The rare book that actually lives up to the hype. A well-crafted story populated with fascinating characters. I feel a little silly for taking so longThe rare book that actually lives up to the hype. A well-crafted story populated with fascinating characters. I feel a little silly for taking so long to read it....more
A well-plotted, well-written story that draws you in immediately. I was particularly impressed by the author's skill at writing in the voice of an eldA well-plotted, well-written story that draws you in immediately. I was particularly impressed by the author's skill at writing in the voice of an elderly man in some sections. I've been recommending this book to anyone who will listen....more
Amusing, though not as good as Prep. Though I haven't read American Wife, judging from her first two books, Sittenfeld is the author version of a charAmusing, though not as good as Prep. Though I haven't read American Wife, judging from her first two books, Sittenfeld is the author version of a character actor: she seems to write variations on the same narrator over and over. If you enjoyed Prep, you will probably like this; if not, avoid....more
I found this book deeply frustrating. I got interested in it because it was initially self-published, and later picked up by William Morrow when it haI found this book deeply frustrating. I got interested in it because it was initially self-published, and later picked up by William Morrow when it had surprisingly good sales; and the story sounded like it could be pretty good to boot. Unfortunately, I was left with the feeling that the book received little or no editing after it was picked up by William Morrow -- and it showed. Some of the writing was good, but the author made choices that really rankled me as a reader (e.g. switching from first person extremely limited present tense to third person extremely omniscient past tense for the first time a third of the way through the book, with no prior indication that a switch would be coming), and there were quite a few mistakes that any good copyeditor should have caught with little trouble. In the end, I was too annoyed by the writing to enjoy the story, and I gave the book away to a yard sale rather than pass it on to anyone I know because I didn't think it was good enough to recommend....more
Part One is amazing. Well-written, great narrative voice, believable writing from a ten-year-old's point of view, and a promising start. UnfortunatelyPart One is amazing. Well-written, great narrative voice, believable writing from a ten-year-old's point of view, and a promising start. Unfortunately, Part Two takes up the bulk of the book, and while it's not terrible, it's just not as good as Part One: the narrators are less compelling, and at times the story feels more like it's meandering around trying to decide where to go than actually telling us anything important. As well, the author's choice to write some dialogue script-style and some in quotation marks got on my nerves a bit because it seemed completely arbitrary which sections of dialogue she chose to write in which style. Not as good as I had hoped it would be, but still worth picking up, if only for the first section....more
As a sociological commentary on issues of immigration and multiculturalism in contemporary Italian society, fascinating. As a novel, unfortunately, aAs a sociological commentary on issues of immigration and multiculturalism in contemporary Italian society, fascinating. As a novel, unfortunately, a flop. I wasn't invested enough in any of the characters to really care that much about what they had to say, or even what the answer to the central mystery would turn out to be. If I'd had to stop reading before I found out, I don't think I would have even bothered Googling it to see what the outcome was....more
Vanitas is the final book in S. P. Somtow's Vampire Junction/Timmy Valentine trilogy, and it's a great finale for the series (though Valentine, the seVanitas is the final book in S. P. Somtow's Vampire Junction/Timmy Valentine trilogy, and it's a great finale for the series (though Valentine, the second book, will always be my personal favourite).
If your idea of fun vampire fiction is the Twilight series... this is not the book for you. Vanitas (and the trilogy as a whole) is real horror fiction, and while S. P. Somtow's lyrical, poetic style never fails to move me, there are some truly graphic and gory scenes in this book. All of which are completely appropriate for the story Somtow is telling, but I consider myself a veteran horror fan, and there are still parts of this book that make me cringe.
