Tag: General Fiction Page 32 of 45

Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar

On September 4, 2017

Sometime in the reading of this novel, it occurred to me that I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel about life on the frontier (American or, now, Australian) written with a male as the central character — Laura Ingalls, Caddie Woodlawn, a few others I can’t think of the names of, all female. Clearly, that’s not that important, and even more clearly, I’ve not read deeply in this area — I just found it odd.
—

Salt Lake

by Lucy Treloar

Kindle Edition, 464 pg.
Aardvark Bureau, 2015

Read: August 29 – 31, 2017

Memories are just the survivors of complete events and are not easy to interpret; in the recalling they can be used to create a story that is only partially true or not true at all.

It’s the mid-1850’s and Hester Finch and her family are settling in the Coorong region, after her father’s finances fall apart in Adelaide (which follows them falling apart elsewhere before). This is clearly their last chance, but with some luck and determination, they should be able to survive — even if they can’t rebuild their fortunes enough to return to town. It’s too much of a step down for their mother, who seems ill-equipped for Australia at this time, much less the Coorong, and Hester has to step up and shoulder more responsibilities for the running of the household and the raising/educating of her younger siblings.

Her father sees himself as a businessman, an entrepreneur, but it doesn’t seem that his abilities match his ambitions/self-estimation. He’s a strong and pious Quaker, with some fairly (for his time) progressive ideas about the status and nature of the natives. Yes, he wants to help them via Western Civilization and Christianity (whether they want it or not), but he doesn’t see them in the same way that many others (including some of this sons) do. At least not in the beginning of the novel — things continue to not go well for him (I’m being purposefully vague here), and as that happens the broken man inside him is revealed or his ideals and hopes are shattered and something else emerges. He becomes the villain of the piece, or one of the many victims of the environment — I quite enjoy the fact that I could argue either way on that.

Space and patience (yours and mine) prevent me from talking about all of Hester’s siblings (there are several) and the others they come into contact with, so I’ll sum up by saying within and without the family display a wide swath of humanity, the good and the bad (and the worst) we have to offer. There is a native (Hester’s word), Tull, who lives around the Finch home that is befriended by the family, who comes to occasionally live with them, work alongside them, is educated with them — and becomes part of the family. Much of the plot revolves around or comes from his presence, his interactions with the Finches and others. Treloar handles the character well — Tull’s not perfect, not all-wise, or a paragon, or anything. He’s just as flawed as the rest of the people in this book (well, maybe a little less flawed than some).

This will be seen primarily as a story about love, or about the clash of native cultures and Western colonization in the harshness of pioneer life, or something along those lines. To me, the recurring theme was pride (I’m not sure the word was used all that much, but man, it was all over the place). People broken by pride, motivated by pride, people corrupted by pride, people blocked by pride — I could probably go on. I don’t think of one thing in this book that was motivated by pride that went well — it was only when pride was ignored or set aside — for love, for the sake of another — does anything actually go well (this applies to Hester post-Coorong, too). It was subtle, but it was profound.

There are enough references to Jane Eyre that the reader is forced to draw lines of comparison/contrast between Jane and Hester (and maybe some of the others, as well). This is a nervy thing for an author to do (not just to Jane Eyre, but any classic of that stature), and it rarely works out well for the newbie. I’m not saying the comparisons are invalid, I just am not sure that Treloar should’ve pushed it. One mention of the book — maybe two (her receiving a new copy and reading it in secret) would’ve been enough just to see that Hester draws some inspiration from the literature she’s exposed to.

There are passages from this book that rank right up there with some of the best I’ve read this year — one scene where Hester is overcome with grief and a sense of futility that’ll just wreck your heart. There’s another involving an injury on the farm and Hester’s tending to the wound (including some stitches), that just curled my toes — really, give me Thomas Harris describing one of Lecter’s snacks rather than make me read that again.^* When it comes to pain and hardship, Treloar can write with the best of them.

But I’m not totally taken with her as an author. Early on, Treloar jumps around chronologically between the early months in The Coorang and to various periods of Hester’s time in England as an adult. I didn’t see the point to this move, unless she was going to continue that as a way to develop the story. But she stops that for several chapters, abandoning the future until the last three chapters — when it fits easily. I didn’t see the point to it, it muddied the waters a little and made it hard for me to get invested in what was happening in the 1850s.

