that greeted me at the bookstore when I saw May Day Eve and Other Stories is only expected. Needless to say, I relented to the sudden irresistible urge to pick it up. I finished reading half the book in the bookstore, but I bought it (and another Joaquin anthology) anyway. I suddenly felt like my shelf would be incomplete without it. May Day Eve is still my favorite story. Despite having read it for perhaps the hundredth time, it still doesn’t fail to make me tremble from the knee-buckling blow of regrets in life (and love) that the characters experienced. Joaquin’s magic mainly lies in the subtle unfolding of events, in a gentle whisper of epiphany that crescendoes into a howl of tragedy by the end. The story revolves around the European-educated Badoy Montiya and the feisty, liberated Agueda as they let one superstitious moment in May Day Eve be the ‘driver’ of their lives, leading into a disintegrating marriage. Agueda is my kind of female protagonist, for the most obvious of reasons: she’s the readers’ little window to Joaquin’s feministic streak that is more pronounced in his other story The Summer Solstice. Great realizations often come when it’s too late; the bitter-sweetness of this lesson lasts in the final moments of the story, wherein the characters took in that they did love each other after all, even if subconsciously. The other stories are just as enchanting. Three Generations can be considered a little portrait of a family in a patriarchal society, focusing on the three men of each step of generation. Doña Jeronima reads like a classic Filipino legend about love, repentance, forgiveness, and piety. The Legend of the Dying Wanton teems with harrowing scenes of death as well as the beautiful images of freeing yourself…from yourself. Guardia de Honor is a mystifying tale about love, destiny, and chances. I just love how in each story, there is one character that represents rebellion in his/her own way. Five stars for an amazing read.(less) | Notes are private!
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| Feb 12, 2012
| Feb 12, 2012
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Feb 11, 2012
| Paperback
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| 0316127256
| 9780316127257
| 3.49
| 15,738
| Dec 27, 2011
| Dec 27, 2011
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(3.5/5 stars; 3 for story, and .5 for art) Call it humorously off-kilter or poetically peculiar, but I have always viewed heartbreak as some kind of a...more (3.5/5 stars; 3 for story, and .5 for art) Call it humorously off-kilter or poetically peculiar, but I have always viewed heartbreak as some kind of a Pandora’s Box. You take the whole package after that final blow from your beloved, unlock it, then let all the little devils residing in the cracks of your broken heart fly away until the only thing left is the healing butterfly of moving on. This is the metaphoric image I’ve engraved in my mind upon learning that when some couples call it quits, one party usually returns things that may remind him/her of his/her ex. When I sat down with Daniel Sandler’s "Why We Broke Up," I readied that image to juxtapose with Min’s boxful of trinkets she is returning to her ex-boyfriend. The contents of both packages clicked together, but I’d be lying if I say I wasn’t expecting an out-of-the-box (no pun intended) tale from Lemony Snicket of A Series of Unfortunate Events fame. What I got instead is a run-of-the-mill love story from a hormonal, quirky teenage girl with a penchant for classic movies. But that does not mean I did not like it. Basically, the whole book is a letter accompanying all the debris from Min’s romantic relationship with high school basketball star Ed Slaterton. The tone is clever at times and constantly bittersweet, and the stream of consciousness narration is fittingly juvenile. There is nothing new with the plot, but the common intrigue triggered by being presented with a literary tray where someone’s raw emotions were laid out for complete exposure will get the better of you. I wasn’t immediately put under whatever spell other reviewers claimed this book possesses, but somehow, when I learned to connect with Min, I managed to somewhat enjoy it despite myself. I guess the best word to describe Min’s voice is…young. You know, typically precocious and almost histrionic. This pretty much explains why many readers thought she sounded eye-rolling-ly exasperating, especially that the tone is glued to all her angst-laced rants spilled shamelessly in a letter that is more than 300 pages long. Her mantra of self-loathing, the long strings of expletives, and the heaps upon heaps of run-ons may come off as intolerable to many, but I think it is the perfect tone for a young adult world rotating in an axis called “heartbreak.” She is vulnerable, very much like everyone else who weeps inwardly while bearing the brunt of a failed affair. I could even say that is exactly the reason why the novel carries a realistic shade. I believe Min is akin to a mirror from the past for us older readers. Most of us have experienced being young and stupid in the love department; we have at some point thought we were smart, and we surprised ourselves for relenting to the wild commands of our hearts (or in some cases, hormones) when that certain person barges into our lives. If we could only go back in time and listen to our teenage selves sulking and sniveling about people that shattered us, we would effortlessly recognize bits of ourselves in the narrator. It’s been a while since I had a little…“emotional catastrophe,” but this book seemed to amplify that it hasn’t really been that long since I left my melodramatic self in the bat-squeak echo of Yesterday. Because of that past, and the similar instances Min goes through when it comes to placing her identity in the society, I was able to acknowledge the connection between me and Min. That made my reading experience more relatable, if not exactly enjoyable. Of course, how can I forget Maira Kalman’s pastel-colored illustrations? All of them wowed me from the start. Every chapter kicks off with a full-color drawing of each bauble in the box, and I dare say they added more concreteness and appeal to the book. I’m going to check out other books that Kalman illustrated, that’s for sure. Over all, the novel is good, but it’s something I’ll recommend with reservations. Handler successfully interweaved the goal of reminding you of the joys and sorrows of being in love with a fairly decent story. I give this 3.5 out of 5 stars (the .5 is for the illustrations). (less) | Notes are private!
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| Jun 08, 2012
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Jan 27, 2012
| Hardcover
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| 0312641893
| 9780312641894
| 4.06
| 48,473
| Jan 03, 2012
| Jan 03, 2012
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It’s just one of those cookie-cutter Cinderella stories hitting the bookshelves lately…if you established the whole story in a setting reminiscent of...more
It’s just one of those cookie-cutter Cinderella stories hitting the bookshelves lately…if you established the whole story in a setting reminiscent of Star Wars. Instead of a fairy godmother, the protagonist has her robotic brain interface to protect her from strange magic or simple lies. Instead of a pumpkin carriage, she has an ancient gasoline car she recovered from a junkyard. Instead of mice and bird friends, she has a talkative android rolling around with her whenever she does errands for her stepmother. And instead of a pretty glass slipper, she has her old, rust-caked metal foot falling off from her growing sixteen-year-old body. This is the story of Cinder: a snarky cyborg mechanic, 36.38% not human, and considered as a technological mistake by many. Marissa Meyer’s Cinder—the first book in the Lunar Chronicles—combine two of the most popular themes that continuously top the bestseller’s list and bedside tables nowadays: re-imagined fairytales and post-apocalyptic worlds centering on young adults. In the futuristic setting of Cinder, cyborgs are former victims of mutilating accidents who are given second chance at life by having their destroyed human parts substituted by computer-operated nervous systems and limbs. However, despite the advanced technology, earthlings are still not immune to a deadly virus—one which Cinder is strangely immune to. Unbeknown to her, there’s a secret in her blood that may save not only the Emperor or New Beijing but also the whole world. The premise is an instant attention-grabber, and once you plunge in, you wouldn’t stop until you get to the last page. I love how Cinder is a sarcastic butt-kicking girl that is light years away from the damsel-in-distress she is loosely based on. Her internal struggle about being a cyborg—particularly the bits about her “metallic monstrosities”—is profound, although it is never really revealed to the readers if her emotions are programmed or not. Her dichotomic nature removed some of her human stimuli like blushing and crying, but the author managed to maker her not come off as robotic. As a character, I think she’s 100 %, multi-dimensionally human. The pacing is good; pages containing action scenes pack a wallop, and the arcs where the author is sprinkling romantic hints burst like cherry blossoms amongst the cold metallic world where Cinder walks on. Prince Kai is also interesting, representing the epitome of energetic youth that has to be prematurely shed, skipping straight into the chaotic adulthood of a royal politics. He is not just the flat Prince Charming character that happy-ever-after stories supplied to the pop culture. Meyer handled the budding romance very well, too. It is not too saccharine nor is it too trying-hard; it is just there, embedded as a subplot, left to bloom on its own and treated as a secondary concern even by Cinder herself. “Love conquers all” is the clichéd adage we encounter in almost all love stories, but not here in this book. When Cinder finally uses it as one of her desperate “weapons” near the end, it backfires so bad that even the Prince felt betrayed by her. There is one thing that prevented me from giving this novel five stars, though: it’s predictable, and that’s not even counting the fact that it has a classic fairytale framework. I know the beauty of anticipation and the art of good foreshadowing, but there’s nothing like a book that takes you by surprise in a good way. I’m not sure if the author dropped too many hints or if she gave them away too early, but about fifty pages in there’s a good chance you’ll know the most important bit that will be officially revealed 300 pages later. It’s still an entertaining ride, though, and I’m eagerly waiting for the next installment. (PS: The Lunar Chronicles book #2 is Scarlet, this time featuring Little Red Riding Hood. I wish Meyer will not shift the spotlight from Cinder to LRRH. Some of the synopses are worrying me! Oh, and I almost forgot—Rapunzel has a cameo in Cinder! She’s a computer programmer imprisoned by one of the Lunars. I have a hunch that she’ll have her own book, too). (less) | Notes are private!