That said, the history, psychology, philosophy and, yes, opera, that Somtow mixes into Vanitas and its predecessors make it so much more than just a bloody horror story. If you're a fan of thought-provoking fiction, I highly recommend picking up Vampire Junction, the first book in the series, and seeing what you think. If you can handle the horror elements, it's very much worth it to see the skewed mirror image of our world that Somtow paints so deftly in these novels....more
**spoiler alert** I liked Never Let Me Go, but I didn't love it. In some ways, it epitomizes for me a typical "non-genre" speculative fiction book --**spoiler alert** I liked Never Let Me Go, but I didn't love it. In some ways, it epitomizes for me a typical "non-genre" speculative fiction book -- i.e., spec-fic written by authors who wouldn't generally refer to themselves as speculative fiction (or fantasy/sci fi/horror/other genre) fiction authors. I found it thematically interesting, but ultimately, it didn't build its world quite to my satisfaction.
This came through to me particularly in this book, since it's very much an alternate universe novel, in which mid-20th-century history took a significantly different course than it did in our universe. And while I can see how the idea of that different time track could have inspired Ishiguro to want to explore it, and the characters who exist within it, I found it somewhat incomplete. There were too many questions that went unanswered, too many niggling details that felt like plot holes. For example: do carers interact with normal people on a daily basis? If so, why aren't they segregated, given the general attitude towards them? In the world that Ishiguro's built, wouldn't most normals be horrified at the thought of carers walking among them completely incognito, and rebel against that? Is this a system that's been devised just within Britain, or does the entire world make use of carers and donors? Is there anywhere that has a more (or less) humane system in place than Britain? Why are Kathy and other carers allowed to drive, when car accidents are a leading cause of death? Doesn't allowing to do that conflict with their primary purpose -- with the inevitability of all carers becoming donors?
Those are just a few of the questions that I never felt were satisfactorily answered in the course of the book; I could give more, but I don't want to get into spoiler territory.
I also felt unsatisfied with how information about their reality was related. I felt like Ishiguro held back certain pertinent details much longer than was really necessary, especially given that the narrator was writing from a present where she knew all the answers already, and so could have cleared up certain mysteries much earlier. The biggest thing that bothered me was that we didn't find out until the very end of the book what set Hailsham apart from other schools. That nagged at me throughout the entire novel, because it kept being alluded to that it was somehow better -- but it was never explicitly explained how, and I couldn't see any good reason for readers not to know by the time Kathy, Ruth and Tommy arrived at the Cottages. Since this isn't a mystery novel, I felt no reassurance that it would ever be adequately explained, so every time some mention was made of Hailsham being different or better than other places, I was drawn out of the story by wondering if Ishiguro would ever bother showing me how that was true, instead of just expecting me to take it on faith.
The mini-mystery about the Gallery didn't work much better for me. I had a pretty good guess what its purpose was early on in the book, so when the big reveal finally came it hit me more as a whimper than a bang. It felt a little too obvious to go the route Ishiguro chose.
And on a characterization level, Kathy never popped for me as a protagonist, especially a first person narrator protagonist. I never quite got to feeling like she was a round character -- she often felt more like a cipher through whom the story was being related than a believable, fully realized human being. It took me some time to get into the novel because I didn't feel any connection with her. I didn't like her, I didn't dislike her -- she happened to be the lens through which I was being shown this universe, but she rarely felt like anything more than that.
However, despite having quite a few issues with the novel, there were certain things I deeply enjoyed about it. The story hit its stride in parts two and three, when it became more linear; and even part one had some sections that really grabbed me. Ishiguro writes children masterfully. He's one of the few writers I've encountered who seems like he's got near-perfect recall of what it was like to be a child, and to think with a child's logic -- that way of thinking that seems utterly irrational to most adults, but is completely rational in a child's own mind. I never felt like I was reading about caricatures of children playing or interacting; their games and thought processes were entirely authentic.
And Never Let Me Go explores some fascinating themes: human nature; our capacity to divorce ourselves from thoughts -- and people -- who make us uncomfortable; our ability to dehumanize others when it's beneficial for us to do so; what makes a human being a person; different views on parenting; is art really a window into the soul, or at least the psyche; the deep-seated need many people have to understand our roots.
Never Let Me Go is a book with some fundamental flaws in structure and characterization. But the writing and the themes made up for that enough that I didn't find it a difficult read....more
A rare case of my liking the movie better than the novel. I did like the expansion of Roux's character; but I found Reynaud entirely boring as the vilA rare case of my liking the movie better than the novel. I did like the expansion of Roux's character; but I found Reynaud entirely boring as the villain.
