Lacey's bookshelf: 2016-aty-reading-challenge en-US Fri, 25 Oct 2019 18:36:36 -0700 60 Lacey's bookshelf: 2016-aty-reading-challenge 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Nimona 23131088 The graphic novel debut from rising star Noelle Stevenson, based on her beloved and critically acclaimed web comic, which Slate awarded its Cartoonist Studio Prize, calling it "a deadpan epic."

Nemeses! Dragons! Science! Symbolism! All these and more await in this brilliantly subversive, sharply irreverent epic from Noelle Stevenson. Featuring an exclusive epilogue not seen in the web comic, along with bonus conceptual sketches and revised pages throughout, this gorgeous full-color graphic novel is perfect for the legions of fans of the web comic and is sure to win Noelle many new ones.

Nimona is an impulsive young shapeshifter with a knack for villainy. Lord Ballister Blackheart is a villain with a vendetta. As sidekick and supervillain, Nimona and Lord Blackheart are about to wreak some serious havoc. Their mission: prove to the kingdom that Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin and his buddies at the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics aren't the heroes everyone thinks they are.

But as small acts of mischief escalate into a vicious battle, Lord Blackheart realizes that Nimona's powers are as murky and mysterious as her past. And her unpredictable wild side might be more dangerous than he is willing to admit.]]> 266 N.D. Stevenson 0062278231 Lacey 4
This was a light read, but not shallow. It had just enough heart and smart cultural commentary to be substantive despite its sometimes breezy tone. The relationship between Blackheart and Nimona was super sweet, and any potential weirdness in the adult male/teenage girl dynamic evaporated when [spoilers removed] I also liked the shameless meshing of traditional fairy tale elements - kings, knights, market days - with modern communication like news alerts and video chats. And the question of who is really the villain in any given system is always worth examining - Blackheart had a sense of "honor" and a personal ethics that belied his moniker.

I would have liked to have known more about Nimona's actual backstory; the gist of it was there but the edges remained a little blurry. The ending felt a bit abrupt to me as well, although the epilogue took the edge off. ]]> 4.32 2015 Nimona
author: N.D. Stevenson
name: Lacey
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2016/10/23
date added: 2019/10/25
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, fantasy, graphicnovels, humor, youngadult, youngadultfantasy
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #38: A book about an anti-hero

This was a light read, but not shallow. It had just enough heart and smart cultural commentary to be substantive despite its sometimes breezy tone. The relationship between Blackheart and Nimona was super sweet, and any potential weirdness in the adult male/teenage girl dynamic evaporated when [spoilers removed] I also liked the shameless meshing of traditional fairy tale elements - kings, knights, market days - with modern communication like news alerts and video chats. And the question of who is really the villain in any given system is always worth examining - Blackheart had a sense of "honor" and a personal ethics that belied his moniker.

I would have liked to have known more about Nimona's actual backstory; the gist of it was there but the edges remained a little blurry. The ending felt a bit abrupt to me as well, although the epilogue took the edge off.
]]> <![CDATA[Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong--And What You Really Need to Know]]> 17780249 9 Emily Oster 1482916142 Lacey 4
I wasn't actually embarrassed to read this book in public, but I was reading it before I had announced that I was pregnant, so I was keeping the book secret.

Now that I'm no longer keeping a secret (and couldn't if I wanted to if you saw me IRL), I'm happy to talk about this book.

I am not an economist like Oster, but I very much related to her obsession with knowing exact numbers and exact reasons behind different pregnancy outcomes and advice. I've spent countless hours Googling (often in vain) for specific statistics and studies to back up general pregnancy/conception advice. Oster looks at a lot of these studies so you don't have to. I loved the tone of this book, which is empowering in that Oster believes women are capable of weighing the risks themselves and making their own decision rather than blindly following conventional wisdom.

Oster's overall takeaway is that women can be much more permissive during pregnancy than one might believe -- moderate drinking is OK, moderate caffeine is OK, invasive genetic testing is not really that dangerous. While she can back all this up and a lot of women will probably feel freed by her information, I still ended up following pretty much all of the "conventional" wisdom because I am so risk averse that even a small increase in the chances of something going wrong is more than I'm willing to take. But it is nice to know I don't need to stay up all night worrying if I give in to the craving for an occasional coffee or sip of beer. ]]> 4.15 2013 Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong--And What You Really Need to Know
author: Emily Oster
name: Lacey
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2017/01/08
date added: 2017/02/21
shelves: non-fiction, parenting, 2016-aty-reading-challenge
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge #TBD: A book you are embarrassed to read in public

I wasn't actually embarrassed to read this book in public, but I was reading it before I had announced that I was pregnant, so I was keeping the book secret.

Now that I'm no longer keeping a secret (and couldn't if I wanted to if you saw me IRL), I'm happy to talk about this book.

I am not an economist like Oster, but I very much related to her obsession with knowing exact numbers and exact reasons behind different pregnancy outcomes and advice. I've spent countless hours Googling (often in vain) for specific statistics and studies to back up general pregnancy/conception advice. Oster looks at a lot of these studies so you don't have to. I loved the tone of this book, which is empowering in that Oster believes women are capable of weighing the risks themselves and making their own decision rather than blindly following conventional wisdom.

Oster's overall takeaway is that women can be much more permissive during pregnancy than one might believe -- moderate drinking is OK, moderate caffeine is OK, invasive genetic testing is not really that dangerous. While she can back all this up and a lot of women will probably feel freed by her information, I still ended up following pretty much all of the "conventional" wisdom because I am so risk averse that even a small increase in the chances of something going wrong is more than I'm willing to take. But it is nice to know I don't need to stay up all night worrying if I give in to the craving for an occasional coffee or sip of beer.
]]> <![CDATA[The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale]]> 10545071
Hoping to trade London's damp alleyways for the warmth of ye olde Cheshire Cheese Inn, Skilley strikes a bargain with Pip, an erudite mouse. Skilley will protect the mice who live at the inn, and in turn, the mice will provide Skilley with the thing he desires most.

But when Skilley and Pip are drawn into a crisis of monumental proportions, their new friendship is pushed to its limits. The escalating crisis threatens the peace not only of the Cheshire Cheese Inn but the entire British Monarchy!

New York Times best-selling author Carmen Agra Deedy and coauthor Randall Wright collaborate on this compelling story set in Victorian England. With the artwork of award-winning illustrator Barry Moser, The Cheshire Cheese Cat is filled with charming characters and strong themes of friendship and loyalty.]]> 228 Carmen Agra Deedy 1561455954 Lacey 3
I probably would have enjoyed this book more when I was young and the idea of mice in the kitchen wouldn't have grossed me out so much. As an adult, the book was just okay -- it was cute enough, and the fictionalized account of Charles Dickens (which was the main reason I read the book) was fun, but other than that, not a whole lot about this book that sticks with me. ]]> 3.88 2011 The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale
author: Carmen Agra Deedy
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2016/11/22
date added: 2017/02/05
shelves: mp3-audiobook, animals, children-s, 2016-aty-reading-challenge, fantasy, historical-fiction, middle-grade
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #47: A Book with a Type of Food/Drink in the Title

I probably would have enjoyed this book more when I was young and the idea of mice in the kitchen wouldn't have grossed me out so much. As an adult, the book was just okay -- it was cute enough, and the fictionalized account of Charles Dickens (which was the main reason I read the book) was fun, but other than that, not a whole lot about this book that sticks with me.
]]> The Buddha in the Attic 10776810 Finalist for the 2011 National Book Award


Julie Otsuka’s long awaited follow-up to When the Emperor Was Divine (“To watch Emperor catching on with teachers and students in vast numbers is to grasp what must have happened at the outset for novels like Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird� �The New York Times) is a tour de force of economy and precision, a novel that tells the story of a group of young women brought over from Japan to San Francisco as ‘picture brides� nearly a century ago.

In eight incantatory sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces their extraordinary lives, from their arduous journey by boat, where they exchange photographs of their husbands, imagining uncertain futures in an unknown land; to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives; to their backbreaking work picking fruit in the fields and scrubbing the floors of white women; to their struggles to master a new language and a new culture; to their experiences in childbirth, and then as mothers, raising children who will ultimately reject their heritage and their history; to the deracinating arrival of war.

In language that has the force and the fury of poetry, Julie Otsuka has written a singularly spellbinding novel about the American dream.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 4 Julie Otsuka 030794073X Lacey 3 (literary fiction/historical fiction are not my favorite genres, but I had trouble finding a fantasy/sci-fi novella after I discovered the one I'd been planning to read all year was nowhere to be found)

The prose in this book is beautiful. In fact, I'd call it more of a prose poem than a novella. It is told from a collective "we" consciousness and goes through the experiences of Japanese women who immigrated to the United States as brides for working-class Japanese immigrants. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of life as a Japanese immigrant in the U.S., starting with the experience of coming over on the boat and following up through the Japanese internment during World War II. All important stories that in this book are told beautifully.

However, the book has no real plot, in that it doesn't follow any particular characters and the obstacles to be overcome are "collective" obstacles rather than individual. Because of that, even the lovely prose was not enough to hold my interest -- I found myself drifting off and needing to take breaks often. At a certain point it just begins to feel like a litany. Although the combination of all the stories throughout history is powerful in its own way, the prose may be better appreciated in smaller doses, perhaps one chapter a night rather than straight through over a couple days. ]]> 3.53 2011 The Buddha in the Attic
author: Julie Otsuka
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2016/11/16
date added: 2017/02/05
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, historical-fiction, literary-fiction, novella
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #40: A Novella from Your Favorite Genre
(literary fiction/historical fiction are not my favorite genres, but I had trouble finding a fantasy/sci-fi novella after I discovered the one I'd been planning to read all year was nowhere to be found)

The prose in this book is beautiful. In fact, I'd call it more of a prose poem than a novella. It is told from a collective "we" consciousness and goes through the experiences of Japanese women who immigrated to the United States as brides for working-class Japanese immigrants. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of life as a Japanese immigrant in the U.S., starting with the experience of coming over on the boat and following up through the Japanese internment during World War II. All important stories that in this book are told beautifully.

However, the book has no real plot, in that it doesn't follow any particular characters and the obstacles to be overcome are "collective" obstacles rather than individual. Because of that, even the lovely prose was not enough to hold my interest -- I found myself drifting off and needing to take breaks often. At a certain point it just begins to feel like a litany. Although the combination of all the stories throughout history is powerful in its own way, the prose may be better appreciated in smaller doses, perhaps one chapter a night rather than straight through over a couple days.
]]> <![CDATA[Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram]]> 551280
The American officer who discovered the diary soon after Dr. Tram’s death was under standing orders to destroy all documents without military value. As he was about to toss it into the flames, his Vietnamese translator said to him, “Don’t burn this one. . . . It has fire in it already.� Against regulations, the officer preserved the diary and kept it for thirty-five years. In the spring of 2005, a copy made its way to Dr. Tram’s elderly mother in Hanoi. The diary was soon published in Vietnam, causing a national sensation. Never before had there been such a vivid and personal account of the long ordeal that had consumed the nation’s previous generations.

Translated by Andrew X. Pham and with an introduction by Pulitzer Prize winner Frances FitzGerald, Last Night I Dreamed of Peace is an extraordinary document that narrates one woman’s personal and political struggles. Above all, it is a story of hope in the most dire of circumstances—told from the perspective of our historic enemy but universal in its power to celebrate and mourn the fragility of human life.]]> 256 Đặng Thùy Trâm 0307347370 Lacey 3
I feel a little strange reviewing this diary because it's not like Tram was ever planning for me to read it.

It seems incredibly important to have preserved a Vietnamese woman's perspective on the Vietnam war; so many of the "war diaries" that circulate and become well-known cover European conflicts and Western perspectives. With that said, I enjoyed this less than most published diaries I've read. It all felt a little too ephemeral to me -- part of it is that I did not have a lot of context about the Vietnam war, so I was muddling through the political details. But Tram's diary just doesn't give you a whole lot that is truly solid to hold on to. Most of it is her musing about her lost love, wondering why she has not been accepted by the Communist party when she embraces their ideals, platonically pining over the friends and associates she hasn't seen in a while or who have gone to fight in the war. It doesn't help that she refers to almost everyone as "my brother" in her diary, so it's pretty impossible to keep any of the characters straight. And the general *earnestness* of it all was a little grating to me; she was in the middle of a war, and yet she somehow maintained this voice throughout her journal that was mostly just "sweet" and did not convey the emotional impact one would expect from a war-time diary. Perhaps this was a cultural difference, but there was just something about this diary that felt "removed" to me, and I found it difficult to stay focused on this important perspective. ]]> 3.71 2005 Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram
author: Đặng Thùy Trâm
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2016/11/14
date added: 2017/02/03
shelves: mp3-audiobook, 2016-aty-reading-challenge, diaries, history, non-fiction
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge #41: A Book About a Major World Event

I feel a little strange reviewing this diary because it's not like Tram was ever planning for me to read it.

It seems incredibly important to have preserved a Vietnamese woman's perspective on the Vietnam war; so many of the "war diaries" that circulate and become well-known cover European conflicts and Western perspectives. With that said, I enjoyed this less than most published diaries I've read. It all felt a little too ephemeral to me -- part of it is that I did not have a lot of context about the Vietnam war, so I was muddling through the political details. But Tram's diary just doesn't give you a whole lot that is truly solid to hold on to. Most of it is her musing about her lost love, wondering why she has not been accepted by the Communist party when she embraces their ideals, platonically pining over the friends and associates she hasn't seen in a while or who have gone to fight in the war. It doesn't help that she refers to almost everyone as "my brother" in her diary, so it's pretty impossible to keep any of the characters straight. And the general *earnestness* of it all was a little grating to me; she was in the middle of a war, and yet she somehow maintained this voice throughout her journal that was mostly just "sweet" and did not convey the emotional impact one would expect from a war-time diary. Perhaps this was a cultural difference, but there was just something about this diary that felt "removed" to me, and I found it difficult to stay focused on this important perspective.
]]> <![CDATA[Conspiracy in Death (In Death, #8)]]> 2097993 12 J.D. Robb 1423314425 Lacey 4
It's a little hard to keep reviewing these books because so much of what I think of them holds true for the series in general -- I keep reading because I like J.D. Robb's characters and much of her dialogue, and as the series goes on the murders get less predictable as she seems to settle into this "new" genre. A few things I noticed about this book in particular:

1. I liked that the mystery in this one involved the medical field; I read all of these in order, anyway, but it's an extra treat when the themes are of interest to me outside of their role as a plot device;
2. Some of the stuff Eve Dallas did really annoyed me -- there are times when she is trying to come across as "tough cop" that she really just feels like a jerk, especially when she is dealing with those who are "down-on-their luck" like drug addicts and others who are desperate or impoverished. I don't know if this has always been an issue and I am just becoming more critical, or if it was especially bad in this book;
3. I liked how Eve's job security being called into question as part of the plot allowed for an opportunity to deepen her character and her sense of identity outside of being a cop.

The next book in this series is not available on audio at my library. Noooooooo! The audio of these are so good and are also how I first fell in love with the characters. I don't want to go all old-school just to progress the series. :/]]> 4.18 1999 Conspiracy in Death (In Death, #8)
author: J.D. Robb
name: Lacey
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2016/11/14
date added: 2017/02/03
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, mystery, romance, sciencefiction
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #29: A book by an author who writes under more than one name

It's a little hard to keep reviewing these books because so much of what I think of them holds true for the series in general -- I keep reading because I like J.D. Robb's characters and much of her dialogue, and as the series goes on the murders get less predictable as she seems to settle into this "new" genre. A few things I noticed about this book in particular:

1. I liked that the mystery in this one involved the medical field; I read all of these in order, anyway, but it's an extra treat when the themes are of interest to me outside of their role as a plot device;
2. Some of the stuff Eve Dallas did really annoyed me -- there are times when she is trying to come across as "tough cop" that she really just feels like a jerk, especially when she is dealing with those who are "down-on-their luck" like drug addicts and others who are desperate or impoverished. I don't know if this has always been an issue and I am just becoming more critical, or if it was especially bad in this book;
3. I liked how Eve's job security being called into question as part of the plot allowed for an opportunity to deepen her character and her sense of identity outside of being a cop.

The next book in this series is not available on audio at my library. Noooooooo! The audio of these are so good and are also how I first fell in love with the characters. I don't want to go all old-school just to progress the series. :/
]]> Grayling's Song 26312968 240 Karen Cushman 0544301633 Lacey 4
Karen Cushman's first foray into middle-grade fantasy is well-grounded in her skill as a writer of historical fiction. The world, where magic is real but somewhat erratic and unpredictable, feels believable and solid. (The author's note at the end detailing the origins of much of the "hedge magic" and "cures" that Grayling and her mother employ also deepened my appreciation of the world-building.) The characters are charming and unique, and Grayling's journey from an insecure, healf-hearted magic apprentice to a powerful witch in her own right is satisfying. The commentary on the often-fraught mother-daughter relationship is also poignant and age appropriate for younger readers while resonating with the ring of truth for older readers. A really beautiful fantasy tale for both children and adults.]]> 3.22 2016 Grayling's Song
author: Karen Cushman
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.22
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2016/10/29
date added: 2017/02/03
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, fantasy, middle-grade
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #52: A book published in 2016

Karen Cushman's first foray into middle-grade fantasy is well-grounded in her skill as a writer of historical fiction. The world, where magic is real but somewhat erratic and unpredictable, feels believable and solid. (The author's note at the end detailing the origins of much of the "hedge magic" and "cures" that Grayling and her mother employ also deepened my appreciation of the world-building.) The characters are charming and unique, and Grayling's journey from an insecure, healf-hearted magic apprentice to a powerful witch in her own right is satisfying. The commentary on the often-fraught mother-daughter relationship is also poignant and age appropriate for younger readers while resonating with the ring of truth for older readers. A really beautiful fantasy tale for both children and adults.
]]> The Grownup 26192526 Gillian Flynn’s Edgar Award-winning homage to the classic ghost story, published for the first time as a standalone.

A canny young woman is struggling to survive by perpetrating various levels of mostly harmless fraud. On a rainy April morning, she is reading auras at Spiritual Palms when Susan Burke walks in. A keen observer of human behavior, our unnamed narrator immediately diagnoses beautiful, rich Susan as an unhappy woman eager to give her lovely life a drama injection. However, when the psychic visits the eerie Victorian home that has been the source of Susan’s terror and grief, she realizes she may not have to pretend to believe in ghosts anymore. Miles, Susan’s teenage stepson, doesn’t help matters with his disturbing manner and grisly imagination. The three are soon locked in a chilling battle to discover where the evil truly lurks and what, if anything, can be done to escape it.

“The Grownup,� which originally appeared as “What Do You Do?� in George R. R. Martin’s Rogues anthology, proves once again that Gillian Flynn is one of the world’s most original and skilled voices in fiction.]]> 1 Gillian Flynn 0451484231 Lacey 3
Gah, I took so long to write this review that I hardly remember this little story anymore. I do remember that I somehow wanted MORE from it -- a bigger twist, more creepiness, more resolution. It was interesting, but I guess not interesting enough to stick with me!]]> 3.59 2014 The Grownup
author: Gillian Flynn
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2016/10/25
date added: 2017/02/03
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, horror, literary-fiction, paranormal, short-stories, thriller
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #51: A short story by a well-known author

Gah, I took so long to write this review that I hardly remember this little story anymore. I do remember that I somehow wanted MORE from it -- a bigger twist, more creepiness, more resolution. It was interesting, but I guess not interesting enough to stick with me!
]]> Panther 25664494
Lorsque la jeune Christine rentre de l'école, son père lui annonce que le vétérinaire a dû euthanasier Patchouli, son petit chat. Seule dans sa chambre bleue, elle pleure, peut-être aussi parce que sa mère qui a quitté la maison lui manque. Panthère, le prince héritier du royaume de Panthésia, jaillit tel un djinn du tiroir de la commode et emplit la pièce de toute sa majesté. Commence alors un étrange jeu de séduction entre le beau félin, dandy protéiforme, et sa proie.

Un «Calvin et Hobbes »au féminin, façon Brecht Evens, qui nous plonge dans un monde de l'enfance, troublant et dérangeant.]]> 120 Brecht Evens 1770462260 Lacey 4
Yes, this is a deeply unsettling book.

The artwork is garish and creepy, nightmare-like, really. There is far more going on than either the cluttered, overlapping images or the text will say. There are no easy answers, and ultimately I gave this book four stars instead of five because I was left with a few TOO MANY questions. [spoilers removed]

This is a book best read in the light of day, although that won't be enough to keep you from filling icky. There's just a better chance you'll be able to shake it off by bedtime. ]]> 4.14 2014 Panther
author: Brecht Evens
name: Lacey
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2016/10/25
date added: 2016/10/25
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, animals, horror, magical-realism, graphicnovels
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #50: A book originally written in a language other than English

Yes, this is a deeply unsettling book.

The artwork is garish and creepy, nightmare-like, really. There is far more going on than either the cluttered, overlapping images or the text will say. There are no easy answers, and ultimately I gave this book four stars instead of five because I was left with a few TOO MANY questions. [spoilers removed]

This is a book best read in the light of day, although that won't be enough to keep you from filling icky. There's just a better chance you'll be able to shake it off by bedtime.
]]> <![CDATA[Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #1)]]> 9460487 9781594744761

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow-impossible though it seems-they may still be alive. A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows.]]> 352 Ransom Riggs 1594744769 Lacey 4
This book has intrigued me since it first came across my desk when I was a teen services librarian -- I remember my intern taking it home the day it was processed and reading it all in one night. But I put off reading it until I could no longer put it off (my book club was reading it.)

So, why the resistance to a book that caught my attention right away? I was afraid that it would be "gimmicky," that the actual story would never live up to the stories promised in the creepy vintage photographs scattered throughout. Within the first few pages, I was pleased to find that I was wrong -- the prose is actually very good, and the storyline is strong enough to stand on its own. The photographs become a delightful perk, pushing the book into the realm of "experimental" or "mixed media" rather than the sole reason for the book's existence. There were times when the usage of photos felt a little incongruous -- places where they were used as "illustrations" without any explanation of why a photograph of that thing would exist were a little off-putting to me.

I liked the first half of this book better than the second. The beginning section is so atmospheric, with the descriptions of the bombed out, empty house, the rainy island, the creepy mummy in the tiny museum. Some people may find this slow to start, but I wanted the anticipation to go on and on. I liked the mystery more than its resolution.

The second half of the story doesn't take a nosedive or anything. It just gets a little jumbled, with a bunch of characters bursting into what has been mostly a solitary journey for Jacob, a somewhat questionable romance, some skewed parental interactions, and a lot of different plot points jammed together into a mostly coherent puzzle.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I have a feeling it will focus on the "peculiar" children and rush through the opening, which would be a shame. It also makes me somewhat less inclined to read the follow-up novels, since they'll probably more closely resemble the second half of the book than the first. I invite those who have read them to make a case for or against continuing the series!]]> 3.92 2011 Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #1)
author: Ransom Riggs
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2016/10/20
date added: 2016/10/25
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, historical-fiction, horror, magical-realism, paranormal, sciencefiction, youngadult
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #49: A Book with a Great Opening Line

This book has intrigued me since it first came across my desk when I was a teen services librarian -- I remember my intern taking it home the day it was processed and reading it all in one night. But I put off reading it until I could no longer put it off (my book club was reading it.)

So, why the resistance to a book that caught my attention right away? I was afraid that it would be "gimmicky," that the actual story would never live up to the stories promised in the creepy vintage photographs scattered throughout. Within the first few pages, I was pleased to find that I was wrong -- the prose is actually very good, and the storyline is strong enough to stand on its own. The photographs become a delightful perk, pushing the book into the realm of "experimental" or "mixed media" rather than the sole reason for the book's existence. There were times when the usage of photos felt a little incongruous -- places where they were used as "illustrations" without any explanation of why a photograph of that thing would exist were a little off-putting to me.

I liked the first half of this book better than the second. The beginning section is so atmospheric, with the descriptions of the bombed out, empty house, the rainy island, the creepy mummy in the tiny museum. Some people may find this slow to start, but I wanted the anticipation to go on and on. I liked the mystery more than its resolution.

The second half of the story doesn't take a nosedive or anything. It just gets a little jumbled, with a bunch of characters bursting into what has been mostly a solitary journey for Jacob, a somewhat questionable romance, some skewed parental interactions, and a lot of different plot points jammed together into a mostly coherent puzzle.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I have a feeling it will focus on the "peculiar" children and rush through the opening, which would be a shame. It also makes me somewhat less inclined to read the follow-up novels, since they'll probably more closely resemble the second half of the book than the first. I invite those who have read them to make a case for or against continuing the series!
]]> Cloud Atlas 49628
Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. . . .

Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter. . . . From there we jump to the West Coast in the 1970s and a troubled reporter named Luisa Rey, who stumbles upon a web of corporate greed and murder that threatens to claim her life. . . . And onward, with dazzling virtuosity, to an inglorious present-day England; to a Korean superstate of the near future where neocapitalism has run amok; and, finally, to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history.

But the story doesn't end even there. The narrative then boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, Mitchell reveals how his disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky.

As wild as a videogame, as mysterious as a Zen koan, Cloud Atlas is an unforgettable tour de force that, like its incomparable author, has transcended its cult classic status to become a worldwide phenomenon.]]> 509 David Mitchell 0375507256 Lacey 4
This is a good "fat book" for people who are intimidated by "fat books" -- because it is divided up into six different stories, it doesn't feel long. I think the book is best enjoyed by just letting yourself sink fully into whatever story you are currently in, rather than stressing out about how they all fit together. I liked the nods from one story to another and the overarching themes in the book. Of course, I liked some of the storylines more than others. I had trouble paying attention during the Luisa Rey storyline, probably because I don't particularly like "genre mystery," and I think I missed that story's significance to the whole.

The others, which range from historical fiction to dystopia and post-apocalyptic, all held my attention fairly well, although aside from Luisa Rey, Timothy Cavendish was my least favorite. The futuristic stories were my favorites.

Although each section has its own "voice," the book somehow manages to pull off a cohesive overall tone. There is no doubt that Mitchell is a masterful writer, although this book's experimental style isn't going to be for everyone. Although I enjoyed the ride the stories took me on in the first half of the book, I found the second half to be somewhat lackluster in comparison -- each story seemed to be building to another one that was even more compelling, so going through them again in reverse felt like something of a deflation. It was also disorienting, since I had kind of lost track of minor characters or plot points in the earlier stories by the time I returned to them.

I went to the movie when it first came out, and I liked it. But there is no doubt that the book delves much deeper into characters and themes, and ultimately weaves a richer tapestry. ]]> 4.02 2004 Cloud Atlas
author: David Mitchell
name: Lacey
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2016/10/12
date added: 2016/10/24
shelves: mp3-audiobook, 2016-aty-reading-challenge, apocalyptic-postapocalyptic, dystopia, historical-fiction, literary-fiction, sciencefiction
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #37: Read a Book You've Seen the Movie of but Haven't Read

This is a good "fat book" for people who are intimidated by "fat books" -- because it is divided up into six different stories, it doesn't feel long. I think the book is best enjoyed by just letting yourself sink fully into whatever story you are currently in, rather than stressing out about how they all fit together. I liked the nods from one story to another and the overarching themes in the book. Of course, I liked some of the storylines more than others. I had trouble paying attention during the Luisa Rey storyline, probably because I don't particularly like "genre mystery," and I think I missed that story's significance to the whole.

The others, which range from historical fiction to dystopia and post-apocalyptic, all held my attention fairly well, although aside from Luisa Rey, Timothy Cavendish was my least favorite. The futuristic stories were my favorites.

Although each section has its own "voice," the book somehow manages to pull off a cohesive overall tone. There is no doubt that Mitchell is a masterful writer, although this book's experimental style isn't going to be for everyone. Although I enjoyed the ride the stories took me on in the first half of the book, I found the second half to be somewhat lackluster in comparison -- each story seemed to be building to another one that was even more compelling, so going through them again in reverse felt like something of a deflation. It was also disorienting, since I had kind of lost track of minor characters or plot points in the earlier stories by the time I returned to them.

I went to the movie when it first came out, and I liked it. But there is no doubt that the book delves much deeper into characters and themes, and ultimately weaves a richer tapestry.
]]> <![CDATA[The Rosie Project (Don Tillman, #1)]]> 17571787
An international sensation, this hilarious, feel-good novel is narrated by an oddly charming and socially challenged genetics professor on an unusual quest: to find out if he is capable of true love.

Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a “wonderful� husband, his first reaction is shock. Yet he must concede to the statistical probability that there is someone for everyone, and he embarks upon The Wife Project. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which he approaches all things, Don sets out to find the perfect partner. She will be punctual and logical—most definitely not a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.

Yet Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also beguiling, fiery, intelligent—and on a quest of her own. She is looking for her biological father, a search that a certain DNA expert might be able to help her with. Don's Wife Project takes a back burner to the Father Project and an unlikely relationship blooms, forcing the scientifically minded geneticist to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie—and the realization that love is not always what looks good on paper.

The Rosie Project is a moving and hilarious novel for anyone who has ever tenaciously gone after life or love in the face of overwhelming challenges.]]> Graeme Simsion 1442363010 Lacey 5
After discussing some of the book's flaws with my book club last week, I realize I may have been a bit generous in awarding it the elusive five stars. But despite its weaknesses, while I was reading this book I did not want it to end -- this happens rarely even when I am enjoying a book, and that tends to be what bumps it into five-star territory.

While I agree that Rosie is a bit of a manic-pixie-dream-girl, and while I do think she's a bit on the self-centered side, and while I had such a hard time picturing her even though she WAS described, she didn't really get on my nerves or interfere with my enjoyment of the book. The most fun aspect of this book for me was Don's "voice" -- I loved the unusual way he saw the world and the various adventures and misunderstandings that arose from this. Not only is the book a sympathetic portrayal of someone who is on the autism spectrum, but it also underscores the ways that neurotypicals and those with different brain types are very much alike. All of us have certain ideas that we are unwilling to be flexible about, and all of us feel pretty clueless when it comes to understanding love.

Overall, this is a "feel-good" book that would make a delightful romantic comedy -- and this coming from someone who isn't a huge fan of romantic comedies. What I liked about this as a romance is that the misunderstandings and tensions that arise in Don and Rosie's relationships are not manufactured for the sake of plot -- instead, they arise naturally from the way that their minds work differently. Thus, it's not one of those books where all the tension would be dissipated if the characters would just TALK TO EACH OTHER ALREADY. Talking to each other, with their differing communication styles, is often part of the problem.

I like that Don's relationship with Rosie made him more "open" to new experiences and "flexible" in the way he lived his life, but I think the criticism that he was expected to change "too much" is valid. Rosie probably could have learned a thing or two about being organized and methodical, too!]]> 4.13 2013 The Rosie Project (Don Tillman, #1)
author: Graeme Simsion
name: Lacey
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2016/09/24
date added: 2016/10/09
shelves: humor, literary-fiction, romance, 2016-aty-reading-challenge
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #39: A book set in a place you'd like to visit

After discussing some of the book's flaws with my book club last week, I realize I may have been a bit generous in awarding it the elusive five stars. But despite its weaknesses, while I was reading this book I did not want it to end -- this happens rarely even when I am enjoying a book, and that tends to be what bumps it into five-star territory.

While I agree that Rosie is a bit of a manic-pixie-dream-girl, and while I do think she's a bit on the self-centered side, and while I had such a hard time picturing her even though she WAS described, she didn't really get on my nerves or interfere with my enjoyment of the book. The most fun aspect of this book for me was Don's "voice" -- I loved the unusual way he saw the world and the various adventures and misunderstandings that arose from this. Not only is the book a sympathetic portrayal of someone who is on the autism spectrum, but it also underscores the ways that neurotypicals and those with different brain types are very much alike. All of us have certain ideas that we are unwilling to be flexible about, and all of us feel pretty clueless when it comes to understanding love.

Overall, this is a "feel-good" book that would make a delightful romantic comedy -- and this coming from someone who isn't a huge fan of romantic comedies. What I liked about this as a romance is that the misunderstandings and tensions that arise in Don and Rosie's relationships are not manufactured for the sake of plot -- instead, they arise naturally from the way that their minds work differently. Thus, it's not one of those books where all the tension would be dissipated if the characters would just TALK TO EACH OTHER ALREADY. Talking to each other, with their differing communication styles, is often part of the problem.

I like that Don's relationship with Rosie made him more "open" to new experiences and "flexible" in the way he lived his life, but I think the criticism that he was expected to change "too much" is valid. Rosie probably could have learned a thing or two about being organized and methodical, too!
]]> <![CDATA[Midnight in Death (In Death, #7.5)]]> 129524
Eve's name has made a Christmas list, but it's not for being naughty or nice. It's for putting a serial killer behind bars. Now the escaped madman has her in his sights. With her husband, Roarke, at her side, Eve must stop the man from exacting his bloody vengeance - or die trying.]]> 90 J.D. Robb 0425208818 Lacey 3
This was pretty much what you'd come to expect in a J.D. Robb book, except shorter. There is no who-dun-it because Eve knows who the killer is -- an escaped convict that she put behind bars three years ago. The tension instead comes from the fact that Eve as well as a close friend are both on his "hit list" and she must find him before he kills the others on the list and without losing her own life.

The book was fine -- prose, pacing, plot pretty much on par with the full-length novels. I was annoyed that a book so short still had to waste pages on sex scenes that did nothing to advance plot or character, but mostly I rated this book three stars because it followed the J.D. Robb formula TOO well. I was hoping the shorter form might give her the opportunity to try something a little different, but this is just a miniature version of what she's been doing all along. ]]> 4.19 1998 Midnight in Death (In Death, #7.5)
author: J.D. Robb
name: Lacey
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1998
rating: 3
read at: 2016/10/03
date added: 2016/10/03
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, mystery, sciencefiction
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #24: A "Between-the-Numbers" book of a series

This was pretty much what you'd come to expect in a J.D. Robb book, except shorter. There is no who-dun-it because Eve knows who the killer is -- an escaped convict that she put behind bars three years ago. The tension instead comes from the fact that Eve as well as a close friend are both on his "hit list" and she must find him before he kills the others on the list and without losing her own life.

The book was fine -- prose, pacing, plot pretty much on par with the full-length novels. I was annoyed that a book so short still had to waste pages on sex scenes that did nothing to advance plot or character, but mostly I rated this book three stars because it followed the J.D. Robb formula TOO well. I was hoping the shorter form might give her the opportunity to try something a little different, but this is just a miniature version of what she's been doing all along.
]]> <![CDATA[Dilemma: A Priest's Struggle with Faith and Love]]> 8576182 336 Albert Cutié 0451232011 Lacey 3 2016-aty-reading-challenge
This feels like two different books smashed into one: the first half is something of a memoir of Cutie's experience in the priesthood, while the second half is essentially his rant about all the things that are wrong with the Catholic church, which he mostly attributes to the celibacy requirement for clergy.

This has a bit more of a "celebrity memoir" feel to it than I usually like, and the writing in the first half feels a little labored, clunky, and obligatory. I didn't realize that Cutie was such a public figure, so his need to tell "his" side of the story and his many references to how the media and those around him perceived him felt a little bit overly defensive to me. If you're looking for a love story, you will be disappointed -- he goes into very little detail about the relationship that was ultimately the last straw in his decision to leave the Catholic church, probably out of respect for his wife, whom he characterizes as a "private" and "shy" person.

The book picked up steam (and interest) for me after Cutie stopped acting as an apologist for why he remained in the Church for so long and instead dissects all that he sees to be wrong with it. There is nothing incredibly new here, although there are a few interesting insights, such as his belief that the Catholic church has been so silent in speaking out against dictatorial governments because it is itself a dictatorship. The idea that all of the Church's problems stem from the celibacy requirement is a bit of a stretch, but he makes a compelling argument for it nonetheless. I liked having the "insider look" behind the veil that is the Catholic hierarchy and appreciated that Cutie's role as an outsider allowed him greater than priests still within the system are afforded. I felt a bit uncomfortable with how Cutie seemed ready to give priests accused of sex abuse the "benefit of the doubt" as well as his conflation of homosexuality and predatory sexual preferences, even though he claims to be an ally to the GLBTQ community.

As a memoir it's a little stiff and wooden, and it's not the greatest treatise on the failings of the Catholic church. But I'm still glad to welcome Cutie among the chorus of dissenters calling for change in an institution that too often does more harm than good to its adherents. ]]> 3.66 2010 Dilemma: A Priest's Struggle with Faith and Love
author: Albert Cutié
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2016/09/17
date added: 2016/09/25
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #25: A Book Whose Main Character is in a Profession that Interests You

This feels like two different books smashed into one: the first half is something of a memoir of Cutie's experience in the priesthood, while the second half is essentially his rant about all the things that are wrong with the Catholic church, which he mostly attributes to the celibacy requirement for clergy.

This has a bit more of a "celebrity memoir" feel to it than I usually like, and the writing in the first half feels a little labored, clunky, and obligatory. I didn't realize that Cutie was such a public figure, so his need to tell "his" side of the story and his many references to how the media and those around him perceived him felt a little bit overly defensive to me. If you're looking for a love story, you will be disappointed -- he goes into very little detail about the relationship that was ultimately the last straw in his decision to leave the Catholic church, probably out of respect for his wife, whom he characterizes as a "private" and "shy" person.

The book picked up steam (and interest) for me after Cutie stopped acting as an apologist for why he remained in the Church for so long and instead dissects all that he sees to be wrong with it. There is nothing incredibly new here, although there are a few interesting insights, such as his belief that the Catholic church has been so silent in speaking out against dictatorial governments because it is itself a dictatorship. The idea that all of the Church's problems stem from the celibacy requirement is a bit of a stretch, but he makes a compelling argument for it nonetheless. I liked having the "insider look" behind the veil that is the Catholic hierarchy and appreciated that Cutie's role as an outsider allowed him greater than priests still within the system are afforded. I felt a bit uncomfortable with how Cutie seemed ready to give priests accused of sex abuse the "benefit of the doubt" as well as his conflation of homosexuality and predatory sexual preferences, even though he claims to be an ally to the GLBTQ community.

As a memoir it's a little stiff and wooden, and it's not the greatest treatise on the failings of the Catholic church. But I'm still glad to welcome Cutie among the chorus of dissenters calling for change in an institution that too often does more harm than good to its adherents.
]]> Every Last Word 23341894 If you could read my mind, you wouldn't be smiling.

Samantha McAllister looks just like the rest of the popular girls in her junior class. But hidden beneath the straightened hair and expertly applied makeup is a secret that her friends would never understand: Sam has Purely-Obsessional OCD and is consumed by a stream of dark thoughts and worries that she can't turn off.

Second-guessing every move, thought, and word makes daily life a struggle, and it doesn't help that her lifelong friends will turn toxic at the first sign of a wrong outfit, wrong lunch, or wrong crush. Yet Sam knows she'd be truly crazy to leave the protection of the most popular girls in school. So when Sam meets Caroline, she has to keep her new friend with a refreshing sense of humor and no style a secret, right up there with Sam's weekly visits to her psychiatrist.

Caroline introduces Sam to Poet's Corner, a hidden room and a tight-knit group of misfits who have been ignored by the school at large. Sam is drawn to them immediately, especially a guitar-playing guy with a talent for verse, and starts to discover a whole new side of herself. Slowly, she begins to feel more "normal" than she ever has as part of the popular crowd . . . until she finds a new reason to question her sanity and all she holds dear.]]> 358 Tamara Ireland Stone 1484705270 Lacey 4
This is one of the better YA books I've read this year. Samantha's voice feels believable and does not reduce her to her mental illness, which is OCD with a focus on obsessive thoughts. Although Sam keeps her OCD secret from her friends and crush, and this provides some of the tension, it's reassuring to know that her family and her therapist are in on her struggles and are there to support her, so the OCD never feels overwhelming and Samantha's predicaments never veer toward despair.

The story thread about Samantha dealing with her group of friends, "mean girls" who often prey on her insecurities and make the idea of coming out about her OCD unthinkable, is well handled. Although we don't get to know all the girls in the group in depth, and some of them are basically just names, Stone does a good job of showing that they are more than their place in the hierarchy, and she intersperses happy memories and a long history together that makes it easy to see why Sam can't easily just break away from them. From her association with them, she has access to a privileged place on the school's social strata, and this serves as "golden handcuffs" that traps her.

Woven alongside this story is one about Samantha discovering a new group of friends, poets who secretly meet to share their work twice a week. This is how she finds the strength to begin leaving her toxic friendships behind, and she also finds a way to give voice to what it feels like to live with OCD. She has a crush on one of the boys in the group, and for me this book's main drawback was the amount of time it spent on teen lovey-dovey stuff, although at least the object of Sam's affection feels like an individual and is not "perfect" (he's a stutterer, has his own insecurities, can't swim, etc.) I sort of secretly wanted this to be a lesbian story since Samantha and Caroline had such great chemistry, but I liked the ultimate explanation for why they "clicked," too. I also really loved the book's themes about the healing power of writing, the idea that those who have mental illness derive certain blessings from their condition and the sensitive way it handled Samantha's reliance on escapism.

A good read, overall, and one that delivers more than it promises. ]]> 4.21 2015 Every Last Word
author: Tamara Ireland Stone
name: Lacey
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2016/09/14
date added: 2016/09/25
shelves: mp3-audiobook, 2016-aty-reading-challenge, youngadult
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #34: A book about mental illness

This is one of the better YA books I've read this year. Samantha's voice feels believable and does not reduce her to her mental illness, which is OCD with a focus on obsessive thoughts. Although Sam keeps her OCD secret from her friends and crush, and this provides some of the tension, it's reassuring to know that her family and her therapist are in on her struggles and are there to support her, so the OCD never feels overwhelming and Samantha's predicaments never veer toward despair.

The story thread about Samantha dealing with her group of friends, "mean girls" who often prey on her insecurities and make the idea of coming out about her OCD unthinkable, is well handled. Although we don't get to know all the girls in the group in depth, and some of them are basically just names, Stone does a good job of showing that they are more than their place in the hierarchy, and she intersperses happy memories and a long history together that makes it easy to see why Sam can't easily just break away from them. From her association with them, she has access to a privileged place on the school's social strata, and this serves as "golden handcuffs" that traps her.

Woven alongside this story is one about Samantha discovering a new group of friends, poets who secretly meet to share their work twice a week. This is how she finds the strength to begin leaving her toxic friendships behind, and she also finds a way to give voice to what it feels like to live with OCD. She has a crush on one of the boys in the group, and for me this book's main drawback was the amount of time it spent on teen lovey-dovey stuff, although at least the object of Sam's affection feels like an individual and is not "perfect" (he's a stutterer, has his own insecurities, can't swim, etc.) I sort of secretly wanted this to be a lesbian story since Samantha and Caroline had such great chemistry, but I liked the ultimate explanation for why they "clicked," too. I also really loved the book's themes about the healing power of writing, the idea that those who have mental illness derive certain blessings from their condition and the sensitive way it handled Samantha's reliance on escapism.

A good read, overall, and one that delivers more than it promises.
]]> <![CDATA[Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life]]> 357464 Writing Down The Bones, teaches a methodof writing that can take you beyond craft to thetrue source of creative power: The mind that is"raw, full of energy, alive andhungry."



Here is compassionate, practical, and oftenhumorous advice about how to find time to write,how to discover your personal style, how to makesentences come alive, and how to overcomeprocrastination and writer's block -- including more thanthirty provocative "Try this" exercises toget your pen moving.



And here alsois a larger vision of the writer's task:balancing daily responsibilities with a commitment towriting; knowing when to take risks as a writer and ahuman being; coming to terms with success andfailure and loss; and learning self-acceptance -- bothin life and art.



¾ѾԻ will change your way of writing. Itmay also change your life.]]> 238 Natalie Goldberg 0553347756 Lacey 4
The philosophy behind this book is pretty much the same as that powering Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, but I found this book to be a lot more enjoyable. Goldberg's tone is a bit less pretentious and her advice, overall, feels more grounded and less self-involved. The writing prompts vary from the whimsical to the thoughtful to the practical, and I felt a little smug to see her recommending several practices that I already incorporate. The book is full of analogies to the writing life to make it seem a little less mystical, and it includes a healthy dose of author humility. While less exuberant than "Bones," the advice in this book is both inspiring and sustainable.

A couple things did bug me about the book. I felt that Goldberg included far more examples of her own writing than were needed to convey the sense of what she was advising; these felt self-indulgent. I also can't help notice that in many of these, "free yourself and write" advice books, the authors do not have traditional employment -- either they are supporting themselves with their writing, or they have some mysterious source of income squirreled away somewhere, and the advice about letting writing permeate every part of your life can feel unattainable when you are squeezing it in around the rest of your life. Goldberg does address this in several places, but there's a sense that she doesn't feel it down in her bones when she writes about quitting her one-day-a-week paid gig because it interferes with her writing mojo. Yup, jobs are hella inconvenient. ]]> 4.13 1990 Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life
author: Natalie Goldberg
name: Lacey
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at: 2016/09/06
date added: 2016/09/19
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, essays, non-fiction, writing
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #21: A book from the ŷ recommendations page

The philosophy behind this book is pretty much the same as that powering Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, but I found this book to be a lot more enjoyable. Goldberg's tone is a bit less pretentious and her advice, overall, feels more grounded and less self-involved. The writing prompts vary from the whimsical to the thoughtful to the practical, and I felt a little smug to see her recommending several practices that I already incorporate. The book is full of analogies to the writing life to make it seem a little less mystical, and it includes a healthy dose of author humility. While less exuberant than "Bones," the advice in this book is both inspiring and sustainable.

A couple things did bug me about the book. I felt that Goldberg included far more examples of her own writing than were needed to convey the sense of what she was advising; these felt self-indulgent. I also can't help notice that in many of these, "free yourself and write" advice books, the authors do not have traditional employment -- either they are supporting themselves with their writing, or they have some mysterious source of income squirreled away somewhere, and the advice about letting writing permeate every part of your life can feel unattainable when you are squeezing it in around the rest of your life. Goldberg does address this in several places, but there's a sense that she doesn't feel it down in her bones when she writes about quitting her one-day-a-week paid gig because it interferes with her writing mojo. Yup, jobs are hella inconvenient.
]]> <![CDATA[Dark Night: A True Batman Story]]> 30357924 131 Paul Dini 1401269516 Lacey 4
I am only a casual fan of Batman, but the credit for any of the fandom I have for the series goes back to Batman: The Animated Series from the nineties, which I still consider to be the best incarnation of Batman yet. So I was excited to read this graphic novel (memoir) about one of the original writers for the series, and his relationship with the Batman of his imagination.

I enjoyed this book, although it wasn't quite as phenomenal as I hoped it would be. I really liked getting a peek "behind the scenes" on the writing of the animated series, as well as the movie "Mask of the Phantasm," which Dini was working on when the attack depicted in this book takes place. I also liked the reflection on how fictional characters can become real to us, to the extent that they can actually influence our attitude and the outcome of our lives, as well as the look at how the life of the imagination can be disrupted, spoiled, and rebuilt after tragedy.

The art is appropriately gritty, dark, and realistic, although I felt that the female characters were more sexualized than was necessary. I also didn't particularly like the "framing" mechanism of having Dini "tell" the story to some unknown audience -- it seemed like a gimmick without there ever being a reveal on who his "listener" was, besides the reader.

Still, if you like graphic memoirs or comic books, I think this one brings something truly new to both genres. ]]> 4.12 2016 Dark Night: A True Batman Story
author: Paul Dini
name: Lacey
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2016/08/29
date added: 2016/09/18
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, graphicnovels, memoir, non-fiction
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #46: A Crime Story

I am only a casual fan of Batman, but the credit for any of the fandom I have for the series goes back to Batman: The Animated Series from the nineties, which I still consider to be the best incarnation of Batman yet. So I was excited to read this graphic novel (memoir) about one of the original writers for the series, and his relationship with the Batman of his imagination.

I enjoyed this book, although it wasn't quite as phenomenal as I hoped it would be. I really liked getting a peek "behind the scenes" on the writing of the animated series, as well as the movie "Mask of the Phantasm," which Dini was working on when the attack depicted in this book takes place. I also liked the reflection on how fictional characters can become real to us, to the extent that they can actually influence our attitude and the outcome of our lives, as well as the look at how the life of the imagination can be disrupted, spoiled, and rebuilt after tragedy.

The art is appropriately gritty, dark, and realistic, although I felt that the female characters were more sexualized than was necessary. I also didn't particularly like the "framing" mechanism of having Dini "tell" the story to some unknown audience -- it seemed like a gimmick without there ever being a reveal on who his "listener" was, besides the reader.