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| Jul 08, 2012
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Jan 27, 2012
| Hardcover
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| 1406336963
| 9781406336962
| 3.67
| 1,559
| Oct 11, 2011
| Oct 11, 2011
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The steampunk genre snagged my interest when I realized it can pass as some kind of a magical blend between the past and the future. I really get a ki...more
The steampunk genre snagged my interest when I realized it can pass as some kind of a magical blend between the past and the future. I really get a kick out of tales about Victorian retro-futurism. But to tell you the truth, I haven’t read tons of books in the genre, so the image I can concoct in my head is pretty run-of-the-mill: a world that basks perpetually on vintage vogue, mixed with loads of gears, clockworks, and cogwheels of steam-powered gadgetries. My latest exposure to steampunk is Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan series. I haven’t picked up the last book yet but it was good—too good that it made me want to pick up more works from the genre. Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories is what I chose to satiate this lit-hunger. I didn’t expect much since I know that collections are always a mixed bag, but I’d say I really enjoyed this. The 14 tales here—written by a gamut of talented sci-fi authors—range from raunchy to majestic, from commonplace to dreamlike, and from droll to poignant. There are duds as expected, but there are a bunch that is nothing short of amazing, containing stories that continue to haunt me up to now (in a good way). Libba Bray’s “The Last Ride of the Glory Girls” tops my list. The tale takes place in some Old Western town where a gang of girl robbers raids trains with the help of a time-freezing gun. Bray’s style made the whole story pop out of the pages; each phrase seemed to create an extra layer of atmosphere, and the narrator’s thick country accent made me feel as if a true-blue daughter of a wild-west colony is really relaying the story to me. Also hard to ignore are the glimpses about religious fanaticism there. If the whole thing doesn’t summon a busload of questions about beliefs, decisions, and life as a whole in the readers’ minds, I don’t know what does. Cory Doctorow’s “Clockwork Fagin” also left a deep dent in my memory. It’s a Dickensian account about decapitated orphans and how they snatch authority from their ruthless benefactor. For some weird reason, I think the story has a very Burton-esque feel to it, in a Sweeney Todd kind of way. It has a lasting grimness, occasional morbid humor, and overall filthiness that are enmeshed together by good writing. When I reached the last page of the tale, I sort of wish that Doctorow expands it into something longer. I will definitely check out more of his works. “Steam Girl” by Dylan Horrocks is also pretty memorable. It’s about a girl who may or may not be an inhabitant of another planet, churning out out-of-this-world stories (no pun intended) to her misfit friend. Aside from her quirky gadgets, she has this Reality Gun that stuns everyone when she pulls it out. The beauty is that the reader may feel like he’s taken a bullet from this incredible weapon—you would be left guessing which events are real and which are not. Other stories that I loved include Christopher Rowe’s “Nowhere Fast,” a post-apocalyptic account where America has run out of oil; Ysabeau S. Wilce’s “Hand in Glove,” a quasi-detective story centering on a petulant femme constable and a rogue killing hand; “Seven Days Beset by Demons” by Shawn Cheng, a comic strip-style tale where a man commits all seven deadly sins when he falls in love; Cassandra Clare’s “Some Fortunate Future Day,” where it is shown that innocence can instantly be transformed into something beastly by mere infatuation; and Garth Nix’s “Peace in Our Time,” a dystopian anecdote of revenge by a representative of an almost extinct race. The others are unfortunately forgettable. Some of them don’t even appear to have a touch of steampunk (as I know it) in them. Be that as it may, I really had a ball reading this anthology, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I started getting thirsty for more steampunk. I’m giving this book 3.5 stars. :)(less) | Notes are private!
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| Apr 14, 2013
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Nov 01, 2011
| Paperback
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| 0061431850
| 9780061431852
| 4.18
| 15,398
| Aug 28, 2006
| Mar 09, 2010
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Many pop literature junkies are getting more vocal about giving up on the stories churned out by most of today’s YA authors. And no wonder—if you've n...more
Many pop literature junkies are getting more vocal about giving up on the stories churned out by most of today’s YA authors. And no wonder—if you've noticed how ‘bestseller ideas’ are being downcycled again and again to populate the genre's shelves, you may even agree with them when they huff, "Oh well, can’t blame the writers; kitsch sells.” Fortunately, novels like Melina Marchetta’s Jellicoe Road emerge to reassure us that the Young Adult section isn’t in any way heading for an aesthetic holocaust. It’s the kind of book that stands stark against its slew of peers; it’s the kind of book that says, “Just dig in, there’s still a multitude of us here.” Jellicoe Road follows the story of Taylor Markham, who was abandoned by her mother on the Jellicoe Road when she was eleven. She hasn’t moved on about it six years later, but she tries to swim with life as it surges forward. She takes over their school’s Underground Community in their annual territory against the Townies and Cadets. But Lady Luck has a way of tethering Taylor to the past. Taylor finds out that Jonah Griggs, the boy who betrayed her when she ran away to find her mother three years ago, is the current Cadet leader. Problems and internal issues heap up when her guardian Hannah goes missing, leaving only a story about five kids that Taylor feels a strange connection to. Taylor acknowledges then that only when she is able to properly arrange her past’s puzzle pieces would she only find the key to her present and future. Honestly, I don’t think there’s any summary that can do justice to Jellicoe Road’s real magic. If anything, the book itself refuses to be boxed by its own blurbs and nondescript excerpts. Marchetta’s storytelling talent is evident in the fact that even if the book is built on the same foundations of a hackneyed YA novel, it manages to morph into something so tastefully refreshing and intricately beautiful. It veers off the kitsch high way, if you get my drift. Marchetta’s prose flaunts an even blend of insightful and crude. It gets deep and lyrical during Taylor’s introspections; it gets laugh-out-loud funny in the punchy, profanity-peppered dialogues between the main characters. In both sides, Marchetta showcases a kind of writing style that I can only describe as a breath of fresh air from the heaps of YA lit that I’ve previously devoured. Add to that a certain edge that gives off a vibe of magical realism, and I can totally say the book is nothing short of unforgettable. Onto one of its distinguishing points: Jellicoe Road contains a story within a story. As I’ve heard, the first hundred pages made most readers mistake the book for mind-screw galore, discouraging them to leaf through the next three hundred pages. It’s understandable because the two parts read like very different entities. But as the plot charges along, Marchetta drops clues that glue both stories, filling in the gaps little by little until the two meshed together to form an intricate masterwork. The mystery is not so hard to crack, though. The wham! lines would elicit an “About time you figure it out, Taylor!” instead of an “I didn’t see that coming!” from the thinking audience. Be that as it may, the emphasis given on the anticipation factor was excellent. Taylor as a character doesn’t stray so much from her antiheroine peers: she’s angst-on-two legs, carries an emotional baggage heavier than herself, snarky, unapologetically selfish, and has lots of trust issues. But akin to all the characters I’ve loved in literature, it isn’t about how unlikable Taylor seems to be—it’s all about how she emerges as a well fleshed-out person from the pages. Her humanness shines the brightest when she tries to be tough but grudgingly acknowledges that she needs other people to hold on to. Standing alongside her is a ragtag bunch of other memorable characters: Aboriginal Townie leader Chaz Santangelo, the amiable ex-Townie Raffaela, the self-deprecatory muso Ben, and the damaged and stoic Cadet Jonah Griggs. This group as well as the other in the accompanying story are caught up in complicated relationship polygons—enemies, friends, friends-but-not-quite, lovers-that-aren’t—that somehow contributed to their dimensionalities. Reading about their petty territory disputes was somewhat fascinating, though it made me extra-afraid of the actual territory wars our country is engaged in with Sabah and China. In the book, violence is the punishment for whoever trespasses into enemy terrain. That’s just black eyes and broken bones, but it’s violence just the same. Imagine this system blown up as the people involved fight over international lands. Death tolls, negotiations, pleas? Our newspapers carried headlines about those for weeks. Anyway (sorry for digressing), since we’re already talking about boundaries and places, I commend Marchetta for her first-class world-building. The weight of the realm she created is as palpable as the lives of the people who inhabit it. As a whole, I can say that Jellicoe Road is one of those books that deserve an improper fraction—I’d totally give it 6 out of 5 stars if I could! Hands down, this is definitely one of the best books I’ve read.(less) | Notes are private!
