In this second Stephanie Plum novel, the lingerie-buyer-turned-bounty-hunter is forced by practical and accidental reasons to work with Joe Morelli, h...moreIn this second Stephanie Plum novel, the lingerie-buyer-turned-bounty-hunter is forced by practical and accidental reasons to work with Joe Morelli, her former lover and current pain in the neck. They are both on the trail of Kenny Mancuso: Stephanie needs the access and info Morelli (he of the Trenton Police Department's vice squad) can provide, while Morelli is counting on Stephanie's knack for accidentally bumping into her targets.
The hunt for the first-time offender turns out to be trickier than expected, and in addition to a deeper involvement with a local rat-like undertaker than Stephanie can stomach, there is the unexpected involvement of her grandmother in this case.
Janet Evanovich's development of Stephanie Plum's character centers around two elements here: first, the increasing presence of Joe Morelli in her life; and second, the particular characteristics of Trenton, New Jersey, where the novels are set--especially the Trenton neighborhood known as the burg, where Stephanie and Morelli both grew up.
The sexual tension between Morelli and Stephanie seems to drive much of the plot. Even when Stephanie's not talking about it in her first-person narrative, the reader is constantly aware of it. It's mostly a fun device, moving many parts of the plot forward while giving us insight into the Plum character. How long this could be sustained is a big question. Morelli is certainly likable enough, but his getting closer to Stephanie threatens some of the independence that makes Stephanie an appealing character to begin with.
Evanovich's continued nurturing of a strong sense of place is, after the Plum character herself, the most effective tool in the author's arsenal. Stephanie describes the neighborhood in both prideful and disdainful terms, a dichotomy that serves as metaphor for her own hangups about family, career, and self. The burg is a place where nobody in the beauty parlor is impressed by her gun because everyone's got a bigger one in her purse, where no self-respecting household is ever unprepared for unexpected dinner guests, and where it's not long before whatever shocking thing you received via FedEx is known by everyone remotely connected to you. Stephanie holds many of the values she has grown up with (Barbie as role model, for example) in utter disdain; yet she loves the nobody-messes-with-me attitude that even the most elderly women in the burg never suppress. It drives her nuts that everyone is in everybody else's business, but even while she complains about it, she depends on it to help her with her work.
There is a sexiness that permeates the series so far. I wrote in my review of the first novel that the narrative is sexy without being sexual. This second novel continues to walk that line, but it gets really close to going over it, close enough that it might turn some readers off with some of its language. As a reader who dislikes lengthy descriptions of sexual activity in the middle of a good mystery, I admit my own tolerance was taken nearly to its limit. Here's hoping this doesn't become a trend. I like my sexy bounty hunters to keep it PG-13.
As stories go, Two for the Dough is slightly more intriguing plot-wise than One for the Money, but it's really all about character in this series so far, and Stephanie Plum continues to entertain. Evanovich's mixture of humor, action, and sexiness has me enjoying just about every page.(less)
P is for Peril is such an unusual book in its own series that the discussion of this novel on the Sue Grafton message board has been turned into a sti...moreP is for Peril is such an unusual book in its own series that the discussion of this novel on the Sue Grafton message board has been turned into a sticky; it is permanently affixed near the top of the topic order so it can easily be found by visitors in search of some kind of explanation.
I hadn't even noticed that the book doesn't include Grafton's now-customary epilogue, which takes the form of Kinsey Milhone typing up a quick summary of the case and ties up some of the loose ends, but I had noticed a different vibe in this sixteenth Kinsey novel, a strange detachment from the case and its players as if this is nothing more than a job Kinsey takes for pay. Kinsey does seem to like some of the people involved; however, where the previous installment, O is for Outlaw, immerses her in a case involving her own history, the case she takes here seems the exact opposite, almost as if she had been dropped into some other mystery series written for someone else but needing a main character. Some describe the story here as noir. I wouldn't go that far, but there is a noirish feel here, a shadowy, black-and-white procedural told as if Kinsey is narrating the story about someone else.
It's fine. As stories go, it doesn't suck, and I didn't mind the change in mood, even though I had high hopes since O is for Outlaw had been so terrific. Other reviewers feel that the end leaves the reader hanging, and it does that. I kind of like it that way. Nothing really turns out the way I want, yet I was not left feeling disappointed. Rather, it seemed like the kind of thing that might occasionally fall into Kinsey's lap, and if it is too soon after the events in O is for Outlaw for her to allow us a delve into her emotional state, I can understand. That was a lot for Kinsey to deal with, and if anything surprises me, it's that the entire text of P is for Peril isn't simply, "After what I just went through, I've decided to go on vacation in Hawaii. Please proceed to Q is for Quarry where we will return to our usual madness."
