Am I Me?

54. Await Your Reply 

“There are so many people we could become, and we leave a trail of bodies through our teens and twenties that it’s hard to tell which one is us. How many versions do we abandon over the years?” – Dan Chaon. Truth.

I literally said, “Wow!” at the end of this one.  It is three seemingly separate story lines that weave together to reveal a truth at the end, and while I wouldn’t really call it a thriller, I would say that the shifting back and forth from each story propels the plot along and made it quite hard to put down.  One thing that really helped was that no specific time frame is given and so each story kind of revolves in its own world (until you realize that it really doesn’t.) All of the stories include characters that change their identity for one reason or another.  With the advent of the Internet it seems that this is a fairly easy thing to do, but it is also something that people have been doing for much longer.  Don’t we all want to leave our hometown at some point and "become" something?

These shifts in identity lead to my one complaint, and I am sure it is a common one, as a reader you felt a bit detached from things because you aren’t drawn close to many of the characters. But wasn’t that the point?  We as readers can’t know the characters when they keep changing who they are and leaving who they were behind. You can’t know fully developed characters because they haven’t developed yet. They are just names and documents. 

The truth in life is that we know what people want us to know about them.  We don’t really know ourselves. We highlight our positives and hope the negative fades away. Would we really say no if someone said we could start all over? All the characters say they are hoping to find someone who truly loves them. Is that what makes us real?  When we matter to someone else?

Sublime Choas

53. Beautiful Chaos

 

This is the third in the Beautiful series, and I have read them all in their first week of release.  I don’t even know how I found out about the first book but I have truly enjoyed the ride.  As I said, this is the third book and in many ways I thought it was the best.

The books have the typical YA appearance: A beautiful girl, who will become a witch on her birthday, falls for an average guy (in fact, they seem destined for one another) who may not be as average as he seems.

But what is so new, and really well done, is that we see it all from the young man’s POV.  We see him act stereotypically tough, but feel shame for it.  We see him feel truly fearful for those he loves, we see him sacrifice, and act heroically.  And we see him admire the girl for her loyalty and bravery.  Like I said: New.  What is also great here is that the peripheral characters, made up of close friends and family, are really well developed and are given very important places in the plot lines.  These characters have returned in all three books and continue to be hashed out and more deeply developed instead of being retired and replaced with each new book, and I love that because it makes the payoff of sticking with the series that much more sweet. The southern gothic setting with its traditions and superstitions has also become another character. The plots are written much more like mysteries with subtle hints given throughout, but also little surprises along the way. Each book does end with a cliffhanger, which is a bit tired but I guess also a bit necessary.

Safe to say I will pick up the next one as soon as I can and that is rare for me with a series, usually by this time I only stick with it because I feel like have to.

SO DONE!

Ok, over the last year or so I have been keeping more of an eye on the publishing world and I find that every three months or so there is a MUST read book.  Some are new works from past winners like The Marriage Plot or Freedom, but many are from brand new authors like: The Tiger’s Wife, Swamplaidia!, and The Night Circus.  It pains me to know that I bought all of the later three in hardback because I just couldn’t stand not having the new “it” book.  The Tiger’s Wife was enjoyable but far from great, I just finished Swamplandia and I feel sick about it, and now I am hearing a lot of push back on The Night Circus.  So I am stating right here, right now, NEVER AGAIN.  I will buy hardback copies of books that I am looking forward to, but no more of these publishing darlings.

52. Swampladia!

 

Fuck you.  Fuck you.  Fuck you.

You cannot have a whimsical cover like this and then torture me with the dreadful existence of these characters.  I know people have it rough and life is hard, but is there not one thing to be hopeful about?  Not one shred of light to keep moving towards?  Because if there is, where was it here?  I have been told not to judge a book by its cover, but come on.

I thought there would be a little fun in this set up:  A family who name themselves Bigtree and live on an island in the Florida Everglades, wrestling alligators and delighting fans at their park, Swamplandia!  Fun, right?  But we missed all that.  All that is over.  What we have now is a crumbling park, a crumbling family, and crumbling psyches.  A father and a son trying to do right but failing miserably while the sisters, and daughters, wander through the very real dangers of the island after being left on their own.  You would think that the worst pain they would feel would be the loss of their mother, but it gets worse.  In an awful and sickening way.  And then it is over.

Is it well written? Yes.  There are some silly plot holes and continuity errors, but overall it is good.  It is original? Setting wise, absolutely, but plot wise not really.  Is there potential for this writer? Yes, but I can see why she started out writing short stories.  Over all, is this a MUST read book? NO!!!  Frankly, I kind of wish I had missed it.

More Memories

One piece of literature for every three pieces of trash.

This was my mom’s rule for me when we went to the library or book shopping.  It was instituted when I started to read VC Andrews, Sweet Valley High, and other tawdry YA “classics.”  She never said I couldn’t read those things, she just wanted me to read other things as well. And because it was three for one I thought I was totally getting away with something. A brilliant scheme on her part really! Even now I realize that unconsciously I still tend to live by this rule.  I still love my trashy, escapist reads, but after a while I feel the need for a cleanse.

Some of my fondest memories are the trips she, my dad, and I would make to the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver, a book Mecca if you will. Once we hit the store we would all head our separate ways. I could wander for hours knowing that I could always find dad reading in a chair in the mystery section. Eventually, we would all congregate back there and leave with a huge pile of books.  I always felt so lucky. And I was. So lucky to come from a reading family; now lucky to have married a man who reads and blessed to have a three year old who loves books.  I can’t begin to thank my parents for allowing this to grow in me.  The last time we all went to the Tattered Cover was during a trip for the final fitting of my wedding dress, much too long ago but an amazingly special trip. 