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| Mar 08, 2013
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Oct 25, 2011
| Paperback
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| 0061726818
| 9780061726811
| 3.95
| 74,319
| Mar 02, 2010
| Oct 25, 2010
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3.7 Stars (again, I wish Goodreads allow half-stars or something) Once upon a time, a teenage girl died in a car crash. The End? Not quite. It’s just th...more 3.7 Stars (again, I wish Goodreads allow half-stars or something) Once upon a time, a teenage girl died in a car crash. The End? Not quite. It’s just the beginning of a story that may actually have a happy-ever-after—an unconventional one, especially in the first place it is not a fairytale at all. Lauren Oliver’s debut novel, Before I Fall, follows the story of popular high school girl Samantha Kingston. More specifically, it revolves around the very day that Sam died, which she is “doomed” to repeat in some kind of a time loop until she figures out how to escape it. For seven times the same day is told, but with Oliver’s soul-crushingly beautiful writing, the formulaic albeit well-orchestrated plot comes off as refreshing. As you read along, you will not feel as if the six days are just echoes of the first one. YA books with first person points of view are not my cup of tea, but there are a few that I liked unreservedly. Before I Fall is now one of them. Sam’s voice is surprisingly good; I find myself drawn to her story just a few pages after the prologue. Given her quandary, I find her medley of reactions and ruminations about the same things on the same day utterly realistic. Needless to say, her characterization is superb. Her transformation throughout the book is akin to watching a butterfly as it wriggles out of its chrysalis—the readers journey with her as she attempts to rectify the mistakes that she regrets to have committed, as she peels the superficial layers of herself and of her friends, and as she opens her eyes to appreciate everything that she has taken for granted when she is still alive. She grows and learns that life never fails to teach her something new (even if she is technically dead). I commend the ace character development. Over the sevenfold loop, Oliver didn’t forget to give the readers a kaleidoscopic glimpse on the lives of the other characters. She made it a point to not let any character be considered just black or white—everybody has shades of gray, just like in real life. There are a lot of teen books that deal with cliques, drugs, booze, and parties, but I think this book pretty much set the bar when it comes to honest portrayal of a typical high school life. The prose even has a journalistic quality to it, in a sense that Oliver didn’t bother on putting too much sugarcoating or melodrama to make it more appealing. A clear reflection is enough. The pattern for day 1 is used loosely throughout the book, but the story never comes off as lackluster. The pacing makes for a thrilling read, and both the minor and major epiphanies will hold your attention and evoke several emotions. Anyone who likes romance will get a treat, too, but I think you should watch out for the ever-complicated relationships between friends. All kinds of friendships have their own versions of complexities, and Oliver managed to execute that very well. Thumbs up for a satisfying read.(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Oct 14, 2011
| Oct 17, 2011
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Oct 14, 2011
| Paperback
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| 0385534639
| 9780385534635
| 3.99
| 160,691
| Sep 01, 2010
| Sep 13, 2011
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(4.5/5 stars) The VIP pass comes in the form a 384-page noir fairytale called The Night Circus, and it spilled from the pen-point of literary Ringmistr...more (4.5/5 stars) The VIP pass comes in the form a 384-page noir fairytale called The Night Circus, and it spilled from the pen-point of literary Ringmistress Erin Morgenstern. Flipping the pages was very much like stepping firsthand into the striped tents of the nocturnal Le Cirque des Rêves, or the Circus of Dreams. The vibrant carnival scenes most of us are familiar with—full of colorful clowns, confetti, and confections—are diluted into a non-chromatic world of wonders. Caramel and chocolate scents will waft to greet you at the gates. Once you surrender yourself in the swirl of black and white, you can float and leap dreamily in a vertical labyrinth of clouds, visit a menagerie of breathing paper animals, or marvel at a garden magically carved from unthawing ice. Every tent contains a treat like no other. Fueling this feast for the senses is a pair of two young magicians—Celia and Marco—who are bound to a dangerous duel of skill and endurance where there can only be one victor. With the circus as the game board, everyone who performs with the two are unwittingly swept into the ever-perilous match…which is pushed a notch higher the danger ladder when the competitors tumble headfirst into a star-crossed love. Almost dizzying in its beauty, I’d be lying if I say The Night Circus did not take my breath away. Morgenstern’s prose, which is festooned with rich imagery, makes every sentence a joy to read. You’ll think that something portrayed in monochrome will not come out alive, but the author’s obvious love for a sweet concoction of words inflated the atmosphere and the setting. I simultaneously commend and envy her imagination! The way she unfolds every magic is almost cinematic, the kind you think will be produced if Neil Gaiman will collaborate with Tim Burton in a carnival flick. I liked how Morgenstern shifted between third person and second person point of view. The transmission is not exactly seamless, but being given a personal portion of the book made me feel like a legit rêveur. The book is far from perfect, though; in fact, I think this is one of the few books with copious flaws that I am willing to overlook just so I can squeeze it in my “favorites” shelf. Special effects aside (which occupies a sizable chunk of this book), the plot comes out a tad fragile and formulaic. The world of literature is no stranger to sorcerers’ matches after all, and the forbidden romance angle is quite predictable. I initially did not even care about the characters—Celia and Marco felt like cardboard cutouts to me most of the time, though they did kind of struck a chord with me on the latter part of the novel. Neither driven by plot nor by character, The Night Circus deviates from my usual favorites, yet somehow, I know I loved it. The reason for this I found near the end: it’s the charm of ordinary love between two people who grew up not knowing what real love is, and the way it blooms amidst the extraordinary nest of their competition. If Morgenstern delved more deeply into the emotional aspect of the novel early on, I think I’d love it right away. Over all I still think it’s a magnificent novel…in a “guilty pleasure” kind of way, if you know what I mean. Shrouded with enigma and magic, a bit lumpy with blemishes but generally intelligent, The Night Circus already classified itself as one of the most remarkable novels of 2012 for me. (less) | Notes are private!
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| not set
| Jul 07, 2012
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Oct 05, 2011
| Hardcover
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| 0399256601
| 9780399256608
| 3.90
| 19,219
| Sep 29, 2011
| Sep 29, 2011
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Jack the Ripper is back. At least that’s according to the news filling the London air waves when Aurora “Rory” Deveaux arrives in Wexford, her new boar...more Jack the Ripper is back. At least that’s according to the news filling the London air waves when Aurora “Rory” Deveaux arrives in Wexford, her new boarding school. A series of harrowing crimes mimicking the Whitechapel Murders in 1888 envelops the city in Rippermania, and smack in the middle of it all, Rory finds herself as the only witness. She has spotted a suspicious man the police consider as the prime suspect. When people who should have also seen the man claim to have not, she realizes something is awfully wrong…especially when she becomes the Ripper copycat’s next target. Not counting the short story “The Children of the Revolution” from the geektastic anthology Zombies vs. Unicorns, The Name of the Star is Maureen Johnson’s first work that I’ve ever read, and its impressive mash-up of young adult humor and thrilling murder mystery easily convinced me to pick up her other works. I see how the slow pacing (and all the things that bordered on cliché) in the first part of the novel was necessary for Johnson to craft the cast of characters and portray the new environment from the eyes of the snarky, smart heroine. It was mostly focused on the development of Rory, since the characters introduced early in the story were not as important as the ones that popped in the middle. However, while they can easily be dismissed as just part of the “background,” they are still part of Rory’s growth as she adjusts to what will be her second home. I liked how the characters are carefully inflated one at a time, ending up fully blown with three-dimensional concreteness after mini anecdotes about them are exposed to the readers. It was obviously one of the easiest ways to give weight to a shell-hollow character, but I admit that it was rather impressive in the hands of Johnson. She made it seem…more realistic, with the drastic changes in Rory’s initial judgments of other people upon her discovery of their little histories that made them the way they are in the present. Rory eased into my favorite spot, and my unconventional second-rank favorite was the minor character Alistair (Thank God he wasn’t terminus-ed at the end! I’d love to see more of him in the next books!). I still need to warm up to the ghost-busting squad, though; with a little more push, I think I’d actually like Stephen. The transition from the normal contemporary school life in the beginning into the darker life of being involved with the Shades was not precisely flawless, but it stayed faithful to Rory’s voice. Her life has changed when she gains her sight, and the story’s tone is not exempted from the transformations. The plot was enjoyable and not hard to follow, and I kept on turning pages as more questions starved me for the next scenes. The happenings near the end packed a punch, and I simultaneously loved and hated the ending…for making me salivate for more! Cliffhangers should always be like this. I can’t wait for the next book to be released!(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Jul 08, 2012
| Jul 10, 2012
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Sep 05, 2011
| Hardcover
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| 1594488878
| 9781594488870
| 3.47
| 20,957
| Sep 29, 2009
| Sep 29, 2009
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Musical fandom is no strange land to many of us. No matter what genre we strike a chord with, we are meshed together by the fact that we take a string...more
Musical fandom is no strange land to many of us. No matter what genre we strike a chord with, we are meshed together by the fact that we take a string of linked notes as some form of medicine for the soul, taken through the ears and channeled straight to our very cores. No matter how occupied our hearts seem to be, there’s always a slice that we save for music. It’s just sometimes, some people’s slices are far bigger than the others’… so much bigger to a point that the chunks reserved for something else were devoured by this slice, too. Nick Hornby’s Juliet, Naked touches on this subject. It starts in an old toilet, which happens to be an important stop in a fan’s pilgrimage in honor of the purportedly legendary American musician Tucker Crowe. The said fan is the self-proclaimed “Crowologist” Duncan, and he has dragged his partner Annie to the trip. The old toilet is said to have been the last place Crowe went to before he left the music industry and disappeared into god knows where for more than two decades. For diehards like Duncan, the toilet has some kind of historic importance and a mystery waiting to be unveiled. While Annie likes Juliet—Tucker Crowe’s last album before the commencement of his era of ‘reclusion’— she doesn’t share the same fanaticism Duncan has for the musician. In their 15 years of being tied down by a marriage of convenience, Annie has long accepted this quirk in Duncan’s personality. They’re living in some sort of bleak peace in some sort of bleak town called Gooleness, until this little bubble of strange serenity was burst by a break in Crowe’s 20 years of silence. An acoustic, barebones compilation of the songs in Juliet is released as a record called Juliet, Naked. Needless to say, it causes a fan racket in the Crowe community. What Annie and Duncan didn’t see coming is the stir it will also cause in their relationship. Duncan pens a rather hyperbolic appraisal for the release; Annie then offers the Info Superhighway her honestly lukewarm review, which in turn catches the attention of Tucker Crowe himself. Paths begin to converge, diverge, and crisscross messily until they end up in a tangle of roads that lead into a better or worse life, depending on which one you choose. This literary piece may end up looking half like a huge nod to the lives of musical snobs, but a closer inspection at the bigger picture may unveil to you something so familiar. What you’ll see is a portrait of life as we often make it: a multiplex of twists and turns that exist not only so we can prove ourselves that we can’t stay trapped in a place where we’re not happy, but also to add to life’s no-nonsense beauty. I was told that Nick Hornby’s roots are a combo of ‘music and messy relationships’, and it’s ever apparent in Juliet, Naked. It doesn’t take me too long to ease to the sound of Hornby’s storytelling voice, even if he shifts every so often between the three main characters. Maybe it’s because my bookshelf has been saturated with too many YA lit lately, but his writing style seems to be a breath of fresh air. I’m totally scribbling down Hornby’s complete oeuvre in my Christmas wish list. The characters are astonishingly human and well-rounded. Their thought processes give them the mold of their personalities, with their doubts and fears acting as fingers that knead on their very being until they are as palpable as a person sitting next to the reader. Hornby knows how to extract the precise words we need to let out from the otherwise wordless complexity of aloneness and loneliness. Why do some people stay in an ‘okay’ situation rather than venturing forth to find a ‘great’ one? How can too much caution cause so many regrets that it can rival ones created because of carelessness? These questions are answered in the book. We see details of Crowe’s daily life as he unwittingly pushes his third marriage into the brink of failure; we see how Annie clings not-so-tightly to a live-in setup she’s enduring for fifteen years. It’s safe to say that banality takes the forefront in most chapters. This could have triggered a negative reaction from anyone who wants to read something extraordinary, but only if not handled deftly. Hornby purposely uses this facileness to encapsulate the feeling of being trapped and hopeless in the cage you built yourself. I couldn’t say it’s excellent plot-wise, though. It makes me a tad sad when a narrative has such good characters that don’t fit well with the rather middle-of-the-road storyline. And it has nothing to do with the abovementioned banalities; it’s all about the plot that’s too easy to recognize (if not actually predict). I’ve seen it from miles away, even before halfway through the novel—a fact that didn’t stop me from finishing it. If anything, this book is the literary equivalent of a peculiar symphony that gives us a déjà vu whenever we listen to it—or jamais vu in my case, because I think I’m too young to feel like it’s too late for my life to have some kind of redemption after taking the wrong path. Not only is this a story that severs the line dividing musical evangelism and beastlike fanaticism. It’s also a story of managing to find the right moment to restart, which is often construed in three letters: NOW. It’s an overwrought power balladry of passion and hope, one that you know could have stuck to its G-Clef cleanliness but instead plunged an octave lower to poke with the deeper undercurrents of its chosen theme. 3.5 stars for an unforgettable read.(less) | Notes are private!