Nothing to rave about here, but nothing really to disappoint, either, and interesting enough a story that I was engaged throughout, even if Kinsey wasn't.(less)
This far into the series, the best thing about a Kinsey Milhone book is what it adds to a reader's understanding of (and liking for) the main characte...moreThis far into the series, the best thing about a Kinsey Milhone book is what it adds to a reader's understanding of (and liking for) the main character. Author Sue Grafton knows this, and she seems to be pacing herself through the remainder of the alphabet with developments in Kinsey's love life, revelations about her past, and coming to terms with abandonment issues in the face of new relationships with family members she's only known about for a short time.
In N is for Noose, Grafton sweeps Kinsey away from her familiar stomping grounds and the focus is on story and perhaps a bit of personal growth; there's not much for those of us eager to learn more about Kinsey's past. She makes up for it (and then some) in O is for Outlaw. Not only do we finally learn something about Kinsey's seldom-discussed first husband, but Micky MacGruder is the central figure in what is so far one of the best-executed novels in the series. A creative, intriguing set-up leads to a fascinating story, which leads to Kinsey's learning more about her past than one might have hoped for in a single installment.
It starts with a phone call from a guy who has come into possession of a box containing some of Kinsey's old belongings. It leads to a chance at redemption for the man she married at such a young age and divorced after such a short time. Grafton creates a really, really good plot here, putting Kinsey in a place where she willingly dredges up her past and makes herself emotionally vulnerable, something that the tough, independent Kinsey might normally shun.
Readers who for some reason have stalled-out at some point in the alphabet before O are encouraged to power through those doldrums (my own were with J, K, and L) and get to O, because it is a standout in this excellent series, an entertaining and rewarding combination of intriguing storytelling and fascinating character development. This is my new favorite Kinsey.(less)
Stephanie Plum was a discount lingerie buyer for a New Jersey store that "wasn't exactly V...moreIt's fluff, but it's rather good for fluff.
Stephanie Plum was a discount lingerie buyer for a New Jersey store that "wasn't exactly Victoria's Secret." A layoff is followed by selling all her furniture, having her car repossessed, and even taking the occasional meal with her parents. When the pet hamster's on his last hamster food, Plum takes a job as a bounty hunter. Her first assignment is a bail-skipping cop wanted for murder, a cop who is also Stephanie's one-time (or two time, depending on how you count things) lover.
In light, easy prose, Janet Evanovich keeps the tone sexy without getting sexual; her playful narrative floating the reader through Stephanie's determined-but-hapless early experiences in a realm completely not hers to inhabit. It works because Evanovich injects whimsy into the outrageous plot setup without (very often) taking it over the top. Dangerous scenes are thoughtfully paced, punctuated at proper (and often unexpected) moments with Stephanie's self-aware sense of humor.
Most importantly for the serial writer, Evanovich creates likeable supporting characters, a necessity in this genre. A fellow bounty hunter gives advice and helps Stephanie out of tough situations. An appliance store manager gives Stephanie discounts on blenders. A mother just wants her girl to get a normal job like everyone else. A cousin on the police force interacts with the main character with the easy, comfortable familiarity a cousin can pull off but a parent or sibling might not. Together, they create safe anchors of assurance in ever-shifting dynamics as Stephanie tries to figure out whom to trust and whom to keep an eye on. When Stephanie sits down in her hallway (she still has no furniture) with her cousin to share a pizza and a six-pack, the reader can relax a bit, can come down from the stress of worrying for her safety, just as Stephanie herself can. We need these characters if we're going to keep hanging out with Stephanie.
As mystery stories go, it's good enough. There's never really an AHA! moment, but the whodunnit aspect of the novel feels secondary to the sympathetic ride Evanovich creates for us as we get to know the most endearing Stephanie Plum.(less)
My Christmas list this year could have been broken into three categories: my family, the friends I see most often, and the friends I just about never...moreMy Christmas list this year could have been broken into three categories: my family, the friends I see most often, and the friends I just about never see but think about every day. That last group is made up mostly of former colleagues, teachers who started at about the same time I started, people around the same age, friends with whom I share most of the greatest memories of my adult life.
There were five of us in that main group. Among us, I am the only one who is neither married nor engaged. It happens. Someone was going to be the last one standing. And while I won't pretend that it's not a weird feeling to be the only one continuing our Christmas-night tradition of seeing a late movie and then getting dinner at Likelike Drive-In, I will say that the weird feeling is accompanied by the wisdom of forty-plus years. These friends remain on my Christmas list because even while I'm no longer the important part of their lives I might once have been, they remain that important to me. Friends come and friends go, finding their way into our existences in big and little ways, often wandering away similarly.
