Joanna’s Comments (group member since Nov 17, 2010)

Joanna’s comments from the Reading with Style group.

10.4 Name

Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

This is one of the strangest books, full of actually psychotic characters living wild and crazy lives. The structure of the book was obviously experimental, with scenes happening in almost random order and the story only pulling together in the final part of the book. In fact, the structure is so experimental that several years after the book was first published, the author released a "remix" version that gives the same material in a different order.

Palahniuk is at his best in this book--vulgar, strange, sarcastic, and full of scalpel-sharp commentary on society, identity, and the meaning of life. In their own screwed up ways, these characters are trying to figure out what it means to be a person, how to separate internal identity and desires from those imposed from the outside by society, and what to do about all these feelings. But they're doing it in the most extreme and fantastic ways possible.

For all it's craziness, this book gripped me. I couldn't stop and had to know what else was going to happen. These characters are unforgettable.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task total: 20
Grand total: 1615

That's it for the season for me. Looking forward to summer!

10.4 Name

Black Powder War by Naomi Novik

My whole family has been listening to this series together. That means we're moving through these books relatively slowly since we only listen when all four of us are there. This book continues the world-building of adding dragons to military campaign of Napoleonic adventures. Here, the protagonist and his dragon companion are leaving China and heading home to England. They pass through Turkey and are present for a massive battle between Napoleon and the Prussian forces.

Novik has a real knack for making it seem totally historical that there were dragons, complete with whole teams of helpers, flying about during the battles. I've really enjoyed this. This also has a more adult feel than many books because the main character is a gentleman in his thirties rather than an upstart teenager.

As always, Simon Vance is a top-notch narrator. If I'm considering a book for audio and discover that he's narrating, that usually tips the balance.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task total: 20
Grand total: 1595

I'd planned Slade House for summer. I listened to the beginning to make sure I wouldn't hate the narrator and got totally sucked into the story and finished in two days. Such a fun book.

10.4 Name

Slade House by David Mitchell

A really well done haunted house story, but also a fun entry in the overall David Mitchell universe. If you've read The Bone Clocks, this book will feel like a companion story with some of the same creepy elements happening here as appear there. If you haven't, the story works fine as a standalone book.

Unlike Mitchell's other more complicated stories, this book stays firmly grounded in a single location and interconnected stories. Every nine years, a mysterious door appears in an alleyway, and behind the door is Slade House. The book details several stories of people finding their way to Slade House and never being seen again. Mitchell does a bang up job of interconnecting these stories and layering on the creepiness of the tale.

The narrators for the audiobook were excellent. They had the perfect tone for the story and made the listener care about each characters. I can see why this won an Earphones Award.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task total: 20
Grand total: 1575

20.3 Small Town

Here the Whole Time by Vitor Martins
low lexile

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I'm so glad that someone picked this as a group read, because I'm not sure I'd have heard of this random young love book by a Brazilian author I'd never heard of. And my life would have been less full without this book.

The story, told in the first person by the teenage protagonist, gently but honestly addresses anxiety, body image, sexual orientation, and social pressure. Yes, things glide along relatively smoothly for these characters. But the internal dialogue felt spot-on and I think there are many young readers who would see themselves in this book.

+20 Task

Task total: 20
Grand total: 1555

10.5 Database

Girls with Sharp Sticks by Suzanne Young
low lexile

My thirteen- and ten-year-old children adored this book. We listened to the audiobook together and they would actually seek each other out to find me to get me to turn the book on, which only happens with books that really engage them. So, highly recommended for middle-grade readers who can handle a book with a high creepiness factor.

The book does a great job of layering on creepiness one little bit at a time. Particularly for younger readers who haven't read broadly, this felt really compelling. For the adult reader, I found the twists slightly predictable. More importantly, I found the premise a bit goofy. I can't really discuss it without giving away a major plot twist, but it's as if the author has never read any science fiction and is completely not in dialogue with other stories.

Imagine if the author thought she'd made up the concept of immortal beings who drink blood, and had never heard of vampires. She might then call these beings bloodlusters, and assign them random characteristics like a love of garlic. Any reader who'd ever heard of vampires would just be scratching her head and wondering what is going on, and waiting for the tongue-in-cheek reference to show that the author is deliberately twisting the traditional story. Here, there was a similar feel, and it never became clear that the author had any idea that there's a whole narrative universe out there.