And that ties in with my biggest problem with the book — I couldn’t get interested until slightly after the 50% mark. I really wasn’t even that curious about anyone at that point, it was just a matter of me pushing on, wondering if I’d ever get invested. Thankfully, I did. Somewhat, anyway. But that it took so long for me to care about the things that were happening — much less the people they were happening to/because of, says something about the book. There’s a lot to be said for an author taking time to establish the world she’s writing in, to develop the characters slowly, patiently — I’m all for that when it’s done well. But it’s so much easier to appreciate when I’m given a reason to keep reading beyond wanting to finish a book.

Once I did make that connection — my enjoyment of and appreciation for the book ratcheted up. I don’t think the pacing changed at this point (maybe it picked up a little bit), but everything she’d spent 52% or so of the book setting up was set up, so with all the causes in place, the effects started and that was much more engaging.

Regardless, there were some killer sentences (even in the first half) in this book, demonstrating that Treloar has the right stuff. I think she could do more with it than she has, and would like to see more from her in the future. On the whole, this is a good read — and I can easily see where some will enjoy it more than me (I can almost bet those who do are engaged more than I was during the first half), a gritty, stark examination of pioneer living in the mid-19th century with just a hint of hope. Recommended.

—
^{* I will always take blood and guts and gore that are clearly fantastic over those that really happened or are close enough to reality to have probably happened several times.}

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for this post and my honest opinion.

—–

3.5 Stars

The Hate U Give (Audiobook) by Angie Thomas, Bahni Turpin

By HCNewton

On August 7, 2017

In Audiobook, Fiction, General Fiction/Literature

There’s just so much I want to say about this book, I know I’m leaving stuff out even as I prepare to hit “Publish.” Also, I know that I’m not doing justice to how good this book is. Given that, here’s my best shot.
—

The Hate U Give

by Angie Thomas, Bahni Turpin (Narrator)
Unabridged Audiobook, 11 hrs., 40 min.
HarperAudio, 2017

Read: July 27 – August 1, 2017

I’ll be honest, the hype around this one turned me off initially. It just didn’t seem like my kind of thing. But my wife bought a copy and tore through it and started telling everyone she came across that they needed to read it (especially those of us she lives with). When I saw the library had a copy of the audiobook, I snagged it, because I hadn’t got that far on my TBR. By this time, I only remembered “YA,” “something about Black Lives Matter,” and “Mrs. Irresponsible Reader said I needed to.” Which is about as tabula rasa as one could get when coming to a book.

Our central character is Starr Carter. She attends a very nice private school in the suburbs of whatever unidentified city she lives in. She plays basketball there, has friends and a boyfriend and seems to be generally well-regarded by all. Then there’s her “other life”, that has almost no relation to that one — she and her family live in a poor neighborhood where almost no one knows her by anything but “Mav’s daughter what works at the store” (or something close to that). She has a friend or two in the neighborhood, but mostly works and then goes home. On one of the rare nights she goes out to do something social, she runs into her childhood best friend, Khalil, who she hasn’t seen for a few months. Their reunion is cut short, sadly, while he drives her home and they’re pulled over by a police officer for a routine traffic stop. I’ll leave the details for you to read on your own, but essentially, her unarmed friend is shot repeatedly by the police officer in front of Starr.

In the days that follow Khalil’s death is a nationwide story, Starr’s being questioned by the police and is trying to keep her psyche intact while the wheels of justice grind slowly. There are problems at school, unforeseen challenges at home and in the neighborhood, add in the involvement with the criminal justice system and activists, and it’s clear that neither of Starr’s lives are going to be the same again.

Yes, this book is about the shooting of Khalil and the aftermath. But it’s about more than that, too. Similar to the way you could say that To Kill a Mockingbird is about the trial Tom Robinson and its aftermath. There’s a whole lot of other things going on in both books that are just as much a part of the essence as the shooting/trial. There’s family growth and change, individual characters learning more about the world and changing, there’s the evolution of localities and best of all, there are characters taking all of this in and exercising a little agency to change themselves — and impact everything in around them.

One thing I didn’t expect was how fun this book would end up being. I laughed a lot — her father’s strange theories about Harry Potter, her Fresh Prince of Bel Air obsession, the teasing between her friends, her family’s very cut-throat approach to watching the NBA finals and trying to jinx each other’s teams, are just a start. Even when it’s not being out-and-out funny, there’s a joie de vivre that characterizes the lives of these characters.