Lynne Rae Perkins's All Alone in the Universe is an exploration of the dynamics of friendship at the eighth- and ninth-grade levels. One day, Debbie has a best friend. The next day, there is a third friend. It's not long before Debbie walks to school by herself and sits on the other side of the classroom. She's confused, she's lonely, and she is angry. There are grownups around her who recognize her situation, who graciously offer sympathy and comfort without condescending, understanding that she will discover for herself what she will discover.
It's a simple story, told linearly in only 150 short pages, but it is told with admirable sensitivity and a silly flair for the non-sequitur that's maybe not so non-sequitur as it appears. Perkins gives Debbie a voice that's impossible not to sympathize with, her language sliding gracefully between tiny and sad to wide-open and thoughtful. She allows Debbie's narration to wander where it will, drawing seemingly impossible but completely believable connections between stream-of-consciousness digressions and her own sad life. Perkins writes the silliest metaphors and then draws actual illustrations of them:
On the morning of the first day Marie Prbyczka came to our school, the dawn's early light slipped softly into the bedroom where my sister, Chrisanne, and I lay sleeping. We floated through our sleep peacefully, like two pearls sinking through Prell, until the alarm clock ripped the quiet into two pieces, and the first piece fluttered out of sight forever. I pried one eye open so I could watch Chrisanne as she flung herself headfirst out over the foot of her bed and, tethered there by two fingertips, reached out with the fingertips of her other hand to plug in her electric curlers. Then she flopped back in a 180-degree arc onto her pillow and fell into solid, heavy sleep for ten more minutes. It was amazing and impressive. Especially since Chrisanne isn't very flexible. On most days she can hardly do a forward roll. It reminded me of dolphins leaping completely out of the water and flipping over in the air. You watch them and wonder, How is that even possible?
The paragraph is accompanied by a pen-and-ink sketch of two pearls sinking to the bottom of a bottle of shampoo.
This wonderful, silly, fun narrative characterizes all of Perkins's young-adult novels so far. It's very skillful writing and it drives me insane that she's writing it and I'm not. It may not be as good as her other work, but if you loved Criss Cross or As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth, you're going to enjoy the heck out of this quick read.(less)
The men in Will David's family have delivered the daily newspaper in the tiny town of Steele, Pennsylvania for a long time, the job passing to each so...moreThe men in Will David's family have delivered the daily newspaper in the tiny town of Steele, Pennsylvania for a long time, the job passing to each son as soon as he turns twelve. It's finally Will's turn to assume the role, but the newspaper announces that it will no longer offer home delivery in Steele because it's no longer profitable to do so.
It's an insult to the residents of Steele, who have struggled since the closing of the hairpin factory around which Steele was built (by Will's grandfather).
Add Will's desire for a new laptop computer, a county fair featuring a new game whose prize is a thousand dollars, and a neighborhood girl who is smart enough to be of critical help while remaining a royal pain at the same time, and you have a ton of ingredients in a very short book.
I don't have an issue with the wild, disparate plot elements, each of which is interesting by itself. Louis Sachar's Holes is even more ambitious with crazier plot strands than that and it is one of the best novels I've ever read. But Sue Corbett doesn't pull it together elegantly at all, resolving Will's story in a breakneck, urgent, end-of-novel manner that mimics Will's speed on a bike while failing to deliver the graceful arc of the newspaper as it flies from boy to porch.
Younger readers might be forgiving of such a lazy, impossibly neat end, but they shouldn't be. They should feel ripped off after such a excellent setup with interesting characters, witty sentences, amusing chapter titles, and punny wordplay.
I wouldn't steer readers away from this, but I'd warn them that they'll likely be disappointed after enjoying the first 80% of what could have been a very good book.(less)
**spoiler alert** Hello. I wrote one review for Catching Fire and Mockingjay, and am posting it in both places. Just so you know.
Why wou...more**spoiler alert** Hello. I wrote one review for Catching Fire and Mockingjay, and am posting it in both places. Just so you know.
Why would anyone read a review of the second and third books of a trilogy like this? Anyone who has read the first book probably knows whether or not he or she wants to finish the series. Anyone who hasn’t should be reading my review of the first book and deciding from that whether or not to begin the series. The only people left are people who’ve already read the whole series and would like to know what I think.
It’s rather impossible to say anything intelligent about what I think of these novels without spoiling anything for someone who (for whatever reason) is reading this but hasn’t read the first installment. So if that’s you, stop right there, read my review of The Hunger Games, and either read that novel or don’t read it. If you read past this paragraph, I’m assuming you’ve either read these novels or you don’t care about spoilers.
