Warren Rochelle's Blog, page 9

The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Charles Foster, author of Being a Beast, describes Hidden Life as "A paradigm-smashing chronicle of joyous entanglement that will make you acknowledge your own entanglement in the ancient and ever-new web of being" Hope Jahren, author of Lab Girl asserts that "Soon after we begin to recognize trees for what they are--gigantic beings thriving against incredible odds for hundreds of years--we naturally come to ask, 'How do they do it?" This charming book tells how" (back cover).

Paradigm-smashing? "Gigantic beings thriving against incredible odds"? In this "charming book," Wohlleben, forester and author "convincingly makes the case that yes, the forest is a social network." Trees, he argues, "like human families: tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, support them as they grow," and "share nutrients with those who are sick or struggling, and even warn each other of impending dangers" (front jacket). And that's just for starters. I would suggest this could change your view of trees and just they are.

As I read Hidden Life, I found not only thinking of trees in a different way, I found myself remembering a science fiction story idea I had some years ago. Here goes:

The Human Community has colonized several extrasolar planets, including one colonists named Wertynger, an Earthlike planet, hospitable to human life. No sapient species present that would prevent colonization. Some years after the first Community starships arrived with settlers, exploration of the island continent of New Atlantis begins. The explorers find a vast forest, with the dominant trees the same size or bigger, as redwoods and sequoias on Earth. It is when they venture into the forest, named El Bosque, that things get strange complicated. These trees are sentient. El Bosque is an association of "groves" of smaller social networks. This is First Contact in a way none of the explorers expected. El Bosque sends to the explorers a messenger--later to be called a "dryad"--a species who can speak for the slow ones to the quick ones ...

Complications ensue.

I found Hidden to be quite a good read, very accessible, and the scientific data is well explained.

Recommended.



View all my reviews

More Happy Than Not, by Adam Silvera

href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5..." style="float: left; padding-right: 20px">More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Maybe spoilers?

My first book completed in 2021, my first review.

Aaron Soto is 16 and is having a hard time. After his father's suicide, "[Aaron] can't find happiness again, despite the support of his girlfriend, Genevieve, and. his overworked mom." He can't escape the pain and the grief. The "smile-shaped scar" on his wrist is a constant reminder of the depth of his hurt. Enter Thomas, a new kid, and "something starts to shift inside him. Aaron can't deny his unexpected feelings for Thomas, despite" the repercussions in his life.

The solution: the "Leteo Institute's revolutionary memory-altering procedure" (back cover). Surely, this procedure can make him straight, just erase the memories of being gay, of desiring boys. This proves much harder than Aaron expected. Erasing a memory of an action isn't the same as erasing the memory of the thing itself.

This near-future YA story is "twisty, heartbreaking, [and] profoundly moving." It is tale of identity, coming out, love, and perhaps, ultimately, it asks who we are and how can we be true to ourselves when some much of our world tells who we are is not acceptable.

Well done.

Recommended.



View all my reviews

A Year with Aslan: Daily Reflections from The Chronicles of Narnia

a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7..." style="float: left; padding-right: 20px">A Year with Aslan: Daily Reflections from The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A Year with Aslan: Daily Reflections from the Chronicles of Narnia is my last book for 2020: last book read, last review. A Year with Aslan was also the first book I started in 2020. Somehow, this seems like a good book on which to end the year.

Like a lectionary, there are readings selected from The Chronicles for 365 days of the year, "combined with thought-provoking questions." Readers are intended to "discover a new and deeper way to experience Narnia" (back cover). I think, for the most part, that I did, although I have done some critical reading on Lewis when I prepped for a senior seminar I taught on him and his work. I also re-read The Chronicles (well, all but the end of The Last Battle--not too keen on rereading when the Dwarves kill the Talking Horses and the Talking Animals are abused by the Calormenes and other atrocities when Narnia falls) but then I do that every year, more or less.

I digress.

I enjoyed this book and liked the selections chosen. Some of the "thought-provoking questions" did seem more aimed at children. I did wonder why February 29 was left out. I chose a favorite passage of my own to reread. I would suggest to the editors, if they ever revise A Year with Aslan, to hold a contest: ask readers to send in their favorite passages, suggest a question, and choose from the entries.

Does "pondering the world of Narnia" help us to "better understand our own[?]" So does any good fantasy.

Recommended.



View all my reviews

Upright Women Wanted, by Sarah Gailey

a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4..." style="float: left; padding-right: 20px">Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Goodreads describes this novel like this: "
In Upright Women Wanted, award-winning author Sarah Gailey reinvents the pulp Western with an explicitly antifascist, near-future story of queer identity."

I would describe it this way: near-future dystopia, alternate history dystopia, and a particular take on the Western genre.

Esther is on the run, after her girl friend, Beatrix, is hanged. She hides away in a supply wagon used by Librarians, Bet and Leda. There she meets Cye, a nonbinary person, to whom she is drawn in ways she hadn't expected. Esther finds out Librarians aren't just delivered government-Approved Materials--reading materials--hither and yon. There is a lot more going in this dark America run by an authoritarian dictatorship. Complications ensue.