When they’re not grieving, being threatened (by criminals or those who are supposed to be protecting them from criminals), being angered at the way that the system seems to be destined to fail them, or scared about their lives, that is. Because there’s a lot of that, too. All of which is justified. The interplay between the emotional extremes speaks volumes to the authenticity of Thomas’ work, and makes it much more effective than it could’ve been in less careful hands.

There are so few YA novels with healthy — or existing families — that Thomas should probably win an award or three just for having so many in one book. None of the families are perfect (though Starr’s comes close), some push the boundaries of “dysfunctional” into something we need a new word for; but at the very least there were at least a core of people caring about each other and trying to help each other, in their own way.

Yes, there are political overtones — or at least ramifications — to this book, but this is first and foremost a human story and can be appreciated by humans from all over the political spectrum. Thomas, as far as I can tell, went out of her way to be fair and balanced. It’d have been very easy to paint some of these characters/groups as all evil, all good, all misunderstood, all [fill in the blank]. Instead, she took the more difficult, more honest, and much more interesting approach and filled the book with people all over the moral spectrum, no matter their profession, ethnicity, socio-economic background, education, etc.

A few words about Turpin’s work. I loved it. She was just fantastic, and rose to the challenge of bringing this kind of book to life. Looking at her credits just now, that doesn’t seem like much of a stretch for her — she’s clearly a talented heavy-hitter on the audiobook front.

I laughed, I cried . . . it moved me. This is the whole package, really. It’ll challenge you, it’ll entertain you, and give you a little hope for tomorrow (while helping you despair about the time until tomorrow comes).

—–

5 Stars

Top Ten (and a bonus) Books from My Childhood

By HCNewton

On July 31, 2017

In Books, News/Misc.

Having trouble finishing a post in time for this morning — mostly it’s that there are too many things I want to say about a few books and I’m having trouble narrowing it down. So, here’s a re-run of something I liked having written.
I was bemoaning how long my current read was the other day and how it was going to leave me without a post for today, and my ever-so-clever daughter suggested, “Why don’t you list the Top 10 Books from your childhood?” That sounded pretty fun, so I figured that I might as well. It turned out to have been better than I thought, so kudos to her.

Ranking them really would be impossible, but then 11 came to mind really without any effort, and I couldn’t axe one of them, so there’s a bonus entry to the list. All of these I read more than I can count — if they’re part of a series, these were the ones that I came back to most often. The links are to Goodreads pages because I can’t find good official pages for all the books/authors (a true sign of my age, I guess).

Enough of that, on with the trip down Amnesia Lane:

The Castle of Llyr

by Lloyd Alexander
The Chronicles of Prydain taught me most of what I needed to know about Fantasy (augmenting The Chronicles of Narnia‘s lessons). Fflewddur Fflam here is at his best, I think it’s here that I fell in love with Eilonwy, Taran’s more of a real hero than before, and you get plenty of Gurgi (who I just have to mention because thinking of him makes me smile). There’s peril, the characters grow more than they have before, a hint of romance . . . it’s not the most important book in the series, but I think it’s pivotal.

Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint

by Raymond Abrashkin and Jay Williams
I didn’t know until today that this was the first in the series, I always figured it was mid-series. It’s the only one of the series that I owned — thankfully, the library had a few more — so it’s the one I read most. It was also my favorite — I just loved the stuff at the edge of our solar system and Prof. Bullfinch and Doctor Grimes making musical instruments from their hair — stupid as all get out, but it worked for me.

The Mystery of the Dead Man’s Riddle

by William Arden
While Encyclopedia Brown (see below) got me reading mysteries, it was The Three Investigators — Jupiter Jones, Bob Andrews and Pete Crenshaw (btw, the only thing there I had to look up was Pete’s last name — not bad for a series I haven’t touched since the late 80’s) got me hooked on reading detective series. The Dead Man’s Riddle was one of my favorites — and I think the first or second I read — something about the Cockney slang kept bringing me back to it. I read what I do today because of this series, really.

Superfudge

by Judy Blume
I remember Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing being funnier, but this was a better story — the Fletchers leaving NYC, Peter maturing, Fudge being a real pain, not just a cute nuisance. Blume taught me a lot about how to read non-genre stuff, probably paving the way for Hornby, Tropper, Weiner, etc.