Thoughts on Catching Fire: It is rare that the events in a story surprise me enough and horrify me enough to make me gasp aloud as I am reading. That happened a few chapters into Catching Fire. When the announcement is made about who will participate in the Quarter Quell, I gasped. Lost my breath for just a moment. Put the book down into my lap and stared up at the ceiling, taking in the implications and trying to figure out where I thought this might go.
I wondered how Collins might out-horrible the first book, and here it is. The very notion that the victors would have to face off against each other is both genius (as a writer’s idea AND as a government’s weapon) and appalling.
There’s a cool camaraderie that develops in this second book, something that is teased but never realized in the first games. These second games show a Katniss with teammates and allies, something that makes the overall feeling a lot less lonely and a lot less stressful, ‘though other events make up for that loss of tension. The unexpected redemption of Finnick is maybe my favorite thing about this book.
Thoughts on Mockingjay: This is the right ending. The series could end where Coin assumes power, and we could have been treated to a grim outlook for the future of Panem. That might have worked too, but such a cynical finish after such an ordeal for the reader might have had everyone up in arms. What Katniss does at the execution is a brilliant way out of that possible ending.
Dreary? Yes, but what else was Collins going to do? Her characters have been through far too much before Katniss even turns eighteen. To pretend that there could be a happily-ever-after situation would be an insult to her readers. I suppose there might have been a way for a more lovey-dovey conclusion, but what we get makes more sense. In fact, I think the epilogue is extraneous; it subtracts from the realistic feeling of the end. We don’t need to know what Katniss and Peeta’s futures look like exactly because enough of that is hinted at the end of the last chapter. Collins should have let the optimists have their ending and let the cynics have theirs while letting the writer have hers.
I suspect many readers are going to be upset with Collins at Prim’s demise. I totally see that and can relate. This is the last person, maybe, who should have died in that final struggle, but I think it makes sense for the author to work it this way. War sucks, and Collins has spoken this message through her characters from the very beginning, even having Peeta speak this sentiment (and be branded a traitor by the rebellion) the first time Katniss sees him speaking for the Capital. To pretend that favorite sisters, even those beloved by all, do not die in wars would be a disservice to the overall believability of the story.
That dreary ending means that the trilogy doesn’t feel good, and readers want to feel good after reading all those pages. I get that. But I respect the author more for the ending she gives us, and she gets all the respect for writing a trilogy this compelling. It was nearly impossible to put down between page 1 of The Hunger Games and the final page of Mockingjay.(less)
**spoiler alert** Why would anyone read a review of the second and third books of a trilogy like this? Anyone who has read the first book probably kno...more**spoiler alert** Why would anyone read a review of the second and third books of a trilogy like this? Anyone who has read the first book probably knows whether or not he or she wants to finish the series. Anyone who hasn’t should be reading my review of the first book and deciding from that whether or not to begin the series. The only people left are people who’ve already read the whole series and would like to know what I think.
It’s rather impossible to say anything intelligent about what I think of these novels without spoiling anything for someone who (for whatever reason) is reading this but hasn’t read the first installment. So if that’s you, stop right there, read my review of The Hunger Games, and either read that novel or don’t read it. If you read past this paragraph, I’m assuming you’ve either read these novels or you don’t care about spoilers.
Thoughts on Catching Fire: It is rare that the events in a story surprise me enough and horrify me enough to make me gasp aloud as I am reading. That happened a few chapters into Catching Fire. When the announcement is made about who will participate in the Quarter Quell, I gasped. Lost my breath for just a moment. Put the book down into my lap and stared up at the ceiling, taking in the implications and trying to figure out where I thought this might go.
I wondered how Collins might out-horrible the first book, and here it is. The very notion that the victors would have to face off against each other is both genius (as a writer’s idea AND as a government’s weapon) and appalling.
There’s a cool camaraderie that develops in this second book, something that is teased but never realized in the first games. These second games show a Katniss with teammates and allies, something that makes the overall feeling a lot less lonely and a lot less stressful, ‘though other events make up for that loss of tension. The unexpected redemption of Finnick is maybe my favorite thing about this book.
Thoughts on Mockingjay: This is the right ending. The series could end where Coin assumes power, and we could have been treated to a grim outlook for the future of Panem. That might have worked too, but such a cynical finish after such an ordeal for the reader might have had everyone up in arms. What Katniss does at the execution is a brilliant way out of that possible ending.
Dreary? Yes, but what else was Collins going to do? Her characters have been through far too much before Katniss even turns eighteen. To pretend that there could be a happily-ever-after situation would be an insult to her readers. I suppose there might have been a way for a more lovey-dovey conclusion, but what we get makes more sense. In fact, I think the epilogue is extraneous; it subtracts from the realistic feeling of the end. We don’t need to know what Katniss and Peeta’s futures look like exactly because enough of that is hinted at the end of the last chapter. Collins should have let the optimists have their ending and let the cynics have theirs while letting the writer have hers.
