Ivy is Evil

5.12 Wildwood

Anyone who lives in Oregon will tell you that ivy is evil.  It is impossible to get rid of, it sticks to everything, and it pricks you when you try to pull at it.  It is awful, and it is fucking everywhere.  So how great that someone has written a story about the wilds of Oregon where ivy is the ultimate evil.  I loved that aspect of this story and thought it worked very well, some others not as much. 

The story is not a new formula and is clearly an homage to The Chronicles of Narnia.  A young girl is told never to go near the Impenetrable Forest until her brother is taken there and she must go in to try to bring him home. Within is a world of animals and humans living in a time of turmoil while an evil queen plans to destroy everything and everyone.  Prue, and her friend (?) Curtis, end up playing major roles in the drama.  I know that this is a planned trilogy but am happy to report that there is a complete story here with no cliff hanger ending.  YEA!

Prue is rather too cool for school, which I guess is now the norm for Portland.  Her parents, she always knitting and he always reading, are lax to an extreme and when details are revealed about their past I had a hard time understanding how they could possibly act the way that they did.  Curtis and Prue clearly know one another before the story starts but I have no idea how.  My main issue with the book is that I needed to know more about Prue, Curtis, and their families before the Wildwood part of the story began.  I never got attached to them or understood their attachment to one another, and I felt I needed a bit more background knowledge to understand their actions.

 

The most successful part of the text were the amazing black and white illustrations.  I loved them and thought that they really added to the story.  However, the colored illustrations were a bit distracting.  Because they were in color, they were placed based on the printing instead of on the story, and so they came out of sequence and that took me out of the reading.  They were also well done but I didn’t think that they were necessary.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

4.12 Company of Liars

I would say that the biggest liar here is the book itself.  The back flap describes it as, “A retelling of The Canterbury Tales.” Umm, what??? Oh because we are in England, and the Plague is spreading, and people are traveling.  Same thing right?  Ugh…  Why do publishers do that?  Especially a description like that!  As if most readers are searching for another dose of Chaucer like they seem to so desperately need another lovelorn vampire.  My bet is that you lost more readers than you gained with that one folks.  Plus, the readers you did get are annoyed because you lied. 

The Canterbury Tales is full of richly developed characters that are enduring; this book has a collection of characters that are never really hashed out.  They are wet a lot, and mad a lot, and they cook a lot, but I never cared much for any of them.  Is this because they are liars?  No, it is because they are one dimensional and boring.  No one actually changes over the story, just his or her circumstances. I loved the historical information, and the way the author showed the slow dismantling of society when faced with an unbiased terror like the Plague.  To see it spread along with its created prejudice and superstitions was actually fascinating; but that historical information gave way to a murder mystery that I just wanted to be over.  The big twist came too late and with far too little explanation, and the ending was decidedly rushed, although I didn’t hate it.  I am sure a lot of people did but I think by the time I got there the story had nowhere left to go anyway.

A Hopeful Oxymoron

3.12 – Nightwoods

I am still trying to digest this one. I liked it, but it was kind of rough.  Sad things happen, I know this, but it doesn’t make them any less sad to read about.  This book is full of people living through sad things, but the point is that they are living.  Luce takes in her niece and nephew after her sister is murdered, the children are damaged, and their father is still coming for them.  I was constantly thinking how the whole book is a subtle thriller – that is an oxymoron right?  Subtle and thriller.  Most thrillers are so in your face; the violence, the bad guy vs. the good guy, the plot twists and reveals.  This book has that all as well but it is subtle; you realize the facts instead of having them thrown in your face, the action is a slow burn, the good guys are good and the bad guys bad, but, as we all know, nothing is ever that simple.

It is a beautifully written book full of wonderful sentences and descriptions.  No detail goes unnoticed and it is the details that tell much of the story.  The small things that could go unnoticed or unconsidered.  These are characters who do not want to be known, and they do not share about themselves, but you find yourself attached to them anyway.  This is a literary mystery to be sure, and I am sure that many people will find it boring or overly written, but after considering it I think it was kind of underwritten so that the reader’s emotions have to fill in the blank spots.  I am happy to say that the emotion I filled the story with was hope.  After reading a story of such sadness, I feel hopeful.  That is kind of amazing.

Suck it Twilight!

2.12 – Daughter of Smoke & Bone

Two friends, independent of one another, likened this to The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo and I would amend that to likening the heroine to Lisbeth Salander, as the overall plots couldn’t be more different.  This is not a murder mystery but a war mystery; a war between the Chimera and the Seraphim that will only end when one race is completely destroyed.  Karou is much like Lisbeth in the fact that she feels lonely and lost, yet has a wonderful network of support around her. She also can certainly take care of herself; and, the fact is, you root for her.

I loved the set up of the story and the setting of Prague, seeing the art and culture.  I loved that the author didn’t define everything as it was introduced, like Chimera and Seraphim, she showed us what they were instead of telling and so it all felt more real.  I love that the secondary characters were developed just as much as the mains.  I loved Brimstone (he is by far the most complex and honorable character I have found in YA since Macon Ravenwood burst through the doors of that cafeteria.) I loved that about half way through the book we got to go back and get the back-story that readers so often crave, we got to see and understand how things got to this point.  I loved the changes in time and point of view and found them pretty seamless to read.  I loved that even though the last words were literally, “To be continued…” I didn’t want to throw the book at the wall.  I felt excited to see what comes next yet also satisfied that anything that comes will be a continuation instead of a completion.  This may be a start of a new trilogy but it felt like a complete story and that is not easy to achieve

My one issue is that I have a huge concern that girls are going to start to really believe that you just walk down the street, look at someone, and suddenly realize your reason for being.  That love is an instant thing will make sense, and you will suddenly do anything for someone and they will do anything for you without any work or sacrifice. Sound familiar?

At least Karou stood up for herself and didn’t take the easy way out, and she loved her family as much as she did the boy.  But still… Really do we need to keep doing this?  I do think that the plot faltered here and became a bit tedious but then a huge time shift came and I was back on board. The soul mate thing is bothersome, but the fact is I would actually tell readers to check out this book while that other one… I still can’t do it.

Past and Present

1.12 - 11/22/63

This is about a man who goes back in time to save JFK from assassination, but it is really about life and love. It is about the simple decisions we make each day and how there is always another choice. So what happens if one of those choices changes?

Isn't this what we think about every day?  What if I had done that?  What if I had gone there?  Why do we smile as we walk by some people and yet blindly walk by others? Why is it always the good old days and the grass is greener?  We always want to know, but do we really.

I liked this book a lot; I loved seeing our narrator teach, I loved seeing people be kind to one another,  I loved the dancing. It isn't a perfect book, but it is what a perfect book should be: an escape, a character study, and a lesson that stays with you and makes you think about it in relation to your own life.  Don't read it to learn about Kennedy because you won't, read it to remember that you have an effect on people and should go out of your way to do that right.