Dream Shaker

It has been a long time since I dreamed about a book.  I don't mean dream that I am reading it, but dream that I am actually a character in it who is taking part in the action.

Last week, my friend and I spent a few hours wandering around Borders and when we passed by this book, Boneshaker, she picked it up and said it was a "great story" and it had to be the book I bought. We were in the Science Fiction section, and I have never bought anything from the Science Fiction section, but I respect her opinion so much, and it has a great cover, so I bought it.  When I got home I realized that it was one of those books that if I didn't read it before I put it up on one of my many shelves it would never again see the light of day.

I read the first three pages and am completely hooked.  The characters are very vivid for me and the story very accessible.  Now I am only about 50 pages in but I am loving it.  I have never read anything steampunk before, so it may be that people who are in to that won't think this is so great, but I am certainly having a great time so far!

Banned Books are the Best Books

20. The Perks of Being a Wallflower

 

I will never be a smoker, I will never knowingly put myself in debt, and I will never understand the concept of banning a book.  It is really a ludicrous idea.  There are so many books in the world; all of them fighting for a little attention, a little fanfare, but most are passed over.  Then there are the banned books. The ones that are so big and scary - and thus totally publicized and given attention.  Maybe it is truly a brilliant thing and I should become more of a supporter, because it seems that banned books often become the most widely read.  Well done rebel rousers!

When you read reviews about Wallflower they are generally great or awful, and the awful ones tend to say that the book is cliched or that Charlie, our narrator, is far too sweet and naive.  I tend to agree that the ending was a bit cliched, mostly because I believe, or at least hope to god, that some people don't fit in or don't feel complete without some big bad life altering event occurring.  Sometimes people are just kind of lost, and there isn't some after-school special excuse as to why.  But I have to disagree with the too sweet part. In the story we are always in Charlie's head, we don't see him the way other people see him, and anyone knows that there is a difference.  When I go out I am care free and laughing, smiling at everyone and saying hello.  Yet, on the inside, I am anxious and sad, scared and lonely.  So it may be that in Charlie's mind he is sweet and naive but to other people he is some asshole who did them wrong.  I mean when I was 16 I can't even begin to imagine all the ways I hid the person I really was from the people who were supposed to be my friends and my support.  So I think we need to just take Charlie at his word and realize that no matter what we are never getting all of the story, just one aspect.

I Can Breath Again

19. Never Look Away

Wow, I read this thing like gang busters!  Like I said, it was a who-done-it, but immediately after I wrote the last entry the clues came together and it because more like a chase til the end.  It had the flair of a Hitchcock movie, with the reader seeing the hero get framed but knowing he was innocent.  And I was worried it would all fall apart and be lame, and while it wasn't flawless it was certainly satisfying.  Not the best writing, or charterer development, and some ridiculous scenarios, but entertaining as hell.

Stephen King compared it to Rebecca, and while that may be a bit of a stretch, I do remember reading that with the same focus and excitement.  Fun stuff I say, fun stuff!

Can't Look Away

I picked up this book, Never Look Away, from the library based on an article Stephen King wrote in EW about it. He said it was a great thriller that would keep you up at night to read. Truth be told, I picked it up because I couldn't find the book I really wanted.

Reading the back, it didn't really sound like my thing and, in my experience, advertising somethings a "thriller" generally means it isn't. Anyway, I started it the other night and kind of groaned my way through the first few chapters, but yesterday decided that I just needed to give it my full attention and get into it, and now I can't stop! I am still not sure if it is my thing but there are all these plot lines that he has linked up in such a way that at the end of each chapter you take a moment to reassess what you have learned and make a new guess as to what the heck is going on! It is fun in a real who-done-it kind of way and I am totally engrossed. But right this minute I am really hoping it doesn't all turn out to be dumb and cliched because I will be pissed!

Elementary

18. The Sherlockian

Two story lines; one modern, one in the 1900's.  Arthur Conan Doyle is the focus of one and some dude named Harold is the focus of the other.  Both are a bit lost about what to do after finding success, and these musing were what I liked best about the book.  They are also both trying to solve murder mysteries, neither of which are very intricate or exciting.  They are both quite elementary and it brought the whole book down. 

In the end, both plots fell apart and there was no flair to the the finale.

"Well, things get lifey."