I suspect many readers are going to be upset with Collins at Prim’s demise. I totally see that and can relate. This is the last person, maybe, who should have died in that final struggle, but I think it makes sense for the author to work it this way. War sucks, and Collins has spoken this message through her characters from the very beginning, even having Peeta speak this sentiment (and be branded a traitor by the rebellion) the first time Katniss sees him speaking for the Capital. To pretend that favorite sisters, even those beloved by all, do not die in wars would be a disservice to the overall believability of the story.
That dreary ending means that the trilogy doesn’t feel good, and readers want to feel good after reading all those pages. I get that. But I respect the author more for the ending she gives us, and she gets all the respect for writing a trilogy this compelling. It was nearly impossible to put down between page 1 of The Hunger Games and the final page of Mockingjay.(less)
Oh, how I dislike bandwagons. Part of the aversion (of course) is that I just don’t want to do what everyone else is doing, but it’s more than that. W...moreOh, how I dislike bandwagons. Part of the aversion (of course) is that I just don’t want to do what everyone else is doing, but it’s more than that. When it comes to movies, books, and music, bandwagons simply tend to be wrong. When something appeals to a very large number of people, you can usually bet that it avoids controversy, and it usually accomplishes that by being bland, straightforward, harmless, unchallenging, safe (probably the greatest crime against meaningful art), and whatever the opposite of cutting-edge is. Sure, there are exceptions, and I’ve been proven wrong by those exceptions quite a few times.
Still, I’ve been right more often than wrong. If everyone’s telling you to do one thing, everyone is probably wrong. The recent deaths of Al Davis and Steve Jobs have underscored this for me in a big way.
How wrong I was about Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games, a novel that’s been recommended to me by more than one colleague, by a bunch of students, and by a nagging feeling that I’ve been missing out on something huge. The Hunger Games is a wonderful book, the odd novel that lives up to its hype and even surpasses it in some ways. I got sucked in and couldn’t stop turning pages, reading with the joyful abandon I somehow haven’t had time to pursue for far too long.
You know how Richard Bach and Antoine de Saint-Exupery describe the joy of flight? That’s what reading this book feels like, dipping and diving, soaring and gliding across pages loaded with suspense, shooting through sentences about characters I haven’t felt so much sympathy for since Hermione, Ron, and Harry.
Katniss Everdeen is a sixteen-year-old girl, a resident of a coal-mining district in a future North America whose government is oppressive and authoritarian (and, to my amusement, based in the Rocky Mountains). She represents her district in the Hunger Games, an annual fight to the death against teens from other districts. Victory means economic security for her and her family for the rest of their lives and monthly food bonuses for her entire district until the next year’s games.
While the competitors slaughter each other in huge, secured arenas, the nation watches live on television so that the government can remind the citizenry that the people’s lives exist only at the pleasure of the Capital. With a pageantry that celebrates the combatants while it demeans them at the same time, the government packages and presents the product as something noble rather than horrible.
Collins creates a strange, compelling, provocative, unexpected hybrid of survival story and dystopian fiction with admirable, sympathetic characters blanketed by one of the most horrible plots I’ve ever seen in literature for young people. The plot moves so quickly the reader barely has a chance to stop and breathe, yet the heaviness of the setting and ponderousness of the circumstances beg the reader to slow down. The tension this creates is kind of an amazing thing.
It seems to be the author’s style to stay out of the way of the story. Sentences are well-constructed but stylistically never a distraction, cinematically inconspicuous and grammatically unpretentious. Most admirable is the way Collins allows Katniss to succeed in such terrible circumstances in a way that maintains her integrity. All might be fair in love and war, but a sixteen-year-old girl who has to kill other teens needs to do so without alienating her reader, and Katniss manages this.
Themes of love, family, loyalty, competition, and oppression are woven through each fascinating chapter in a book that deserves its enormous attention. Highly recommended.(less)
Ry is on a train, rolling toward summer camp somewhere near Montana. His parents are on a boat, relaxing in the Caribbean. His grandfather is in Wis...moreRy is on a train, rolling toward summer camp somewhere near Montana. His parents are on a boat, relaxing in the Caribbean. His grandfather is in Wisconsin, taking care of the house and dogs. They are all (Ry, parents, grandfather, and dogs) this far-flung at the beginning of As Easy as Falling off the Face of the Earth, but a combination of bad luck, bad decision-making, bad circumstances, and even bad geology flings them further and further apart as the novel progresses. In her first novel since the Newbery-winning Criss Cross, Lynne Rae Perkins creates a wonderfully absurd story that becomes more absurd with each page in prose that is inventive, engaging, and hilarious.