Still, if you like graphic memoirs or comic books, I think this one brings something truly new to both genres.
]]> <![CDATA[Sleeping Giants (Themis Files, #1)]]> 29958309 A girl named Rose is riding her new bike near her home in Deadwood, South Dakota, when she falls through the earth. She wakes up at the bottom of a square hole, its walls glowing with intricate carvings. But the firemen who come to save her peer down upon something even stranger: a little girl in the palm of a giant metal hand.
Seventeen years later, the mystery of the bizarre artifact remains unsolved - its origins, architects, and purpose unknown. Its carbon dating defies belief; military reports are redacted; theories are floated, then rejected.
But some can never stop searching for answers.
Rose Franklin is now a highly trained physicist leading a top-secret team to crack the hand's code. And along with her colleagues, she is being interviewed by a nameless interrogator whose power and purview are as enigmatic as the provenance of relic. What's clear is that Rose and her compatriots are on the edge of unraveling history's most perplexing discovery - and figuring out what it portends for humanity. But once the pieces of the puzzle are in place, will the result prove to be an instrument of lasting peace or a weapon of mass destruction?]]> 9 Sylvain Neuvel Lacey 4
I usually don't explicitly review audiobook performances even though I listen to tons of audiobooks -- if something stands out, I'll mention it, but I focus my reviews on the things I would have noticed regardless of the medium.

I'm making an exception this time because this audiobook is *so damn good.* This is one of the rare cases where I'm honestly not sure I would have liked the book as much as I did if I read it the old-fashioned way.

The book is set up as a collection of "files" -- interviews, transcripts, diary entries, etc. -- surrounding research on a giant, ancient robot whose pieces are scattered throughout the world. I usually like this "self-aware" storytelling style, wherein the characters are aware that they are writing, being recorded, etc., as they tell their story. What this means in the audio version, however, is that each character is played by a different reader. And the readers, with their accents, quirks of inflection, rate of speaking, etc., all feel like real people, making this somewhat fantastical book ALSO feel as if maybe it *could* really happen. It's a totally immersive experience -- the kind that leaves you walking around in your normal life with your brain still living somewhere back in "book world." It's been a long time since I read a book that seeped so deeply into my subconscious, and that I wanted to sink into as much as I did this one. Perhaps I would have had the same experience if I had read it -- the book could not have done as well as it did if it were only audiobook listeners who liked it -- but I still think audio is definitely the way to go on this one.

So, why only four stars with all that gushing? One nitpicky thing is that this book does what a lot of "documentary," "epistolary," or "diary" books do -- there are places where it strains credibility that the characters would actually go into such detail when talking/writing about certain things, and you know the only reason the author did it is because he wants to reader to have that information, and his chosen medium has constrained the way that it can be delivered. There was only one place in here that I really noticed this, but it was big enough to jar me out of the story for a little bit.

Also, this isn't the type of sci-fi that I generally go for. I'm not a big fan of "giant robot" stories, and this one has a lot of military overtones, which is something else that is a turn-off for me in science fiction. And I kept feeling like there should be a bigger reveal at some point, like we were perhaps building up to something that never actually happened (although the epilogue was pretty cool.) So, I think it was not the story itself that captivated me, but rather its execution. This isn't the best story out there, but its execution is brilliant. And its audio adaptation is even brilliant-er.]]> 3.90 2016 Sleeping Giants (Themis Files, #1)
author: Sylvain Neuvel
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2016/08/18
date added: 2016/08/25
shelves: mp3-audiobook, 2016-aty-reading-challenge, paranormal, sciencefiction
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #26: A Book Everyone is Talking About

I usually don't explicitly review audiobook performances even though I listen to tons of audiobooks -- if something stands out, I'll mention it, but I focus my reviews on the things I would have noticed regardless of the medium.

I'm making an exception this time because this audiobook is *so damn good.* This is one of the rare cases where I'm honestly not sure I would have liked the book as much as I did if I read it the old-fashioned way.

The book is set up as a collection of "files" -- interviews, transcripts, diary entries, etc. -- surrounding research on a giant, ancient robot whose pieces are scattered throughout the world. I usually like this "self-aware" storytelling style, wherein the characters are aware that they are writing, being recorded, etc., as they tell their story. What this means in the audio version, however, is that each character is played by a different reader. And the readers, with their accents, quirks of inflection, rate of speaking, etc., all feel like real people, making this somewhat fantastical book ALSO feel as if maybe it *could* really happen. It's a totally immersive experience -- the kind that leaves you walking around in your normal life with your brain still living somewhere back in "book world." It's been a long time since I read a book that seeped so deeply into my subconscious, and that I wanted to sink into as much as I did this one. Perhaps I would have had the same experience if I had read it -- the book could not have done as well as it did if it were only audiobook listeners who liked it -- but I still think audio is definitely the way to go on this one.

So, why only four stars with all that gushing? One nitpicky thing is that this book does what a lot of "documentary," "epistolary," or "diary" books do -- there are places where it strains credibility that the characters would actually go into such detail when talking/writing about certain things, and you know the only reason the author did it is because he wants to reader to have that information, and his chosen medium has constrained the way that it can be delivered. There was only one place in here that I really noticed this, but it was big enough to jar me out of the story for a little bit.

Also, this isn't the type of sci-fi that I generally go for. I'm not a big fan of "giant robot" stories, and this one has a lot of military overtones, which is something else that is a turn-off for me in science fiction. And I kept feeling like there should be a bigger reveal at some point, like we were perhaps building up to something that never actually happened (although the epilogue was pretty cool.) So, I think it was not the story itself that captivated me, but rather its execution. This isn't the best story out there, but its execution is brilliant. And its audio adaptation is even brilliant-er.
]]> The Girl on the Train 22557272
An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.]]> 336 Paula Hawkins 1594633665 Lacey 3
I probably would have given this book four stars if it hadn't been for all the hype.

It wasn't a bad book; it held my interest all the way through, which is something many three-star books do not do. I found Rachel to be sympathetic despite her flaws, and I liked the narrative choice to tell the story from the perspectives of three women whose lives were only tenuously connected to one another. All three women were fairly well developed, although the male characters remained fairly one-dimensional throughout.

Perhaps what really ruined this book for me were the rampant comparisons to Gone Girl. While both books deal with unreliable narrators and troubled marriages, this one does not have near the psychological dexterity or astuteness of "Gone Girl." It resorts far too often to plot devices that seem merely convenient -- such as Rachel's blackouts, or the vagueness of Megan's interactions with [spoilers removed] Whereas in Gone Girl each piece felt meticulously fitted together, in this book I got the feeling that the author was making it up as she went along, so that when the killer was finally revealed, it didn't feel so much like a revelation as like the author looked at what she had written and decided, "Eh, I guess I can make this work."

The book's small cast of characters makes it feel claustrophobic, which is actually a point in its favor as it heightens the sense that danger is near and inescapable. I'm not quite sure what to make about some of its themes, though. While, on the one hand, I really liked [spoilers removed], I was a little uncomfortable with the way the book seemed almost obsessed with babies and motherhood, from [spoilers removed] While I understand that motherhood or the desire for motherhood can be a compelling motivator for women, this book made it feel like motherhood was the defining feature of being a woman.

In the end, this book is interesting because it's a bit of a small-casted soap opera with a murder thrown in, and not because it has something particularly substantial to say or a twist that you never saw coming. And I can't help but think less of the book because it puts on airs of accomplishing both those things. ]]> 3.97 2015 The Girl on the Train
author: Paula Hawkins
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2016/08/09
date added: 2016/08/24
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, infertility, literary-fiction, thriller
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #3: A Winner of the ŷ Reader's Choice Awards

I probably would have given this book four stars if it hadn't been for all the hype.

It wasn't a bad book; it held my interest all the way through, which is something many three-star books do not do. I found Rachel to be sympathetic despite her flaws, and I liked the narrative choice to tell the story from the perspectives of three women whose lives were only tenuously connected to one another. All three women were fairly well developed, although the male characters remained fairly one-dimensional throughout.

Perhaps what really ruined this book for me were the rampant comparisons to Gone Girl. While both books deal with unreliable narrators and troubled marriages, this one does not have near the psychological dexterity or astuteness of "Gone Girl." It resorts far too often to plot devices that seem merely convenient -- such as Rachel's blackouts, or the vagueness of Megan's interactions with [spoilers removed] Whereas in Gone Girl each piece felt meticulously fitted together, in this book I got the feeling that the author was making it up as she went along, so that when the killer was finally revealed, it didn't feel so much like a revelation as like the author looked at what she had written and decided, "Eh, I guess I can make this work."

The book's small cast of characters makes it feel claustrophobic, which is actually a point in its favor as it heightens the sense that danger is near and inescapable. I'm not quite sure what to make about some of its themes, though. While, on the one hand, I really liked [spoilers removed], I was a little uncomfortable with the way the book seemed almost obsessed with babies and motherhood, from [spoilers removed] While I understand that motherhood or the desire for motherhood can be a compelling motivator for women, this book made it feel like motherhood was the defining feature of being a woman.

In the end, this book is interesting because it's a bit of a small-casted soap opera with a murder thrown in, and not because it has something particularly substantial to say or a twist that you never saw coming. And I can't help but think less of the book because it puts on airs of accomplishing both those things.
]]> Egg & Spoon 20708810 In this tour de force, master storyteller Gregory Maguire offers a dazzling novel for fantasy lovers of all ages.

Elena Rudina lives in the impoverished Russian countryside. Her father has been dead for years. One of her brothers has been conscripted into the Tsar’s army, the other taken as a servant in the house of the local landowner. Her mother is dying, slowly, in their tiny cabin. And there is no food. But then a train arrives in the village, a train carrying untold wealth, a cornucopia of food, and a noble family destined to visit the Tsar in Saint Petersburg � a family that includes Ekaterina, a girl of Elena’s age. When the two girls� lives collide, an adventure is set in motion, an escapade that includes mistaken identity, a monk locked in a tower, a prince traveling incognito, and � in a starring role only Gregory Maguire could have conjured � Baba Yaga, witch of Russian folklore, in her ambulatory house perched on chicken legs.]]> 475 Gregory Maguire 0763672203 Lacey 3
I have lots of TBR lists; this one came from my MP3 audiobooks list. I got lucky as this was an audiobook I was really looking forward to listening to!

Unfortunately, I struggled to maintain interest. Gregory Maguire is a good writer and I am often interested in his themes and the subjects he writes about. But I just didn't care for the tone of this book. It is narrated by an elderly monk who plays only a small part in the plot, and the adult narration in a middle-grade book made the whole thing feel distant. The narrator's commentary on the girls' situations was also a little off-putting.

This book really feels like two different books. The first half is a sort of "prince and the pauper" story, as two girls who look alike accidentally end up switching places. The culmination of this plot thread comes slightly after the halfway point, and the book feels like it should be over then. But it is followed by a second set of adventures, this one involving both girls, Baba Yaga, and a hunt for a magical creature. Although objectively I liked the second half of the book better, by that point I was also getting impatient for the finish line and it started to feel long.

I did like the way Maguire envisioned Baba Yaga, who was a surprisingly complex and endearing character, and funny as well. Part of this book's problem is that it takes so long for her to come into the story, and I think less dedicated (read: stubborn) readers may have given up by then. The story seems to be a bit of a commentary on Russian mythology and Russian sensibilities, but I did not know enough about the source material to appreciate that part of the story, and I don't think most young readers would, either. It also seems to be grappling with the issue of global warming, which seems an odd choice for a fantasy/historical fiction set in tsarist Russia.

There was one plot thread that seemed to be totally dropped, which annoyed me. Unfortunately, it's possible that I just missed its resolution when my mind wandered, and I didn't have the patience to go back looking for it.

Not Maguire's best work, IMO, but perhaps fun for Russian folktale enthusiasts or fans of Baba Yaga. ]]> 3.63 2014 Egg & Spoon
author: Gregory Maguire
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2016/08/10
date added: 2016/08/24
shelves: mp3-audiobook, 2016-aty-reading-challenge, fairy-tales, fantasy, historical-fiction, middle-grade, youngadult, youngadultfantasy
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #33: the 16th book on your TBR

I have lots of TBR lists; this one came from my MP3 audiobooks list. I got lucky as this was an audiobook I was really looking forward to listening to!

Unfortunately, I struggled to maintain interest. Gregory Maguire is a good writer and I am often interested in his themes and the subjects he writes about. But I just didn't care for the tone of this book. It is narrated by an elderly monk who plays only a small part in the plot, and the adult narration in a middle-grade book made the whole thing feel distant. The narrator's commentary on the girls' situations was also a little off-putting.

This book really feels like two different books. The first half is a sort of "prince and the pauper" story, as two girls who look alike accidentally end up switching places. The culmination of this plot thread comes slightly after the halfway point, and the book feels like it should be over then. But it is followed by a second set of adventures, this one involving both girls, Baba Yaga, and a hunt for a magical creature. Although objectively I liked the second half of the book better, by that point I was also getting impatient for the finish line and it started to feel long.

I did like the way Maguire envisioned Baba Yaga, who was a surprisingly complex and endearing character, and funny as well. Part of this book's problem is that it takes so long for her to come into the story, and I think less dedicated (read: stubborn) readers may have given up by then. The story seems to be a bit of a commentary on Russian mythology and Russian sensibilities, but I did not know enough about the source material to appreciate that part of the story, and I don't think most young readers would, either. It also seems to be grappling with the issue of global warming, which seems an odd choice for a fantasy/historical fiction set in tsarist Russia.

There was one plot thread that seemed to be totally dropped, which annoyed me. Unfortunately, it's possible that I just missed its resolution when my mind wandered, and I didn't have the patience to go back looking for it.

Not Maguire's best work, IMO, but perhaps fun for Russian folktale enthusiasts or fans of Baba Yaga.
]]> <![CDATA[When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice]]> 13166601
The beloved author of Refuge returns with a work that explodes and startles, illuminates and celebrates

Terry Tempest Williams’s mother told her:“I am leaving you all my journals, but you must promise me you won’t look at them until after I’m gone.�

Readers of Williams’s iconic and unconventional memoir, Refuge, well remember that mother.She was one of a large Mormon clan in northern Utah who developed cancer as a result of the nuclear testing in nearby Nevada. It was a shock to Williams to discover thather mother had kept journals.But not as much of a shock as what she found when the time came to read them.

“They were exactly where she said they would be: three shelves of beautiful cloth-bound books . . . I opened the first journal.It was empty. I opened the second journal.It was empty.I opened the third.It too was empty . . . Shelf after shelf after shelf, all of my mother’s journals were blank.� What did Williams’s mother mean by that? Infifty-four chapters that unfold like a series of yoga poses, each with its own logic and beauty, Williams creates a lyrical and caring meditation of the mystery of her mother's journals. When Women Were Birds is a kaleidoscope that keeps turning around the question “What does it mean to have avoice?�

]]> 208 Terry Tempest Williams 0374288976 Lacey 4
This is one of those books that is hard to review.

It's an "unconventional memoir," a collection of short reflections and memories that are instigated by Williams' mother bequeathing her journals to her before she dies. When Williams opens the journals, she finds nothing but blank pages.

I liked to imagine that Williams filled those journals with the thoughts that became this book, but that is never explicitly stated.

At first, the vignettes seem a little random and unrelated. Then themes begin to emerge tying them together -- the idea of what it means for women to have a voice and to find a voice, stories involving birds, reflections on storytelling. I wanted the book to be more about Williams' mother; although she keeps returning to the empty journals in her attempt to make meaning out of them, the mystery is never quite solved. And that is unsettling -- perhaps as it should be.

The writing is almost uniformly gorgeous. There were passages here and there where I drifted off, but there were more that I wanted to read again and again. ]]> 4.21 2012 When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice
author: Terry Tempest Williams
name: Lacey
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2016/08/01
date added: 2016/08/18
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, essays, feminism, memoir, non-fiction, writing
review:
Around the World Reading Challenge Item #14: A Book with One of the Five Ws or H in the Title

This is one of those books that is hard to review.

It's an "unconventional memoir," a collection of short reflections and memories that are instigated by Williams' mother bequeathing her journals to her before she dies. When Williams opens the journals, she finds nothing but blank pages.

I liked to imagine that Williams filled those journals with the thoughts that became this book, but that is never explicitly stated.

At first, the vignettes seem a little random and unrelated. Then themes begin to emerge tying them together -- the idea of what it means for women to have a voice and to find a voice, stories involving birds, reflections on storytelling. I wanted the book to be more about Williams' mother; although she keeps returning to the empty journals in her attempt to make meaning out of them, the mystery is never quite solved. And that is unsettling -- perhaps as it should be.

The writing is almost uniformly gorgeous. There were passages here and there where I drifted off, but there were more that I wanted to read again and again.
]]> Jepp, Who Defied the Stars 13455511 Is it written in the stars from the moment we are born?
Or is it a bendable thing that we can shape with our own hands?

Jepp of Astraveld needs to know.

He left his countryside home on the empty promise of a stranger, only to become a captive in a luxurious prison: Coudenberg Palace, the royal court of the Spanish Infanta. Nobody warned Jepp that as a court dwarf, daily injustices would become his seemingly unshakable fate. If the humiliations were his alone, perhaps he could endure them; but it breaks Jepp’s heart to see his friend Lia suffer.

After Jepp and Lia attempt a daring escape from the palace, Jepp is imprisoned again, alone in a cage. Now, spirited across Europe in a kidnapper’s carriage, Jepp fears where his unfortunate stars may lead him. But he can't even begin to imagine the brilliant and eccentric new master—a man devoted to uncovering the secrets of the stars—who awaits him. Or the girl who will help him mend his heart and unearth the long-buried secrets of his past.

Masterfully written, grippingly paced, and inspired by real histori­cal characters, Jepp, Who Defied the Stars is the tale of an extraordinary hero and his inspiring quest to become the master of his own destiny.

New York Times Notable Children’s Books of 2012
The Wall Street Journal Best Children’s Books of 2012]]> 384 Katherine Marsh 1423135008 Lacey 4
By focusing on an obscure historical personage -- a mere footnote to more "important" figures -- this book avoids the sweeping generalizations and summaries that often put me off historical fiction. Instead, we get an intimate look at a young dwarf's journey from the Spanish court to a scholar's palace, all while he wrestles with the questions that define all of us -- where we came from, where we are going, and what gives our life meaning.

Although the description of this book focuses on Jepp's time in the scholarly household of Uraniborg, about half of the book is devoted to his time as a royal court dwarf/jester Belgium. I found this aspect of the story to be just as interesting, and perhaps even moreso, than the later developments. Perhaps this is because my own novella, Rumpled, focuses on a court dwarf, or perhaps it is just because this is a side of history that we rarely see. Although it was common for royal courts to keep dwarfs, very rarely do we hear their stories, even in fictionalized form. This book succeeds not only because Jepp tells his own story, but because he is briefly situated within a community of other court dwarfs, which keeps him from being a symbol of all people like him and outlines the diversity of experience and perspectives even among dwarfs in the same royal household. Namely, it transforms this historical footnote into richly developed characters that are not reduced to the aspect of their characters that is most striking to outsiders -- their size -- but that says the least about who they truly are.

This book had a strong sense of setting and ambiance, and I'm hating myself for not visiting Coudenberg when I was in Brussels nine years ago ... I did not even know it was there! Although it is historical fiction, at times it has the feel of fantasy because Marsh draws her world in such a way that it seems magical, situating it in a time when new scientific discoveries were opening people's minds about what the world was and what it might be.

My main criticism of the book is that the "big reveal" about Jepp's past/parentage did not feel satisfying to me -- I just couldn't bring myself to care about Jepp's past as much as I cared about his present/future. The fact that this aspect was put off so long made me expect it to be more impactful than it was; it felt like an afterthought clumsily dressed as a climax. Still, it was not enough to interfere with my enjoyment of this masterful work of historical fiction. ]]> 3.71 2012 Jepp, Who Defied the Stars
author: Katherine Marsh
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2016/07/28
date added: 2016/08/11
shelves: mp3-audiobook, 2016-aty-reading-challenge, historical-fiction, youngadult
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #32: A historical fiction book

By focusing on an obscure historical personage -- a mere footnote to more "important" figures -- this book avoids the sweeping generalizations and summaries that often put me off historical fiction. Instead, we get an intimate look at a young dwarf's journey from the Spanish court to a scholar's palace, all while he wrestles with the questions that define all of us -- where we came from, where we are going, and what gives our life meaning.

Although the description of this book focuses on Jepp's time in the scholarly household of Uraniborg, about half of the book is devoted to his time as a royal court dwarf/jester Belgium. I found this aspect of the story to be just as interesting, and perhaps even moreso, than the later developments. Perhaps this is because my own novella, Rumpled, focuses on a court dwarf, or perhaps it is just because this is a side of history that we rarely see. Although it was common for royal courts to keep dwarfs, very rarely do we hear their stories, even in fictionalized form. This book succeeds not only because Jepp tells his own story, but because he is briefly situated within a community of other court dwarfs, which keeps him from being a symbol of all people like him and outlines the diversity of experience and perspectives even among dwarfs in the same royal household. Namely, it transforms this historical footnote into richly developed characters that are not reduced to the aspect of their characters that is most striking to outsiders -- their size -- but that says the least about who they truly are.

This book had a strong sense of setting and ambiance, and I'm hating myself for not visiting Coudenberg when I was in Brussels nine years ago ... I did not even know it was there! Although it is historical fiction, at times it has the feel of fantasy because Marsh draws her world in such a way that it seems magical, situating it in a time when new scientific discoveries were opening people's minds about what the world was and what it might be.

My main criticism of the book is that the "big reveal" about Jepp's past/parentage did not feel satisfying to me -- I just couldn't bring myself to care about Jepp's past as much as I cared about his present/future. The fact that this aspect was put off so long made me expect it to be more impactful than it was; it felt like an afterthought clumsily dressed as a climax. Still, it was not enough to interfere with my enjoyment of this masterful work of historical fiction.
]]> <![CDATA[Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night, and One Woman's Quest to Become a Mother]]> 56883 Orenstein's story begins when she tells her new husband that she's not sure she ever wants to be a mother; it ends six years later after she's done almost everything humanly possible to achieve that goal, from "fertility sex" to escalating infertility treatments to New Age remedies to forays into international adoption. Her saga unfolds just as professional women are warned by the media to heed the ticking of their biological clocks, and just as fertility clinics have become a boom industry, with over two million women a year seeking them out. Buffeted by one jaw-dropping obstacle after another, Orenstein seeks answers both medical and spiritual in America and Asia, along the way visiting an old flame who's now the father of fifteen, and discovering in Japan a ritual of surprising solace. All the while she tries to hold onto a marriage threatened by cycles, appointments, procedures and disappointments. Waiting for Daisy is an honest, wryly funny report from the front, an intimate page-turner that illuminates the ambivalence, obsession, and sacrifice that characterize so many modern women's lives.]]> 240 Peggy Orenstein 1596910178 Lacey 4
This book held my interest all the way through, but I'm having trouble coming up with something coherent to say about it.

Like the best memoirs, Orenstein is not afraid to sacrifice her pride for the sake of emotional honesty, and she writes candidly about many situations and conversations that do not present her in the best light. Still, the pain, disappointment and powerlessness that accompany infertility are very real, and it is in these deeply painful places that Orenstein sometimes recedes into the shadows. She brushes off her first miscarriage, and subsequent miscarriages are covered in varying levels of detail. She captures the danger of obsession that can emerge when high-achieving women confront infertility, one thing for which they seemingly have little control over -- but that doesn't mean they don't try! Orenstein details her attempts to "control" the uncontrollable by doing everything from acupuncture to building shrines in her bedroom. There's always that tantalizing "one more thing" that just might work.

But this book is strongest in the moments when Orenstein steps away from her infertility-fueled neuroses (no judgment) and reflects on what it means to her identity, particularly as a feminist. She struggles with her dedication to a woman's right to choose when she feels desperate for the pregnancy many women would give up, as well as the way women's sense of "worth" or "femininity" is tied to their ability to be mothers. She depicts how such an ongoing crisis colors the whole world in different ways, from how you interact to your friend who has 15 kids (yes, really), to how you think of sex, to the things you do when you travel (one of the most touching segments is when Orenstein visits a shrine for miscarried or aborted babies in Japan, the mourning of which happens mostly invisibly in the U.S.) Perhaps most impressive is her astuteness in pinpointing how the desire to become a parent can be subverted by the desire to get pregnant -- pregnancy becomes the "achievement" rather than the means to an end, a goal that can be focused on to the extent that it obscures serious consideration of parenthood (this has its parallel in brides who are so obsessed with the wedding that they don't contemplate the idea of marriage, I think).