My mom said this to me the other day on the phone and it made me laugh because I immediately knew exactly what she meant. We grow up thinking that our grown up selves are going to be incredible: absolute freedom, dream jobs, perfect lives; but the truth is that often it is all just lifey: errands to run, chores to do, mundane TV and movies to entertain. We witness mind blowingly awful events that can't even be processed because they hurt too much to think about. Days pass, years pass; you aren't who you though you would be. Almost no one is who they want to be. But we are all here and in most cases we are trying our best to be good, to be better. Some days are good and some are bad, but nothing is ever truly that bad thankfully. So we press on.

I am reading a wonderfully fun book called The Sherlockian, and much of it is about Arthur Conan Doyle and how he came to despise writing about Sherlock Holmes and how badly people reacted when he killed him off. Doyle comes to realize that Sherlock was their escape from their lifeyness. And right now this book is mine.

"Do you think people are happy when they finally get the things they've been after?" - The Sherlockian. Truth.

A Major Case of What-If-Itis

17. The Fates Will Find Their Way

This is a well written book about a group of boys and how their lives are changed by the disappearance of a girl from their high school.  They seem to imagine ever possible scenario to explain what may have happened to her while completely ignoring what is actually happening to them.  She is their ultimate escape from reality.  She stays young and beautiful, while they get older and fatter.  She can move freely while they are stuck in the same town they grew up in.  She is free to love and free to leave while they are tied to the responsibilities of their families. 

What stuck me most is how all of this is so true! What is it about those high school years?  Why is it that those people seem to be the ones who define you for the rest of your life?  Even though you continue to grow, get jobs and have families, why is it that we feel perpetually 18?  It actually reminded me about how much time I waste regretting things I have done or said, wondering about people who are gone, instead of paying attention to who I am and what I am doing now.  I may not have always liked who I am but that does not mean that I can't, and don't deserve to, like who I can still be. Maybe my own fate will soon find its way.

Confession

16.  By Night in Chile

Here is the thing about Bolano, as I read it if I think about it too much I will confuse myself and think that I am not getting it.  But that disjointed feeling is kind of the important part.  I think part of his writing style is to make you feel like that.  So you don’t stop to try to figure it out you just keep on going and at the end you can finally take a breath.   

This book is one long paragraph that covers the last night of a man’s life.  A man who was a father yet is not religious; a man who loved literature and believed in its power yet made him living as a critic.  A man who needs to get some things off his chest before he dies, and you are there as it all comes spilling out.  And that is how it comes, sometimes it is coherent and sometimes not, but he is obviously searching for meaning.

Fangirl!

Two things happened yesterday that sent my inner-fangirl squealing with delight!  One in a literary nerd kind of way, and the other in a teenage dream kind of way.

First, I finally sat down to read By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolano.  I bought this when I was reading The Host; that book made me feel so gross and dumbed down that I had to remind myself of what I love about literature.  Now Chris is out of town and I have time to devote to it, because when I read Bolano I get lost in a way unlike any other.  I love his writing but it is so hard to explain to other people why.  The cadence of his writing absolutely takes me away.  I relax and become totally enveloped in the trace of his language.  At the end of one of his books I miss the experience of reading and I miss his characters.  People ask me, "What is it about?" and I just can't go there, because his writing is about so much more than what it is about, it is about what it is.  And I think it is spectacular.  He died much too young.

Second, Duff McKagan is a scholar!  WHAT THE FUCK!?!  How did I miss this development!!!

Duff McKagan is the bass player for Guns N' Roses.  In high school I had an absolutely unhealthy infatuation with this band.  I dreamed of befriending and touring with them; I dreamed of making them care about things other than drugs and partying.  And then they broke up.  Duff made a solo album and I can still recite every word, but somewhere along the line I had to become an adult and close the door on my rock and roll fantasies.  Anyway, yesterday I see Duff's name on a Vanity Fair article and find out that he felt the need to grow up too!  After almost dying and getting clean (much more exciting than my need to get a job and move out of my parents house) he went back to school and edumacated himself and now writes for Seattle Weekley and ESPN!  He mostly writes about music and sports but he also writes about about literature - and I mean literature.  Cormac McCarthy is a favorite - I cannot begin to explain the ways in which I would love to discuss The Road with Duff - FUCKING EPICNESS!!!  Truly, it is beyond...  Again, I can't explain this excitement.  I spent so much of my life trying to hide who I was, a loner completely happy and content on my bed with a book, and put on the facade of being a cool girl, perpetually drunk and flighty, that to this day I never know if I am being who I am or who I think I am supposed to be.  If I had known that the rocker I fantasized about running away with would in some way think that my cool factor was heightened by my literary infatuations... Man, I wonder who I would be now. 

VICTORY!