The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles

by Julie Edwards
What a great world, what a great magic system . . . I’m not sure I can express what this book meant to me as a kid, and the copious warm-fuzzies the memory brings up. I remember that it was in the pages of this book about a magic kingdom that I first learned about DNA and RNA (and what those letters meant) — thanks, elementary school science classes. The creatures’ names in this are great (and, as an adult, I can “hear” Andrews saying them in my mind for an added layer of fun). There’s a great deal of whimsy here, a sense of play that permeates this — even when it gets silly. The kingdom’s motto, “peace, love and a sense of fun” really sums up the spirit of the book.

Me and My Little Brain

by John D. Fitzgerald, Mercer Mayer (illus.)
Sure, the series was supposedly about Tom, but J. D.’s the real hero of the books. He has a conscience, a better moral compass than his brother — and is probably just as smart. This is the book that lets him shine as he ought to have all along. All the books had their strong points, and were fun, but this ruled them all.

The Phantom Tollbooth

by Norton Juster, Jules Feiffer (illus.)
Such wordplay! What a great, twisted way to teach how important words and ideas are. Seriously, just a wonderful book. The humor is so off-kilter, any appreciation I have for puns came from this book (and it set the standard that a pun must achieve for me not to groan). If you haven’t seen the documentary about it, The Phantom Tollbooth: Beyond Expectations, get on it. (I contributed to the Kickstarter for it, I should add).

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

by C. S. Lewis
I remember the bookstore where I bought this, the date and month that I bought it, and reading a good chunk of it before I got home. I read this one more than the rest of the series (Prince Caspian a close second). I just love this one — you get Reep at his bravest and funniest, some really odd creatures, an epic story, and Eustace’s redemption (back when I did crazy things like this, I almost got a tattoo of Eustace as Dragon). Who could ask for more?

Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars

by Daniel M. Pinkwater
Pinkwater has funnier and stranger books (both before and after this one), but there was heart, there was depth — there was length! — to this story about a kid who didn’t really fit in until he made a friend who didn’t want to fit in. This is another one where I can peg the place and time I bought it. Science Fiction-y in a real world (didn’t know you could do that!), comic book geeks as heroes, and real non-sanitized-for-kids emotions. There’s no way this wouldn’t be a favorite. More than the rest on this list, I’m thinking of finding my old copy and taking it out for another spin (because I just read the next one a couple of years ago).

The Westing Game

by Ellen Raskin
If I had to pick one off this list (and I don’t), this would probably be my favorite. I re-read it two years ago, and it was one of my favorite experiences that year with a book. The characters are great, the story was so clever, the writing so crisp. There’s nothing wrong with this book at all.

I saw a hardcover reprinting of this on Monday, and had to fight to resist buying a new copy. Kind of regretting that now. [Note: I went back a couple of days later and bought the hardcopy. It looks very nice on my shelf]

Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective

by Donald J. Sobol
Summer after second grade, we were on a forever-long road trip and I was bored, so I demanded my parents buy me something to read. I must’ve been a real snot about it, because at the next town, they did. I got two books, this one and Sugar Creek Gang Screams in the Night (not the best in the series, but it was good enough to read several times). It blew me away — I loved the puzzles, the characters, the idea. I wanted to be a P. I. This was my first mystery book, and it clearly set the stage for most of what I’ve read since (about a third of what I read).
Were you a fan of any of these as a kid? What were some of your faves? Have you read them lately?

The Force by Don Winslow

By HCNewton

On July 12, 2017

In Fiction, General Fiction/Literature, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

Oh fer cryin’ out loud, after I finished writing this, I noticed that the publisher’s description starts with the same quotation I started my post with. I swear I didn’t steal the idea.
—

The Force

by Don Winslow

Hardcover, 479 pg.
William Morrow, 2017

Read: June 26 – 29, 2017

Our ends know our beginnings but the reverse isn’t true.

If Denny Malone’s beginning knew his ending, would it have prevented anything? Or would Malone have convinced himself he could find a work-around? Probably the latter.