One of the things I've always liked about the movie was that the mayor was the villain and the priest was actually an okay guy, because having the priest feel antagonistic towards Vianne and her non-Christian lifestyle would have felt way too obvious. While still an amusing enough read, the novel, unfortunately, went the way too obvious route with that, which I found disappointing.
Also, be warned: if you like chocolate, reading this book will make you crave it....more
I enjoyed this more than Chocolat, perhaps because I had nothing to compare it to. Harris' writing style is just as easy to read as chocolate, and thiI enjoyed this more than Chocolat, perhaps because I had nothing to compare it to. Harris' writing style is just as easy to read as chocolate, and this book is just as amusing a morsel (and just as likely to make your mouth water). However, I found it more nuanced and a bit less obvious than Chocolat.
Zozie is a much more satisfying villain than Chocolat's Reynaud ever was; and Anouk's sullen teenage resentment of (and at times, fierce love for) her mother and attraction to Zozie as a surrogate made for an enjoyable conflict. The story rolls along at a good pace, and switching between the three character voices of Anouk, Zozie and Vianne/Yanne from one chapter to the next works well for the most part. Anouk's voice is fairly unique, but there were places where Zozie and Vianne's became a bit interchangable. Keep an eye on the shifting image at the beginning of each chapter: it lets you know who's narrating, if you're ever uncertain.
If you've seen the movie of Chocolat, it's not necessary to read the book before picking up The Girl with No Shadow. The movie is close enough to the original story that you won't be lost as to who's who in the novel's sequel.
(NB: The original UK title for this book was The Lollipop Shoes.)...more
I'm not going to be jumping on the Stieg Larsson bandwagon anytime soon. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a quick enough read -- which I thought waI'm not going to be jumping on the Stieg Larsson bandwagon anytime soon. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a quick enough read -- which I thought was to its benefit, since the instances of sexual assault and violence against women got to be a bit much for me.
This is primarily because, quite frankly, I don't buy that Larsson was writing this to expose the horrors of violence against women to the world. To me, this book felt more exploitative than anything else. I wanted to like Lisbeth; I wanted to see her as the strong female protagonist I was obviously supposed to take her as. Instead, she felt like yet another impossible female ideal -- the model-beautiful, brilliant (albeit socially maladjusted) ice queen who carries out a revenge fantasy on the man who raped her. And while I did appreciate that she didn't just sit back and take what had been done to her, that she did get revenge... yet another unattainably gorgeous, unattainably ass-kicking ideal woman didn't seem like anything particularly unique to me. Watch any modern action movie (The Losers, Iron Man 2, Kick-Ass) and you'll find a gorgeous, ass-kicking woman who's virtually interchangeable with Lisbeth Salander. So as much as I wanted to adore her... she just made me weary. She was nothing I hadn't seen before.
What really killed the "feminist" slant of the book for me, however, was the fact that Blomqvist is so immediately and obviously an utter Mary Sue. He is Larsson's sex god fantasy, a man so irresistible that he beds virtually every major female character in the book without even trying: they come to him. They can't help themselves. Even Lisbeth herself, our ice queen, our woman of steel, our revenge fantasy on legs -- even she can't stop herself from falling into bed with him, much less falling in unrequited love with him. That never felt anything to me except gratuitously out of character.
Creating a novel full of beautiful women to sexually service an idealized version of yourself -- oh yes. Deeply feminist. Not at all reminiscent of unimaginative, stereotypical pornography. And in no way contributing to the view of women the world over as sex objects over and above any other qualities they may possess. Particularly since I know that book two starts with Lisbeth ruminating about how much her quality of life as improved since she had unnecessary surgery to stuff her chest full of silicone, I don't expect I'll be reading the rest of this series.