So, slightly baffling. But engaging enough anyway, and I'm always pleased to find something that truly holds the interest of my younger readers. So, onward to the next in the series.

The narrator for the audiobook is fine. Nothing special, no complaints.

+10 Task

Task total: 10

+50 Halfway finish 10pt tasks
+200 Megafinish

Post total: 260
Grand total: 1535

10.4 Name

Eve AND Calendars by Annie Finch
(two books of poetry)

Eve
Part of my effort this year to read more poetry. This collection focuses on female creation stories and goddesses from different cultures/traditions. I enjoyed this collection, but didn't love it. None of the poems made me want to drag someone in to hear the poem read aloud. Still, as a whole, the collection was quietly powerful and I was left with a feeling that I'd touched on some deep thoughts on feminine view. Just what I needed in the days after hearing that the Supreme Court is very likely overturning Roe v. Wade.

Calendars
I had the distinct idea reading this book that I was missing the point somehow. There were moments of images that made me pause, but the rhythm that the author was clearly trying to evoke never quite solidified for me. If I knew more about poetry, if I understood better the conversations these poems are having, I think I'd have liked them. Even loved some of them. As it was, they felt inaccessible to this relatively unschooled poetry reader.

I read some of these out loud with my daughter, who's final statement was, "Maybe you should get a different book of poems that are less dark." I think that about sums up my reading experience with these poems.

+10 Task
+10 Review

Task total: 20
Grand total: 1275

How about Something/Nothing as opposites? Something for Nothing

20.8 Texas

Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells

I just love Murderbot. This story isn't really number 6 in the series, but it's still a good addition to the Murderbot tales. This is a mystery/investigation set on Preservation, where Murderbot is hanging around protecting Dr. Mensha. When a dead human is found, Murderbot gets put on the investigation team trying to figure out what happened.

In this novella, Murderbot is a little less depressed and a little more used to dealing with humans and all their foibles and silly reactions to things. I love hearing his internal dialog and sarcastic talk and just found this delightful.

As always, the audiobook is a perfect format for being in the head of this character. The narrator has done a great job with all of these books. If you haven't read any of the Murderbot books, probably best to start with All Systems Red.

+20 Task
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.5, 10.6)

Task total: 40
Grand total: 1255

10.6 Space Out

The Causal Angel by Hannu Rajaniemi

It took me a while to get to this third book in this trilogy. After being stunned and awed by the first book, I found the second to be more of the same without the same emotional impact nor the newness of the blazing world-building that was so clever at the start. And here, I started to feel frustrated with the relentless refusal to explain anything.

The text here is so blindingly complicated that I found that I had to just skate along letting the words wash over me rather than trying to understand each word--almost like what I do in a foreign language where I have only intermediate fluency. If I tried to hard to understand all the gogols and zokus, I'd lose the thread of the plot. If I could get into the flow, I could float along, much like the disembodied characters here.

For what it's worth, I find listening to the audiobook much easier to find the flow of the text because it's easy enough to let the jargon pass by without getting tripped up. I don't think I would have finished this one in print since I just didn't care enough about the book at the halfway point. But since I had a long cooking project followed by a long drive, I finished the audio in just two days.

I'd like to read more by Rajaniemi, but I admit to finding this book much less enrapturing than the first in the trilogy.

+10 Task (it's all space flight)
+10 Review
+20 Combo (10.4, 10.5 (sentient spaceship, among other complex computer stuff), 20.4 (main character is a "gentleman thief" who goes about stealing things), 20.7 (b. Finland, now lives in California, USA)

Task total: 40
Grand total: 1215

So, if I read all 15 of the B tasks, I could claim that as three separate BINGOs, correct?

My score would look like:

10.1 - 10 pts. - B1
10.2 - 10 pts. - B2
...
10.5 - 10 pts. - B5
BINGO - 50pts - B1, B2, B3, B4, B5
10.6 - 10 pts - B6
10.7 - 10 pts - B7
...
10.10 - 10 pts - B10
BINGO - 50 pts - B6, B7, B8, B9, B10
15.1 - 15 pts - B11
and so on

10.9 Dual

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

First, let me say that the readers for the audiobook did an admirable job with this complicated and shifting narrative. It isn't always easy to manage a story with so many shifting timelines in audio format and I never was confused about which timeline we were in.