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| not set
| Nov 15, 2012
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Sep 03, 2011
| Hardcover
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| 1406328030
| 9781406328035
| 4.12
| 20,171
| Mar 09, 2010
| Jun 02, 2011
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When a shroud of mourning drapes itself on your world, how would you able to see the sky again? Looking up is just a misconception: “The sky is everyw...more
When a shroud of mourning drapes itself on your world, how would you able to see the sky again? Looking up is just a misconception: “The sky is everywhere—it begins at your feet.” Meet Lennon “Lennie” Walker: teenage bookworm, band geek, clarinet-player, and Heathcliff fangirl. All her life she’s always been the sidekick, the shadow, and the second-placer to her older sister Bailey. That is why when Bailey dies, she is forced to take the center stage and choreograph her own life’s dance while dealing with her grief...and juggling two guys for a previously non-existent love life. This is The Sky is Everywhere: fueled by sorrow that gradually enmeshes itself with music, poetry, and love, until later on it transfigures into a bright new entity that encourages you to live instead of just to exist. Contemporary romantic tragedies, particularly ones that kill off beloved characters near the end, can be counted as chick lit staples nowadays. I am not a happy-ever-after junkie but for some reason, this kind of books never became my cup of tea. I do not pick them up when I feel like I need to pepper my reading challenges with something from the chick lit shelf. If you ask me, stories that start with a death of someone you never knew or loved are more appealing. They have a quiet, morose charm that automatically tugs at your curiosity, and the author will attempt to assemble a jigsaw puzzle of this person in your mind, a patchwork of memories that made the other characters love him/her so much. In the end, if the author is successful, the tale will leave you a lingering feeling that will make you say, “I wish I met him/her before he died.” I expected The Sky is Everywhere to be such a book, but it is not exactly like that. For a story that initially revolves around a gloomy concept, it is incredibly…loud. Loud with all the emotions our bereft heroine is trying to shut inside her private world, loud with all the reckless ping-pong of reasons between logic and emotions, loud with all the off-key melodies of a heart that deliriously tiptoes on two tightropes. Lennie’s only outlet for the excess songs is scattering her poems all over town, hoping that in some way, she can mark the world with her story. The poems, which are mostly about her sister, appear at the beginning of almost every chapter: The morning of the day Bailey died, she woke me up The tones of Lennie’s poems change throughout the novel, especially when she falls in love (we will get to that later). The thing about Bailey is even if she is dead, her presence lingers thickly in every turn of the plot. The author still stitches together an image of her, but in the end you will not say “I wish I met her before she died” because in the course of the story, you did meet her. I guess Nelson’s hypnotic duet of poetry and prose made this possible. :) I find the romantic aspect of the novel quite fine. Funny and loyal Joe Fontaine, with his eyelash-batting and guitar-playing (and his being from Paris, if I may add), does not stray that much from the common teenagers’ fantasy of Mr.Right. Toby, the other guy, is Bailey’s skateboarding boyfriend. I shared Lennie’s embarrassment and guilt when she and Toby start a confusing, illogical affair, although I came to understand how both of them were just trying to fill the void that Bailey left behind in their lives. My favorite part is that even if the main male characters did contribute to Lennie’s growth, neither can be considered as her complete Knight in Shining Armor. Lennie comes out of her shell on her own; she begins to stand up for the things she believe in, she learns to bravely rectify the mistakes she make, and ultimately, she accepts her worth as an individual. Not just someone’s “shadow, sidekick, and second-placer.” To those who think this is a darkish novel, it is not. It has just the right amount of humor that bursts even in the first pages, balanced out by the overall poignant feel of the story. I give this four out of five stars.(less) | Notes are private!
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| Jan 21, 2012
| Jan 24, 2012
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Sep 03, 2011
| Paperback
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| 0307477479
| 9780307477477
| 3.62
| 73,448
| 2010
| Mar 22, 2011
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“Time is a goon.” This not-so-popular adage served as the bobbin where Jennifer Egan unspooled threads of human foibles, which she deftly wove into he...more
“Time is a goon.” This not-so-popular adage served as the bobbin where Jennifer Egan unspooled threads of human foibles, which she deftly wove into her Pulitzer Prize-winning tapestry, A Visit from the Goon Squad. This book is hard to classify. A novel? A collection of interlocking novellas? An anthology of short stories? With a wide array of damaged characters fueling the tangled tales towards a conclusion that humans are helpless against change and time, the book can easily become a concrete example of the concept of gestalt, or “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Each chapter can stand alone, but they are more powerful as a part of this one mobius strip of a book. I think Egan’s true genius lies in how she handled the creation and development of her compelling characters. I have personally referred to them as “Dorian Gray mirrors,” reflecting different versions of our embarrassments, flaws, follies, frustrations, and other things that most people would prefer to be covered up in sunny facades. They are all broken, but not two of them are broken in the same way—their self-inflicted tragedies are as unique as their fingerprints. You would think that for a book populated with supposedly pity-inducing characters, it would be not hard to draw out sympathy from the readers. Egan did not play from that angle; in fact, I think she was shunning from it, making the characters as real and as unlikable as possible. She succeeded in doing just that, as it did take me a while to like the characters. After I uncovered the histories of their inner scars and after having them engaged in indirect emotional hotplates, I began to actually care for them. I even have a few favorites: Sasha, the kleptomaniac secretary of record executive/The Flaming Dildos ex-bassist Bennie Salazar; Scotty, another TFD rock star who has gone off the grid for a long time; and (surprisingly) Lulu, a she’s-going-to-rule-the-world kind of girl following the steps of her powerful publicist mother, LaDoll. Now we discuss Egan’s orthodox style, which has spun lots of criticisms as well as praises. The whole book covers a span of forty years, ranging from the seedy music scenes of 1970s to a post-apocalyptic, techno-savvy future. It would have been easier for the readers if Egan chose linear narration, but apparently the word ‘easy’ was never in her lexicon. She arranged each chapter in a non-chronological way, and then penned them in different POVs (all three) and formats (there was a 76-page story in Microsoft Powerpoint Presentation form!). One minute we see a balding Bennie Salazar sprinkling flakes of gold in his tea for sexual potency, then we see him as a robust young musician strumming his bass in the next; that’s basically the formula, jumping in time loops at random. Egan chose a labyrinthine storytelling that will come off as awfully confusing at first, but once we picked up the “links”—the music and the characters’ colliding fates—it would be equivalent to giving ourselves a mental map. The chapters contain a hodgepodge of genres: a few were dark and depressing, a handful was heartfelt and inspiring, and some were side-splittingly funny. My favorite chapter was Scotty Hausmann’s X’s and O’s, where the readers were finally given a glimpse of the lost TFD frontman. I consider it as the funniest among the bunch and one of the most emotionally affecting ones, and it amazed me how Egan pulled that off. Scotty has become a janitor after the members of The Flaming Dildos went their separate ways, and he paid Bennie a visit in his office one day after learning of his friend’s success from a magazine. Here are two of my favorite paragraphs from the chapter: “Things had gotten — what’s the word? Dry. Things had gotten sort of dry for me. I was working as a city janitor in a neighborhood elementary school and, in summers, collecting litter in the park alongside the East River near the Williamsburg Bridge. I felt no shame whatsoever in these activities, because I understood what almost no one else seemed to grasp: that there was only an infinitesimal difference, a difference so small that it barely existed except as a figment of the human imagination, between working in a tall green glass building on Park Avenue and collecting litter in a park. In fact, there may have been no difference at all.” “I looked down at the city…I thought: if I had a view like this to look down on every day, I would have the energy and inspiration to conquer the world. The trouble is, when you most need such a view, no one gives it to you.” All in all, this is a good read: twisted, affecting, humorous, and thought-provoking. Giving it 3.9 stars! :P(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Sep 05, 2011
| Sep 12, 2011
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Aug 27, 2011
| Paperback
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| 1563893339
| 9781563893339
| 4.16
| 7,658
| Mar 1996
| Dec 01, 1997
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In Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman universe, Death is not a “tall guy with a bone face, like a skeletal monk, with a scythe and an hourglass and a big white...more
In Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman universe, Death is not a “tall guy with a bone face, like a skeletal monk, with a scythe and an hourglass and a big white horse and a penchant for playing chess with Scandinavians” (cliché much, Sexton Furnival). Gaiman’s interpretation of Death is exactly the concept’s opposite: a quirky, perky Goth girl with a jovial demeanor, a down-to-earth aura lingering about her, a sunny smile, and the Egyptian symbol of life dangling around her neck. As if that paradox is not enough, Gaiman spawned yet another mini-series featuring Death in a gritty yet hopeful tale that celebrates life, talks about how love can change a person’s way of living, and shows what it means to be alive. A follow-up to Death: The High Cost of Living, Death: The Time of Your Life takes us back to the story of the lesbian couple Donna “Foxglove” Cavanagh and Hazel McNamara. The couple was first introduced in The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll’s House and was seen again in the first spin-off featuring our favorite antropomorph of demise. The spotlight is now focused on them as they crossed paths once again with Death…and this time, there is a bargain involved. After a drunken one-night stand with a co-worker, Hazel becomes pregnant and gives birth to a baby boy, Alvie. Foxglove forgives her partner and accepts Alvie as her own. But happy-ever-afters are hard to come, especially for same-sex couples. Hazel and Foxglove's relationship screeches close to the brink of collapsing, what with the latter being engulfed in the suffocating arms of fame. Foxglove is a successful and globetrotting rockstar, and to maintain her status, she must never reveal her true sexuality to the public. To top of it all, Alvie dies. Now, normally, Death doesn't make deals, but she remembers Hazel fondly when she walked the earth as a mortal not so long ago (requirement of being a psychopomp). So she agrees with the bargain: she extends Alvie’s life for a time, and when that time finally runs out, Hazel, Foxglove, and Alvie will be meeting up with her in her realm and someone must stay behind as a payment. At the final turn of the glass, everyone meets up in the limbo in the borders of Death’s realm to do what needs to be done…after all, a bargain is a bargain. Death may be a cheerful as your chummiest neighbor, but she plays by the rules of the universe’s book, not even sparing the concept of palabra de honor. What I liked the most about Gaiman is that he can easily beguile everyone who is touched by the magic of his words, even if the very bones of the tales he’s telling are already bordering on trite. The premise of this little tome is something I’ve heard of ages ago. But Gaiman being Gaiman, he finds the best angle to tell it from, and populates it with people you would surely care about. Unlike The High Cost of Living, this story resembles the usual pattern of The Sandman novels, where the featured Endless only stands as a character that serves as the bobbin where the threads are being pulled into, without standing as an outright protagonist or heroine. As for the art, hands down: I loved it. Carefully drawn and inked, the illustrations appear to be vibrant with life yet still give off the dark theme of this "purported" story about demise. Over all this is a satisfying read: a story of music, sacrifices, friendship, sexuality, mortality, and unconditional love that is sure to resonate with a lot of readers. *edited(less) | Notes are private!
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| Aug 26, 2011
| Aug 26, 2011
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Aug 26, 2011
| Paperback
| |||||||||||||||
| 0062112430
| 9780062112439
| 4.08
| 119,477
| Feb 01, 2011
| Aug 02, 2011
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Amor deliria nervosa, n. also known as “love” in the old times, this is a disease that can kill you both when you have it and when you don’t. Symptoms...more
Amor deliria nervosa, n. also known as “love” in the old times, this is a disease that can kill you both when you have it and when you don’t. Symptoms include preoccupation, impaired reasoning skills, periods of euphoria, obsessive thoughts, etc. Unless there are emergencies, everyone is scheduled to be “cured” at the age of eighteen; everyone also undergoes “evaluation,” where your future husband/wife is assigned to you based on your answers to some questions. All uncureds are required to stay away from the opposite sex. Can anyone really be safe and happy in a world where love is considered a fatal ailment? What will you do if you finally realize that the fences that are supposed to protect you are also caging you from the truth? This is the tilt where Lauren Oliver’s dystopian world in Delirium rotates, and in the middle of it all is a plain teenager who can’t wait to be cured, Lena Haloway. It’s no secret that I’m infected by the dystopian/post-apocalyptic virus that’s continuously spreading in the world of literature nowadays, particularly in the young adult department. I haven’t read a lot of novels under this genre, but it’s easy to pick up common themes. Rebellion/resistance is at the hub of most books, its automatic spoke consisting of defiant protagonists that go against the established laws and take down the abusive government…mostly in the course of three books. The Hunger Games trilogy is by far my favorite, and truth be told I think it set the bar in this genre. I plan to bury my nose in more post-apocalyptic books, but I tend to delay reading those that use the same formula as THG. Then came a story about “love” as a sickness, and I thought, “That sure is a catchy idea!” I readily grabbed it from the shelf. It’s true that the best way to enjoy new books is not to get your hopes too high. I liked Oliver’s debut novel Before I Fall, but I really can’t say the same for Delirium. Delirium’s main idea is appealing and I wanted to find out how its author will deal with the domino-like line of questions that pops out after the concept is laid down. In my opinion, Oliver isn’t so successful in answering them. The origin of love as a mental illness (the whole package—the when’s, the who’s, and even the how’s) is not thoroughly discussed. Obviously there is government resistance, and my first hunch is that the “cure” is more than what it seems. In my mind, the government is transforming the world of love into a world of apathy through these vague brain surgeries because they don’t want the people to be angered and to revolt against them, in fear that they may end up like the rest of the world, destroyed perhaps by wars. Okay, maybe that’s just my overactive imagination—let’s say they just want to control the people like inanimate objects while feeding them the idea that they’re safe and sound. I can feel that Oliver has something up her sleeve, but I never got to learn what that is. Maybe I’ll find it out in the sequels, but if that’s the case, then Delirium as the first installment did not quite achieve its goal of cementing a strong foundation. Leaving questions normally makes the reader go hungry for more, but leaving too much makes the story look like a Swiss Cheese, full of plot holes. Speaking of plot holes, I’d like to point out the very big flaw in the “Law of Segregation” in this book’s universe, where boys and girls are separated because they may fall in love. How about LGBTQ? Boys can love boys. Girls can love girls. It’s impossible that there’s no record of this. In a world where love is already considered dangerous, how do they deal with same-sex amor deliria nervosa? I think that will be interesting to explore because even in our society today, homosexuality is already considered by many as a disease. I hope Oliver will prove me wrong, that it's not a flaw at all and it's just waiting to be solved; I hope she touches this kind of love in the next installments, and touches it effectively. If the epigraphs that came from fictional pamphlets and textbooks in that world were not included, the plot and the world-building will appear so thin. The characters are okay albeit bordering on stereotypical young adults. Most of the time, Lena is toddling precariously on the edge of being a Mary Sue, occasionally showing Bella Swan-esque qualities. Her thought processes are pretty interesting and thought-provoking though, and sometimes her memories can subtly break your heart (I’ll give her that). Alex is the regular love interest—you know, the once mysterious guy now sitting with you under the stars and reading romantic poetry. There are two more books, so there’s more room for them to develop. When it comes to originality, Delirium doesn’t stand out that much. It’s strikingly similar to Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series (dead ringers—just replace the word “love” with “ugliness”), and I’ve also heard of this book called Matched by Allie Condie, which shares a few similar concepts with Delirium, particularly the prearranged matches. There are a few things that redeemed this book for me. One is how Oliver showed that hate is not really the worst thing but indifference. She painted horrifying images that can make you think. I realized how without love, everything seems to be an insipid dollhouse; the people inside are marionettes trying to function normally according to the pattern that everyone else is following. It’s a choreographed world. Imagine a family that is only a family because it’s dictated by the authority; imagine how all the movies, music, and books that come your way never deal with anything that can tug at your heartstrings. What’s the point? Eradicating love is like taking away everything that matters, and it’s a very harrowing thought. Second is Oliver’s writing style. It’s quite different from Before I Fall, but I caught glimpses of the poetic curls at the edges of her prose. They’re usually overlapped by the book’s initial slow pacing, but they’re still there. Third is the climax at the end. I think that’s what really made me decide not to completely rule out reading Pandemonium, the sequel. :)(less) | Notes are private!