Honestly? If no one had ever claimed this series was pro-women, pro-feminist, I wouldn't be nearly as bothered. But that claim, all by itself, negated my ability to enjoy this book....more
**spoiler alert** Okay. I'm a big Stephen King fan. "It" is one of my favourite books, and I have yet to read anything by him that I deeply disliked.**spoiler alert** Okay. I'm a big Stephen King fan. "It" is one of my favourite books, and I have yet to read anything by him that I deeply disliked. I'll defend his writing to people who slag on him, because I do enjoy his style, and over and above that, I think he's a damn good storyteller. But based on Heart-Shaped Box, his son just might be better.
I really enjoyed this book. Joe Hill knows how to build characters, how to choose the right starting point for a story, how to keep the speed and trajectory of his plot running full-tilt, but not to such a degree that it gets more tiring than enjoyable. I did not want to put this book down -- but I bought a cheap paperback to possibly read in line for a Green Day concert earlier this week (which I didn't end up needing anyway, happily) because I knew I'd have Heart-Shaped Box stuck in a pocket or under my arm the whole show if I brought that, since I would not want to toss it before I went down to the pit. This is a book I'll read again, and until I pick up a hardcover copy, I'll be hanging onto my mass market. It's that good.
The story is a bit whirlwind, but it works. It's the way the story needs to be told. The writing is readable, lightly poetic in places, and not gimmicky. The characters are beautifully drawn. Georgia was a pleasant surprise, since I started out expecting her to be a caricature, the clingy-groupie-who's-overstepped-her-bounds cliche, and she was so much more, and better, than that. As were Anna, Reese, and Danny, in their own ways. Jessica and Craddock were disturbing (and, pre-ghost-state, disturbingly believable) villains. The significant secondary characters were all given just enough detail to feel like real people rather than cardboard cutouts. And I really, really liked Jude -- because sometimes I really, really didn't like Jude. He's flawed and human, and there were times when I wanted to smack him upside the head and tell him what an asshole he was being. He felt real. That's what I like best in a protagonist: I don't always have to like them. But I have to believe in them as a could-be-real person. Joe Hill creates that kind of character in Jude.
I also particularly enjoyed the mythology Hill built around ghosts in this story. It's a nice mix of classic ghost story tropes and his own twists on those, like the marks over their eyes, and why the explanation for why they need them. The scenes at the beginning where Craddock first appears were perfectly paced, and gave me shivers, just as a good ghost story should.
(SPOILERS in the next paragraph)
The ending was satisfying to me -- a little on the rosy side, but not to the point of being treacly, and I'd grown attached enough to the characters that I couldn't help liking that they got a little touch of happily ever after. And the touch of reality was a strong enough counterpoint to make the ending work.
I have no doubt I will read this book again in the future, and that I'll be reading more by Joe Hill....more
This was an interesting, and very quick, read. "Fishtailing" is written from the points of view of six different characters -- four high school studenThis was an interesting, and very quick, read. "Fishtailing" is written from the points of view of six different characters -- four high school students (two female, two male), an English teacher, and a guidance counselor -- and the story is told almost entirely in poetry, rather than prose, reminiscent of Ellen Hopkins' "Crank". I wasn't sure what quality of poetry to expect going in, but much of it was rather good, and the poems were all written in convincingly teenage voices.
I didn't find the characters as well-developed as they could be. Miguel had an interesting history, but a cliched end to his arc; Natalie was somewhat believable as a sociopath, but often slipped into a straight-up "bad girl" cliche; Tricia's transformation felt like it happened too quickly, and without enough motivation. Kyle's character growth felt more realistic to me, though, and Mrs. Farr, the English teacher, was frustratingly believable, while still borderline sympathetic. Janice Nishi, the counselor, felt more like another window through which to view the other five characters than a real person, but as a device, that worked for me.
On the whole, though, I'm willing to cut "Fishtailing" some slack based on its somewhat experimental style. There's a hell of a lot less space to develop round characters when you're expressing their personalities exclusively through short poems, rather than prose. Wendy Phillips does a pretty good job of building plot and characters through and unusual format....more
**spoiler alert** I didn't forget to give this book a star rating. It gets no stars. I enjoyed "Little Brother", and I hoped I would enjoy "For the Wi**spoiler alert** I didn't forget to give this book a star rating. It gets no stars. I enjoyed "Little Brother", and I hoped I would enjoy "For the Win" too. Unfortunately, I could barely finish part one.