If you have read Criss Cross, you sort of know what to expect. The writing is very stream-of-consciousness in an adolescent way, but it is also extremely clever. There are times when Perkins audaciously breaks certain rules about good prose, but because she establishes early that this is the kind of story (and storytelling) where anything is likely to happen, she successfully pulls it off in ways not unlike her characters' own daring stunts. The writer's voice had me laughing aloud more frequently than even her own Criss Cross, as when Ry finds himself following orders aboard a small sailboat:
Ry was giddy at their unexpected luck. He understood that they were not done sailing, but tomorrow was another day. He would have kissed the boards of the pier if he weren't so busy doing what Del was telling him to do. He haffed the chuffs, clipped the ridings, railed the boards, highed the lows, skibed the rampets, harbed the reefs, and cleeted the forths. Which is what sailing talk sounds like if you are not a sailor.
When they had made everything fast, which meant making sure nothing would go anywhere at all, fast or slow, Del said, "Here, grab your sweatshirt. It might cool down later."
There is a section, a few pages later, that had me giggling (and I don't giggle) when Perkins alters her narrator's voice as Ry uses his high-school Spanish to communicate with an old lighthouse keeper. I would quote it here, but to remove it from context would be a disservice to anyone who might read the novel later.
I will agree with most reviewers who say this is not quite the novel Criss Cross is, but then I have read very few novels that are. This novel lacks the heart-breaking sympathy Perkins creates for her characters in the earlier book, but it cranks the whimsy up a few levels. Where Criss Cross is like a ride through the tunnel of love, As Easy as Falling off the Face of the Earth is more like a roller coaster ride, or like the wild, turbulent flight of a homemade airplane piloted by a crazy genius.(less)
I didn't know there were tribal agrarian peoples in Vietnam who were not officially involved in the war. I don't think I'm especially ignorant about ...moreI didn't know there were tribal agrarian peoples in Vietnam who were not officially involved in the war. I don't think I'm especially ignorant about these things, so I admit I was surprised to learn about the Rhade people, a tribe in the southern part of that country, some of whom helped American Special Forces to navigate the Vietnam jungles.
This is the best thing Cynthia Kadohata's A Million Shades of Gray has going for it. The story of Y'Tin, a young elephant handler who longs to quit school so that he may pursue his dream of training other elephant handlers, is a glimpse at a culture I was completely unaware of. After the signing of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, the Americans leave a Vietnam that is divided North and South, assuring the Rhade that if the armies of the North should aggressively move into the South, they will return to help.
Y'Tin is the youngest elephant handler his village has ever seen. Although he is a talented tracker and his father is a successful tobacco farmer, elephants are his passion and he is sure he will spend the rest of his life caring for them. But the northern armies are moving south, and the Americans don't seem to be coming back. Y'Tin is worried about what his village will do in response as his way of life and the survival of his people are thrown into jeopardy.
It's an interesting story, but largely unsatisfying. Y'Tin's character is rather shallowly defined, and although Kadohata's descriptions of everyday life in his village are interesting, her story feels flat and it doesn't resolve well. I am currently a few chapters into Kadohata's Weedflower, and already it has the deep, poetic, heartbreaking beauty I remember from her Newbery-winning Kira-Kira. A Million Shades of Gray lacks that depth, and although it's a pretty good read, it's fair to call this one a mild disappointment.(less)
Twelve-year-old Sumiko lives on a flower farm in northern California with her little brother, her aunt and uncles, and her grandfather. In every way,...moreTwelve-year-old Sumiko lives on a flower farm in northern California with her little brother, her aunt and uncles, and her grandfather. In every way, hers is like other American farming families: every member does his or her part to keep things running, there is never a shortage of work to be done, and complaining is both pointless and unheard-of.
In a few ways, Sumiko's is unlike many farming families, because her grandfather came to America from Japan. Although Sumiko doesn't look like her classmates, and although she is never invited to their weekend activities, she has established some friendships with the other girls in school. Her grandfather says the happiness she was born with seems to be returning for the first time since her parents' deaths.
But then the Japanese military attacks Pearl Harbor, and everything changes. Sumiko's grandfather and his eldest son are taken away to be "questioned," and they do not return before the rest of the family is taken to a relocation camp in Arizona, to live behind barbed-wire fences, prisoners in their own country 'though they are never charged with crimes.
Weedflower is not the first book I've read about the Japanese relocation during World War II, but it is the most affecting. Told from a young girl's point of view, Sumiko's story is heartbreaking on multiple levels. The umbrella over everything, of course, is the treatment of its own citizens by the United States government, but there are also the daily heartbreaks suffered by hard-working rural families in general, by immigrant families particularly, and by little girls especially. To Sumiko, which is the greater injustice: the seizure of her family's property by the government or her friends' parents telling her she's not allowed to socialize with their children?