As I recall, the first time my mom instituted the three for one rule my literature choice was In Cold Blood. She didn’t bat an eye (what a lady huh?).  That book is still on my shelf, and it is with great pride that I say I have absolutely no idea what the three pieces of trash were.

Stuck in the Muck

I remember reading the reviews for Swamplandia! earlier this year, and I was so excited about it I decided I HAD to buy it on its release day. Then it sat. The other day I noticed that the paperback version is now out and I still haven’t read my hardback that I just HAD to have, and that drives me crazy! So, I picked it up last Wednesday and now I am only on page 59. Almost a week and only 59 pages!  I read a 1000 page book the week before. I have read a few paragraphs every day instead of my usual few chapters.

The real issue is that I don't know what it is that is holding me back. It is an original story and it is well written. Truthfully, I think I just can't take any more mothers dying of cancer and leaving their children behind to face the world unguided. I know it happens; chances are good it will happen to me and the realization of that is heart wrenching. It stops my breath and makes my heart ache. Both my son and my husband turned a year older this weekend so maybe I am just super aware and sensitive to time passing and things changing right now, not to mention busy trying to make everyone feel celebrated, to also be reading a book about an entire family’s upheaval. 

Anyway, I feel bogged down by the swamp, but hopefully I will be able to scrape myself out of it and enjoy myself again.

Whew!

51. Savages

Well, I need to catch my breath here for a second.  I mean, literally, my eyes can’t focus…

I flew through this in just over a day. The format makes it very easy to read and it becomes literally un-put-down-able. It reads very much like a screenplay, and apparently is already in production.  There are far too many pop culture references that will be obsolete in a few years time, but it is a fast, hip (maybe a bit too pretentious) read that pulls you in, gets your heart beat racing, and is over before you know it.

The plot involves two young Southern California pot growers trying to get back their girlfriend who has been kidnapped by the Mexican Cartel.  One is a sweet, hip, do-gooder; and the other a violence-is-the-only-answer war vet.  And the girl?  Well, she shops a lot and sleeps with both guys.  So basically I would not like these people, but for some reason I really liked them, and I was rooting for them.  Even when the things they were getting away with were laughable, I pushed aside my doubts and just hung on for the ride and it was certainly a ride.

I have to admit that I liked this book, but because it is a primary example of one of those over the top kind of hip things to like, liking it makes me feel kind of dirty.

So long Pennywise!

50. It

At some point Pennywise says, “What child doesn’t love a clown?” Umm… Me, and almost every person I know. They are creepy.  Period.

 

As I said before I wanted a scary book to read to get me in the mood for Halloween, and this fit the bill.

The build up of the story is great. I thought the shifts between the action of the characters as kids to the present action as adults was handled very well and also succeeded in pushing the plot along.  Some parts were very over written but this is Stephen King we are talking about.  In fact there were so many long, drawn out chase scenes I was able to skim quite a bit and get my reading over faster.  Because the fact is, I wanted it to be over.  Not because I didn’t like it, but because I didn’t like to read it before I went to sleep. 

The problem I had was that the build up was so good that the ending just could never live up. I thought things got drawn out and then also went to a silly quasi-philosophical place, but ultimately the ending was ruined by a scene that was totally out of character, out of place, and, frankly, out of line. The character of Bev was really ruined by the scene and there was no reason for it.

Long story (literally), short:  It was a fun, scary read, that I would never recommend because it went somewhere it really didn’t need to go.

Boo!

Rainy, dark skies, leaves falling; it is time for a Halloween read, and I wanted a scary one, so I picked Stephen King’s It.  I have seen the movie and so a lot of the plot isn’t a surprise to me, but the thing about It that makes it so scary isn’t really what you read, it is what it makes you think.

 

The brilliant thing about It is that for each kid in the story It is something else. It is each child’s worst nightmare; their most base fear and so it is impossible to read without conjuring up your own It.  And what it was when you were eleven.

At eleven, I remember turning off the light in the basement and running up the stairs, not just running, but running with all my might and almost feeling something closing in behind me. It was vaguely vampiric as I recall. I still get a shiver going up those stairs; especially at night.  I wonder how my brothers felt since they slept down there?   

My It now is much more basic and much less confined to the dark, and that is what rises my heckles, and enters my dreams, about this book and makes it a pretty great Halloween read so far.

An Unexpected Surprise

49. The Fall

 

This book was a totally unexpected surprise that I devoured in two days.  It also marks a return to reading on the Kindle and I have to say that I really enjoyed the experience and think it lent itself to me progressing so quickly. 

This is the sequel to The Strain, and the third in the trilogy comes out at the end of the month.  It has been well over a year since I read the first book and I didn’t think I remembered much but I found myself right back in the swing of things without much trouble, and the authors made the transition very easy.  There wasn’t a lot of rehashing of plot points from the first book, instead a new plot was introduced that I thought was a lot of fun.

And how does one keep a girl like me hooked on a doomsday vampire book?  You introduce Nazi vampires and an ancient book that holds secrets.  Do that and you have me hook, line and sinker!  I love that the bad guys are really bad and the good guys are really good, and all seems lost but then you find yourself chuckling over one-liners.  This isn’t some great piece of literary writing, but it sure is a heck of a lot of fun and a great way to spend a rainy weekend.

Oh How I Wanted to Love You!

48. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

Great title, beautiful cover, and lovely illustrations.  All of this made me think I had found a perfect little gem that would become a long-time favorite. Something that I would love to recommend to young girls. But it just didn’t all come together for me.

What we have is a very sweet YA book that reads a little too old for its intended audience. The reading level is teens but the plot and action is 7-10.  I loved September and all of the crazy characters she met, but we have all been here before, and so in the end I think it is a pretty easy story to forget.