Orenstein's journey is truly harrowing, [spoilers removed], and yet, I couldn't help but notice that this memoir is still coming from a place of incredible privilege. Although Orenstein briefly notes that advanced reproductive technologies are only available to those who can afford them, she spends very little time examining her privilege beyond that point. She even mentions feeling envious of a couple who cannot afford IVF and so can forgo the emotional, financial and physical strain of it -- although I expect that couple would prefer to have Orenstein's "problem."

It's not a perfect book, but as memoir goes it's eminently readable; the pages turn and the suspense of when and how she will finally get her daughter pulls you forward. (This is not a spoiler -- her author bio on the book mentions a daughter.) More importantly, it breaks the silence and offers companionship to the many women and families who are facing down what is still very much a silent struggle. ]]> 3.68 2007 Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night, and One Woman's Quest to Become a Mother
author: Peggy Orenstein
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2016/07/19
date added: 2016/08/10
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, feminism, memoir, marriage, non-fiction, parenting, infertility
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #13: Reader's Choice

This book held my interest all the way through, but I'm having trouble coming up with something coherent to say about it.

Like the best memoirs, Orenstein is not afraid to sacrifice her pride for the sake of emotional honesty, and she writes candidly about many situations and conversations that do not present her in the best light. Still, the pain, disappointment and powerlessness that accompany infertility are very real, and it is in these deeply painful places that Orenstein sometimes recedes into the shadows. She brushes off her first miscarriage, and subsequent miscarriages are covered in varying levels of detail. She captures the danger of obsession that can emerge when high-achieving women confront infertility, one thing for which they seemingly have little control over -- but that doesn't mean they don't try! Orenstein details her attempts to "control" the uncontrollable by doing everything from acupuncture to building shrines in her bedroom. There's always that tantalizing "one more thing" that just might work.

But this book is strongest in the moments when Orenstein steps away from her infertility-fueled neuroses (no judgment) and reflects on what it means to her identity, particularly as a feminist. She struggles with her dedication to a woman's right to choose when she feels desperate for the pregnancy many women would give up, as well as the way women's sense of "worth" or "femininity" is tied to their ability to be mothers. She depicts how such an ongoing crisis colors the whole world in different ways, from how you interact to your friend who has 15 kids (yes, really), to how you think of sex, to the things you do when you travel (one of the most touching segments is when Orenstein visits a shrine for miscarried or aborted babies in Japan, the mourning of which happens mostly invisibly in the U.S.) Perhaps most impressive is her astuteness in pinpointing how the desire to become a parent can be subverted by the desire to get pregnant -- pregnancy becomes the "achievement" rather than the means to an end, a goal that can be focused on to the extent that it obscures serious consideration of parenthood (this has its parallel in brides who are so obsessed with the wedding that they don't contemplate the idea of marriage, I think).

Orenstein's journey is truly harrowing, [spoilers removed], and yet, I couldn't help but notice that this memoir is still coming from a place of incredible privilege. Although Orenstein briefly notes that advanced reproductive technologies are only available to those who can afford them, she spends very little time examining her privilege beyond that point. She even mentions feeling envious of a couple who cannot afford IVF and so can forgo the emotional, financial and physical strain of it -- although I expect that couple would prefer to have Orenstein's "problem."

It's not a perfect book, but as memoir goes it's eminently readable; the pages turn and the suspense of when and how she will finally get her daughter pulls you forward. (This is not a spoiler -- her author bio on the book mentions a daughter.) More importantly, it breaks the silence and offers companionship to the many women and families who are facing down what is still very much a silent struggle.
]]> <![CDATA[3500: An Autistic Boy's Ten-Year Romance with Snow White]]> 17376794
What followed was a remarkable tale of inspiration, heartbreak, dedication and joy as Benjamin's family relocated from Seattle to Orlando in order to capture that magic and put it to practical use. Amidst the daily challenges of life for an autistic child, Benjamin's passion for one particular theme park attraction would lead his family on a breathtaking journey of hope and discovery.

How many rides does it take for an ending to become a new beginning?]]> 248 Ron Miles Lacey 3
If you are looking for beautiful writing, then you'll want to pass on this book. It's not badly written, especially as far as self-published works go. The writing is merely functional, and a little perfunctory -- it feels a little as if the author is writing an email or a blog post detailing his and his son's latest antics, with a reporting style that kind of assumes the reader already knows these people. Out of the whole "cast," Ben comes across the most clearly, which makes sense since the whole book revolves around him. I had less of a sense of his mother's or stepmother's personality (his stepmother seemed like just an occasional footnote), and his father, as the storyteller, makes himself fairly vulnerable but also tells "his side of the story" and says the sorts of things you'd expect a caring father to say.

Still, if writing style isn't a huge deal and what you want is to learn more about a unique family's experiences with autism and the lengths they went to to bring their mostly non-verbal son out of his shell, this book will fit the bill. It moves along at a decent pace, and I had to admire the fact that Ben's parents were willing to uproot their lives to move closer to Disney World, a place where their son seemed to make enough progress on their first visit that they believed it would be a further catalyst for his socialization -- and in many ways, it was, although there's really no way to know how his development would have proceeded had his parents not made this momentous decision. To that end, perhaps what comes across most strongly in this book is the love and devotion these parents feel toward their autistic son -- I like Disney World, but visiting multiple times a week, only to ride the same ride dozens of times ... it must have been mind-numbingly boring. But these parents soldiered on without much complaining.

If you are not a Disney fan, this book may be a little nauseating to you. The author is a total Disney World fanboy and the book reads so much like an open love letter to Disney that I wouldn't be surprised if they sell it in their gift shops. I'm totally on board with the magic of Disney, but the total lack of any critique at all, especially considering the fact that his impressionable autistic son was marinating in Disney ideology 24/7, was a little off-putting to me; it felt like a bit of a "sell" at times even though I know it wasn't.

Still, I mentioned earlier that this is self-published, and in that market, you could do a lot worse. This is cleanly written and formatted and not a slog to get through. And the photos of Ben sprinkled throughout were a very nice touch. ]]> 3.91 2013 3500: An Autistic Boy's Ten-Year Romance with Snow White
author: Ron Miles
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2016/07/16
date added: 2016/08/02
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, disney-movies, memoir, non-fiction, parenting
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #45: A Book Related to a Hobby or Passion You Have

If you are looking for beautiful writing, then you'll want to pass on this book. It's not badly written, especially as far as self-published works go. The writing is merely functional, and a little perfunctory -- it feels a little as if the author is writing an email or a blog post detailing his and his son's latest antics, with a reporting style that kind of assumes the reader already knows these people. Out of the whole "cast," Ben comes across the most clearly, which makes sense since the whole book revolves around him. I had less of a sense of his mother's or stepmother's personality (his stepmother seemed like just an occasional footnote), and his father, as the storyteller, makes himself fairly vulnerable but also tells "his side of the story" and says the sorts of things you'd expect a caring father to say.

Still, if writing style isn't a huge deal and what you want is to learn more about a unique family's experiences with autism and the lengths they went to to bring their mostly non-verbal son out of his shell, this book will fit the bill. It moves along at a decent pace, and I had to admire the fact that Ben's parents were willing to uproot their lives to move closer to Disney World, a place where their son seemed to make enough progress on their first visit that they believed it would be a further catalyst for his socialization -- and in many ways, it was, although there's really no way to know how his development would have proceeded had his parents not made this momentous decision. To that end, perhaps what comes across most strongly in this book is the love and devotion these parents feel toward their autistic son -- I like Disney World, but visiting multiple times a week, only to ride the same ride dozens of times ... it must have been mind-numbingly boring. But these parents soldiered on without much complaining.

If you are not a Disney fan, this book may be a little nauseating to you. The author is a total Disney World fanboy and the book reads so much like an open love letter to Disney that I wouldn't be surprised if they sell it in their gift shops. I'm totally on board with the magic of Disney, but the total lack of any critique at all, especially considering the fact that his impressionable autistic son was marinating in Disney ideology 24/7, was a little off-putting to me; it felt like a bit of a "sell" at times even though I know it wasn't.

Still, I mentioned earlier that this is self-published, and in that market, you could do a lot worse. This is cleanly written and formatted and not a slog to get through. And the photos of Ben sprinkled throughout were a very nice touch.
]]> <![CDATA[Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books]]> 7603 Every Thursday morning for two years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a bold and inspired teacher named Azar Nafisi secretly gathered seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden Western classics. As Islamic morality squads staged arbitrary raids in Tehran, fundamentalists seized hold of the universities, and a blind censor stifled artistic expression, the girls in Azar Nafisi's living room risked removing their veils and immersed themselves in the worlds of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, and Vladimir Nabokov. In this extraordinary memoir, their stories become intertwined with the ones they are reading. Reading Lolita in Tehran is a remarkable exploration of resilience in the face of tyranny and a celebration of the liberating power of literature.

]]> 356 Azar Nafisi 081297106X Lacey 4
Gosh, I wish I hadn't waited so long to write this review.

This book was different than I expected it to be. Based on its descriptions, I thought it would be focused on the lives of the girls in the authors book group, and how their dreams and their realities intersected via the focal point of the book club. Although the book begins and ends with these girls, the long middle section details the slow creep of the Islamic Revolution into ordinary citizens' lives, until it had all but blotted out individuality.

Even though I've read a handful of books on Iran's Islamic Revolution, I still had to work hard to stay focused and keep the various factions and political figures straight. When the author detailed the way people she knew would show up dead with little provocation, I read with the sort of engrossed horror of someone who has just discovered the genre of the dystopia. I wanted to thrust this book (or others that went into similar detail about the day-to-day horrors of a dictatorial regime) into the hands of all teens obsessed with the genre and say, "LOOK, we don't NEED to make these terrifying societies up; they actually exist, and the more we learn about them, hopefully the better prepared we will be to fight them."

This memoir is organized by books, with the author using each book to encompass a different era of her life and the politics surrounding it. I was glad that I had read most of the books referenced, since the author's academic writing background spills into this memoir in the form of long digressions analyzing the texts she and her students studied and how they related to the current political climate. Between the book analyses and the political details, the book did come to feel a little dense in the middle; still, a subject as complex and nuanced as the Islamic Revolution cannot be quickly explained or summarized, nor does it lend itself to a "breezy" read. Considering the subject matter, this is a fairly accessible book, especially to those familiar with Western literature.

I couldn't help but contemplate the fact that nearly all the voices we get out of Iran come from writers who have either spent significant amounts of time outside the country or who left the country eventually. This makes me wonder if Westerners can ever truly understand Iran's history or its bearing on Iranians' contemporary realities, when our instructors have a decidedly Westernized mentality even from within their Middle Eastern culture. This is one of the many costs of censorship, I guess, that the only voices that will ever reach us are those that have, in one way or another, already made it to the outside. ]]> 3.64 2003 Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
author: Azar Nafisi
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2016/07/11
date added: 2016/08/01
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, memoir, non-fiction
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #11: A Book from the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge

Gosh, I wish I hadn't waited so long to write this review.

This book was different than I expected it to be. Based on its descriptions, I thought it would be focused on the lives of the girls in the authors book group, and how their dreams and their realities intersected via the focal point of the book club. Although the book begins and ends with these girls, the long middle section details the slow creep of the Islamic Revolution into ordinary citizens' lives, until it had all but blotted out individuality.

Even though I've read a handful of books on Iran's Islamic Revolution, I still had to work hard to stay focused and keep the various factions and political figures straight. When the author detailed the way people she knew would show up dead with little provocation, I read with the sort of engrossed horror of someone who has just discovered the genre of the dystopia. I wanted to thrust this book (or others that went into similar detail about the day-to-day horrors of a dictatorial regime) into the hands of all teens obsessed with the genre and say, "LOOK, we don't NEED to make these terrifying societies up; they actually exist, and the more we learn about them, hopefully the better prepared we will be to fight them."

This memoir is organized by books, with the author using each book to encompass a different era of her life and the politics surrounding it. I was glad that I had read most of the books referenced, since the author's academic writing background spills into this memoir in the form of long digressions analyzing the texts she and her students studied and how they related to the current political climate. Between the book analyses and the political details, the book did come to feel a little dense in the middle; still, a subject as complex and nuanced as the Islamic Revolution cannot be quickly explained or summarized, nor does it lend itself to a "breezy" read. Considering the subject matter, this is a fairly accessible book, especially to those familiar with Western literature.

I couldn't help but contemplate the fact that nearly all the voices we get out of Iran come from writers who have either spent significant amounts of time outside the country or who left the country eventually. This makes me wonder if Westerners can ever truly understand Iran's history or its bearing on Iranians' contemporary realities, when our instructors have a decidedly Westernized mentality even from within their Middle Eastern culture. This is one of the many costs of censorship, I guess, that the only voices that will ever reach us are those that have, in one way or another, already made it to the outside.
]]> <![CDATA[Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe]]> 9375 Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is a now-classic novel about two women: Evelyn, who is in the sad slump of middle age, and gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode, who is telling her life story. Her tale includes two more women, the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, offering good coffee, southern barbecue, and all kinds of love and laughter, even an occasional murder. And as the past unfolds, the present will never be quite the same again.]]> 416 Fannie Flagg 0375508414 Lacey 4
(I got this one from NPR's ).

Although I knew that this book was beloved by many queer women, I always thought it was because a same-sex love story could be "read into" Idgie's and Ruth's friendship. I saw the movie as a kid and at the time accepted "friendship" as a believable explanation for the women's bond, and I expected the book to be similar. So I was surprised, pleasantly so, by how overtly queer the book is. There is no hedging around the issue that Ruth and Idgie are in love and are forging a romantic partnership that is much like the relationships of the opposite-sex, traditional couples around them. It is heartening to know that, even with this relationship at the heart of it, the book still managed to cruise the mainstream back in the mid-eighties.

The town of Whistlestop, Alabama, is a strange, surreal kind of place. On the one hand, it's refreshing that no one really seems to give a damn about whether Idgie and Ruth are lesbians and that they are universally accepted for who they are, just as the community accepts the eccentricities of the town's other residents. I would say that this book romanticizes small-town life -- there seems to be fairly minimal gossip; what gossip there is is not mean-spirited, good-natured hijinks and pranks abound, and ultimately the town's sense of allegiance to the community trumps all other concerns. But the book is not without its darkness -- the Ku Klux Klan is a real threat; black men are jailed for crimes they did not commit; one character is an especially egregious rapist and wife beater; and then, of course, there is [spoilers removed], which gives the whole sweet veneer of the book a deliciously dark underbelly.

Still, I found myself ambivalent about the portrayal of Whistlestop. It almost seems to be something of a utopia: a place where blacks and whites are friends in the segregated south; a place where professionals don't charge for goods or services even in the grip of the depression; a place where spouses rib at each other but are generally happy with their lit; a place where a lesbian couple lives openly without any fear of harassment or worse. It's all a little hard to swallow for the realist in me, and it has me wondering about its overall purpose. Is this meant to be a sort of escapist reality, a glimpse into how the author (and others) wish the world could be? Is it only because it is seen primarily through the rose-colored glasses of 86-year-old Ginny, whose disposition seems to make her incapable of saying an unkind word about anyone? It makes me wonder whether Whistlestop was really what we are led to believe it is, or whether its portrayal in the book is the result of an old woman's loneliness, delusion, and revisionist history. Are we supposed to accept this idyllic place at face value, or are we meant to question the veracity of the perspective from which it comes to us?

The fact that the Whistlestop story is intertwined with middle-aged Evelyn's journey toward a feminist awakening and then self-acceptance also makes me wonder about whether we are being fed truth, or an inspirational fiction. It is this place that seems too good to be true, after all, that gives Evelyn a vision of the way her own life might change. Ginny sees something good, strong, and beautiful in Evelyn that she does not see in herself; might she similarly have seen more good in Whistlestop than what was actually there?

Because of this dichotomy, I actually felt more invested in the Evelyn storyline because her untapped anger, her dissatisfaction with her marriage and her life choices, her exploration of what she really believed all felt more real and credible to me. There were times when her story was a bit over the top, when things I knew I was supposed to find funny just struck me as annoying. In general, I didn't really buy into the "humor" in this book -- it was a little too quirky and quaint for my tastes and felt as though it were just trying too hard. But then, it's very seldom that humor in books really hits the right note with me.

Still, I can see why this book resonates with so many people. It offers a glimpse of community and solidarity that many of us long to believe is possible, but it also does not shy away from examining issues of racism and feminism -- topics that remain ever-relevant even if the presentation of them in Fried Green Tomatoes feels just a little bit dated. ]]> 4.28 1987 Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
author: Fannie Flagg
name: Lacey
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1987
rating: 4
read at: 2016/07/10
date added: 2016/07/10
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, lgbtqi, literary-fiction
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #18: A Book from a Summer/Beach Reading List

(I got this one from NPR's ).

Although I knew that this book was beloved by many queer women, I always thought it was because a same-sex love story could be "read into" Idgie's and Ruth's friendship. I saw the movie as a kid and at the time accepted "friendship" as a believable explanation for the women's bond, and I expected the book to be similar. So I was surprised, pleasantly so, by how overtly queer the book is. There is no hedging around the issue that Ruth and Idgie are in love and are forging a romantic partnership that is much like the relationships of the opposite-sex, traditional couples around them. It is heartening to know that, even with this relationship at the heart of it, the book still managed to cruise the mainstream back in the mid-eighties.

The town of Whistlestop, Alabama, is a strange, surreal kind of place. On the one hand, it's refreshing that no one really seems to give a damn about whether Idgie and Ruth are lesbians and that they are universally accepted for who they are, just as the community accepts the eccentricities of the town's other residents. I would say that this book romanticizes small-town life -- there seems to be fairly minimal gossip; what gossip there is is not mean-spirited, good-natured hijinks and pranks abound, and ultimately the town's sense of allegiance to the community trumps all other concerns. But the book is not without its darkness -- the Ku Klux Klan is a real threat; black men are jailed for crimes they did not commit; one character is an especially egregious rapist and wife beater; and then, of course, there is [spoilers removed], which gives the whole sweet veneer of the book a deliciously dark underbelly.

Still, I found myself ambivalent about the portrayal of Whistlestop. It almost seems to be something of a utopia: a place where blacks and whites are friends in the segregated south; a place where professionals don't charge for goods or services even in the grip of the depression; a place where spouses rib at each other but are generally happy with their lit; a place where a lesbian couple lives openly without any fear of harassment or worse. It's all a little hard to swallow for the realist in me, and it has me wondering about its overall purpose. Is this meant to be a sort of escapist reality, a glimpse into how the author (and others) wish the world could be? Is it only because it is seen primarily through the rose-colored glasses of 86-year-old Ginny, whose disposition seems to make her incapable of saying an unkind word about anyone? It makes me wonder whether Whistlestop was really what we are led to believe it is, or whether its portrayal in the book is the result of an old woman's loneliness, delusion, and revisionist history. Are we supposed to accept this idyllic place at face value, or are we meant to question the veracity of the perspective from which it comes to us?

The fact that the Whistlestop story is intertwined with middle-aged Evelyn's journey toward a feminist awakening and then self-acceptance also makes me wonder about whether we are being fed truth, or an inspirational fiction. It is this place that seems too good to be true, after all, that gives Evelyn a vision of the way her own life might change. Ginny sees something good, strong, and beautiful in Evelyn that she does not see in herself; might she similarly have seen more good in Whistlestop than what was actually there?

Because of this dichotomy, I actually felt more invested in the Evelyn storyline because her untapped anger, her dissatisfaction with her marriage and her life choices, her exploration of what she really believed all felt more real and credible to me. There were times when her story was a bit over the top, when things I knew I was supposed to find funny just struck me as annoying. In general, I didn't really buy into the "humor" in this book -- it was a little too quirky and quaint for my tastes and felt as though it were just trying too hard. But then, it's very seldom that humor in books really hits the right note with me.

Still, I can see why this book resonates with so many people. It offers a glimpse of community and solidarity that many of us long to believe is possible, but it also does not shy away from examining issues of racism and feminism -- topics that remain ever-relevant even if the presentation of them in Fried Green Tomatoes feels just a little bit dated.
]]> <![CDATA[Under the Never Sky (Under the Never Sky, #1)]]> 13425407
Exiled from her home, the enclosed city of Reverie, Aria knows her chances of surviving in the outer wasteland—known as The Death Shop—are slim. If the cannibals don’t get her, the violent, electrified energy storms will. She’s been taught that the very air she breathes can kill her. Then Aria meets an Outsider named Perry. He’s wild—a savage—and her only hope of staying alive.

A hunter for his tribe in a merciless landscape, Perry views Aria as sheltered and fragile—everything he would expect from a Dweller. But he needs Aria’s help too; she alone holds the key to his redemption. Opposites in nearly every way, Aria and Perry must accept each other to survive. Their unlikely alliance forges a bond that will determine the fate of all who live under the never sky.

In her enthralling debut, Veronica Rossi sends readers on an unforgettable adventure set in a world brimming with harshness and beauty.]]> 10 Veronica Rossi 0062120700 Lacey 3
This is pretty much standard fare as far as teen dystopia/post-apocalyptic books go. The world is not particularly groundbreaking: it consists of "dwellers" who live in protective "pods" where all their needs are provided for but boredom leads them to live out most of their lives within virtual worlds, and the "outsiders," tribal people who have managed to survive and evolve on the "outside" after some sort of environmental devastation and whom the dwellers see as "savages."

Of course, a dweller and an outsider encounter one another, and, of course, the experience alters both of them. And since this is a teen book, they're also both hot and find themselves attracted to each other.

Although this book probably never had much hope of being anything more than mediocre, without the nauseating/cheesy romance subplot it may have squeaked by with a four-star rating. Unfortunately, the romance plot becomes more prominent as the book goes on, including one section where I almost had to double check that I wasn't reading Twilight. The "savage" boy fulfills all the typical "wild man" fantasies you would expect -- there is something dangerous and irresistibly feral about him, he's the strong silent type, etc., whereas the girl is beautiful with a lovely voice, and she apparently smells like violets (and we are never allowed to forget that she smells like violets. The male lead has an acutely developed sense of smell, so he can smell people's individual scents as well as their "moods," and he's always noticing Arya's "violet" smell. The first time he notices it is also the first time she gets her period, and I was like, wtf? Why doesn't he smell BLOOD? I wish *I* smelled like violets when I was menstruating.)

The science in this book is also a little squishy, which would be less annoying if it didn't try to come across as so authoritative at times. There are a lot of convenient fixes because it's clear the author just wants to get back to the steamy scenes ([spoilers removed]) Plot threads seemed to be picked up and then abandoned. Arya gets her first period, is unaware of what it is, and yet we never learn how she copes with it thereafter or when it ends; a period is a big enough deal the first time you get it when you DO know what it is, and it seemed to be disregarded a little too easily for a dweller girl who was menstruating for the first time on the outside and had no one to really talk to about what was happening, how long it would last, what she should do about it, etc. Perhaps other plot threads were not abandoned, but I daydreamed and just lost track of them.

Characters are fairly one-dimensional, more suited to the screen than the page. But despite all of that, this book did hold my interest well enough; it was an easy, light read; and it made some interesting commentary on humans' tendencies toward escapism and the potential danger therein. I wish it would have spent more time on that aspect of the story. I found the "realms" to be believable, and I wanted to know more about this world, such as what the aether actually WAS, and what had happened in "The Unity," which is presumably when the humans built the pods and the separate populations of dwellers and outsiders arose.

If you can't get enough teen dystopia, this book is readable enough -- it's rated fairly high on ŷ, so others must have found more to like than I did. But if you're looking to read only the best in an overcrowded genre, this isn't it. ]]> 3.61 2011 Under the Never Sky (Under the Never Sky, #1)
author: Veronica Rossi
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2016/07/10
date added: 2016/07/10
shelves: mp3-audiobook, 2016-aty-reading-challenge, apocalyptic-postapocalyptic, dystopia, romance, sciencefiction, youngadult
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge #22: The First Book in a Series

This is pretty much standard fare as far as teen dystopia/post-apocalyptic books go. The world is not particularly groundbreaking: it consists of "dwellers" who live in protective "pods" where all their needs are provided for but boredom leads them to live out most of their lives within virtual worlds, and the "outsiders," tribal people who have managed to survive and evolve on the "outside" after some sort of environmental devastation and whom the dwellers see as "savages."

Of course, a dweller and an outsider encounter one another, and, of course, the experience alters both of them. And since this is a teen book, they're also both hot and find themselves attracted to each other.