Is this a polemic? Yes. As Gailey says in their Acknowledgments, they "[owes] this book and [their] life to the queer community," all those helped them grow up and find themself. They "owe this book to all of them and [they] owe to every queer person out there who things they don't have a future in this world, who thinks all is lost if they can't find a way to bury the person who they are. This is for [them]. This is for all of [them]. There is a place for [them] and it's better than [they] can possibly imagine" (176).

The message is clear. But this is a good story, an adventure, and one of coming-of-age. A story worth reading.



View all my reviews

Squire Archie's Rectory Christmas, by Harper Fox

Squire Archie's Rectory Christmas by Harper Fox

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Possible spoilers.
I love this book. That it both deals with the homophobia rampant in the 1940s in England and elsewhere and that it is about the ongoing love story between Squire Archie and Arthur Denby in such times, gives it a strength that is worth noting. No, this isn't a polemic, but rather it shines a line on the personal costs of a homophobia protected by law and custom.

This is a fairy tale and a tale of the old gods and goddesses and the myth that is a part of the mental and physical landscape of Droyton. This town, especially those whose lives are centered on the rectory, accepts these two men as just that two men who love each other. Is this realistic in post-World War II Britain? I don't know, but I sort of doubt it. That this acceptance and protection comes on Christmas Day adds the adjective of miraculous.

Perhaps then, this story is aspirational: here is how we could live.

Fox fans, take note.
Recommended.

PS: I finished reading it on Christmas Eve--on purpose.



View all my reviews

Conventionally Yours, by Annabeth Albert

Conventionally Yours by Annabeth Albert

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I love this book. I really enjoying the evolving between the two boys, Conrad and Alden, each with his own baggage and issues to overcome. Perhaps the biggest issue was to believe in themselves and to take the risks that are inherent in adult relationship. The novel is told in the context of the gaming world and from the perspectives of both boys: one somewhere on the autism spectrum, whose social skills are admittedly weak, the other the pretty boy who seemingly has it all, but doesn't.

Fans of rom-coms, of fan fiction, of gaming, of gay love stories and coming-of-age stories, take note.

Recommended.



View all my reviews

Conventionally Yours, by Annabeth Albert

Love, Creekwood, by Becky Albertalli

Love, Creekwood by Becky Albertalli

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Please, please, just a bit more... OK, I KNOW what will happen after the last line, but still--

A fine epilogue to our Creekwood crew's story, May they always be happily ever after.



View all my reviews

I Wish You All The Best, by Mason Deaver

I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


In her blurb, Becky Albertalli, author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, notes that "This book will save lives" and that the novel is "quietly groundbreaking." Kacen Calendar, winner of the Stonewall Award, and author of Hurricane Child, echoes Albertalli: "This is the sort of novel that goes beyond being important; it has the potential to save and change lives" (unnumbered first page).

I agree. It is a sweet love story and a coming-of-age story as well. Ben De Becker, a high school senior in Goldsboro, NC, comes out to their parents as nonbinary and gets kicked out, with literally the clothes on their back. They wind up in Raleigh, with their sister, Hannah and her husband. Hannah, estranged from their parents, left 10 years ago. Ben "[tries] to keep a low profile in a new school." Enter Nathan Allan, "a funny and charismatic student," who "decides to take Ben under his wing."

They become friends, and yes, this a love story, a slow burn, I think, as I understand the term. They do fall in love. For Ben, in addition, there are issues of anxiety and recovery from what I would call the emotional abuse of their parents. They will learn to believe in themself. Watching all of this unfold is "At turns heartbreaking and joyous." I Wish You All The Best is both a celebration of life, friendship, love, and a shining example of hope in the face of adversity" (back cover). Both Ben and Nathan are likable characters and I found myself cheering them on. The rest of the cast are authentic and believable.

Yes, young people wrestling with being nonbinary can, I think, benefit from reading this YA story, and knowing they are not alone, and there is a community out there that is supportive. But I also think that those readers who aren't nonbinary will find this YA novel not just a good read, and a page turner, but like me, learn something about what it means to be nonbinary.

It is worth noting the author identifies as nonbinary. As they said in an Author's Note, that they "wanted to tell the story I needed when I was younger. This book is what I needed when I was fifteen, when I was eighteen, and it's still the story I need when in my twenties. This is how a lot of stories are born: out of necessity" (325).

All of this important.

Recommended.



View all my reviews

Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A beautiful story, beautifully written.

Two years later, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, this book is still beautiful, and now, far more poignant, and its beauty has something akin to a sharpness.

Some might not like to read a novel set during and in the aftermath of a pandemic (far, far more deadly than Covid-19) and that is perfectly understandable. Station Eleven is a beautiful novel, beautifully written, and timely and poignant and haunting. As a San Francisco Chronicle says, "A superb novel ...[that] leaves us not fearful for the end of the world but appreciative of the grace of everyday existence."

And I love that there is a troupe of actors and performers, the Traveling Symphony, bringing drama and music to the survivors. Their motto is a quote from Star Trek: Voyager: "surviving is insufficient."

Highly Recommended.



View all my reviews