There are a million things to say about a book like this, and I've written several paragraphs exploring the author's choices in telling this story, but I've deleted them all because what I really want to say is that Cynthia Kadohata tells a wonderful, painful story, creating characters who feel completely authentic to this Japanese-American reviewer. I recommend it not because of what it's about, but because it's a well-written, well-told story.
When scientists observe the first known death of a proton, only Will Tuppence and his best friend Mi-Su seem to understand the significance of such an...moreWhen scientists observe the first known death of a proton, only Will Tuppence and his best friend Mi-Su seem to understand the significance of such an event. For Will it means that nothing can be counted on, and that everything is impermanent, including him and whatever he leaves behind when he’s gone. As he struggles to come to terms with this thought, his world incomprehensibly and obliviously continues to move around him in ways predictable and not-so-predictable. His bratty younger sister continues to annoy him, only now she’s finding new ways of doing so. His friends Mi-Su and BT continue to be his friends, although perhaps not in the predictable way they always had been before. They even kiss each other in a moment Mi-Su says could not be helped and which Will is sure should have been his. Will, meanwhile, continues to try and give structure to a world that steadfastly refuses it.
Jerry Spinelli manages again to come up with something unique. The author’s voice here takes on a strange tone, one perhaps reminiscent of the writer’s voice in Eggs but without the weight that story’s narrative seemed to bear with its serious subject matter and its fragile, at-risk characters. Spinelli here sticks mostly to very short chapters, not numbered in strict sequence beginning at chapter one, but numbered according to the time that’s passed since the death of that first proton. Several chapters are not even a page in length, and a few are just one or two words. The result is a terrific, uneven pacing that seems to stop, start, glide, and turn like the skateboard Will refuses to let his sister ride. At times the reader is hurled from one episode to the next, while at others the reader seems to glide through long, smooth passages of dialogue.
Spinelli’s main character is not as likable as in some of his other work, and this might be where young readers find some difficulty in sticking with the book. Mi-Su is the supportive friend readers will like right away, but Will’s pettiness and inability to treat his sister with any kindness at all might turn some readers away. If they can stick with the story, however, they will find a kind of depth thoughtful readers will find rewarding.
I respected the way Spinelli handled the narrative in Eggs, a book that presents two characters in awful situations. In that story, the writer leaves it to the reader to understand what kind of changes his characters are going through. There seems to have been concern that readers might not get it, because there is an author’s Q-and-A section at the back of the book that attempts to help puzzled readers. However, in Smiles to Go, he seems to have caved in to the urge to put everything into words, letting his character summarize his feelings near the end of the story in a kind of After-School-Special, “and-this-is-what-I-learned” kind of way. One could argue that young readers need this kind of debriefing, but I am disappointed by this decision and think it cheapens what is otherwise a very well-written book.
I’ve read other books whose chapters took turns presenting different characters’ points of view, but until I read First Light, I never found that devi...moreI’ve read other books whose chapters took turns presenting different characters’ points of view, but until I read First Light, I never found that device distracting. It is perhaps a testimony to Rebecca Stead’s skill at pacing her story that whenever one chapter ended and the point of view shifted from Thea’s to Peter’s or back again, I was annoyed and distracted. This is my one quibble with what is otherwise a terrific book.
Thea is a teenaged girl who lives in a matriarchal society in a world seemingly made of ice. Her people, once persecuted for their outstanding abilities, are finding it harder to maintain the society they’ve built in their icy world. As a member of the highest nobility among her people, Thea believes the burden of solving their problems falls upon her. Peter is the son of a biologist mother and geologist father. He is spending his summer vacation in Greenland while his father studies the effects of global warming on glaciers in the area. Troubled by intense, debilitating headaches that sometimes wipe him out for an entire day, he suspects his mother’s own crippling headaches are somehow related to the book she’s writing during the family’s stay in the frozen north. He is torn between wanting to help his mother with her problems, but nobody will tell him what her problems are.
I didn’t find this setup especially compelling, but Stead does a great job of creating likable characters and thrusting them into stories that hurtle forward at increasing speeds like the characters’ sleds down frozen slopes. She reveals just enough of her mystery on each page to force the reader to continue to the next page, where still more of the mystery unfolds, while at the same time the same mystery is being pieced together.
With its intelligent, bold characters who propel the story with their own audacity, First Light is likely to appeal to middle-schoolers and older elementary-schoolers who appreciate a well-paced mystery adventure.(less)
Miranda is twelve. Her single mom practices every evening for an upcoming appearance on The $20,000 Pyramid. Her best friend Sal doesn’t speak to he...moreMiranda is twelve. Her single mom practices every evening for an upcoming appearance on The $20,000 Pyramid. Her best friend Sal doesn’t speak to her anymore, so she is forced to walk home alone past the group of rowdy older boys and past the homeless man who sleeps with his head beneath the mailbox. And three mysterious notes from an unknown sender plead with her to help save an unnamed friend.