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| Nov 18, 2011
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Aug 20, 2011
| Hardcover
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| 0439488400
| 9780439488402
| 3.73
| 113,917
| Aug 08, 2000
| Sep 2002
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Picture your life—and everyone else’s around you—as a vast, boiling desert, occasionally littered with cacti and yuccas. For you, blandness is normali...more
Picture your life—and everyone else’s around you—as a vast, boiling desert, occasionally littered with cacti and yuccas. For you, blandness is normality. You’re all content on playing chameleon, melting against the nondescript walls of conformity, swaddling yourselves with the safety of not being singled out. You’re a bundle, you’re a “we,” and you like everything to stay that way. But glitches occur, no matter how perfectly shielded you think your system is. It may scare you one minute and enchant you the next, but when you realize it’s jeopardizing your perfect routines, you’re going to despise it. You’ll get the urge to banish it. It’s a rare event, but no worries—it’s only a normal stimulus of most people in your place. This is the story of Susan “Stargirl” Caraway, the ‘glitch’ that cartwheeled her way into the “normal” lives of Mica High School students…and into the heart of sixteen-year-old Leo Borlock. With her floor-length skirts, pet rat, and a ukelele strapped to her back, she faces each day with a bounce in her step and a grin on her freckle-dusted face, not minding what everyone else will think of her. I’d like to refer to Stargirl as a rebel, even if she only loosely fits in the category. Among my roster of female fictional revolutionaries, she—ironically—is the most normal. She’s not rising up against a cruel or corrupt government in a post-apocalyptic setting, nor is she preparing to serve cold dishes of revenge to those who did her wrong. She’s just being herself. It’s stereotype she’s ramming against. It’s no secret that in a world that forces you to be someone else, being yourself is perhaps one of the hardest battles you can ever fight. Not to Stargirl, though: she doesn’t even need to lift a finger to win it. She is not afraid to be unique…that is, before she fell in love. Leo is a typical MHS kid, and while he loves Stargirl so much, he doesn’t want to be turned into a social pariah because of their relationship. So he works to transform Stargirl into a normal girl, oblivious to what it will do to her. However, Stargirl as a character is a tad too Mary Sue-ish (too Pollyannaish?), and because we haven’t seen her ‘side’ of the story, it’s easy to judge she’s a shallow, flat character. Perhaps that’s why Spinelli spun a sequel to mold her more? I’m not really sure. While I think the portrayal of the main female protagonist is decent, she needs more development. Spinelli have spun a simple tale that will without a doubt resonate with every teenage heart that will encounter it. I marvel at the characterization of Leo, at how human he seems to be instead of being just another one-dimensional knight-in-shining-armor figure that pops up frequently in most of today’s young adult novels. He doesn’t recklessly rush to rescue his ‘princess’ when she’s in trouble; in fact, he even runs away from the scene, afraid of the prickly eyes and thoughts of the people around him. He is an ordinary boy torn between having to choose between the approval of the society and the happiness of being with the girl he loves. I understood his insecurities and behavior; I tasted his fears, and in the several nights he spent thinking on his moonlit sheets, it’s almost as if I caught a glimpse of everything he’s dreading. Sometimes I dislike him; sometimes I feel the urge to give him a sucker punch for not doing what he thinks is right “because the others think it’s wrong.” He’s like a bandwagon-riding, pesky little brother to me most of the time. I don’t know if it will make sense to you, but I began liking him because he so…unlikable. The world-building is not precisely first-rate, but the setting greatly adds to the symbolism department of the novel. The desert stands for the collective “we” of MHS. Then there are “enchanted places” beyond the sand dunes and saguaros—places that are always there but you can never locate with your naked eye, places that represent someone like Stargirl. More than once, a character explicates how Stargirl is closer to what we all should be, and that something is inside us already. We just need to get in touch with it by using our hearts as our compasses. The plot only takes a backseat here, since the enigmatic Stargirl steers the wheel of the story. There are a couple of twists and turns, but nothing that can imprint an indelible memory in my head. There are poignant scenes, hilarious scenes, and a mixture of both, but what really struck a chord with me are the times of ruminations and the conversations between Archie and Leo. :) A magnificent portrayal of the celebration of nonconformity, Stargirl is one of the few books that are so plain on the surface but is beautifully labyrinthine when you delve deeper into it. Four stars for a great read! I can’t wait to get my hands on Love, Stargirl.(less) | Notes are private!
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| Mar 06, 2012
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Aug 17, 2011
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| 4.04
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I first encountered Jerusha “Judy” Abbot when I was but a wee schoolgirl, back when local morning cartoon shows were more educational and thought-prov...more
I first encountered Jerusha “Judy” Abbot when I was but a wee schoolgirl, back when local morning cartoon shows were more educational and thought-provoking than the ones of today. My Daddy Long Legs (Eng. dub) was a part of the Tagalized “World Masterpiece Theater” or the Japanese 90’s cartoon staple based on literary classics. This book is about Judy, a seventeen-year-old orphan brought up in John Grier Home. By some leap of fate, after penning a hilarious essay about the institute, Judy was chosen to be a scholar to an exclusive girl’s college. A mysterious benefactor will provide anything she needs, and all she has to do in return is to write him letters once a month. I did not expect the TV adaptation to be so faithful to the source material. However, since this is an epistolary novel (letters as mini-chapters of some sort), it contains fewer details when compared to the show. While I enjoyed this book, I think that it was more alive in my mind only because I’ve seen the TV series before. It’s like the show became some sort of a visual aid, you know? There were images—screencaps, literally—that flew to my head while reading a few paragraphs that seem a tad too plain to weave a concrete picture. Don’t get me wrong, I liked this a lot. I know that when you read letters, you don’t expect the writer of that letter to describe every minute detail that happens in her quotidian life. Webster has to make it sound like a genuine letter from a simple, peachy keen character; she's successful in doing just that, but a large chunk of her author voice was chipped off. I'm pretty sure Webster is aware of that as well. Which brings us to characterization, where I think Wesbter focused on, even if it's of only one person. The only character that is fully developed is of course Judy herself, apparent in her writings. That is quite expected because we only meet the other characters in secondhand accounts, the stories Judy is telling her Daddy Long Legs. What the readers get is just a set of cardboard cutouts of supporting character caricatures. There's not enough wiggle room for fleshing out the others because of the chosen format so Webster gave all her best to make Judy a fully-realized and unforgettable heroine. It's fun to see Judy grow up and learn things, yet maintain her sense of independence and strong will. I commend Webster for making Judy’s growth as beautiful as a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon. It makes this a bildungsroman worth reading. In the end Judy emerges as a strong heroine that is a Pollyannaish version of Jo March (from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott). :) Overall, it’s a very fun read. A few issues about feminism, education, and relationships are touched as well, and with Judy’s voice speaking about them, every philosophy is delivered through an optimistic literary subwoofer that will surely reach the readers. (less) | Notes are private!
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| Aug 14, 2011
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Aug 15, 2011
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| 140120113X
| 9781401201135
| 4.29
| 12,396
| 2003
| Sep 01, 2004
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Endless Nights is a sevenfold compilation of stories featuring each of the Endless, set in various times ranging from when the solar system is not yet...more
Endless Nights is a sevenfold compilation of stories featuring each of the Endless, set in various times ranging from when the solar system is not yet a system in itself to the period after Lord Morpheus’ downfall. I enjoyed it for the most part, but some tales didn’t quite quench my thirst for a satisfying treat concomitant to the phenomenal ten-volume series. SPOILERS ABOUND. The first installment, “Death and Venice,” is divided into two narratives: one about a kingdom in Venice whose duke made it so—with magic of some sort—that neither time nor death would touch everyone inside their gates; and one about a pessimistic soldier who comes home to Italy to visit the island where he meets a pretty gothette when he was a boy. You guessed it right—the girl is Death. The stories converge when Sergei, the soldier, meets Death again outside the gates of the said kingdom. I wouldn’t say anything anymore about what happens, but you know how it goes—when Death reaches her hand out to you, it only means you’re on your way to your final destination. This is quite a bizarre tale where our favorite demise-anthropomorph takes a backseat. I have mixed feelings about the story as a whole, but I certainly love the highlights of the soldier’s thoughts. It’s as if I can feel the emptiness he is experiencing. P.Craig Russell wows me again with his patented artistic prowess. “What I’ve Tasted of Desire” comes next, and from the title itself you already know which of the Endless this is about. I commend the artist because every single panel is a magnificent painting, though I have to admit I have to read this away from my parents or my sister for they might think I’m reading a pornographic comic from the olden times. Haha! Milo Manara is one heck of a good illustrator, I tell you. Anyway, the story’s about a maiden who is transformed by Desire into the ultimate seductress. When her husband is killed, she takes revenge against the murderers by using her most powerful weapon: lust. Next is “The Heart of a Star,” which tells yet another failed love story of our late Sandman. I sort of enjoyed this one because it explains a few things, particularly about the origins of enmity between Dream and Desire that is ever-apparent in the previous graphic novels. It as well provides a few glimpses to the earliest set of Endless when Delirium is still the cute Delight, and when the first Despair is shown, squat and ugly as the Despair we met in the series but with red tattoos all over her body (and can we say less taciturn?). The setting is in a parliament of stars where we see living suns of different planets in their anthropomorphic forms: Sol (of our very own Earth), Rao (of Superman’s Krypton), and Sto-Oa (of the Green Lantern’s Oa). I guess this is where Gaiman first applied the idea of star in human form, the same concept of his novel Stardust. What I loved the most in this compendium is “Fifteen Portraits of Despair”. There are no long storylines or foretastes of history about this Endless; instead there are fifteen vignettes about people whose hearts were snagged by the hook of Despair. Artists Barron Storey and Dave McKean joined forces to make “beautifully grotesque” (the most fitting description I could give) pieces of art that feature some characters in the micro-fictions and Despair herself. “Less is more”, they always say, and I love how Gaiman can tell the best of stories with just a few set of words. Each tale is disheartening indeed. “Going Inside” features Delirium. Take this as an admonition: I almost had a headache deciphering what the new characters are talking about in the first few pages. I only realized that that’s how everything should be, because they are actually mentally challenged people and I’ve just been inside their heads. Well, what do I say? Bravo, Gaiman…that’s one heck of a mindf**k. Here Dream--the new one--recruits five nutcases to help find Delirium, who is lost and hurt inside her own realm. Dream and the others (Barnabas and Matthew) can’t go deep inside Del’s realm because no one ever gets out with his or her sanity intact. Coupled with the marvelous art that complements the crazy tone of the story perfectly, I guess this issue achieved its main purpose. Also, I’ll just say that Matthew is as funny as ever! One line and I cracked up. No pun intended. The penultimate story is “Destruction on the Peninsula”. It’s about an archeologist who dreams of the end of the world, and then works at a mysterious site where artifacts from the future can be extracted. Destruction plays a minor role. In this story he is sort of baby-sitting his little sister Delirium. I’m not sure where in t The Sandman's timeline this fits, but I have a wild guess it’s when Delight transfigures into Delirium for the first time. It has an interesting premise, but I’m not totally pulled in by the story. The last tale, “Endless Nights,” is of course about Destiny. No stories of any sort are told, but we are given a small tour to Destiny’s garden and a few information about the Cosmic Log. Very brief and interesting, I guess how this is done just fits Destiny. Whatever story we are going to be told, after all, is written on that mighty book chained to his wrist. :p In general, this is a quite refreshing and pleasant read. (less) | Notes are private!