That said, because there are three distinct timelines and five main characters, the book took a long time to come together. As is often the case with multi-line books, there's a lot of setup and at exactly the moment you start to be interested in a story, you're yanked into a different part of the narrative. Still, the book effectively made me care about all five characters--it's hard for me to choose a favorite.

I loved the ode-to-books feel of this. The unifying theme is that all of these characters are interacting with the same ancient Greek story (the Cloud Cuckoo Land of the title). There's thoughtful discussion of the loss of knowledge that comes from the destruction/loss of texts over time. And there's something powerful about the idea that a story binds these histories together, even if it's a loose weaving.

Recommended, even for people who think they don't like fantasy. The fantasy elements here are not especially fantastical and won't take away from the beauty of the book for a non-fantasy reader.

+10 Task
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.6)
+5 Jumbo (656p)

Task total: 30
Grand total: 1175

15.3 Central Africa

The Death of Comrade President by Alain Mabanckou

This book highlights for me how little I know of the Republic of Congo (i.e., Congo-Brazzaville, the former French colony). The author recognizes that his readers will know nothing, and makes an effort to have explanations of the players, politics, and history built into the story. This has the benefit of keeping the reader oriented and providing education, but it tends to break of the action and leads to long sections of exposition.

The story is told from the perspective of a twelve-year-old during the few days surrounding the assassination of the Comrade President Marien Ngouabi in March 1977. (Not to be confused with the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in 1961, who was the president of the Republic of the Congo-Kinshasa, the former Belgian colony.) In the guise of people explaining things to the protagonist, various characters (and one long radio broadcast) explain the political history of the country. At that time, the Republic of Congo (the former French colony) was the People's Republic of Congo , and was a Marxist state that lasted from 1963 until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1992.

When characters get distracted from explaining the history of the country, the reader gets glimpses of the marketplace, the interactions between different family members, and the family structure of the protagonist--living with his mother, who has become the second wife of "Papa Roger." I learned about the food, the family relations, the way that different ethnic groups interact, and other small details that brought the story to life.

Overall, I am glad to have read the book and learned about a piece of the world and a part of history about which I knew nothing.

+15 Task
+10 Non-western
+10 Review
+20 Project Bonus (Republic of Congo)

Task total: 55
Grand total: 1045

+100 Completion Bonus - 15 pt tasks

Grand total: 1145

10.7 Three Favorite Women

Red Azalea by Anchee Min

This memoir traces the author's early teen through early adulthood during the Cultural Revolution in China--the late 1960s to the early 1970s. The book shows the progressive pressure her family was under, the terror experienced by everyone as the government restrictions tightened, and the hard labor Min performed at a farm where she was sent.

We glimpse the ways that she managed to keep herself going, finding enjoyment in small moments, and passion in a relationship with one of the female leaders of the farm. Of course, her love affair was prohibited and they both risked death if they were discovered. The description of the labor was so powerful that I could almost feel the work in my own muscles.

Then, suddenly, and abruptly both for Min and for the reader, Min is selected to perform in a propaganda movie and she's moved from the farm to Shanghai. The making of the movie and her relationship with "the supervisor" was the least interesting part of the book for me.

+10 Task (Morrison list)
+10 Review
+5 Oldies (pub. 1993)
+5 Combo (20.7)

Task total: 30
Grand total: 990

Katy --

I saw your review of The Sympathizer and just wanted to say that I just heard Viet Thanh Nguyen speak at a book festival. He was so funny and engaging--I loved listening to him and would have been happy to hear him talk more. I bought a signed copy of the book, but haven't read it yet. Hoping to start it this weekend.

20.4 Reivers

Heist Society by Ally Carter
Lexile: 800

I listened to this audiobook with my ten-year-old daughter. The book tells the story of a family of high-tech art thieves who plan and execute daring Ocean's Eleven style heists. The main character, a teenager, has decided to quit the business and go to boarding school instead. Then, things happen.

We both found the beginning a little slow and the initial part at the boarding school irrelevant to the rest of the book. That said, my daughter really liked the ending of the book and they way that it changed the perspective on these characters and she was ready to immediately start listening to the second book in the series.

I wanted the lead character to be more interesting or more likeable or more fully developed. She seemed sort of flat for the central character in the book and I never felt like I understood her inner thoughts well enough. Maybe there will be more to fill out this character in the next book.

I didn't love the narrator for this book, but I thought she added just enough sarcasm and humor to the narration to elevate the listening experience above just reading aloud.