Denny Malone is a one of NYPD’s Finest — a detective sergeant, and the head of a task force (known as “Da Force”) on the front line of the War on Drugs. He and his team — who’ve been together for years — rule Manhattan. Sadly — and perhaps naturally — they’re corrupt. They take (and are given) money, drugs, weapons and more from criminals (of all levels), lawyers and others. They pass on some of these to lawyers, city officials and other cops — and keep a whole lot for themselves. Through their methods, they do keep some sort of peace on their streets — sure, they pass on some of the violence and poison on to other parts of the city, but that’s not their concern.

After doing this for years, the wheels start to come off — it’s tough to say what the first domino (to mix metaphors) was to fall, but once it does, there’s nothing stopping the rest — as much as Malone may try. The result is one of the most powerful crime novels I’ve read in years.

The characters are rich, fully developed and they seem like they could step out of the book onto the streets of NYC with no trouble. You are sickened by them, want to see them stopped — yet start to understand them, like them as people, and — despite yourself — hope at least some of them get away with it all. At one point, I was laughing at their banter like we were all old friends hanging out, and it bothered me how much I enjoyed them as people (that faded somewhat in a few pages).

This book feels like the love child of Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities and Nicholas Pileggi’s Wiseguy. You really feel like you understand how the city of New York is run — at least parts of it: the police, elements of the criminal world, and parts of the criminal justice system. Not how they’re supposed to run, but the way it really is. He achieves this through a series of set pieces and didactic pericopes. Three quick examples: you get Malone musing on how the way that cops have to learn how not to care about citizens and criminals, because otherwise, they’ll end up hating them. A great section showing how The Force goes out on the town to celebrate. The following quotation about the attitude of a prosecutor and Malone about his creative use/understanding of the truth while testifying:

Because the real truth that they both know is that without cops “testilying,” the DA’s office would hardly get any convictions at all.

This doesn’t bother Malone.

If the world played fair, he’d play fair. But the cards are stacked against the prosecutors and police. Miranda, Mapp, all the other Supreme Court decisions, give the advantage to the skels. It’s like the NFL these days–the league wants touchdown passes, so a defensive back can’t even touch a receiver. We’re the poor defensive backs, Malone thinks, trying to keep the bad guys from scoring.

Truth, justice and the American way.

The American way is, truth and justice maybe say hello in the hallway, send each other a Christmas card, but that’s about the extent of their relationship.

You throw that kind of stuff in with a compelling plot, believable characters, striking details and Winslow’s voice? You’ve got yourself a dynamite book.

If someone had told me this was non-fiction, I’d believe it (maybe I’d balk at some of the details of his personal life being told in a Non-fiction book, but otherwise…). It rings true — and I spent most of the book just hoping that Winslow was exaggerating and fearing that he was holding back. The whole thing feels real, it seems ripped from the headlines, and is beyond engaging — it’s engrossing, it’ll take over your mind, make you see deception and corruption everywhere.

Winslow nailed it. It’s just mindbogglingly good. I’m going to over-hype it if I keep going — so I’ll leave it at that. Get this book and then strap in for one of the best reads you’ll have this year.

—–

5 Stars

Pub Day Repost: The Right Side by Spencer Quinn

By HCNewton

On June 27, 2017

In Dogs, Fiction, General Fiction/Literature, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Spencer Quinn

The Right Side

by Spencer Quinn
eARC, 336 pg.
Atria Books, 2017
Read: May 11 – 12, 2017

Okay, since I first opened the pages of Dog On It 8 years ago, I’ve been a Spencer Quinn fan — it probably took me two chapters to consider myself one. So it’s kind of a given that I’d like this book — but only “kind of.” This was so far from a Bowser & Birdie or Chet & Bernie book that they could be written by different people.

Sgt. LeAnne Hogan was an excellent athlete in her childhood and teen years, and then she joined the Army (deciding her West Point plans would take too long — an oversimplification that’ll do for now) and became an excellent soldier, serving multiple tours in combat zones. During her last sting in Afghanistan — as part of a team working to build intelligence sources among Afghan women — she is involved in an attack that leaves some dead and her injured — physically and mentally.

Her memories of that fateful day are vague and dim at best, but the scars will not leave. Not only that, she lost an eye, her confidence, her future plans, and career. She slowly befriends a woman who lost part of her leg to an IED in Iraq who shares a room with LeAnne in Walter Reed. Marci dies suddenly and unexpectedly — and that is too much for LeAnne. She leaves the hospital immediately and sets off on a drive across the country, she really doesn’t have a plan, but she needs to be somewhere else.