Although this book probably never had much hope of being anything more than mediocre, without the nauseating/cheesy romance subplot it may have squeaked by with a four-star rating. Unfortunately, the romance plot becomes more prominent as the book goes on, including one section where I almost had to double check that I wasn't reading Twilight. The "savage" boy fulfills all the typical "wild man" fantasies you would expect -- there is something dangerous and irresistibly feral about him, he's the strong silent type, etc., whereas the girl is beautiful with a lovely voice, and she apparently smells like violets (and we are never allowed to forget that she smells like violets. The male lead has an acutely developed sense of smell, so he can smell people's individual scents as well as their "moods," and he's always noticing Arya's "violet" smell. The first time he notices it is also the first time she gets her period, and I was like, wtf? Why doesn't he smell BLOOD? I wish *I* smelled like violets when I was menstruating.)

The science in this book is also a little squishy, which would be less annoying if it didn't try to come across as so authoritative at times. There are a lot of convenient fixes because it's clear the author just wants to get back to the steamy scenes ([spoilers removed]) Plot threads seemed to be picked up and then abandoned. Arya gets her first period, is unaware of what it is, and yet we never learn how she copes with it thereafter or when it ends; a period is a big enough deal the first time you get it when you DO know what it is, and it seemed to be disregarded a little too easily for a dweller girl who was menstruating for the first time on the outside and had no one to really talk to about what was happening, how long it would last, what she should do about it, etc. Perhaps other plot threads were not abandoned, but I daydreamed and just lost track of them.

Characters are fairly one-dimensional, more suited to the screen than the page. But despite all of that, this book did hold my interest well enough; it was an easy, light read; and it made some interesting commentary on humans' tendencies toward escapism and the potential danger therein. I wish it would have spent more time on that aspect of the story. I found the "realms" to be believable, and I wanted to know more about this world, such as what the aether actually WAS, and what had happened in "The Unity," which is presumably when the humans built the pods and the separate populations of dwellers and outsiders arose.

If you can't get enough teen dystopia, this book is readable enough -- it's rated fairly high on ŷ, so others must have found more to like than I did. But if you're looking to read only the best in an overcrowded genre, this isn't it.
]]> The Woman in White 16106886
'In one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop... There, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth, stood the figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot in white'

The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter becomes embroiled in the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his 'charming' friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons, and poison. Pursuing questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism.]]> Wilkie Collins Lacey 3
Similar to long books, I often find myself reticent to begin reading a classic, even though in both cases I have found much to love in both genres. I did not love this book, but although it is both long and a classic, my intimidation in reading it was misplaced.

I usually just assume that I will have to "work harder" when reading a classic, so I was pleased that the action in this one moved along at a nice pace, the cast was not so large that I needed a ledger to keep track of all of them, and there were very few passages where I found myself spacing out and only realizing I was totally lost when I ended up somewhere in the story not knowing how I got there. Collins was a contemporary of Charles Dickens, and although it's surely blasphemous to say so, I would much more gladly pick up another book by Collins than Dickens, who, like Shakespeare, I've sort of had to accept that I just don't LIKE reading no matter how "great" others may determine him to be. Dickens may be saying something more profound in his work; however, Collins is infinitely more readable.

Although this novel was not particularly "deep" where plot or themes are concerned, I did find its characters to be well-rendered. I also liked the multiple narratives and was especially impressed that Collins managed to differentiate the various "voices" from one another, something many modern authors haven't mastered despite the fact that it's a much more common tactic now than it was then. I also liked the conceit of the whole novel being set up as though it were evidence presented before a jury -- in general, I am partial to stories in which the character is "aware" of the fact that he or she is telling or writing the story.

With all that said, the novel did start to feel a little long around the mid-point, and although Sir Percival was a truly terrible person, the story never got as "dark" as I hoped it would. The "secret" he was so hell-bent on preserving is fairly inconsequential by modern standards, so it's an interesting cultural commentary to see what a big deal it was back then.

Speaking of cultural commentary, I couldn't help but analyze this book through a feminist lens -- it practically begs to be interpreted thus by the modern reader by the sheer amount of times phrases such as, "But I am only a woman," are uttered. Although Gothic fiction was very popular among female readers, the way that this particular story plays out is so clearly in service to male fantasy. [spoilers removed]

So while this book remains interesting and readable centuries after it was written (no small feat), and while it probably was even a little revolutionary in its time [spoilers removed], to the modern reader with feminist sensibilities, the package as a whole can be a little stomach churning, perhaps all the more so because it is dressed up in the guise of romance and gentility. ]]> 3.70 1859 The Woman in White
author: Wilkie Collins
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1859
rating: 3
read at: 2016/06/28
date added: 2016/07/05
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, classics, horror, mystery
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #16: A Book from the Top 100 Mystery Novels

Similar to long books, I often find myself reticent to begin reading a classic, even though in both cases I have found much to love in both genres. I did not love this book, but although it is both long and a classic, my intimidation in reading it was misplaced.

I usually just assume that I will have to "work harder" when reading a classic, so I was pleased that the action in this one moved along at a nice pace, the cast was not so large that I needed a ledger to keep track of all of them, and there were very few passages where I found myself spacing out and only realizing I was totally lost when I ended up somewhere in the story not knowing how I got there. Collins was a contemporary of Charles Dickens, and although it's surely blasphemous to say so, I would much more gladly pick up another book by Collins than Dickens, who, like Shakespeare, I've sort of had to accept that I just don't LIKE reading no matter how "great" others may determine him to be. Dickens may be saying something more profound in his work; however, Collins is infinitely more readable.

Although this novel was not particularly "deep" where plot or themes are concerned, I did find its characters to be well-rendered. I also liked the multiple narratives and was especially impressed that Collins managed to differentiate the various "voices" from one another, something many modern authors haven't mastered despite the fact that it's a much more common tactic now than it was then. I also liked the conceit of the whole novel being set up as though it were evidence presented before a jury -- in general, I am partial to stories in which the character is "aware" of the fact that he or she is telling or writing the story.

With all that said, the novel did start to feel a little long around the mid-point, and although Sir Percival was a truly terrible person, the story never got as "dark" as I hoped it would. The "secret" he was so hell-bent on preserving is fairly inconsequential by modern standards, so it's an interesting cultural commentary to see what a big deal it was back then.

Speaking of cultural commentary, I couldn't help but analyze this book through a feminist lens -- it practically begs to be interpreted thus by the modern reader by the sheer amount of times phrases such as, "But I am only a woman," are uttered. Although Gothic fiction was very popular among female readers, the way that this particular story plays out is so clearly in service to male fantasy. [spoilers removed]

So while this book remains interesting and readable centuries after it was written (no small feat), and while it probably was even a little revolutionary in its time [spoilers removed], to the modern reader with feminist sensibilities, the package as a whole can be a little stomach churning, perhaps all the more so because it is dressed up in the guise of romance and gentility.
]]> Frog Music 18295858
The survivor, her friend Blanche Beunon, is a French burlesque dancer. Over the next three days, she will risk everything to bring Jenny's murderer to justice--if he doesn't track her down first. The story Blanche struggles to piece together is one of free-love bohemians, desperate paupers, and arrogant millionaires; of jealous men, icy women, and damaged children. It's the secret life of Jenny herself, a notorious character who breaks the law every morning by getting dressed: a charmer as slippery as the frogs she hunts.

In thrilling, cinematic style, FROG MUSIC digs up a long-forgotten, never-solved crime. Full of songs that migrated across the world, Emma Donoghue's lyrical tale of love and bloodshed among lowlifes captures the pulse of a boomtown like no other.]]> 405 Emma Donoghue 031632468X Lacey 4
Historical fiction tends to be a little hit-or-miss with me, and murder is not one of my favorite plot devices. As such, I would not have read this book if a friend had not recommended it -- but I'm glad that I did.

The thing that overcomes my ambivalence about historical fiction and my general disinterest in murder stories is Donoghue's beautifully rendered characters. The cast in this book is small, but each individual is rendered exquisitely -- whether you love them or hate them, you can't deny that these people feel real. I especially appreciated the complexity of Blanche's character, a burlesque dancer/prostitute who eschews both the "prostitute with a heart of gold" stereotype and the "downtrodden" stereotype. She sees her work as a valid means of support and independence, and she loves sex. If this same character were written by a male author, it probably would have triggered my gag reflex as some male fantasy about how much hookers really LOVE having sex with these guys. But because Blanche was written by a woman, her experiences are infused with subtlety and reality -- she likes sex, but also must deal with the inconvenience of avoiding pregnancy and thwart the assumption that she is "always available" based on her line of work. Although her character arc goes through something of a feminist awakening through her short relationship with the cross-dressing Jenny Bonnet, it manages not to be too heavy-handed. (Although there were some moments near the end, [spoilers removed])

The other thing about historical fiction that is often off-putting to me is that so often it reads as a "greatest hits" summary of all the most notable events of a certain era, resorting to summary often between events and using its characters as mere vehicles through which to zoom in on historical events. Frog Music all takes place within the span of one month, using as its basis an obscure, real-life murder. This allows Donoghue to examine the minutia of the era, from period costume to the sweltering heat to the fear surrounding the smallpox epidemic. She never resorts to overview but instead brings you into the middle of a historical time with exquisite, sometimes painful detail. She does not romanticize the past, and in feeling like you are "there," you will find yourself very happy to be living in the present time, with air conditioning and running water.

Finally, all of this is presented in eloquent, sensuous prose that gets out of its own way as it brings these rich characters and their era to you. Judging by its other reviews, this book is not for everyone -- but for this reader, it was historical fiction of the most satisfying sort. ]]> 3.18 2014 Frog Music
author: Emma Donoghue
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.18
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2016/06/24
date added: 2016/06/26
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, historical-fiction, lgbtqi, literary-fiction
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #15: A Book Set More Than 100 Years Ago

Historical fiction tends to be a little hit-or-miss with me, and murder is not one of my favorite plot devices. As such, I would not have read this book if a friend had not recommended it -- but I'm glad that I did.

The thing that overcomes my ambivalence about historical fiction and my general disinterest in murder stories is Donoghue's beautifully rendered characters. The cast in this book is small, but each individual is rendered exquisitely -- whether you love them or hate them, you can't deny that these people feel real. I especially appreciated the complexity of Blanche's character, a burlesque dancer/prostitute who eschews both the "prostitute with a heart of gold" stereotype and the "downtrodden" stereotype. She sees her work as a valid means of support and independence, and she loves sex. If this same character were written by a male author, it probably would have triggered my gag reflex as some male fantasy about how much hookers really LOVE having sex with these guys. But because Blanche was written by a woman, her experiences are infused with subtlety and reality -- she likes sex, but also must deal with the inconvenience of avoiding pregnancy and thwart the assumption that she is "always available" based on her line of work. Although her character arc goes through something of a feminist awakening through her short relationship with the cross-dressing Jenny Bonnet, it manages not to be too heavy-handed. (Although there were some moments near the end, [spoilers removed])

The other thing about historical fiction that is often off-putting to me is that so often it reads as a "greatest hits" summary of all the most notable events of a certain era, resorting to summary often between events and using its characters as mere vehicles through which to zoom in on historical events. Frog Music all takes place within the span of one month, using as its basis an obscure, real-life murder. This allows Donoghue to examine the minutia of the era, from period costume to the sweltering heat to the fear surrounding the smallpox epidemic. She never resorts to overview but instead brings you into the middle of a historical time with exquisite, sometimes painful detail. She does not romanticize the past, and in feeling like you are "there," you will find yourself very happy to be living in the present time, with air conditioning and running water.

Finally, all of this is presented in eloquent, sensuous prose that gets out of its own way as it brings these rich characters and their era to you. Judging by its other reviews, this book is not for everyone -- but for this reader, it was historical fiction of the most satisfying sort.
]]> <![CDATA[The Cats of Tanglewood Forest (Newford, #18)]]> 15716291 304 Charles de Lint Lacey 3
I expected to like this book a lot more than I actually did -- as a cat lover, I was disappointed that the cats did not play a bigger part, that we never learned much about their society or their "cat magic" and that the inciting incident of Lillian being transformed into a cat wasn't even that much of the story.

The quest that actually takes up most of the book felt a little convoluted to me, and the messaging trite. The final resolution also felt as if it came too easily. It's a pity, because the book has such a beautiful design and illustrations that I would have loved to hold onto it and share it with someone else -- but the story just doesn't seem to warrant that for me, so I think I will be passing it on. ]]> 4.17 2013 The Cats of Tanglewood Forest (Newford, #18)
author: Charles de Lint
name: Lacey
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2016/06/14
date added: 2016/06/19
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, animals, children-s, fantasy, magical-realism, middle-grade
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #27: A Book With a Beautiful Title

I expected to like this book a lot more than I actually did -- as a cat lover, I was disappointed that the cats did not play a bigger part, that we never learned much about their society or their "cat magic" and that the inciting incident of Lillian being transformed into a cat wasn't even that much of the story.

The quest that actually takes up most of the book felt a little convoluted to me, and the messaging trite. The final resolution also felt as if it came too easily. It's a pity, because the book has such a beautiful design and illustrations that I would have loved to hold onto it and share it with someone else -- but the story just doesn't seem to warrant that for me, so I think I will be passing it on.
]]> The Crane Wife 13638462
One night, George Duncan--decent man, a good man--is woken by a noise in his garden. Impossibly, a great white crane has tumbled to earth, shot through its wing by an arrow. Unexpectedly moved, George helps the bird, and from the moment he watches it fly off, his life is transformed.

The next day, a kind but enigmatic woman walks into George's shop. Suddenly a new world opens up for George, and one night she starts to tell him the most extraordinary story.

Wise, romantic, magical and funny, The Crane Wife is a hymn to the creative imagination and a celebration of the disruptive and redemptive power of love.]]> 311 Patrick Ness 0857868713 Lacey 4
3.5 stars

I had high expectations for this book, as I've really loved Ness's Chaos Walking series and trust him as a writer to convey the authentic human experience. The fact that this is a modern retelling of a Japanese fairy tale made it even more appealing to me, although I probably would have been open to any subject matter. But his voice does not come across as effortlessly or as authentically in this adult novel as in his YA stuff. The experimental format, transitioning between "all dialog" chapters, an original myth, and more traditional exposition at times feels as though it is "trying too hard." And the characters come across as just shy of fully realized.

Yet, despite this, the book mostly held my interest -- although I did feel that it sagged a little in the middle. However, I liked the magical realism, especially the moments occurring in the "real world" that were tinged with the impossible. I liked the use of metaphor and the themes of love, possession, and creation, and how certain people or experiences leave you changed forever. I found the ending to be satisfying, which is what kept this book from falling squarely in "three-star" territory, but it's not among Ness's best. ]]> 3.51 2013 The Crane Wife
author: Patrick Ness
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2016/06/09
date added: 2016/06/12
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, fairy-tales, literary-fiction, magical-realism, retelling, romance
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #30: A Fairy Tale From a Culture Other Than Your Own

3.5 stars

I had high expectations for this book, as I've really loved Ness's Chaos Walking series and trust him as a writer to convey the authentic human experience. The fact that this is a modern retelling of a Japanese fairy tale made it even more appealing to me, although I probably would have been open to any subject matter. But his voice does not come across as effortlessly or as authentically in this adult novel as in his YA stuff. The experimental format, transitioning between "all dialog" chapters, an original myth, and more traditional exposition at times feels as though it is "trying too hard." And the characters come across as just shy of fully realized.

Yet, despite this, the book mostly held my interest -- although I did feel that it sagged a little in the middle. However, I liked the magical realism, especially the moments occurring in the "real world" that were tinged with the impossible. I liked the use of metaphor and the themes of love, possession, and creation, and how certain people or experiences leave you changed forever. I found the ending to be satisfying, which is what kept this book from falling squarely in "three-star" territory, but it's not among Ness's best.
]]> <![CDATA[Fragile and Perfectly Cracked: A Memoir of Loss and Infertility]]> 25914461 68 Sophie Wyndham 0986354503 Lacey 3
3.5

First off, it's good that books like this exist. Infertility and pregnancy loss are incredibly common, yet they are "silent" epidemics that often leave those living with them feeling isolated and broken. Wyndham is a good writer, and the book is told in a present-tense, chronological way that makes it all feel very immediate and real. She includes details about all the little things you do to pass the time or to retain hope or stave off depression while dealing with complications on the road to creating a family. In some places the detail felt like TOO much, especially when she described her pregnancy losses. While I'm sure that level of detail was cathartic to Wyndham, I wonder if it is helpful or triggering/stressful for women who have experienced pregnancy loss to read. One thing that cannot be denied: Wyndham definitely captures how traumatic pregnancy loss is.

Yet despite the level of detail Wyndham went into in some instances -- the video games she played when she was depressed, the food she ate in the clinic after her D&C -- there are so many other places where detail is so lacking that Wyndham's infertility journey seems to take place in a vacuum. Although she mentions work, attending conferences, and "working remotely," she never discloses what she actually DOES. Her husband seems to be a journalist of some sort, which is only obliquely mentioned more than halfway through the book. This couple seems to have no friends, and while parents are mentioned, they are only distant ideas and potential phone calls. That is to say, reading this feels more like reading a diary than reading a memoir. When someone writes a diary, she doesn't think about what the reader will or won't understand -- she writes about the details that seem important in that moment. A memoir calls for more "world-building" than that, to allow the reader to fully understand the author's circumstances and life. The world in which Wyndham faced her fertility crises seemed to exist in isolation from everything else in life. In some instances, she even obscures parts of her infertility story -- she calls the baby she lost at 6 months "Baby T," but she never explains where that name came from. Also, the ending is pretty abrupt, which is somewhat offset by the fact that the prologue basically lets us know how things turn out.

I try not to comment too much on personality in memoir, but Wyndham's tone does come across sometimes as off-putting in how cantankerous she is. She is dealing with some tough stuff in which her high levels of negativity are TOTALLY justified in most cases -- but negativity seems to be her default setting even when things are less bad; I have received some of the treatments/tried some of the methods she writes about and they are not nearly as bad/as big a deal as she makes them sound.

Although there were a few gaffs (she mostly referred to her husband as J, but a few times his full name, Jonathon, sneaked in), as self-published books go this is far better than most. Not only is Wyndham a good writer, but she seems to be (or hired) a competent editor as well -- aside from the naming issue, this book is not riddled with distracting misspellings, errant punctuation marks or crappy formatting. In short, it is eminently readable, and intimate, accessible and relevant enough that I wanted to keep reading despite a few of my qualms. It's a worthwhile read both for those looking for some commiseration who have experienced pregnancy loss and/or infertility and for those who want to understand the issue better from a personal perspective. ]]> 3.83 2015 Fragile and Perfectly Cracked: A Memoir of Loss and Infertility
author: Sophie Wyndham
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2016/06/11
date added: 2016/06/12
shelves: memoir, non-fiction, parenting, self-published, 2016-aty-reading-challenge
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #19: A non-fiction book

3.5

First off, it's good that books like this exist. Infertility and pregnancy loss are incredibly common, yet they are "silent" epidemics that often leave those living with them feeling isolated and broken. Wyndham is a good writer, and the book is told in a present-tense, chronological way that makes it all feel very immediate and real. She includes details about all the little things you do to pass the time or to retain hope or stave off depression while dealing with complications on the road to creating a family. In some places the detail felt like TOO much, especially when she described her pregnancy losses. While I'm sure that level of detail was cathartic to Wyndham, I wonder if it is helpful or triggering/stressful for women who have experienced pregnancy loss to read. One thing that cannot be denied: Wyndham definitely captures how traumatic pregnancy loss is.

Yet despite the level of detail Wyndham went into in some instances -- the video games she played when she was depressed, the food she ate in the clinic after her D&C -- there are so many other places where detail is so lacking that Wyndham's infertility journey seems to take place in a vacuum. Although she mentions work, attending conferences, and "working remotely," she never discloses what she actually DOES. Her husband seems to be a journalist of some sort, which is only obliquely mentioned more than halfway through the book. This couple seems to have no friends, and while parents are mentioned, they are only distant ideas and potential phone calls. That is to say, reading this feels more like reading a diary than reading a memoir. When someone writes a diary, she doesn't think about what the reader will or won't understand -- she writes about the details that seem important in that moment. A memoir calls for more "world-building" than that, to allow the reader to fully understand the author's circumstances and life. The world in which Wyndham faced her fertility crises seemed to exist in isolation from everything else in life. In some instances, she even obscures parts of her infertility story -- she calls the baby she lost at 6 months "Baby T," but she never explains where that name came from. Also, the ending is pretty abrupt, which is somewhat offset by the fact that the prologue basically lets us know how things turn out.

I try not to comment too much on personality in memoir, but Wyndham's tone does come across sometimes as off-putting in how cantankerous she is. She is dealing with some tough stuff in which her high levels of negativity are TOTALLY justified in most cases -- but negativity seems to be her default setting even when things are less bad; I have received some of the treatments/tried some of the methods she writes about and they are not nearly as bad/as big a deal as she makes them sound.

Although there were a few gaffs (she mostly referred to her husband as J, but a few times his full name, Jonathon, sneaked in), as self-published books go this is far better than most. Not only is Wyndham a good writer, but she seems to be (or hired) a competent editor as well -- aside from the naming issue, this book is not riddled with distracting misspellings, errant punctuation marks or crappy formatting. In short, it is eminently readable, and intimate, accessible and relevant enough that I wanted to keep reading despite a few of my qualms. It's a worthwhile read both for those looking for some commiseration who have experienced pregnancy loss and/or infertility and for those who want to understand the issue better from a personal perspective.
]]> Smile (Smile, #1) 6393631 214 Raina Telgemeier 0545132053 Lacey 4
So, even though everyone who has laid eyes on this graphic novel seems to love it, regardless of age, I was never particularly interested in reading it. But it came up on my book club's reading list, and while I can see the appeal, I don't think it would have been the biggest tragedy if I'd never read it, either.

In general, graphic "memoirs" are my favorite genre of "graphic novels." This one was especially fun because Raina was in middle school around the same time that I was, so I recognized the hairstyles, Nintendo games, and other pop culture references -- especially what a HUGE deal it was when The Little Mermaid came out. :) Yet today's tweens are still eating this book up because the way it captures the insecurity and confusion of adolescence is spot on, with all of it exacerbated by Raina's dental drama. While that provides the "through-line" that ties all the pieces together, this is really a story about growing up and finding your voice, and it's incredibly satisfying when Raina does.

There are some things that a visual medium can capture so much more poignantly than prose, and no place was that clearer than [spoilers removed]

While I've never had much dental drama, I had to admire Raina's fortitude, and I was surprised at how "gory" some of the images were. I guess tweens have stronger stomachs these days than I ever did. ;)]]> 4.22 2009 Smile (Smile, #1)
author: Raina Telgemeier
name: Lacey
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2016/05/31
date added: 2016/06/05
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, graphicnovels, memoir, middle-grade, youngadult, book-club
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #35: An Award-Winning book (Will Eisner Comic Industry Award Winner)

So, even though everyone who has laid eyes on this graphic novel seems to love it, regardless of age, I was never particularly interested in reading it. But it came up on my book club's reading list, and while I can see the appeal, I don't think it would have been the biggest tragedy if I'd never read it, either.

In general, graphic "memoirs" are my favorite genre of "graphic novels." This one was especially fun because Raina was in middle school around the same time that I was, so I recognized the hairstyles, Nintendo games, and other pop culture references -- especially what a HUGE deal it was when The Little Mermaid came out. :) Yet today's tweens are still eating this book up because the way it captures the insecurity and confusion of adolescence is spot on, with all of it exacerbated by Raina's dental drama. While that provides the "through-line" that ties all the pieces together, this is really a story about growing up and finding your voice, and it's incredibly satisfying when Raina does.

There are some things that a visual medium can capture so much more poignantly than prose, and no place was that clearer than [spoilers removed]

While I've never had much dental drama, I had to admire Raina's fortitude, and I was surprised at how "gory" some of the images were. I guess tweens have stronger stomachs these days than I ever did. ;)
]]> Three by Flannery O'Connor 646270 Wise Blood, The Violent Bear it Away, and Everything that Rises Must Converge.]]> 461 Flannery O'Connor 0451517709 Lacey 4
So, Flannery O'Connor always seems to come up in conversations about spiritual writing, and I've heard her work referred to as the "epitome" of Catholic writing. Every time she comes up, I'd remember this book on my shelf and think, "I should have read that by now!" (along with about 1,000 other books).

Well, I finally did it! And I did it big. Since my only O'Connor included three books in one volume, I read all three of them. Now I feel like I should get credit on all my reading challenges for three books instead of one, but ISBN #s don't work that way.