"I know something of a woman in a man's profession." - Shakespeare in Love

This quote kept playing through my mind as I read #15 Middlemarch.

Mary Anne Evans felt that for her writing to be taken seriously she needed to write under the guise of a man (the name also helped to hide her adulterous affair, but tut-tut we do not speak of such things.)  But clearly the reason she is known as such an effective realist is that she wrote what she lived, and unfortunately many women still live the same way.  Marry as well as you can, often for love that later turns to duty, bear children and care for them, while continuously standing by your man.  Often the man took the ideas of the woman and made them a reality, also gaining all of the accolades. Of course, many things have changed, but at the moment life for these women rang pretty true to me.

Middlemarch was originally published as a serial and thus suffers from being far too long.  My mom and I decided to read it together since we could both get it free on our Kindles (I ended up reading on the iPad) and we started to read on January 4th.  I have read 13 other books during the course of reading this; one because I needed a break but also because I needed to slow down since my mom has a job and a life!  So my reading suffered because of that but in the end I really enjoyed the book.  The last third is quite good with a lot of revelations and interesting plot twists. The characters are not terribly likable but they are absolutely memorable and I was very sad to see them go.

**Side note - Shakespeare in Love is one of my favorite movies with many wonderful, witty, and brilliant lines, including the most romantic I have ever heard: "Write me well."  I think of this often as well.

Power Struggle

14. The Radleys

I had promised to not read anything else until I finished Middlemarch, but on Saturday I needed a book for the bath and started this.  Then on Sunday we lost power for 12 hours and since MM is on the iPad I tucked in and finished it.  What a treat!

It was surprising.  It is about a family living in an English Village, trying to live through gossip and innuendo and their own doubts about one another.  Quite similar to Middlemarch actually!  One difference, the Radleys are vampires.  Abstaining vampires, but vampires none the less and the kids find out when the daughter murders a boy at a party, so things get sticky quick.  In the end, they are a family, a family full of faults, but a family none the less.  It is an interesting plot twist but a very accessible story about a family who is stuck and need to work together if they want to move forward.

Power is back and MM will be conquered today!

Another Review

13. The Devlin Diary

I said when I started this blog that it would be about the reading of the books and not just reviews, but after the experience of reading a book on my iPad I didn't want to take my hands off the pages of this book long enough to type on here.  I just needed some unplugged time.  Truth is that I need much more of it!

This wasn't even a great book but it was just what I needed.  A simple plot with back and forth plot structure that progressed along nicely and drew me in.  Plus it was a hardback from the library and are there many other things as wonderful? Those soft pages and the broken in spine.  The way it lays open on your lap with no effort.  The way it doesn't cost anything so you don't have to feel guilty when you are done.

But now I am back to the iPad and Middlemarch - two things that I do not find comforting.  Both my mother and I have strayed from Middlemarch but we have also both agreed to come back to it and give it our full attention until we are done.  the fact is that we both like it but I think it is a bit too close to how real life works and so as far as an escape it falls short.  But we are going to do it, and we are going to do it together which leads to a certain excitement that I hope will help me get through.

Gadget Overload!

12. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher

This book was boring. I didn't like any character and I just wanted it to be over. What I really need to talk about here is not what I just read but how I read it.

For my birthday Chris bought me an iPad.  I needed this like I needed a kick to the head.  Now I have another machine to answer to every day.  As if I am not always looking at my phone as it is, now I have a brand new, giant, really expensive one, that I need to use or feel guilty about having!  Anyway...

I noticed that my library now has eBooks that I can download to my iPad to read, so I thought I would try it out and I have to admit that I really hated reading on it.  I have a Kindle, and it was my best friend when I was breastfeeding Darren, but honestly I haven't used it in months.  I use my computer everyday, I have my phone with me all the time, and books are my escape from all of this, and reading on the iPad is not allow me the escape. I was constantly distracted by what else I could be doing on it instead of reading this boring book!  So the book may have been part of the problem but the real problem is my addiction to technology, it is ridiculous!

The first thing I look at in the morning is my phone, the last thing a book.  Until this week, now the first thing is a phone and the last is a giant phone.  All day I am clicking on something: checking for email, playing some dumb game, ignoring my kid.  And that is the worst part.  At least with a book he sees me reading.  With the iPad he just sees me fiddling again.  So I have guilt; guilt about Darren, guilt about the time drain, and guilt about the fact that my husband bought me this for my pleasure and it has become my pain.  Too dramatic?  Probably.  The answer for now is clear, Dead Tree Books are the way to go for me.