It’s pretty clear that LeAnne is suffering from PTSD on top of everything else — as you’d expect. She comes across as angry and rude to almost everyone she runs across and exchanges more than a few words with. She eventually finds herself in Marci’s hometown — where her daughter has gone missing. For the first time since the day everything changed, LeAnne has a purpose — bring her friend’s daughter home. Along the way, she LeAnne gets adopted by a large dog who will prove an invaluable aid in this challenge.

LeAnne is a great character — not a perfect person by any means, but you can see where a lot of writers (novelists or journalists) would try to paint her as one. She has huge flaws — some of which are easier to see after the injury (and some of them are new after it, too). There are some other good characters, too — even if you don’t necessarily like them (LeAnne’s mother would be an example of this — she’s trying to do the right thing, but the reader can sense LeAnne’s apprehensions toward her — and will likely share them). The people in Marci’s hometown (particularly those that are related to her) are the best drawn in the book — and I’d be willing to read a sequel or two just in this city to spend more time with them. Not everyone gets what LeAnne’s going through — some don’t know how to react to her — but those that come close will endear themselves to you.

The dog, Goody, isn’t Chet, he isn’t Bowser — he’s a typical dog, no more (or less) intelligent than any other. Goody won’t be serving as the narrator in a story any time — he will drink from the toilet bowl and ignore a lot of what LeAnne wants him to do.

Like I said, I’m a Quinn fan — but I didn’t think he had this in him. Funny mysteries with dogs? Sure, he’s great at those. But sensitive explorations of veterans dealing with the aftermath of life-altering injuries? I wouldn’t have guessed it. But man . . . he really got this flawed character, this incredibly human character, right. There’s a couple of moments that didn’t work as well as they should’ve — a couple of moments that were hard to believe in a book as grounded in reality as this book was. But you know what? You forgive them easily, because so much is right with this book — so much just works, that you’ll accept the things that don’t. It wasn’t all dark and moody — there’s some hope, some chuckles, a lot that is somber and sad, too. While not a “feel good” read by any means, you will feel pretty good about who things end up.

This is probably categorized as a Thriller, as that’s where Quinn’s readers are — but I can see a case for this being labeled General Fiction (or whatever synonym your local shop uses), it’s flexible that way. This is Spencer Quinn operating on a whole new level with a character we need more like — such a great read.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from Atria Books via NetGalley in exchange for this post — thanks to both for this.

—–

4 1/2 Stars

The Bucket List by Emily Ruben

By HCNewton

On June 21, 2017

In Fiction, General Fiction/Literature

The Bucket List

by Emily Ruben

eARC, 383 pg.
Inkitt, 2017

Read: June 14 – 19, 2017

I am absolutely not amongst the audience for this book. I knew that from the title alone, much less the description. Still, I’d read Ruben’s first book and enjoyed it and was curious about her take on this idea.

This is basically a take on the dying teen romance, with a splash of the Rob Reiner movie. I’m tempted to go on a rant about the whole dying teen romance idea — The Space Between Us, The Fault in our Stars, and the like — but I just don’t have the energy. I don’t get it, it seems like a highly artificial way to inflate drama. But whatever — just because it’s an overplayed idea, that doesn’t mean the book can’t be good.

Besides, the central characters in this book are 20 and 21, so by definition this is different.

Leah is surprised one day to find the new guy moving in next door is her old best friend that she hasn’t seen for 5 years. Damon (think Ian Somerhalder) is glad to see her, but before they renew their friendship, has to warn her that he’ll be dead within a year and a half. He has some sort of brain tumor (Ruben intentionally gives few details about this) that cannot be treated. Leah decides that she’ll do what she can to renew their friendship in the time remaining.

Soon after this, the two decide that he’ll write up a Bucket List and that each day, they’ll cross an item off of it until it’s too late. This will lead to all sorts of travel, adventure, changing of existing and/or new romantic relationships and (this isn’t much of a spoiler, you can tell it’ll happen from the get-go) their eventually falling in love.

The worst part about this book is how everything that happens to them is the best, the greatest, the ____est (or the worst). Leah and Damon live in the extremes — they never have a normal day, a blah experience. It’s just too much to handle — a few things that are okay, a few things that aren’t bad mixed in with all this would make this easier to read. Yes, you could say that given the heightened situation, everything they do is given a hint of the extreme, but still . . .