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| Jul 31, 2011
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Jul 31, 2011
| Paperback
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| 0316040096
| 9780316040099
| 3.54
| 9,037
| Sep 01, 2009
| Sep 01, 2009
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When her father died, Aisling’s—Ash’s—world is turned upside down. Her stepmother, Lady Isobel, is cruel to her, and her stepsisters are not exactly f...more
When her father died, Aisling’s—Ash’s—world is turned upside down. Her stepmother, Lady Isobel, is cruel to her, and her stepsisters are not exactly fond of her. Ash is forced to work as a servant for her stepfamily, and she could only hope for someone to take her away from her miserable life. Sounds familiar? It might, but this is not the fairytale you remember—it’s not the story of Disney’s ultimate damsel in distress who waits for Prince Charming to come by and hand her the happy-ever-after she longs for. In this retelling, instead of falling in love with a dashing prince, the dreamy, pretty orphan becomes smitten with the King’s feisty huntress, Kaisa. You read that right. It’s Cinderella with a lesbian twist. The strongest point of this book, for me, is the elegant unfolding of love between the two women and the society’s reaction (or lack thereof) to their budding relationship. The bottom line of the novel is not that the Cinderella figure is a lesbian, it is that no one cares that she is a lesbian. With that concept as a backbone, Malinda Lo managed to create this loose retelling sans the ‘coming out’ vibes that most LGBTQ titles possess. The coming-of-age part of the book molds Ash well into a believable character, but she’s not particularly a likable one. While Ash only raises herself a step from being a total ingénue, Kaisa is portrayed as a stronger and more mannish character that completes what Ash lacks. Oh, I forgot to mention that there’s a bizarre love triangle here, and you’ll be surprised who makes the third side of it: the fairy godmother figure from the original tale…except that this time he’s a cruel Fairy Prince cursed to love a human girl (I really love the gender-bending bits!). Characterization of the antagonists came off as a little ‘bedtime story’ conventional, and to me they feel a stage short of being inflated into fully-realized characters. But in fairness to Lo, she suggests that Ash’s older stepsister only forces herself to marry a wealthy man just to make themselves a kisby ring, not wanting to sink into poverty, given the existing social strata in their world. That takes us to the world-building—which is amazing. I love the complexities of Ash’s world, from the smallest fireside stories to the traditions of Rook Hill and the King’s City. Side by side, greenwitches and philosophers exist, a prevalent science vs. magic feel that helps shapes Lo’s universe. I also tremendously enjoyed the fables and myths that are deftly intertwined with the main story; they’re like gems embedded in a layer of less-precious stones. If they are invented by Lo, I’ll never know, but they sound authentic and they carry some shades of Brothers Grimm in them. This is a good book, but if you are a sucker for retellings that are fast-paced, gripping, and out of the ordinary, Ash may not be your cup of tea. There is a lot to like about this novel, but there is something about the narration that does not quite click with me. The descriptions are beautifully dreamy and lush, but they make the transitions from scene to scene a tad slow. Other than that, I think this is a nice treat for fable-lovers and for queer people. After all, gays need fairytales, too. My Rating: ★★★ 1/2 ___ a little trivia: Cinderella comes from the name “cendrillon,” which literally means “little ashes,” so I think Lo’s choice for her protagonist’s (nick)name matches this. Some sources also say that the girl in Cinderella is originally named Ella and she is almost always covered in soot from cleaning. This is used by Lo as well, as for many times Ash sleeps by the hearth and ends up coated with ashes and soot when she wakes up. (less) | Notes are private!
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| Sep 2011
| Sep 05, 2011
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Jul 24, 2011
| Hardcover
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| 0061230928
| 9780061230929
| 3.76
| 2,644
| Jun 15, 2010
| Jun 15, 2010
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“AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED?—four words that children ask, when you pause, telling them a story. The four words you hear at the end of a chapter. The four...more
“AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED?—four words that children ask, when you pause, telling them a story. The four words you hear at the end of a chapter. The four words, spoken or unspoken, that show you, a storyteller, that people care. The joy of fiction, for some of us, is the joy of imagination, set free from the world and able to imagine.” These are literary rock star Neil Gaiman’s words that graced the first pages of Stories: All-New Tales, a compendium of twenty-seven bite-sized fiction by an eclectic set of tale-spinners and storytellers. Edited by master anthologist Al Sarrantonio and Gaiman himself, the stories comprising this collection do not fall under any umbrella genre; they’re simply written to celebrate good storytelling. While most of the stories did succeed in making me go “I want to know what happens next!”, some just lacked the necessary ‘oil’ to propel themselves up to the five-star rung of my rating ladder. It’s a mixed bag—just like most anthologies—but as a whole I enjoyed it very much. Most of the contributors are immensely popular; I’ve heard positive things about them even if I haven’t read their works. This anthology then provided some sort of tasters for me, and after I turned the last page I have a new list of authors to keep tabs on. Here are mini-reviews for my favorites and runner-ups from the collection, in no particular order: • Fossil Figures by Joyce Carol Oates. A story that reads like a real parable, this is about the fates of twins who are each other’s yin and yang even when they’re still inside their mother’s womb. It’s the epitome of picturesque writing and rather peculiar but effective dialogues. I sort of expected a ‘bang!’ at the end, but the imagery that closed it is haunting enough to stay with the readers. •Wildfire in Manhattan by Joanne Harris. Basically it is a whimsical tale that reads like a twee descendant of Gaiman’s American Gods. The tale is set in the modern times where Norse deities are living among ordinary humans after the Ragnarok, working as restaurant owners, rock stars, and the like. But even with mortal facades, the gods are not safe from their nemeses. I enjoyed this one. The ex-trickster god Lucky/Loki is practically humor-on-legs that reading from his POV is such a fun experience, but the recycled premise and execution deducted a couple of stars from my rating. Who can blame me? I’ve seen this kind of thing with a better caliber (wiggles eyebrows at Gaiman). •The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman. It is a fairytale with beguiling imagery and dark undertones reminiscent of Brothers Grimm’s works. The spotlight bounces from a dwarf’s search of a cave allegedly filled with gold to a revenge story involving a missing daughter. Magnificent as usual, this tale is a fine example of Gaiman’s magic with words. I liked how even the smallest of descriptions can tell a story on their own. Call me predictable, but this gem is one of the few in this collection that I loved. •Weights and Measures by Jodi Picoult. This is a poignant account about a married couple emotionally and physically suffering in the wake of their daughter’s death. Nothing much happened, but damn if the heartbreaking lines and scenes didn’t find a chink in my emotional armor and widened the damage to a bigger fault. I will try reading Picoult’s longer works, I guess. •A Life in Fictions by Kat Howard. This is an extremely inventive tale about a young woman who finds herself sucked into a story—literally—whenever her boyfriend writes fiction, with her as the muse. It may be flattering at first, but she realizes she can’t return from a story truly unscathed. It’s very quirky and I enjoyed it for the most part. •Catch and Release by Lawrence Block. This is a tale about a serial killer who has a peculiar habit of catching and releasing his victims, rendering himself a ‘vegetarian’ criminal…but not really. It’s a thrilling and creepy ride and it can keep you on the edge of your seat. •The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon by Elizabeth Hand. One of the longest in the anthology, this is an affecting story about three men who attempt to create a present-of-sorts for a dying friend, who has a penchant for things concerning aircrafts and their histories. I guess the piece’s length has something to do with the characters becoming easier to love page by page. In general it’s a touching story. •The Therapist by Jeffrey Deaver. Divided into mini-chapters, this story is about a behavioral specialist who saves people—in his unconventional way—from ‘neme’, a virus-like entity that purportedly possesses a person and causes its host to relinquish emotional control. It’s intriguing and very engrossing, especially the courtroom scenes. There’s a little science fiction feel to it at first, what with the long but good explanations of ‘neme’ that engulfed almost the first mini-chap. I’m commending this for cleverly toying not only with the psyches of the characters but also of the readers. •The Cult of the Nose by Al Sarrantonio. A tale about a man’s obsession over a cult whose members appear in scenes of carnage and ruin. I find it tedious at first, but a second reading rewards me with a realization that the man’s state of mind is better explored with the writing style. There’s a wee shock of a twist at the end. Now that I think of it, it is a tad similar with The Therapist. •The Devil on the Staircase by Joe Hill. Amazingly written both form-wise and content-wise, this story centers on an Italian boy who meets the spawn of Lucifer at the bottom of the staircase of his hometown after committing a crime. I wish to read more works in the same vein soon, if ever Hill has more of them. •Samantha’s Diary by Dianna Wynne Jones. The lightest piece among the bunch, this is a rather cute story with shades of science fiction and backboned by the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. I find myself chuckling while reading it, even if most of the scenes are pretty predictable. •Leif in the Wind by Gene Wolfe. This is perhaps one of the best speculative shorts in the compendium, zeroing in on the thirty-year, six-man space mission to an alien planet. Its ricocheting atmosphere of desperation and hope, reality and illusion, is a great plot device to build such a clever piece of science fiction. The duds (most of which are not mentioned here) are not downright bad—they are either run-of-the-mill or they just failed to make me say the first four words of this review. Indeed, Stories: All New Tales is a treasure box of gems with a few stray rocks in it, but overall I loved it. (less) | Notes are private!