Overall: I've heard O'Connor's writing described as "grotesque," and I would have to say that's an apt description. She has a tendency to focus on the dark, the morbid and the unappealing. I feel as if she writes the opposite of mass market romances, where everything is colored in shades to make it a little more palatable than in real life. Here, everything is a little more spoiled and rotten than what most people see through their default filter.

While I can agree that her stories have spiritual underpinnings, I was surprised that these are most often revealed by looking at the underbelly of spirituality -- the dark, the weak, the empty. All of her stories seem to be fundamentally about lack, and a person who is spiritually inclined could easily read them as a constant strain toward the meaning or fulfillment that can come from knowing God. However, the non-religious could just as easily see them as compelling and perceptive character studies. These are the three O'Connor books that were included in my volume:

1. Wise Blood - This was my least favorite of the three, as it centered around a selfish "preacher" who was on fire with the gospel of the "Church without Christ" and was as tied up in his non-belief as the most devout believer is to belief. His motivations were never totally clear, and the way he treated those he encountered was appalling enough to make this an altogether unpleasant reading experience. In the end there is sort of a creepy commentary on what we might use to fill that "emptiness" in our life as we search for meaning, the length to which we might go to establish some sort of God even if we won't name it as such. The whole thing is a little off-kilter and off-putting, and the uneasy feeling it leaves you with is a testament to O'Connor's skill as a writer. But this story is not one I'd be eager to revisit anytime soon. (3/5 stars)

2. The Violent Bear it Away - This novel also examines the lengths we will go to to make meaning of our lives, but this time it does so in the context of relationship. It centers on the relationship of a young boy and his uncle, both of whom define their identities in contrast to the man who attempted to indoctrinate them into a belief in a godly destiny. It's a close, nuanced look at the way our spirituality can get tangled up with the people in our lives who first introduced it to us, for better or for worse. I found both the young boy's stubborn attempt to find his own way after his great uncle's death and his new caretaker's insistence on building a meaningful life separate from God to be compelling. Both characters are far more sympathetic than anything we saw in Wise Blood. But the ending was still darker than seemed necessary -- soon I will begin to see a pattern. (4/5 stars)

3. Everything That Rises Must Converge - This is actually a collection of short stories, and it was my favorite of the three books. O'Connor seems to really shine in the format of the short story, where she can examine characters' "fatal flaws" close up and in defining moments, while not forcing us to stay with them until we feel totally suffocated by their inner darknesses. The short story format also allowed her to explore more varied themes than in the short novels -- for the first time, we see racism coming to the forefront of her consciousness, along with the themes that she explores more in depth in her novels, such as pride, vanity, human weakness, a search for meaning. O'Connor's work is a lot to take in, and it goes down best -- and I think, with the greatest impact -- in small doses. Although I read these stories one after the other because I have limited time for reading and want to take advantage of every moment of it, they beg to be savored and pondered one-by-one before rushing headlong into the next. I think if I had encountered any of these stories as standalones in a short story or literature class, it would have quickly become stuck in my gut as one of the most salient pieces I had ever read. (4/5 stars)

O'Connor's writing is utterly masterful, but the tragedy of it all did start to wear on me [spoilers removed] ]]> 3.82 1960 Three by Flannery O'Connor
author: Flannery O'Connor
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1960
rating: 4
read at: 2016/05/27
date added: 2016/05/31
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, classics, literary-fiction, short-stories
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge #10: A book by an author you should have read by now

So, Flannery O'Connor always seems to come up in conversations about spiritual writing, and I've heard her work referred to as the "epitome" of Catholic writing. Every time she comes up, I'd remember this book on my shelf and think, "I should have read that by now!" (along with about 1,000 other books).

Well, I finally did it! And I did it big. Since my only O'Connor included three books in one volume, I read all three of them. Now I feel like I should get credit on all my reading challenges for three books instead of one, but ISBN #s don't work that way.

Overall: I've heard O'Connor's writing described as "grotesque," and I would have to say that's an apt description. She has a tendency to focus on the dark, the morbid and the unappealing. I feel as if she writes the opposite of mass market romances, where everything is colored in shades to make it a little more palatable than in real life. Here, everything is a little more spoiled and rotten than what most people see through their default filter.

While I can agree that her stories have spiritual underpinnings, I was surprised that these are most often revealed by looking at the underbelly of spirituality -- the dark, the weak, the empty. All of her stories seem to be fundamentally about lack, and a person who is spiritually inclined could easily read them as a constant strain toward the meaning or fulfillment that can come from knowing God. However, the non-religious could just as easily see them as compelling and perceptive character studies. These are the three O'Connor books that were included in my volume:

1. Wise Blood - This was my least favorite of the three, as it centered around a selfish "preacher" who was on fire with the gospel of the "Church without Christ" and was as tied up in his non-belief as the most devout believer is to belief. His motivations were never totally clear, and the way he treated those he encountered was appalling enough to make this an altogether unpleasant reading experience. In the end there is sort of a creepy commentary on what we might use to fill that "emptiness" in our life as we search for meaning, the length to which we might go to establish some sort of God even if we won't name it as such. The whole thing is a little off-kilter and off-putting, and the uneasy feeling it leaves you with is a testament to O'Connor's skill as a writer. But this story is not one I'd be eager to revisit anytime soon. (3/5 stars)

2. The Violent Bear it Away - This novel also examines the lengths we will go to to make meaning of our lives, but this time it does so in the context of relationship. It centers on the relationship of a young boy and his uncle, both of whom define their identities in contrast to the man who attempted to indoctrinate them into a belief in a godly destiny. It's a close, nuanced look at the way our spirituality can get tangled up with the people in our lives who first introduced it to us, for better or for worse. I found both the young boy's stubborn attempt to find his own way after his great uncle's death and his new caretaker's insistence on building a meaningful life separate from God to be compelling. Both characters are far more sympathetic than anything we saw in Wise Blood. But the ending was still darker than seemed necessary -- soon I will begin to see a pattern. (4/5 stars)

3. Everything That Rises Must Converge - This is actually a collection of short stories, and it was my favorite of the three books. O'Connor seems to really shine in the format of the short story, where she can examine characters' "fatal flaws" close up and in defining moments, while not forcing us to stay with them until we feel totally suffocated by their inner darknesses. The short story format also allowed her to explore more varied themes than in the short novels -- for the first time, we see racism coming to the forefront of her consciousness, along with the themes that she explores more in depth in her novels, such as pride, vanity, human weakness, a search for meaning. O'Connor's work is a lot to take in, and it goes down best -- and I think, with the greatest impact -- in small doses. Although I read these stories one after the other because I have limited time for reading and want to take advantage of every moment of it, they beg to be savored and pondered one-by-one before rushing headlong into the next. I think if I had encountered any of these stories as standalones in a short story or literature class, it would have quickly become stuck in my gut as one of the most salient pieces I had ever read. (4/5 stars)

O'Connor's writing is utterly masterful, but the tragedy of it all did start to wear on me [spoilers removed]
]]> Heidi 6410372 284 Johanna Spyri Lacey 3
3.5

This was almost a four-star book for me. I kept being torn between my genuine enjoyment of the setting and characters and my "objective" observations about the strength of the story.

On the one hand, I found Heidi to be an easy, charming read. It was lovely to be carried away to Heidi's idyllic home in the mountains and to see the way her presence seemed to awaken the love of all those around her. Having grown up on the movie "Heidi's Song," I was disappointed that more of the book didn't take place in Frankfurt -- Heidi's journey from being an "outsider" to finding her way back home happened far too easily and mostly came at the hands of well-meaning adults who perceived her sadness and rescued her. This made for an overall lack of tension throughout the book, and it meant Heidi did not have to grow particularly as a character, even though the version I read lauds it as a "great coming of age" story.

It's also all extremely romanticized -- everyone loves Heidi, she suffers no ill effects from being dumped at her grandfather's place at age 5, she immediately takes to life on the mountain, she adores everyone she meets, everyone adores her, etc. This is the sort of thing that would make me want to vomit in most books, but something about the simplicity and guilelessness with which this story was written made it all go down a lot more easily. Ultimately, I liked spending time in Heidi's world, finding great joy in the simple things, like a good glass of goat's milk or a sunset over the mountains ... [spoilers removed]]]> 4.04 1880 Heidi
author: Johanna Spyri
name: Lacey
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1880
rating: 3
read at: 2016/05/27
date added: 2016/05/30
shelves: mp3-audiobook, 2016-aty-reading-challenge, children-s, classics, middle-grade
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #12: A Childhood Classic

3.5

This was almost a four-star book for me. I kept being torn between my genuine enjoyment of the setting and characters and my "objective" observations about the strength of the story.

On the one hand, I found Heidi to be an easy, charming read. It was lovely to be carried away to Heidi's idyllic home in the mountains and to see the way her presence seemed to awaken the love of all those around her. Having grown up on the movie "Heidi's Song," I was disappointed that more of the book didn't take place in Frankfurt -- Heidi's journey from being an "outsider" to finding her way back home happened far too easily and mostly came at the hands of well-meaning adults who perceived her sadness and rescued her. This made for an overall lack of tension throughout the book, and it meant Heidi did not have to grow particularly as a character, even though the version I read lauds it as a "great coming of age" story.

It's also all extremely romanticized -- everyone loves Heidi, she suffers no ill effects from being dumped at her grandfather's place at age 5, she immediately takes to life on the mountain, she adores everyone she meets, everyone adores her, etc. This is the sort of thing that would make me want to vomit in most books, but something about the simplicity and guilelessness with which this story was written made it all go down a lot more easily. Ultimately, I liked spending time in Heidi's world, finding great joy in the simple things, like a good glass of goat's milk or a sunset over the mountains ... [spoilers removed]
]]> We Are the Ants 23677341 The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley comes a brand-new novel about a teenage boy who must decide whether or not the world is worth saving.

Henry Denton has spent years being periodically abducted by aliens. Then the aliens give him an ultimatum: The world will end in 144 days, and all Henry has to do to stop it is push a big red button.

Only he isn’t sure he wants to.

After all, life hasn’t been great for Henry. His mom is a struggling waitress held together by a thin layer of cigarette smoke. His brother is a jobless dropout who just knocked someone up. His grandmother is slowly losing herself to Alzheimer’s. And Henry is still dealing with the grief of his boyfriend’s suicide last year.

Wiping the slate clean sounds like a pretty good choice to him.

But Henry is a scientist first, and facing the question thoroughly and logically, he begins to look for pros and cons: in the bully who is his perpetual one-night stand, in the best friend who betrayed him, in the brilliant and mysterious boy who walked into the wrong class. Weighing the pain and the joy that surrounds him, Henry is left with the ultimate choice: push the button and save the planet and everyone on it…or let the world—and his pain—be destroyed forever.]]> 455 Shaun David Hutchinson 148144963X Lacey 3
This is that review that I just keep putting off. I'm not quite sure why I didn't like this book more. Maybe it was just not the right time. It's got so much going for it that I should be able to appreciate -- a message about the beauty of life even when sucky things happen, a sci-fi subplot that may or may not be real, gay characters who are not defined by their sexuality, good writing, and believable, nuanced characters.

But somehow this book just didn't end up being more than the sum of its parts for me. Perhaps the main character's consistently bleak outlook on life just started to get to me in a YA novel that is this long (400+ pages). It felt a little too long to me, but that may be circumstantial -- I was trying to squeeze it in before it had to go back to the library, which means it interrupted the other book I was reading (bookus interruptus). I wanted there to be MORE about the sluggers (aliens), since that was the main draw for me. And I wanted slightly less ambiguity about whether they were actually real or not, even though usually ambiguous endings don't bother me much.

It felt a little bit like a book that was trying too hard, which is a little unfair because objectively I think it succeeded in what it set out to do. But I just didn't feel satisfied. I feel like this is one of those cases when it's not you (book), it's me. ]]> 4.12 2016 We Are the Ants
author: Shaun David Hutchinson
name: Lacey
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2016/05/12
date added: 2016/05/30
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, lgbtqi, magical-realism, paranormal, sciencefiction, romance, youngadult
review:
3.5

This is that review that I just keep putting off. I'm not quite sure why I didn't like this book more. Maybe it was just not the right time. It's got so much going for it that I should be able to appreciate -- a message about the beauty of life even when sucky things happen, a sci-fi subplot that may or may not be real, gay characters who are not defined by their sexuality, good writing, and believable, nuanced characters.

But somehow this book just didn't end up being more than the sum of its parts for me. Perhaps the main character's consistently bleak outlook on life just started to get to me in a YA novel that is this long (400+ pages). It felt a little too long to me, but that may be circumstantial -- I was trying to squeeze it in before it had to go back to the library, which means it interrupted the other book I was reading (bookus interruptus). I wanted there to be MORE about the sluggers (aliens), since that was the main draw for me. And I wanted slightly less ambiguity about whether they were actually real or not, even though usually ambiguous endings don't bother me much.

It felt a little bit like a book that was trying too hard, which is a little unfair because objectively I think it succeeded in what it set out to do. But I just didn't feel satisfied. I feel like this is one of those cases when it's not you (book), it's me.
]]> The Heart Goes Last 24388326
Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of an economic and social collapse. Job loss has forced them to live in their car, leaving them vulnerable to roving gangs. They desperately need to turn their situation around - and fast. The Positron Project in the town of Consilience seems to be the answer to their prayers. No one is unemployed and everyone gets a comfortable, clean house to live in... for six months out of the year. On alternating months, residents of Consilience must leave their homes and function as inmates in the Positron prison system. Once their month of service in the prison is completed, they can return to their "civilian" homes.

At first, this doesn't seem like too much of a sacrifice to make in order to have a roof over one's head and food to eat. But when Charmaine becomes romantically involved with the man who lives in their house during the months when she and Stan are in the prison, a series of troubling events unfolds, putting Stan's life in danger. With each passing day, Positron looks less like a prayer answered and more like a chilling prophecy fulfilled.]]> 320 Margaret Atwood 0385540353 Lacey 4
Don't be discouraged by the fact that this book took me five months to read -- I was reading it on my Kindle, which is pretty much the "slow lane" to my book traffic. (I usually only read it in waiting rooms.) The writing style is accessible and it could be a "fast read," although it's up for debate whether it might be considered "light."

Like most of Atwood's dystopias, this one is thick with social commentary, particularly as regards to sex roles and the consumer packaging of sex. One of my friends gave up on the book halfway in because she felt like there was "too much weird sex stuff," and while uncomfortable in places, it is not purely gratuitous. The book is more dark satire than pure dystopia, so it calls for some suspension of disbelief as relates to the actual premise and the society that Atwood sets up. Atwood is making a point, not showing off her worldbuilding skills.

Still, while the men and women who populate this novel may read like caricatures at times, they are also uncomfortably recognizable. Stan and Charmaine are "average" folk who blunder into a surreal and twisted world during a time of desperation, and the piece ultimately ends up being a strange examination of marriage that manages to be both jaded and strangely hopeful.

I wouldn't recommend this as a first introduction to Atwood, as you almost need to have some familiarity with her work to take this one in context. But if you've enjoyed her in the past and don't mind a little humor in your dystopia or some major darkness in your comedy, you'll probably find this to be a satisfying enough addition to the Atwood science fiction canon. ]]> 3.37 2015 The Heart Goes Last
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2016/05/10
date added: 2016/05/22
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, dystopia, literary-fiction, marriage
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #48: A Dystopia

Don't be discouraged by the fact that this book took me five months to read -- I was reading it on my Kindle, which is pretty much the "slow lane" to my book traffic. (I usually only read it in waiting rooms.) The writing style is accessible and it could be a "fast read," although it's up for debate whether it might be considered "light."

Like most of Atwood's dystopias, this one is thick with social commentary, particularly as regards to sex roles and the consumer packaging of sex. One of my friends gave up on the book halfway in because she felt like there was "too much weird sex stuff," and while uncomfortable in places, it is not purely gratuitous. The book is more dark satire than pure dystopia, so it calls for some suspension of disbelief as relates to the actual premise and the society that Atwood sets up. Atwood is making a point, not showing off her worldbuilding skills.

Still, while the men and women who populate this novel may read like caricatures at times, they are also uncomfortably recognizable. Stan and Charmaine are "average" folk who blunder into a surreal and twisted world during a time of desperation, and the piece ultimately ends up being a strange examination of marriage that manages to be both jaded and strangely hopeful.

I wouldn't recommend this as a first introduction to Atwood, as you almost need to have some familiarity with her work to take this one in context. But if you've enjoyed her in the past and don't mind a little humor in your dystopia or some major darkness in your comedy, you'll probably find this to be a satisfying enough addition to the Atwood science fiction canon.
]]> <![CDATA[Vivian Apple at the End of the World (Vivian Apple, #1)]]> 20256737 262 Katie Coyle 0544340116 Lacey 4
The "post-apocalyptic" fundamentalist rapture trope gets a somewhat new angle in this book, which comes just shy of straining believability. Its messages about the evils of capitalism and being a "follower" are a little heavy-handed at times, and its character development mostly sketchy. Still, I liked that it was sort of a combination between a post-apocalyptic story with a somewhat realist bent and a typical road trip teen novel, complete with burgeoning love story. The love story was not as compelling as the relationship between Vivian and her best friend, Harp, though. This book left me just curious enough to want to read the next one(s) in the series, despite some lingering incredulity.

So, why so many stars for a book that left me somewhat perplexed about how I was supposed to feel about it all? Despite that, this book moves along at a nice clip and held my interest to the last page, even as I was analyzing its shortcomings. The road trip aspect especially gives it a sense of momentum. And in a very crowded genre, this one was just different enough to be noticeable. The fact that the spent the mid-section of the book in South Dakota didn't hurt, either. :)

Around the Year Reading Challenge item #20: A Book with a First Name in the Title]]> 3.69 2013 Vivian Apple at the End of the World (Vivian Apple, #1)
author: Katie Coyle
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2016/01/09
date added: 2016/05/07
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, apocalyptic-postapocalyptic, dystopia, youngadult, mp3-audiobook
review:
This was a somewhat strange book. Was it a cautionary tale? A satire? There were moments when I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to be frightened or amused.

The "post-apocalyptic" fundamentalist rapture trope gets a somewhat new angle in this book, which comes just shy of straining believability. Its messages about the evils of capitalism and being a "follower" are a little heavy-handed at times, and its character development mostly sketchy. Still, I liked that it was sort of a combination between a post-apocalyptic story with a somewhat realist bent and a typical road trip teen novel, complete with burgeoning love story. The love story was not as compelling as the relationship between Vivian and her best friend, Harp, though. This book left me just curious enough to want to read the next one(s) in the series, despite some lingering incredulity.

So, why so many stars for a book that left me somewhat perplexed about how I was supposed to feel about it all? Despite that, this book moves along at a nice clip and held my interest to the last page, even as I was analyzing its shortcomings. The road trip aspect especially gives it a sense of momentum. And in a very crowded genre, this one was just different enough to be noticeable. The fact that the spent the mid-section of the book in South Dakota didn't hurt, either. :)

Around the Year Reading Challenge item #20: A Book with a First Name in the Title
]]> Creating a Life 782978 352 Sylvia Ann Hewlett 1401359302 Lacey 4
So, this challenge item was mightily easy for me. One of my biggest problems when I read non-fiction is that non-fiction tends to cite other works, and by the time I've finished one non-fiction book, I've got a list of 10 more on the same subject that I want to read. That's how I came across this book, which was definitely mentioned in Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness, and was also possibly/probably mentioned in The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars: Who Decides What Makes a Good Mother? and/or The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much?. At any rate, I know I came across it referenced in more than one book.

After reading it, I can see why it's such a divisive book in the feminist community. On the one hand, Hewlett cannot, and should not, be faulted for her emphasis in this book, which is that women who want to have successful careers and children need to put some serious thought and planning into how to make that work. She spends a lot of time driving home the fact that women do not have "endless" time to decide on the issue of children, and that not acting fast enough can lead to a de facto decision not to have them. She also cuts through the myth that reproductive technology can allow "anyone" to get pregnant at any time in their lives, which is definitely something women should have open eyes about. Perhaps it's because I've never worked in industries as "high-powered" as the women profiled in this book, but I was surprised by how "common" Hewlett makes it seem that women expect to still get pregnant "well into their 40s." Perhaps it's a sign of this book's age (first published in 2001), but I and most of the other women I know have received quite the opposite message: start popping out babies ASAP or else.

So while Hewlett's urging for women to be proactive about the decision about children while they still have a good chance of having them is important, her insistence that women must "plan" for this sits somewhat less well with me. While women who want a family need to welcome opportunities to meet and build a life with someone, Hewlett's implication that you could "schedule" this sort of thing the way you can schedule a career trajectory was somewhat off-putting. Although she never comes out and says it, the tacit message seems to be that it would be better to "settle" for someone while the getting is good than it is to wait for it to happen naturally. And although it would have been nice for me to have the luxury of thinking of starting a family earlier, I have no regrets that I waited as long as I did for the "right man" to come along, nor do I regret the many years I spent as a single woman that were absolutely crucial to shaping my identity. In addition, Hewlett seems totally blind to the flip side of having children earlier than one might want, which is the possibility of resenting them for the strain they put on your work, your career, and your relationship. Instead, the message seems to be that if you have the opportunity to marry/start a family in your twenties, you should do it, no questions asked.

Another troubling thread in this book was the insinuation that successful women will/do have more trouble finding a mate, so that perhaps they should be willing to make some "compromises" in their ambitions to do so. She profiled several women who seemed to be in promising relationships that didn't survive because eventually the dude just couldn't deal with the woman's devotion to her work -- but my thought about those guys is, if he can't handle a strong woman, Good riddance! But Hewlett seems to say that a good relationship may be one of the sacrifices you'll make as a career-driven woman, when any relationship that requires a woman to be less than what she can or wants to be is NOT a good one to begin with.

Although this book was published over 15 years ago, work culture has changed very little in that time, and the dilemmas Hewlett poses between work and family for women are still alive and well. Like other books of this nature, Hewlett calls upon women -- who are already stretched too thin -- to also take up the charge of changing workplace culture. As daunting as it can be to do that, the feeling I took with me after reading this book is not that women need to work harder and plan better to "have it all," which is the message Hewlett means to impart, but that women DO still have to choose, and that one should, at the very least, become clear upfront about which aspect of her life she would rather sacrifice while we wait for the U.S. to catch up with the rest of the developed world when it comes to work-life balance.

The woman profiled in this book are highly competitive and highly driven. Work swallows their lives. And while I have gone through periods of my own life when it felt like this was the case, I was not happy. The big question in my mind was whether these women loved what they did enough to make all the stress and sacrifice worth it. That was never really addressed, and so it was hard for me to fathom why women would stay in jobs for so long that shredded their health and personal lives.

Of course, this book deals with such intimate topics that it's bound to push a few buttons, and I still feel pretty ambivalent about it. But I rated it four stars anyway because a) Hewlett is not responsible for my own emotional reaction to her work; and b) it IS good for women to be aware of these issues even if it is painful; and c) it is eminently readable; the pages turned fast once I got started even though initially the subject matter seemed daunting to me.

I very much wish that this book had become irrelevant by now, but sadly it has not. And that might be what I liked about it least of all. ]]> 3.88 2002 Creating a Life
author: Sylvia Ann Hewlett
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2016/04/05
date added: 2016/04/24
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, feminism, non-fiction, parenting, self-help
review:
Around the Year Book Challenge Item #9: A book mentioned in another book

So, this challenge item was mightily easy for me. One of my biggest problems when I read non-fiction is that non-fiction tends to cite other works, and by the time I've finished one non-fiction book, I've got a list of 10 more on the same subject that I want to read. That's how I came across this book, which was definitely mentioned in Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness, and was also possibly/probably mentioned in The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars: Who Decides What Makes a Good Mother? and/or The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much?. At any rate, I know I came across it referenced in more than one book.

After reading it, I can see why it's such a divisive book in the feminist community. On the one hand, Hewlett cannot, and should not, be faulted for her emphasis in this book, which is that women who want to have successful careers and children need to put some serious thought and planning into how to make that work. She spends a lot of time driving home the fact that women do not have "endless" time to decide on the issue of children, and that not acting fast enough can lead to a de facto decision not to have them. She also cuts through the myth that reproductive technology can allow "anyone" to get pregnant at any time in their lives, which is definitely something women should have open eyes about. Perhaps it's because I've never worked in industries as "high-powered" as the women profiled in this book, but I was surprised by how "common" Hewlett makes it seem that women expect to still get pregnant "well into their 40s." Perhaps it's a sign of this book's age (first published in 2001), but I and most of the other women I know have received quite the opposite message: start popping out babies ASAP or else.