The tricky thing with Damon having an unnamed disease — it’s hard to have any idea how realistic this is. But a brain tumor that causes organs to decay before death, necessitating an ethically/legally-questionable euthanasia method is stretching things beyond the breaking point. Beyond that, the amount of money that these people spend is utterly unbelievable — talk all you want about plundering no-longer-necessary college savings, it’s just not something I could buy.

There’s an element of charm to the writing — but I don’t think that this is as charming as Ruben’s first book — there’s something appealing about the earnestness of her writing. But this just wasn’t for me. Although he probably didn’t say it, Abraham Lincoln is often quoted as reviewing a lecture by saying something like, ” People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.” I feel like that about this book — if you can find a grain of salt big enough to help you swallow the unbelievable, if you can tolerate the excess of superlatives, and like a love story in the face of certain doom, this is probably a pretty entertaining book. Was it for me? Nope. But I didn’t hate it and can understand why many would.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from the publisher in exchange for this post — I do appreciate the opportunity, even if it doesn’t come across that way.

—–

3 Stars

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

By HCNewton

On June 2, 2017

In Fiction, General Fiction/Literature, YA/MG/Children's Books

A Monster Calls

by Patrick Ness

Paperback, 225 pg.
Candlewick Press, 2013

Read: June 1, 2017

I hadn’t even heard of this book until a couple of weeks ago, when it was recommended to me by a loyal reader. And I wasn’t given a lot of details, just a strong recommendation and something about it being “about grief.” I could’ve used the warning that it was a YA book, but otherwise, that’s all I needed to know (and the YA wouldn’t have been a deal breaker or maker — I just would’ve liked to know what I was grabbing). I’m not going to say much more than that, really. It’s about grief, there’s some magic, and it’s one of the most effective novels I’ve read this year.

There’s been so much said about this book by others — I’m almost afraid to say much, I don’t want to ruin anyone’s discovery.

You’ve got a 13 year-old boy, Conor, whose mother is undergoing cancer treatment — and it’s not going well. His grandmother (not at all the stereotypical grandmother-type, as Conor is very well aware), comes to stay with them with every new round of treatment, and Conor hates it. His father and his new wife have started a new life in the US. All of this has left Conor isolated, emotionally all alone — except at school, where he’s bullied (when not alone). Somehow in his despair, Conor summons a monster, a monster older than Western Civilization, who visits the boy to help him.

He helps him via stories — I love this — not escapism, but through the lessons from stories — and not in a “You see, Timmy . . . ” kind of moralizing — just from understanding how people work through the stories.

After reading page 15, I jotted down in my notes, “Aw, man! This is going to make me cry by the end, isn’t it?” I didn’t, for the record, but I came close (and possibly, if I hadn’t been sitting in a room with my daughter and her guitar teacher working on something, I might have.

The prose is easy and engaging — there’s a strong sense of play to the language. There’s some wonderfully subtle humor throughout, keeping this from being hopelessly depressing. The prose is deceptively breezy, it’d be very easy to read this without catching everything that Ness is doing. But mostly, what the book gives is emotion — there’s a raw emotion on display here — and if it doesn’t get to you, well, I just don’t know what’s wrong with you.

The magic, the monster and the protagonist remind me so much of Paul Cornell’s Chalk (which is probably backwards, Chalk should be informed by this — oops). Eh, either way — this is cut from the same cloth.

That’s a bit more than I intended to say, but I’m okay with that. I’m not convinced that this is really all that well-written, technically speaking. But it packs such an emotional wallop, it grabs you, reaches down your throat and seizes your heart and does whatever it wants to with it — so who cares how technically well it’s written? (and, yeah, I do think the two don’t necessarily go together). A couple of weeks from now, I may not look back on this as fondly — but tonight, in the afterglow? Loved this.

Love, grief, hope, loss, anger, fear, monsters and the power of stories. Give this one a shot. Maybe bring a Kleenex, you never know . . .

—–

4 1/2 Stars

2017 Library Love Challenge

The Right Side by Spencer Quinn

By HCNewton

On May 24, 2017

In Dogs, Fiction, General Fiction/Literature, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Spencer Quinn

The Right Side

by Spencer Quinn

eARC, 336 pg.
Atria Books, 2017

Read: May 11 – 12, 2017

Okay, since I first opened the pages of Dog On It 8 years ago, I’ve been a Spencer Quinn fan — it probably took me two chapters to consider myself one. So it’s kind of a given that I’d like this book — but only “kind of.” This was so far from a Bowser & Birdie or Chet & Bernie book that they could be written by different people.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from Atria Books via NetGalley in exchange for this post — thanks to both for this.