Plot-wise, this is all you need to know about Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me, the 2010 winner of the Newbery Medal. If this plot description isn’t enough to convince you to read it, you should also know that in a loving tribute to Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, the author develops lovable characters in a series of very short chapters with a simple, readable prose that is at times astonishingly beautiful:
Then I sat on the couch and closed my eyes. I pictured the world. I pictured the world millions of years ago, with crazy clouds of gas everywhere, and volcanoes, and the continents bumping into each other and then drifting apart. Okay. Now life begins. It starts in the water, with tiny things, microscopic, and then some get bigger. And one day something crawls out of the water onto land. There are animals, then humans, looking almost all alike. There are tiny differences in color, the shape of the face, the tone of the skin. But basically they are the same. They create shelters, grow food, experiment. They talk; they write things down.
Now fast-forward. The earth is still making loops around the sun. There are humans all over the place, driving in cars and flying in airplanes. And then one day one human tells another human that he doesn’t want to walk to school with her anymore.
“Does it really matter?” I ask myself.
It did.
The short chapters are small scenes that capture the humor, tension, and absurdity of life as a preteen, and Stead manages to weave one fantastic thread through a story that is in just about every other way a slice of believable life.
The characters act and speak the way twelve-year-olds do. Some of them panic at the thought of having to announce to the whole class the need to use the restroom. Some of them are embarrassed about having not enough money. Some of them are embarrassed about having more than enough money. Alliances are made and broken quickly and suddenly, according to the code of the sixth-grade classroom, and Miranda, even while dealing with the scary, unsigned notes from who-knows-where, seems equally challenged by the uncertainty of having a friend sleep over for the first time.
When You Reach Me is immediately a classic, undoubtedly destined to be a favorite of many readers for a long time.
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In a way, N is for Noose doesn't quite deliver what I expected upon completion of the excellent M is for Malice. M, which involved Kinsey Millhone in...moreIn a way, N is for Noose doesn't quite deliver what I expected upon completion of the excellent M is for Malice. M, which involved Kinsey Millhone in a story that developed Kinsey's personal story far more in one installment than any since A is for Alibi, pointed her fans toward several interesting possibilities. Between the return of Dietz, the interesting dynamic between Kinsey and Guy Malek, and hints that Kinsey might be ready to become more involved in the lives of her cousins, I thought M hinted at further travel down those roads.
Instead, Sue Grafton removes Kinsey almost entirely from Santa Teresa and puts her in the unfamiliar California mountain town of Nota Lake, a town where everyone knows everyone else's business, where strangers who pry are not looked upon with much favor, and where Kinsey is separated from the creature comforts and routines that define her place in the world.
It's an interesting idea. Kinsey's life is characterized by its almost comical simplicity. Now, in this place that is geographically located between Robert Dietz and Kinsey's Santa Teresa home, we can see how many connections and attachments she has formed in what has been only four years in her world (according to the author's note in O is for Outlaw). The absence of these connections provides an unsettling contrast for Kinsey and for the reader. Without Rosie, Henry, Jonah, Tasha, or any of the other regulars Kinsey frequently calls upon for help or support, she is forced to work completely alone, relying on the kindness of untrustworthy strangers.
It adds up to a story of great tension. Neither Kinsey nor the reader of this novel knows whom to trust; every piece of information is received suspiciously; every move Kinsey makes seems fraught with peril. Kinsey is hired by the widow of a detective in Nota Lake's sheriff's department. The death itself doesn't seem suspicious, but the widow wants to know what it was that had her husband behaving not like himself in the months leading up to his heart attack. Kinsey finds it difficult to get many people to talk about the deceased because he was a respected member of the community whom everyone knew; she finds it less difficult to get people to talk about his widow, an outsider who is mistrusted by almost everyone. Kinsey herself is not trusted, and she is encouraged by many people to give the case up and to go back to wherever she came from.
It is an invitation that she longs to accept. Every description of Kinsey's activities seems to magnify her eagerness to return home. Add to the unfriendly work environment the possible connection of two horrible murders to Kinsey's case and the possible interference of law-enforcement personnel in Nota Lake and you get a pretty compelling story.
I have to say that I missed a lot of the character development I was hoping for, but this little break from Kinsey's Santa Teresa world serves the overall, serial arc well. There's no need to hurry things along, after all: we are only on N, leaving us twelve more installments to see what really happens to Kinsey.(less)
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