So while Hewlett's urging for women to be proactive about the decision about children while they still have a good chance of having them is important, her insistence that women must "plan" for this sits somewhat less well with me. While women who want a family need to welcome opportunities to meet and build a life with someone, Hewlett's implication that you could "schedule" this sort of thing the way you can schedule a career trajectory was somewhat off-putting. Although she never comes out and says it, the tacit message seems to be that it would be better to "settle" for someone while the getting is good than it is to wait for it to happen naturally. And although it would have been nice for me to have the luxury of thinking of starting a family earlier, I have no regrets that I waited as long as I did for the "right man" to come along, nor do I regret the many years I spent as a single woman that were absolutely crucial to shaping my identity. In addition, Hewlett seems totally blind to the flip side of having children earlier than one might want, which is the possibility of resenting them for the strain they put on your work, your career, and your relationship. Instead, the message seems to be that if you have the opportunity to marry/start a family in your twenties, you should do it, no questions asked.

Another troubling thread in this book was the insinuation that successful women will/do have more trouble finding a mate, so that perhaps they should be willing to make some "compromises" in their ambitions to do so. She profiled several women who seemed to be in promising relationships that didn't survive because eventually the dude just couldn't deal with the woman's devotion to her work -- but my thought about those guys is, if he can't handle a strong woman, Good riddance! But Hewlett seems to say that a good relationship may be one of the sacrifices you'll make as a career-driven woman, when any relationship that requires a woman to be less than what she can or wants to be is NOT a good one to begin with.

Although this book was published over 15 years ago, work culture has changed very little in that time, and the dilemmas Hewlett poses between work and family for women are still alive and well. Like other books of this nature, Hewlett calls upon women -- who are already stretched too thin -- to also take up the charge of changing workplace culture. As daunting as it can be to do that, the feeling I took with me after reading this book is not that women need to work harder and plan better to "have it all," which is the message Hewlett means to impart, but that women DO still have to choose, and that one should, at the very least, become clear upfront about which aspect of her life she would rather sacrifice while we wait for the U.S. to catch up with the rest of the developed world when it comes to work-life balance.

The woman profiled in this book are highly competitive and highly driven. Work swallows their lives. And while I have gone through periods of my own life when it felt like this was the case, I was not happy. The big question in my mind was whether these women loved what they did enough to make all the stress and sacrifice worth it. That was never really addressed, and so it was hard for me to fathom why women would stay in jobs for so long that shredded their health and personal lives.

Of course, this book deals with such intimate topics that it's bound to push a few buttons, and I still feel pretty ambivalent about it. But I rated it four stars anyway because a) Hewlett is not responsible for my own emotional reaction to her work; and b) it IS good for women to be aware of these issues even if it is painful; and c) it is eminently readable; the pages turned fast once I got started even though initially the subject matter seemed daunting to me.

I very much wish that this book had become irrelevant by now, but sadly it has not. And that might be what I liked about it least of all.
]]> Fahrenheit 451 16639257
Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.� But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television. When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.]]> Ray Bradbury 1455106321 Lacey 4
This was my second time reading this, but the only thing I remembered from the first time was that these people had TVs that took up the whole wall and that some folks memorized books.

I don't remember being particularly impressed the first time through. I liked it more the second time, particularly its message about how it's not just books that are important, but that we don't lose touch with our humanity and the struggle to understand ideas and experiences different from our own. The warning that becoming too lost in vapid entertainment may dull our senses to what's real -- such as our relationships with the people who live in our houses, or the war happening at our borders -- seems to remain especially relevant in the age of reality TV and get-famous-quick schemes. Although, Mildred lying on the bed zoned out with her "seashells" is not that different from me wandering around with an audiobook constantly playing in my ears ... ;)

I do remember being frustrated by the portrayal of women the first time I read it, and that frustration remained on this go 'round. The portrayal of women in classic sci-fi ALWAYS annoys me, though -- it's so frustrating that these dudes could imagine all sorts of funky technology, totally different societies, and yet gender roles remain firmly enmeshed in the era in which they were written. This book is particularly egregious because the one female character who is not totally vapid [spoilers removed]. All the others, with the charge led by Montag's wife, Millie, basically embody everything that is wrong with a post-book society. They are lazy, selfish, out of touch with their own feelings and the feelings of others,empty-headed, etc. While even the men who espouse unsavory ideals, such as Captain Beatty, have the ability to think critically and have some character complexity. And of course ALL the rebels Montag encountered outside the city were men. (One of the women in my book club made a comment about when the men talked about "passing the knowledge of books" on to their children, and she was like, "How are you gonna get those?!?")

This is all especially egregious because for a substantial part of their marriage, Bradbury's wife WAS the family's breadwinner while he stayed home and wrote. So of all old-school sci-fi writers, he should have been able to think outside the housewife box. But perhaps he harbored some hidden resentment that manifested in his treatment of wives in this book.

Anyway, now that I'm done psychoanalyzing Bradbury, I'll mention that the mechanical hound was super cool/scary -- and that Bradbury's afterward in the edition I listened to really made me dislike him as a person even if I can admire him as a writer. ]]> 3.72 1953 Fahrenheit 451
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1953
rating: 4
read at: 2016/03/25
date added: 2016/04/10
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, book-club, classics, dystopia, re-reading, sciencefiction
review:
Item #42 of the Around the Year Reading Challenge: A book from the top 100 fantasy/sci-fi list (NPR)

This was my second time reading this, but the only thing I remembered from the first time was that these people had TVs that took up the whole wall and that some folks memorized books.

I don't remember being particularly impressed the first time through. I liked it more the second time, particularly its message about how it's not just books that are important, but that we don't lose touch with our humanity and the struggle to understand ideas and experiences different from our own. The warning that becoming too lost in vapid entertainment may dull our senses to what's real -- such as our relationships with the people who live in our houses, or the war happening at our borders -- seems to remain especially relevant in the age of reality TV and get-famous-quick schemes. Although, Mildred lying on the bed zoned out with her "seashells" is not that different from me wandering around with an audiobook constantly playing in my ears ... ;)

I do remember being frustrated by the portrayal of women the first time I read it, and that frustration remained on this go 'round. The portrayal of women in classic sci-fi ALWAYS annoys me, though -- it's so frustrating that these dudes could imagine all sorts of funky technology, totally different societies, and yet gender roles remain firmly enmeshed in the era in which they were written. This book is particularly egregious because the one female character who is not totally vapid [spoilers removed]. All the others, with the charge led by Montag's wife, Millie, basically embody everything that is wrong with a post-book society. They are lazy, selfish, out of touch with their own feelings and the feelings of others,empty-headed, etc. While even the men who espouse unsavory ideals, such as Captain Beatty, have the ability to think critically and have some character complexity. And of course ALL the rebels Montag encountered outside the city were men. (One of the women in my book club made a comment about when the men talked about "passing the knowledge of books" on to their children, and she was like, "How are you gonna get those?!?")

This is all especially egregious because for a substantial part of their marriage, Bradbury's wife WAS the family's breadwinner while he stayed home and wrote. So of all old-school sci-fi writers, he should have been able to think outside the housewife box. But perhaps he harbored some hidden resentment that manifested in his treatment of wives in this book.

Anyway, now that I'm done psychoanalyzing Bradbury, I'll mention that the mechanical hound was super cool/scary -- and that Bradbury's afterward in the edition I listened to really made me dislike him as a person even if I can admire him as a writer.
]]> House of Incest 11043 72 Anaïs Nin 0804001480 Lacey 3
I don't remember what made me want to read this book in the first place; I just remember having a vague sense about 10 years ago that I should read some Anais Nin. So, now I have!

And I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Not the writing itself -- Nin's writing is evocative and gorgeous. I'm just not sure about the use to which it was put here. What DID I just read a couple weeks ago? A prose poem? A novella? A lot of intriguing imagery, but mostly it was like reading a dream. I didn't feel up for diving in to a full analysis to make it make sense. Instead, it just made me want to read some of Nin's journals -- to have that same talented writer's voice applied to something that I might actually be able to understand. ]]> 3.95 1915 House of Incest
author: Anaïs Nin
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1915
rating: 3
read at: 2016/03/23
date added: 2016/04/03
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, classics
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #8: A Classic Book with Less than 200 Pages

I don't remember what made me want to read this book in the first place; I just remember having a vague sense about 10 years ago that I should read some Anais Nin. So, now I have!

And I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Not the writing itself -- Nin's writing is evocative and gorgeous. I'm just not sure about the use to which it was put here. What DID I just read a couple weeks ago? A prose poem? A novella? A lot of intriguing imagery, but mostly it was like reading a dream. I didn't feel up for diving in to a full analysis to make it make sense. Instead, it just made me want to read some of Nin's journals -- to have that same talented writer's voice applied to something that I might actually be able to understand.
]]> <![CDATA[Letter from the Birmingham Jail]]> 203899 There is an alternate edition published under ISBN13: 9780241339466.

Martin Luther King, Jr. rarely had time to answer his critics. But on April 16, 1963, he was confined to the Birmingham jail, serving a sentence for participating in civil rights demonstrations. "Alone for days in the dull monotony of a narrow jail cell," King pondered a letter that fellow clergymen had published urging him to drop his campaign of nonviolent resistance and to leave the battle for racial equality to the courts. In response, King drafted his most extensive and forceful written statement against social injustice - a remarkable essay that focused the world's attention on Birmingham and spurred the famous March on Washington. Bristling with the energy and resonance of his great speeches, Letter from the Birmingham Jail is both a compelling defense of nonviolent demonstration and a rallying cry for an end to social discrimination that is just as powerful today as it was more than twenty years ago.]]> 48 Martin Luther King Jr. 0062509551 Lacey 4
I have LOTS of TBR lists. I have one on ŷ, several on my library's website, my Paperbackswap and Bookmooch lists, and pretty much all the bookshelves in my house, which amount to one massive TBR pile. So when it came time for me to choose which list to use for this challenge item, I went with my audiobook TBR pile because I was in need of a new audiobook. This is the piece that came up the most highly rated, and I think my sister Krystl has pretty much written the only review of this book that will ever be needed:

"Well, come on. What bad things can you really say about this?"


Nonetheless, I found a little bit more to say about this.

Once I got past the somewhat old-fashioned writing style in this essay's preamble, I was struck by how incredibly relevant most of Dr. King's rebuttals were to his critics. I was listening to this mostly as I lay in bed, but I kept wishing for a printed copy so I could highlight many of his eloquent responses, particularly to those who urge people fighting for equal rights to step back and give it more "time." Although I wasn't alive during the civil rights movement, I heard so much of the same pushback during the fight for GLBTQ rights that has taken place over my own lifetime, and in the future Dr. King's responses will continue to be relevant to those who must still fight oppression. Of course, we're a long way from Dr. King's dream of true equality for people of color, so a lot of this is still relevant in its original context, sadly -- it's just that now racism has very much gone underground, making it harder to confront. So until the fight against oppression stops being relevant, this should be required reading for both sides of any battle.

My frustration with it, and the reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5, is because the language was very much focused on the plight of "black man." While "sisters" was mentioned once or twice, the default language of solidarity was "brothers." So it's not a particular intersectional battle for equal rights; King seems concerned primarily with black men obtaining equal standing with white men, which is a worthy goal, but still leaves a lot of people out. It's no wonder the women's liberation movement followed so closely on the heels of this one -- and borrowed so openly from it. ]]> 4.72 1963 Letter from the Birmingham Jail
author: Martin Luther King Jr.
name: Lacey
average rating: 4.72
book published: 1963
rating: 4
read at: 2016/03/19
date added: 2016/04/03
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, essays, history, non-fiction
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #6: The Highest Rated on my TBR

I have LOTS of TBR lists. I have one on ŷ, several on my library's website, my Paperbackswap and Bookmooch lists, and pretty much all the bookshelves in my house, which amount to one massive TBR pile. So when it came time for me to choose which list to use for this challenge item, I went with my audiobook TBR pile because I was in need of a new audiobook. This is the piece that came up the most highly rated, and I think my sister Krystl has pretty much written the only review of this book that will ever be needed:

"Well, come on. What bad things can you really say about this?"


Nonetheless, I found a little bit more to say about this.

Once I got past the somewhat old-fashioned writing style in this essay's preamble, I was struck by how incredibly relevant most of Dr. King's rebuttals were to his critics. I was listening to this mostly as I lay in bed, but I kept wishing for a printed copy so I could highlight many of his eloquent responses, particularly to those who urge people fighting for equal rights to step back and give it more "time." Although I wasn't alive during the civil rights movement, I heard so much of the same pushback during the fight for GLBTQ rights that has taken place over my own lifetime, and in the future Dr. King's responses will continue to be relevant to those who must still fight oppression. Of course, we're a long way from Dr. King's dream of true equality for people of color, so a lot of this is still relevant in its original context, sadly -- it's just that now racism has very much gone underground, making it harder to confront. So until the fight against oppression stops being relevant, this should be required reading for both sides of any battle.

My frustration with it, and the reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5, is because the language was very much focused on the plight of "black man." While "sisters" was mentioned once or twice, the default language of solidarity was "brothers." So it's not a particular intersectional battle for equal rights; King seems concerned primarily with black men obtaining equal standing with white men, which is a worthy goal, but still leaves a lot of people out. It's no wonder the women's liberation movement followed so closely on the heels of this one -- and borrowed so openly from it.
]]> <![CDATA[Marriage and Other Acts of Charity: A Memoir]]> 6452812 Here If You Need Me, Kate Braestrup won the hearts of readers across the country with her deeply moving and deftly humorous stories of faith, hope and family. Now, with her inimitable voice and generous spirit, she turns her attention to the subjects of love and commitment in Marriage And Other Acts Of Charity.

As a minister, Kate Braestrup regularly performs weddings. She has also, at 44, been married twice and widowed once, and accordingly has much to say about life after the ceremony. From helping a newlywed couple make amends after their first fight to preparing herself for her second marriage, Braestrup offers her insights and experiences on what it truly means to share your life with someone, from the first kiss to the last straw, for better or for worse.

Part memoir, part observation of modern marriage, and part meditation on the roles of God and love in our everyday lives, Marriage And Other Acts Of Charity is a unique and unforgettable look into why, and how, we love each other, and proves yet again why Kate Braestrup's writing is "inspirational in the best sense" (New York Daily News).]]> 217 Kate Braestrup 0316031917 Lacey 3
If this was classified as a book of essays rather than a memoir, I might have enjoyed it more.

As a memoir, it just felt so all-over-the-place. Braestrup is a good writer, but there was no clear through-line, and there did not seem to be much of any organizing principles guiding when and how she told her stories -- it was just a jumble of experiences and thoughts related to the subject of marriage -- sometimes very tangentially. I listened to the audio version, and I'd often find myself in the middle of a new scene wondering how the heck we got there, or how it was supposed to relate to what came before, or what it was doing in the book at all.

While I enjoyed a lot of the stories individually, as a whole it was just too ADD for me. I had no trouble believing after reading this that this woman frequently lets kettles melt on the stove because she forgets about them or allows the bathtub to runneth over -- that same sense of distraction was applied to the way this book was put together. Maybe if I had read this rather than listened to it I would have had an easier time; as it was, I kept being like, "Wait, what are we talking about now?"

I liked Braestrup's "take" on spirituality so I might still be open to reading something else by her in the future -- but my brain needs a little recovery time first. ]]> 3.62 2009 Marriage and Other Acts of Charity: A Memoir
author: Kate Braestrup
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2016/01/30
date added: 2016/04/03
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, marriage, memoir, non-fiction, religion
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #28: A biography, autobiography or memoir

If this was classified as a book of essays rather than a memoir, I might have enjoyed it more.

As a memoir, it just felt so all-over-the-place. Braestrup is a good writer, but there was no clear through-line, and there did not seem to be much of any organizing principles guiding when and how she told her stories -- it was just a jumble of experiences and thoughts related to the subject of marriage -- sometimes very tangentially. I listened to the audio version, and I'd often find myself in the middle of a new scene wondering how the heck we got there, or how it was supposed to relate to what came before, or what it was doing in the book at all.

While I enjoyed a lot of the stories individually, as a whole it was just too ADD for me. I had no trouble believing after reading this that this woman frequently lets kettles melt on the stove because she forgets about them or allows the bathtub to runneth over -- that same sense of distraction was applied to the way this book was put together. Maybe if I had read this rather than listened to it I would have had an easier time; as it was, I kept being like, "Wait, what are we talking about now?"

I liked Braestrup's "take" on spirituality so I might still be open to reading something else by her in the future -- but my brain needs a little recovery time first.
]]> Sharp Objects 17828078
Sent to investigate the disappearance of two little girls, Camille finds herself reluctantly installed in the family mansion, reacquainting herself with her distant mother and a precocious thirteen-year-old half-sister she barely knows. Haunted by a family tragedy, troubled by the disquieting grip her young sister has on the town, Camille struggles with a familiar need to be accepted.

But as clues turn into dead ends, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims and realises: she will have to unravel the puzzle of her own past if she's to survive this homecoming.]]> 8 Gillian Flynn 0739346806 Lacey 4
I can't say I exactly "discovered" Gillian Flynn last year, as, due to the blockbuster status of Gone Girl, she's been on my radar most of the time I've worked in libraries. But it wasn't till last year that I actually READ her, and discovered that, holy expletive, the hype was totally worth it.

This book took longer to get going for me than Gone Girl did, but it is worth the wait. What's more, the slow start and incremental buildup sets the perfect tone for this creepy, atmospheric horror novel that looks at a very dark underbelly of a sleepy small town. Although not quite so sinister (thank goodness), she captured the small-town mentality well, particularly how stifling it can feel to come back to after you have been gone for a while.

As I was listening to this novel, I kept having this odd sense of familiarity, and I could not put my finger on why. I knew it wasn't reminding me of Gone Girl, because although both are exquisitely twisted and examine some of the same themes, the tone of the two is very different. But then about halfway through, I realized why this story felt familiar: it was like a more nuanced, psychologically astute version of V.C. Andrews, complete with selfish, manipulative parents and lurid, precocious sex.

Despite this, Flynn's mastery of both the writing craft and her characters' psychology keep this book from ever feeling "trashy" -- it is too "smart" for that. Similar to Gone Girl, it explores themes about media informing reality as the main character, a journalist, attempts to capture "real" reactions to the murders of two little girls in her hometown.

Although the characters in this novel are pervasively flawed, they are utterly believable, which is one of the things that makes the book so haunting. In skimming a lot of the reviews, I found that a lot of people who didn't like the book were frustrated by the poor choices that Camille makes again and again. I was frustrated with her as well, but I also think people who judge her too harshly need to take a step back and look at how or why she turned out the way she did -- growing up without parental love doesn't exactly leave one unscarred, and it's frankly she's been able to pull herself together and do as well as she has (moving away, finishing college, holding down a job, etc.) There was a bit around the middle when I was afraid the "romance" was going to get a little too saccharine, but I should have trusted Flynn to do better than that.

This book is not for the faint of heart, as it includes vivid descriptions of vomiting, pig slaughter, and underage sexuality. But if you don't mind spending a little time in the very dark corners of someone else's imagination, you might want to consider hanging out in Windgap.

[btw: could not get out of my head the whole time I was reading this book.]]]> 3.60 2006 Sharp Objects
author: Gillian Flynn
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2016/03/16
date added: 2016/03/16
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, horror, literary-fiction, psychology, thriller
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #4: A book by an author you discovered in 2015

I can't say I exactly "discovered" Gillian Flynn last year, as, due to the blockbuster status of Gone Girl, she's been on my radar most of the time I've worked in libraries. But it wasn't till last year that I actually READ her, and discovered that, holy expletive, the hype was totally worth it.

This book took longer to get going for me than Gone Girl did, but it is worth the wait. What's more, the slow start and incremental buildup sets the perfect tone for this creepy, atmospheric horror novel that looks at a very dark underbelly of a sleepy small town. Although not quite so sinister (thank goodness), she captured the small-town mentality well, particularly how stifling it can feel to come back to after you have been gone for a while.

As I was listening to this novel, I kept having this odd sense of familiarity, and I could not put my finger on why. I knew it wasn't reminding me of Gone Girl, because although both are exquisitely twisted and examine some of the same themes, the tone of the two is very different. But then about halfway through, I realized why this story felt familiar: it was like a more nuanced, psychologically astute version of V.C. Andrews, complete with selfish, manipulative parents and lurid, precocious sex.

Despite this, Flynn's mastery of both the writing craft and her characters' psychology keep this book from ever feeling "trashy" -- it is too "smart" for that. Similar to Gone Girl, it explores themes about media informing reality as the main character, a journalist, attempts to capture "real" reactions to the murders of two little girls in her hometown.

Although the characters in this novel are pervasively flawed, they are utterly believable, which is one of the things that makes the book so haunting. In skimming a lot of the reviews, I found that a lot of people who didn't like the book were frustrated by the poor choices that Camille makes again and again. I was frustrated with her as well, but I also think people who judge her too harshly need to take a step back and look at how or why she turned out the way she did -- growing up without parental love doesn't exactly leave one unscarred, and it's frankly she's been able to pull herself together and do as well as she has (moving away, finishing college, holding down a job, etc.) There was a bit around the middle when I was afraid the "romance" was going to get a little too saccharine, but I should have trusted Flynn to do better than that.

This book is not for the faint of heart, as it includes vivid descriptions of vomiting, pig slaughter, and underage sexuality. But if you don't mind spending a little time in the very dark corners of someone else's imagination, you might want to consider hanging out in Windgap.

[btw: could not get out of my head the whole time I was reading this book.]
]]> Lonely: A Memoir 7687690 352 Emily White 0061765090 Lacey 4
This book brought back so many memories of my time living alone -- I related a lot to the solitude White describes as she journals at her kitchen table, eats meals alone, forces herself to socialize and then finds herself uncomfortable when she does.

I read this book for the "memoir" aspect of it and was a lot less interested in the loneliness research -- had I known how much of the book would be an aggregation of other people's experiences of loneliness as well as what the experts say, I probably wouldn't have picked it up. It's not the feeling of being lonely that interests me as much as one person's experience of it.

At first, it was hard for me to see the distinction White was drawing between the states of depression, loneliness and introversion. To me, a lot of the behaviors and feelings she described seemed to spring forth from introversion, but I guess the distinction is in whether you are enjoying your time alone or not. The findings about loneliness and health decline were certainly sobering, and I agree with White that it's an issue we as a culture should be more aware of. I was also interested in the stigma surrounding loneliness, and the way White found it easier to come out as gay than to come out as chronically lonely. This made me reflect more upon the loneliest times in my own life, and I realized that I was loathe to speak of the state with anyone except my closest friends as well. The fact that I never questioned not talking about it I think drives home how we've accepted the stigma around it as a culture -- probably because so many people hear "lonely" and translate it as "needy."

The thing is, this may not be inaccurate. The research seems to show that chronically lonely people simply NEED more from other people than the general population does; White describes it as similar to the way a diabetic needs more insulin or a person with depression needs more serotonin. And I think in a culture that values independence and is becoming increasingly disconnected, this need can feel especially shameful and embarrassing.

Although I would have liked more memoir, less academia, White is a good writer with something worthwhile to say. It's good that this book exists to tell those who most need it that they are not, in fact, alone. ]]> 3.37 2010 Lonely: A Memoir
author: Emily White
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2016/03/10
date added: 2016/03/13
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, memoir, non-fiction, psychology
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #5: A book that starts with the same first letter as your name

This book brought back so many memories of my time living alone -- I related a lot to the solitude White describes as she journals at her kitchen table, eats meals alone, forces herself to socialize and then finds herself uncomfortable when she does.

I read this book for the "memoir" aspect of it and was a lot less interested in the loneliness research -- had I known how much of the book would be an aggregation of other people's experiences of loneliness as well as what the experts say, I probably wouldn't have picked it up. It's not the feeling of being lonely that interests me as much as one person's experience of it.

At first, it was hard for me to see the distinction White was drawing between the states of depression, loneliness and introversion. To me, a lot of the behaviors and feelings she described seemed to spring forth from introversion, but I guess the distinction is in whether you are enjoying your time alone or not. The findings about loneliness and health decline were certainly sobering, and I agree with White that it's an issue we as a culture should be more aware of. I was also interested in the stigma surrounding loneliness, and the way White found it easier to come out as gay than to come out as chronically lonely. This made me reflect more upon the loneliest times in my own life, and I realized that I was loathe to speak of the state with anyone except my closest friends as well. The fact that I never questioned not talking about it I think drives home how we've accepted the stigma around it as a culture -- probably because so many people hear "lonely" and translate it as "needy."