"For the Win" isn't a novel: it's a soapbox. And I admit that it's a pet peeve of mine when fiction authors use their short stories or novels to hammer home an ideological point; but regardless of the fact that I basically agree with Cory Doctorow's politics, I found "For the Win" unbearably boring, and ultimately unreadable. I can only imagine what it must be like for readers who aren't part of the choir Doctorow is preaching to.
The characters aren't characters, they're caricatures. There's no real opportunity to get to know most of them, because the ones you believe to be the protagonists are not that at all: in part two, we get a whole new set of protagonists than those in part one, not all of whom were even peripheral characters in part one. And the part one protagonists aren't even fully drawn while they're being utilized. (SPOILERS follow.)
Matthew doesn't actually have a personality, he's just a vehicle for showing us how evil the big business he used to work for is.
Mala is a Mary-Sue in the style of Lisbeth Salander: a 14-year-old girl who spends most of her time gaming and only during the course of part one begins to live above the poverty line, who can nonetheless single-handedly kick the crap out of a large man who's repeatedly described as having "brutal strength", and who is intent on raping her. And she does it twice, no less. (Not that I don't wish things could go that way more often. But in a world that's supposedly just a slight variant on the real one... I just don't believe it. Having been an unathletic 14-year-old girl once, I know just how little physical strength they have.)
Wei-Dong is a whiny little rich boy who's all pissed off that his parents won't pay for him to drop out of school, stay home, and game all day. Poor baby. If you want the free ride, pay the damn dues, and if you choose to give it up, don't complain about it. I don't usually side with the parents in YA novels, but I had no sympathy for Wei-Dong. He didn't seem like a rebel to me, just an immature little boy who expected to be served up whatever life he wanted on the silver platter he'd grown up with, no questions asked.
On top of all that, the plot, such as it was, was interrupted every four or five chapters for Doctorow to give us his version of an economics lesson, not even pretending to couch it in story. The way I feel is, if you want to write a nonfiction book about economic theory, man, fine -- go to. If it's interesting, I'll read it. But don't pretend to write fiction and turn it into proselytizing. I don't like being preached at and told what to think, and attempts at indoctrination are just as insidious coming from you as from your opponents. Everyone who writes to preach thinks that their point of view is the correct one, and that anyone who disagrees with them just needs to be shown the light. Hiding behind a thin veneer of fiction is dishonest, and frankly, I think it's cowardly.
All this complaining can be summed up by saying I will never read another of Doctorow's "novels". Even if he wrote another one more in the style of Little Brother, For the Win rankled me just a bit too much. Propaganda bothers me, even coming from a quarter I tend to agree with....more
I read The Alcoholic straight through in a couple hours, primarily because once I started, I couldn't put it down. Ames has crafted a compelling semi-I read The Alcoholic straight through in a couple hours, primarily because once I started, I couldn't put it down. Ames has crafted a compelling semi-autobiographical narrative about Jonathan A., a middle-aged writer with a reasonably successful career, and a severely fucked up personal life. It's dark, funny, and oddly believable, even at the points where you find yourself saying "this part must be fiction". It's unsanitized yet unapologetic, as the best addiction stories often are, and Dean Haspiel's illustrations are the right mix of cartoonish and realistic to perfectly match the story. (I also think the cover design is fantastic. Such a great image.)
This is the first work I've read by Ames, and since I knew almost nothing about him, I spent a fair bit of time questioning which sections of the book were more autobiographical, and which were pure fiction. With some stories, that kind of thinking can be a frustrating distraction. But not with "The Alcoholic". The narrative stood up well enough on its own that I didn't ultimately care whether it was more fiction, or more autobiography: it was a good story that kept me engaged, so trying to guess which parts were pure fantasy became just part of the fun.
If you're looking for a well-written, non-speculative graphic novel (and can handle a little scatological humour), "The Alcoholic" is a good choice....more
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