+20 Task (art thieves)
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.4)

Task total: 35
Grand total: 960

10.2 EASTER

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

If you've read the other books in the Wayfarers universe and liked them, this is more of the same comfort-sci-fi that Chambers does so, so well. If you've read the other books in the Wayfarers series and found them boring or cheesy, well, this is more of the same.

Chambers is at her best when she writes characters struggling to understand each other through differences in culture/background/species/gender/appearance/etc. By making all these characters aliens of different types, Chambers can quietly advocate for being better--the characters all have internal strategies for not taking things personally, for trying to understand difference, and for trying to be honest without being a jerk. She presents these monologues in a way that's just charming enough to take the edge off the social commentary underlying the whole Wayfarers universe.

I'm absolutely a fan and find these books such a nice breath of fresh air in these times when I often feel beaten down by the actual dialogues that are happening in our actual world. I like fantasizing about a future Star Trek universe in which a bunch of different people/aliens are all learning to work together.

I'll read anything Chambers writes at this point.

+10 Task
+10 Review
+10 Combo (10.4, 10.6)

Task total: 30
Grand total: 925

20.8 Texas

Cast Away: Poems for Our Time by Naomi Shihab Nye

I chose this book because I have a fond memory of working with this author as an artist-in-residence at my elementary school. She even published one of my poems from that workshop in a collection of children's poetry that she edited. I found her lovely and great with children and I've always loved the fact that I was encouraged to write poetry in elementary school.

There were a few poems in this collection that really worked and managed to be both linguistically beautiful or interesting while also delivering an emotional punch. There were many that had an interesting moment or image. And there were some that didn't really move me at all.

Overall, I think this is pitched at younger readers and should be accessible to middle school and high school readers. There's strong overall messages that people aren't trash, children should be loved, that we have lives that are too busy and too full of stuff, and that we should be better at making sure that we are good caretakers of the planet.

+20 Task (Author lives in San Antonio)
+10 Review
+5 Combo (10.4)

Task total: 35
Grand total: 845

+50 - Halfway finisher for 20-point tasks

Grand total: 895

10.3 Shakespeare

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

The body count really racked up in this excellent Agatha Christie mystery. I loved the build up with the introduction to all of the characters and essentially a "locked room" mystery since the murders are all happening on a cruise boat. This was a great book to listen to as an audiobook because it allowed me to just go with the flow of the story without trying to really analyze the clues or figure out the "solution" in advance.

David Suchet, the narrator for this version of the audiobook, did a nice job of differentiating different characters. I understand that he's the voice of Hercule Poirot on TV, so listeners who have watched "Mystery" will be familiar with his accent/intonation. I found the Belgian accent a little bit distracting, but I understand that it's part of the character.

Now I need to have a movie marathon to watch the 1978 version and the 2022 version. I think both can be found on streaming services.

+10 Task
+10 Review
+5 Combo (20.10)
+10 Oldies (pub. 1937)

Task total: 35
Grand total: 810

20.5 Killer Angels

American War by Omar El Akkad

I wanted to like this book better than I actually did. I'm having a hard time identifying exactly what was wrong here--somehow the story just never felt believable enough. The book posits a near-future second civil war. This time, climate change has moved the coastlines and caused the US capital to move inland (to Columbus). And the South doesn't want to stop using fossil fuels, so decides to quit the Union.

I just never believed the fossil fuel vs. solar energy debate was enough to drive the new war. The book wants to use this as a stand-in for slavery, but skirts around and hardly touches any discussion of race at all. It wasn't clear to me if this was because the author is suggesting some sort of post-racial society or if it was a deliberate choice to leave it out.

Also, the story is basically the biography of a young girl who becomes radicalized and becomes a rabid pro-south insurrectionist/terrorist. Again, I never could quite believe her strength of feeling. I guess part of the point is that people find themselves fighting for causes they don't really understand, but it made the whole story feel pretty distant.

But despite never quite believing the story, the action was driving the book and I wanted to know what would happen next. I was fascinated by the idea of tribalism to the point of absurdity. One character late in the book sums it up: "In this part of the world, right and wrong ain't about who wins, or who kills who. In this part of the world, right and wrong ain't even about right and wrong. It's about what you do for your own."

In the end, I'm not sorry I read this one, but I'm not enthusiastically recommending it either.

+20 Task
+10 Review
+15 Combo (10.4, 20.6, 20.7)

Task total: 45
Grand total: 775