The thing is, this may not be inaccurate. The research seems to show that chronically lonely people simply NEED more from other people than the general population does; White describes it as similar to the way a diabetic needs more insulin or a person with depression needs more serotonin. And I think in a culture that values independence and is becoming increasingly disconnected, this need can feel especially shameful and embarrassing.

Although I would have liked more memoir, less academia, White is a good writer with something worthwhile to say. It's good that this book exists to tell those who most need it that they are not, in fact, alone.
]]> The Jane Austen Book Club 2152 The Extraordinary New York Times Bestseller

In California's central valley, five women and one man join to discuss Jane Austen's novels. Over the six months they get together, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens. With her eye for the frailties of human behavior and her ear for the absurdities of social intercourse, Karen Joy Fowler has never been wittier nor her characters more appealing. The result is a delicious dissection of modern relationships.

Dedicated Austenites will delight in unearthing the echoes of Austen that run through the novel, but most readers will simply enjoy the vision and voice that, despite two centuries of separation, unite two great writers of brilliant social comedy.

]]> 288 Karen Joy Fowler 0452286530 Lacey 3
I like Jane Austen and have read all but one of her novels (Mansfield Park -- but I'll get to it!) Still, somehow there is something about me that seems to be fundamentally different from the scores of Austen's devotees, as seems to be evidenced by the women in books inspired by love of her (this one and also Austenland), which are always just sort of "meh" to me.

This book felt less like a novel and more like a collection of connected short stories and character studies. That was fine once I stopped expecting much to happen besides a chapter with a backstory for all the characters. My favorite character was definitely Grigg, probably because he reads science fiction AND Jane Austen, and also perhaps because a male Austenite seemed a little less affected than the typical female Austenite.

I did like that not all the characters in the book club were totally smitten with Jane, and I thought Allegra's commentary about class issues was crucial to injecting some deeper critical thought into the narrative.

Of course, what there is of the plot has parallels in Jane Austen's writing, but in some ways this feels mostly presumptuous. I think I would have preferred a straight-up retelling of one of Austen's novels over this bit that tries a bit too hard to be clever with its Austen allusions. ]]> 3.12 2004 The Jane Austen Book Club
author: Karen Joy Fowler
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.12
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at: 2016/03/09
date added: 2016/03/13
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, literary-fiction
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #7: A Book About Books

I like Jane Austen and have read all but one of her novels (Mansfield Park -- but I'll get to it!) Still, somehow there is something about me that seems to be fundamentally different from the scores of Austen's devotees, as seems to be evidenced by the women in books inspired by love of her (this one and also Austenland), which are always just sort of "meh" to me.

This book felt less like a novel and more like a collection of connected short stories and character studies. That was fine once I stopped expecting much to happen besides a chapter with a backstory for all the characters. My favorite character was definitely Grigg, probably because he reads science fiction AND Jane Austen, and also perhaps because a male Austenite seemed a little less affected than the typical female Austenite.

I did like that not all the characters in the book club were totally smitten with Jane, and I thought Allegra's commentary about class issues was crucial to injecting some deeper critical thought into the narrative.

Of course, what there is of the plot has parallels in Jane Austen's writing, but in some ways this feels mostly presumptuous. I think I would have preferred a straight-up retelling of one of Austen's novels over this bit that tries a bit too hard to be clever with its Austen allusions.
]]> Memoirs of a Geisha 930
In "Memoirs of a Geisha," we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction - at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful - and completely unforgettable.]]> 434 Arthur Golden 0739326228 Lacey 3
The more historical fiction I read, the more I wonder whether it's just not the genre for me, even though I like history and the ability to travel "back in time" through reading.

But despite all the accolades this book has received, I kept wondering when the story was actually going to get STARTED. To me, the book primarily felt like a way for the author to show off his intimate knowledge of Japanese history and "Geisha" culture. The minutiae of the historical details, from the designs on the kimonos to the classes Geisha took, got to be a little much for me, especially since this book fell into the common pitfall of historical fiction, in which events that seem important enough to be dramatized in scenes are skimmed over in summary instead.

The characters were believable, and some of them were intriguing. I was especially interested in Mameha. But I didn't like how much of the book was centered around girl-on-girl aggression, "mean girl" tactics, and female jealousy. About halfway into the book, I found myself thinking, "Huh, I didn't know this book was going to be mostly about female rivalry."

The love story was only moderately satisfying to me -- I could understand why Sayuri was so drawn to The Chairman, but [spoilers removed]

I did like the way this book explored issues of privilege and choice -- despite the luxurious and glamorous lives that some geisha lived, and despite the satisfaction they drew from their profession, they are still essentially slaves who must make their decisions out of necessity rather than any true agency or desire. Sayuri's desire to set her own course despite these restrictions creates most of the tension in the second half of the book, and while I could understand her reasons for doing the things she did, I still found myself feeling a little annoyed with her. [spoilers removed]

Overall, I am not sorry I read this, and the book's second half definitely moves along at a better pace than the beginning. But I remain somewhat suspicious of a Western, white man's interpretation of a Japanese woman's life, even if he did hold advanced degrees in Japanese history, especially since he gives her the incongruous and Western-valued blue eyes. I would have much rather read a real memoir from a real geisha.

A note on the movie: This is one of those rare instances in which I rated the movie higher than the book. I gave the movie 4 stars. It was visually beautiful, and it was also faithful to the book without getting bogged down in so many of the details. There were a few things I would have done differently -- [spoilers removed] So I think this is a movie best enjoyed after reading the book, and even then, perhaps only if, like me, you didn't like the book all that much, anyway. (A friend of mine who liked the book thought the movie was awful.)

There's an interesting article about the Japanese reaction to the movie here: ]]> 4.07 1997 Memoirs of a Geisha
author: Arthur Golden
name: Lacey
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at: 2016/02/29
date added: 2016/03/08
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, historical-fiction
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #2: A book set in a different continent

The more historical fiction I read, the more I wonder whether it's just not the genre for me, even though I like history and the ability to travel "back in time" through reading.

But despite all the accolades this book has received, I kept wondering when the story was actually going to get STARTED. To me, the book primarily felt like a way for the author to show off his intimate knowledge of Japanese history and "Geisha" culture. The minutiae of the historical details, from the designs on the kimonos to the classes Geisha took, got to be a little much for me, especially since this book fell into the common pitfall of historical fiction, in which events that seem important enough to be dramatized in scenes are skimmed over in summary instead.

The characters were believable, and some of them were intriguing. I was especially interested in Mameha. But I didn't like how much of the book was centered around girl-on-girl aggression, "mean girl" tactics, and female jealousy. About halfway into the book, I found myself thinking, "Huh, I didn't know this book was going to be mostly about female rivalry."

The love story was only moderately satisfying to me -- I could understand why Sayuri was so drawn to The Chairman, but [spoilers removed]

I did like the way this book explored issues of privilege and choice -- despite the luxurious and glamorous lives that some geisha lived, and despite the satisfaction they drew from their profession, they are still essentially slaves who must make their decisions out of necessity rather than any true agency or desire. Sayuri's desire to set her own course despite these restrictions creates most of the tension in the second half of the book, and while I could understand her reasons for doing the things she did, I still found myself feeling a little annoyed with her. [spoilers removed]

Overall, I am not sorry I read this, and the book's second half definitely moves along at a better pace than the beginning. But I remain somewhat suspicious of a Western, white man's interpretation of a Japanese woman's life, even if he did hold advanced degrees in Japanese history, especially since he gives her the incongruous and Western-valued blue eyes. I would have much rather read a real memoir from a real geisha.

A note on the movie: This is one of those rare instances in which I rated the movie higher than the book. I gave the movie 4 stars. It was visually beautiful, and it was also faithful to the book without getting bogged down in so many of the details. There were a few things I would have done differently -- [spoilers removed] So I think this is a movie best enjoyed after reading the book, and even then, perhaps only if, like me, you didn't like the book all that much, anyway. (A friend of mine who liked the book thought the movie was awful.)

There's an interesting article about the Japanese reaction to the movie here:
]]> If I Stay 22557267 The critically acclaimed, bestselling novel from Gayle Forman, author ofWhere She Went,Just One Day, andJust One Year.

Soon to be a major motion picture, starring Chloe Grace Moretz! Includes exclusive interviews with Chloe Grace Moretz and her co-star Jamie Blackley.

In the blink of an eye everything changes. Seventeen ­year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall what happened afterwards, watching her own damaged body being taken from the wreck. Little by little she struggles to put together the pieces- to figure out what she has lost, what she has left, and the very difficult choice she must make. Heartwrenchingly beautiful, this will change the way you look at life, love, and family. Now a major motion picture starring Chloe Grace Moretz, Mia's story will stay with you for a long, long time.]]> 4 Gayle Forman 1611763983 Lacey 2
2.5

So, this is one of those books that, like The Fault in Our Stars, I conscientiously avoided even after it gained tons of good reviews and popularity, spawned a couple sequels/companion novels, and got adapted into a movie. I finally caved and read it for my Book Club, and discovered that I was pretty much totally right to be avoiding it all this time.

Let me start by saying that I think Gayle Forman is a good writer -- I read I Was Here and really liked it, and I'd be open to reading other work by her. But this book pretty much does exactly what I feared it would, which is to romanticize the tragedy of losing one's family.

The whole story basically moves through a series of flashbacks Mia reflects upon while she is in a coma as she tries to decide whether to slip away and join her dead family or "stay" -- go on living despite her monumental loss. Everything struck me as trying a little too hard to me -- her family, who was supposed to be hip and quirky and unique, felt disingenuous and almost "too" cool to me, like as a reader I was supposed to just fall in love with them. I didn't. I kept waiting for something to actually HAPPEN (even if it happened in flashbacks), but the only time the tension really seemed to ratchet up was when Mia described the tension that had entered her relationship with her boyfriend when she started considering moving across the country for school. Still, her boyfriend ends up being pivotal in her decision, and although the book acknowledges that high school relationships often don't last, it also leads by example in making this relationship the pinnacle of what Mia has "left," placing even MORE pressure on teens' romantic expectations than what is already there. It just proves that I'm turning into an old fogey when I read books like this and roll my eyes and think, "It's not like you're going to stay together, anyway!"

One of the other things that bothered me about this book was that it was clearly supposed to be this exploration of what makes life beautiful even when it feels like you've lost it all, but I got the sense that the author had never ACTUALLY had to face this kind of loss or trauma and thus didn't really have the right to moralize about it. And the remaining, "living" characters, who also loved Mia's brother and parents, did not seem to be grieving their loss. Her grandparents, for example, seemed wholly focused on her recovery even though they had just been dealt the blow of losing a child -- yet, it was as if the actual deaths didn't even register with the other characters, they were so focused on Mia.

Also, was it REALLY necessary to go into such pornographic detail about the aftermath of the accident? Those images are gonna stay with me for a long time, having lived through a similar car accident, and the way they were written about seemed almost irresponsible to me, considering how many people in real life have been traumatized by similar experiences. Have fun getting re-traumatized reading a book that's not really worth it!

It all felt like a pretty facile treatment of an incredibly heavy topic, and I knew something had gone wrong when a book about all this death didn't bring me to tears once. And I'm not the most stoic reader, either -- I just couldn't BELIEVE in Mia's story and thus what she chose didn't really matter to me. And of course, the tension is lost from the get-go because it's pretty obvious what choice she's going to end up making.

A note on the movie: Gayle Foreman was involved in its production and it follows the book meticulously, with the exception that is erases all signs of Kim's Jewishness (thanks for the racism, Hollywood!). The family is somewhat more likable on film because they feel more believable when real, living, breathing actors are giving them life. I also appreciated that the actor playing Mia looks like an actual teenager and not like she's 30. So, it's a great movie if you liked the book and want a faithful rendition. If you didn't care much for the book, you'll probably feel like you've been duped into watching something on Lifetime or the Hallmark movie channel -- neither of which are first choices for me. Still, the upside of this is that it did not show the car accident in the same nauseatingly excruciating detail as in the book.

]]> 3.52 2009 If I Stay
author: Gayle Forman
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2009
rating: 2
read at: 2016/01/22
date added: 2016/02/04
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, youngadult, book-club
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #31: A work of young adult fiction

2.5

So, this is one of those books that, like The Fault in Our Stars, I conscientiously avoided even after it gained tons of good reviews and popularity, spawned a couple sequels/companion novels, and got adapted into a movie. I finally caved and read it for my Book Club, and discovered that I was pretty much totally right to be avoiding it all this time.

Let me start by saying that I think Gayle Forman is a good writer -- I read I Was Here and really liked it, and I'd be open to reading other work by her. But this book pretty much does exactly what I feared it would, which is to romanticize the tragedy of losing one's family.

The whole story basically moves through a series of flashbacks Mia reflects upon while she is in a coma as she tries to decide whether to slip away and join her dead family or "stay" -- go on living despite her monumental loss. Everything struck me as trying a little too hard to me -- her family, who was supposed to be hip and quirky and unique, felt disingenuous and almost "too" cool to me, like as a reader I was supposed to just fall in love with them. I didn't. I kept waiting for something to actually HAPPEN (even if it happened in flashbacks), but the only time the tension really seemed to ratchet up was when Mia described the tension that had entered her relationship with her boyfriend when she started considering moving across the country for school. Still, her boyfriend ends up being pivotal in her decision, and although the book acknowledges that high school relationships often don't last, it also leads by example in making this relationship the pinnacle of what Mia has "left," placing even MORE pressure on teens' romantic expectations than what is already there. It just proves that I'm turning into an old fogey when I read books like this and roll my eyes and think, "It's not like you're going to stay together, anyway!"

One of the other things that bothered me about this book was that it was clearly supposed to be this exploration of what makes life beautiful even when it feels like you've lost it all, but I got the sense that the author had never ACTUALLY had to face this kind of loss or trauma and thus didn't really have the right to moralize about it. And the remaining, "living" characters, who also loved Mia's brother and parents, did not seem to be grieving their loss. Her grandparents, for example, seemed wholly focused on her recovery even though they had just been dealt the blow of losing a child -- yet, it was as if the actual deaths didn't even register with the other characters, they were so focused on Mia.

Also, was it REALLY necessary to go into such pornographic detail about the aftermath of the accident? Those images are gonna stay with me for a long time, having lived through a similar car accident, and the way they were written about seemed almost irresponsible to me, considering how many people in real life have been traumatized by similar experiences. Have fun getting re-traumatized reading a book that's not really worth it!

It all felt like a pretty facile treatment of an incredibly heavy topic, and I knew something had gone wrong when a book about all this death didn't bring me to tears once. And I'm not the most stoic reader, either -- I just couldn't BELIEVE in Mia's story and thus what she chose didn't really matter to me. And of course, the tension is lost from the get-go because it's pretty obvious what choice she's going to end up making.

A note on the movie: Gayle Foreman was involved in its production and it follows the book meticulously, with the exception that is erases all signs of Kim's Jewishness (thanks for the racism, Hollywood!). The family is somewhat more likable on film because they feel more believable when real, living, breathing actors are giving them life. I also appreciated that the actor playing Mia looks like an actual teenager and not like she's 30. So, it's a great movie if you liked the book and want a faithful rendition. If you didn't care much for the book, you'll probably feel like you've been duped into watching something on Lifetime or the Hallmark movie channel -- neither of which are first choices for me. Still, the upside of this is that it did not show the car accident in the same nauseatingly excruciating detail as in the book.


]]> The Voyeurs 13592198 The Voyeurs is a real-time memoir of a turbulent five years in the life of renowned cartoonist, diarist, and filmmaker Gabrielle Bell. It collects episodes from her award-winning series Lucky, in which she travels to Tokyo, Paris, the South of France, and all over the United States, but remains anchored by her beloved Brooklyn, where sidekick Tony provides ongoing insight, offbeat humor, and enduring friendship.

�The Voyeurs is the work of a mature writer, if not one of the most sincere voices of her literary generation. It’s a fun, honest read that spans continents, relationships and life decisions. I loved it.�
� Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library

“As she watches other people living life, and watches herself watching them, Bell’s pen becomes a kind of laser, first illuminating the surface distractions of the world, then scorching them away to reveal a deeper reality that is almost too painful and too beautiful to bear.�
� Alison Bechdel, Fun Home

“A master of the exquisite detail, Bell provides a welcome peephole into our lives.�
� Françoise Mouly, The New Yorker

“I don’t think I could tolerate her if she wasn’t so talented.�
� Michel Gondry, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Gabrielle Bell’s work has been selected for the 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Houghton-Mifflin Best American Comics and the Yale Anthology of Graphic Fiction, and has been featured in McSweeney's, The Believer, and Vice magazines. ‘Cecil and Jordan In New York,� the title story of her most recent book, was adapted for the screen by Bell and director Michel Gondry in the film anthology Tokyo! She lives in Brooklyn, New York.]]> 160 Gabrielle Bell 098468140X Lacey 4
(Having picked this up in November with the intent to read it and return it quickly, I figured it counted as a book I meant to read in 2015, as I had no intention of continuously renewing it, unread, until January -- but that is exactly what happened!)

I have to walk past the graphic novel rack every time that I go to the library after work to get my report sent before 6 pm, so I keep ending up with these "impulse check-outs" from that department even though graphic novels aren't my favorite genre, nor does my library have that great a collection!

Still, I am beginning to learn that, as much as I love "traditional" memoirs, I may love "graphic" memoirs even more. I love to read published diaries, and in many ways that is what "The Voyeurs" is -- although there is not a clear "throughline" or overarching "plot" tying the many vignettes together, each of them has its own rising and falling tensions, along with a sense of universalism balanced with individuality and plenty of vulnerability. I am not a cartoonist, but I related to many of Bell's struggles as an introvert who does most of her work within the confines of her own home, having also given into obsessive email checking, the need to totally "unplug" for a few days, resistance to leaving my home, and bouts of depression as she describes.

This is my first time reading Bell, and unfortunately, it's the only collection by her my library carries. Still, I will keep my eyes peeled and gladly read more if the opportunity arises. ]]> 3.72 2012 The Voyeurs
author: Gabrielle Bell
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2016/01/14
date added: 2016/01/17
shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, graphicnovels, memoir, non-fiction
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #1: A Book You Meant to Read in 2015

(Having picked this up in November with the intent to read it and return it quickly, I figured it counted as a book I meant to read in 2015, as I had no intention of continuously renewing it, unread, until January -- but that is exactly what happened!)

I have to walk past the graphic novel rack every time that I go to the library after work to get my report sent before 6 pm, so I keep ending up with these "impulse check-outs" from that department even though graphic novels aren't my favorite genre, nor does my library have that great a collection!

Still, I am beginning to learn that, as much as I love "traditional" memoirs, I may love "graphic" memoirs even more. I love to read published diaries, and in many ways that is what "The Voyeurs" is -- although there is not a clear "throughline" or overarching "plot" tying the many vignettes together, each of them has its own rising and falling tensions, along with a sense of universalism balanced with individuality and plenty of vulnerability. I am not a cartoonist, but I related to many of Bell's struggles as an introvert who does most of her work within the confines of her own home, having also given into obsessive email checking, the need to totally "unplug" for a few days, resistance to leaving my home, and bouts of depression as she describes.

This is my first time reading Bell, and unfortunately, it's the only collection by her my library carries. Still, I will keep my eyes peeled and gladly read more if the opportunity arises.
]]> More Happy Than Not 19542841
Sixteen-year-old Aaron Soto is struggling to find happiness after a family tragedy leaves him reeling. He's slowly remembering what happiness might feel like this summer with the support of his girlfriend Genevieve, but it's his new best friend, Thomas, who really gets Aaron to open up about his past and confront his future.

As Thomas and Aaron get closer, Aaron discovers things about himself that threaten to shatter his newfound contentment. A revolutionary memory-alteration procedure, courtesy of the Leteo Institute, might be the way to straighten himself out. But what if it means forgetting who he truly is?]]> 293 Adam Silvera 1616955600 Lacey 4
Although this book suffers a bit for feeling like a "first novel" (some awkward transitions, shallow development of secondary characters, a twist I could see coming), there is a lot to like about it, too. Some might find it off-putting, but I personally liked the way it melded sci-fi elements into a story that otherwise felt like a realistic YA (a medical procedure that erases bad memories). This makes it read a little more like "magical realism" ("sci-fi realism?") or like the Leteo memory erasing procedure is more metaphorical than speculative.

Even though I saw the twist coming, I liked that when it came, it answered questions I had been asking myself through the first half of the book. I also appreciate that this book examines the intersection of social class and homophobia. In some ways, this book feels somewhat "behind the times," with its central conflict being a fear of coming out even as the Supreme Court had already legalized same-sex marriage before its publication. Would this book's central premise have rang more true if it were published more than ten years ago? Yet, I think this sense that I, as an adult, middle-class, married, white woman has that it is now "safe" for people to come out is based on ignorance of how rampant homophobia remains in certain communities, and this book drives home the struggle of being gay in an impoverished, urban neighborhood. It's rare for YA books to tackle class in a way that isn't tied irrevocably to the plot (i.e., parent loses a cushy job and family has to relocate), but here Aaron's family's poverty, while somewhat tied to the plot, was also just accepted, a fact of life that was driven home every time he went home to his apartment in which him and his brother slept in the living room or every time he played games with his friends that did not require a single purchased accessory.

The book isn't perfect, but you get the sense reading it that the author absolutely knows what he is talking about, and this, too, keeps it from feeling "dated" even as attitudes toward sexuality continue to evolve. I think this is a book that would still bring a sense of understanding to teens coming to grips with their own sexual orientations, and provides the heartbreaking insight the rest of the world may need to support them. ]]> 3.96 2015 More Happy Than Not
author: Adam Silvera
name: Lacey
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2016/01/09
date added: 2016/01/17
shelves: youngadult, lgbtqi, sciencefiction, 2016-aty-reading-challenge
review:
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #36: An identity book - a book about a different culture, religion or sexual orientation

Although this book suffers a bit for feeling like a "first novel" (some awkward transitions, shallow development of secondary characters, a twist I could see coming), there is a lot to like about it, too. Some might find it off-putting, but I personally liked the way it melded sci-fi elements into a story that otherwise felt like a realistic YA (a medical procedure that erases bad memories). This makes it read a little more like "magical realism" ("sci-fi realism?") or like the Leteo memory erasing procedure is more metaphorical than speculative.

Even though I saw the twist coming, I liked that when it came, it answered questions I had been asking myself through the first half of the book. I also appreciate that this book examines the intersection of social class and homophobia. In some ways, this book feels somewhat "behind the times," with its central conflict being a fear of coming out even as the Supreme Court had already legalized same-sex marriage before its publication. Would this book's central premise have rang more true if it were published more than ten years ago? Yet, I think this sense that I, as an adult, middle-class, married, white woman has that it is now "safe" for people to come out is based on ignorance of how rampant homophobia remains in certain communities, and this book drives home the struggle of being gay in an impoverished, urban neighborhood. It's rare for YA books to tackle class in a way that isn't tied irrevocably to the plot (i.e., parent loses a cushy job and family has to relocate), but here Aaron's family's poverty, while somewhat tied to the plot, was also just accepted, a fact of life that was driven home every time he went home to his apartment in which him and his brother slept in the living room or every time he played games with his friends that did not require a single purchased accessory.

The book isn't perfect, but you get the sense reading it that the author absolutely knows what he is talking about, and this, too, keeps it from feeling "dated" even as attitudes toward sexuality continue to evolve. I think this is a book that would still bring a sense of understanding to teens coming to grips with their own sexual orientations, and provides the heartbreaking insight the rest of the world may need to support them.
]]> <![CDATA[Well-Read Women: Portraits of Fiction's Most Beloved Heroines]]> 17557474 112 Samantha Hahn 1452114153 Lacey 3
Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #17: A book with a beautiful cover]]> 4.20 2013 Well-Read Women: Portraits of Fiction's Most Beloved Heroines
author: Samantha Hahn
name: Lacey
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2016/01/11
date added: 2016/01/11
shelves: classics, 2016-aty-reading-challenge
review:
This was a nice collection of vibrant watercolors depicting women made famous through literature, from Lolita to Jane Eyre. While it was fun to page through, all the portraits had a way of sort of blending together, so that they tended to look like the same woman with different hairstyles or dresses. In some instances, the unique fonts chosen to illuminate a quote about or by each woman seemed to bear more personality than the portrait itself.

Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #17: A book with a beautiful cover
]]>