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| Jul 02, 2011
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Jul 20, 2011
| Hardcover
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| 068986020X
| 9780689860201
| 3.64
| 6,189
| Mar 01, 2002
| Jun 2003
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Actually, I'd give this 3.5 stars. After reading the Cohn-Levithan collabs Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and Naomi and Ely’s No-Kiss List, I devel...more Actually, I'd give this 3.5 stars. After reading the Cohn-Levithan collabs Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and Naomi and Ely’s No-Kiss List, I developed some sort of thirst for reading something that is written solo by Rachel Cohn. I’m no stranger to David Levithan’s solo books (Boy Meets Boy, The Realm of Possibility, The Lover’s Dictionary, etc) so I recognize his distinctive writing prowess even if he’s working with partners. Gingerbread is the first book that quenched the said thirst, and after finishing it, I think it’s safe to conclude that the best thing about Cohn is that she has a special way of molding unforgettable main characters that resonate with many young readers. Meet Cyd Charisse: a ragdoll-toting, ex-shoplifting, and well-caffeinated sixteen-year-old girl fresh from being kicked out of her posh boarding school. She’s that lovely but spunky punk next door who has a penchant for carving patterns on her skin with a razor and an innate need to go wild. When her rebelliousness gets seriously out of hand, her parents have no other choice but to send her off to New York City and spend three weeks there with her biological dad, Frank. Cyd’s perfect image of a fantasy relationship with her bio-dad and half-sibs starts to crumble when the real thing is thrown to her face… Plot-wise, there isn’t much that happened in the book. It reads like an informal journal of a very snarky antiheroine who’s dealing with commonplace teen problems. Honestly, I find the first half of this book a tad slow. I’m trying to figure out if Cohn is setting up a wiggle room for character development or she’s just letting the readers delve deeper into Cyd Charisse’s cranium of not-so-clean-but-honest thoughts. I learned by the end of the novel that it’s both, since the readers can easily tell how Cyd has grown a lot after she comes back from New York. Readers who are familiar with Norah Silverberg (from N&NIP) will notice that her traits are somewhat channeled to Cyd Charisse, though the latter is not a music geek and her potty mouth is sealed with a filter. There’s a lot that she bellyaches about, her hormones meter usually explodes under the slightest “hunk” pressure, and most of her thoughts are extremely obnoxious. Then here comes the dichotomy factor: there is something in her that will magnetize a portion of the readers’ hearts—especially if they are young girls. I think it’s the same way a lot of readers don’t like Holden Caulfield yet there are still legions who can relate to him in a deeper level: they are recognizing something in that character that reminds them of themselves. Usually, this “something” is not nice, and characters that mirror such things are commonly tagged as unlikable. The supporting characters, like the plot, are generic. The clichéd portrait of a dysfunctional family is there, with each member not inflated into weighty fullness. They’re not exactly cardboard cutouts, but they’re still shy of a couple of big steps from being considered well-fleshed out. As for the themes, it’s all about the teenage life. Family misunderstandings, peer pressure, romance, and serious repercussions of being careless in sexual relationships are touched. But since this is a coming-of-age novel, finding one’s true self and growing up are at the apex of it all. I did not enjoy did as much as I did Nick and Norah’s, but it’s entertaining enough to make me want to grab the next book in the series, Shrimp.(less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Aug 03, 2011
| Aug 13, 2011
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Jul 12, 2011
| Paperback
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| 0525478817
| 9780525478812
| 4.52
| 252,915
| Jan 10, 2012
| Jan 10, 2012
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How would you feel about life when you know that—after some kind of a miracle that postponed your meeting with the Grim Reaper—it’s only prolonged by...more
How would you feel about life when you know that—after some kind of a miracle that postponed your meeting with the Grim Reaper—it’s only prolonged by a tankful of oxygen? How would you feel if your breaths are dependent on the said tank, which is tethered to you like an ominous shadow? The final chapter of your life has finally been published, and all these medicine and hospital visits represent the recklessly scrawled, long-winded epilogue. Then, when all you’re waiting for is that final punctuation to close your tale, a reason to actually be glad to be alive popped up in front of you. The reason’s name is Augustus Waters. This is The Fault in Our Stars, the story of Hazel Grace Lancaster, sixteen-year-old stage IV thyroid cancer survivor. But don’t throw it away just because you realized it’s “just another cancer book,” because in reality, it is not. This is not a story about death—this is a story about life. First of all, I want to say that I’m not particularly fond of novels that obviously use the theme of death only because the author knows it will sell like pancakes. I’m not averse to writers wanting to make the readers feel, but using the same formulaic thing over and over comes off as a mere strategy for commercial success. To me, capitalizing on something that guarantees an easy, heavy emotional impact from the audience sometimes feels like cheating. I believe you can touch, pinch, twinge, or even break the hearts of readers using (1) plotlines that do not require the attendance of some scythe-toting skeleton guy or (2) new material that does not zero in on the subject matter begging for tears. Countless of novels about cancer already exist; when I heard about John Green writing one, I backpedaled a little. But what can I do when a larger chunk of my nerdfighter heart trusts Green and all the stories he spins to life? I went through The Fault in Our Stars…and I’m more than glad I did, because even though it’s not perfect, I think it’s one of the best contemporary young adult books that I have read. Hazel Grace is perhaps the best Green heroine so far. She gets her own humanity, refusing to take the mold that Alaska Young of Looking for Alaska and Margo Roth Spiegelman of Paper Towns share (there’s someone in the novel that squeezes in the cast, though: the enigmatic and “bitchy” Caroline Mathers). While she still exhibits what I fondly call JG’s Smart Kid Syndrome, her raw honesty about life are impactful, especially because the readers take it as the acumen of someone who came so close to Death’s embrace and knows that Death is still an arm span away from her. But if you’ll ask me who I think takes the spotlight here, I’ll say it’s Augustus. A glimpse of the world from his perspective is never shown, but this is not deterrent for the readers to see he’s perfectly clad as the star-crossed hero. I kind of saw his fate a long, long way before it was revealed, but that knowledge didn’t prepare me when that time finally came. He’s just so alive, so hungry for more truths about the world, so funny, and so beautiful a person that his fate appeared to me as a crime when it took its course. In a short span of time, I’ve grown to love this boy. Hazel and Augustus’ situation did not transform their love to something you can banner as an extraordinary romance. The book is too honest to subscribe to this trope, and for this, I commend Green. I’ve grown tired of love stories trying to flaunt their magic or whatever because of instances that Lady Luck frowned upon. Hazel and Augustus’ relationship is about as complex as any realistically tragic story—they know they’re an unlucky pair, and they have no choice but to accept that. This leads us to the cornucopia of wisdom this book offers the readers: what it means to be alive, what it takes for a person to leave a mark, what happens to the people you leave behind, why unfairness seems to be a constant ingredient in recipe of mortality, and how you can say you have lived a good life. If you think about it, The Fault in Our Stars just enumerates things we already know, except that Green shifts the angles of his writing lenses a little so we may see the facts in a new light. It’s refreshing, well-written, and powerful enough not just to make me think, but also to make me laugh and cry (and sometimes both at the same time). I also have to say I love the Peter van Houten part. In a way, we are shown a facet of love affair with books that can strike a chord with anybody who has been totally invested in a work of literature. Do the characters live long after you’ve flipped the last page, or do they stay as the fictional creations that they are, flat and unmoving on the pages? This is a great read all in all. I’ll give it 4.5/5 stars! :) (less) | Notes are private!
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1
| Mar 31, 2012
| Apr 08, 2012
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Jun 30, 2011
| Hardcover
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