—–

4 1/2 Stars

The Glamshack by Paul W. Cohen (updated)

By HCNewton

On May 18, 2017

In Fiction, General Fiction/Literature

I pulled this one from publication this morning to work on it a bit more. I’m not sure I actually made it better, but I’m pretty sure it’s not worse.

…and then tweaked again 12 hours later . . .
—

The Glamshack

by Paul W. Cohen

eARC, 222 pg.
PUB, 2017

Read: May 8 – 9, 2017

Do not read this book for the plot — you will likely be disappointed, and possibly frustrated. There’s just not much of it, and what little there is isn’t that creative — there are good plot-moments, yes. But really, there’s nothing here that you likely haven’t read. But the strength of this book is in how Cohen delivers the plot, not the what that he delivers.

Essentially, the novel is a story of Henry Folsom — a lifestyle reporter in 1999. I think lifestyle reporter is close — he writes for a fashion magazine, doing puff-piece profiles and interviews. He’s just not that good at his job, and is close to being fired after some disastrous encounters with the kind of people that you cannot have disastrous encounters with. During one such encounter, he meets a woman that he finds much more interesting than his interview subject. They flirt, they date, they have a months-long relationship, full of ups and downs. She leaves him for a few days (at least) when the book opens, and as he waits to see if she’ll return as promised, he spends this time in a drunken stupor reliving, rehearsing, and analyzing (not too deeply) the relationship while reading a history of the Plains Indians Wars of the 1800s.

Henry never gives us the name of his love, his obsession. It’s always “She” or “Her.” Always capitalized. Within the last few months, I read something describing a man in love’s speech by saying something like “you could hear the capital She in his voice.” That’s surely how Henry talked — it’s how he writes, how he thinks. She is completely and totally unworthy of the devotion he shows. Sure, you could (rightly) argue that none of us are — but She is really just the worst — manipulative, selfish. untrustworthy . . . But there’s no two ways about it, Henry’s devoted to her (and he’s not alone). She has a tragic backstory, which, if true, probably accounts for some of her personality flaws. But I’m not convinced that she didn’t invent part of it to serve her own ends. All this is to say that she’s not a good person, but a great character.

Henry is sort of a Humbert Humbert character. No, he’s not a murderer or a pedophile — or any other kind of criminal that I’m aware of. He is someone with a fancy prose style and has overly-idealized the object of his affections. The way Henry thinks about, describes, and acts toward Her really reminded me of Humbert — particularly (and this is what made me start down this trails of thought) in the way that Henry reveals Her character, her shortcomings, and virtues while defending or denying the problematic aspects of Her character and well as his. Henry’s use of language — and Cohen’s, too — is just wonderful. Most of the quotations I’d pull wouldn’t work without a lot of context, but there’s some great use of language throughout this book. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that I mastered the novel — there’s a lot of Cohen’s figurative language that I can’t wrap my brain around. The repeated phrase, “fighting breasts,” is a good example — I have no idea what those are. Didn’t are while I was reading, don’t care now — segments of this might as well have been poetry for the care shown to word choice and placement.

Elmore Leonard’s famous 10 Rules for Writing contains warning against “hooptedoodle” — the parts of books that sound like writing. His goal was to remain invisible (he failed, by the way, I think he knew that). I don’t regularly use these rules to evaluate books — but sometimes, I can’t help it (they stick with you more than some other writer’s do). Glamshack wouldn’t last 5 paragraphs against Leonard’s standards. But that’s okay, as Leonard himself says, “If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules.” Cohen’s one of those who can skip the rules without a lot of complaint from anyone.

I wasn’t wowed by The Glamshack story or characters, but I enjoyed reading it and loved Cohen’s writing. I recommend it.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from the author in exchange for this post — thanks, Mr. Cohen, I enjoyed this.

—–

3 Stars

Startup by Doree Shafrir

By HCNewton

On May 8, 2017

In Fiction, General Fiction/Literature

Startup

by Doree Shafrir

eARC, 304 pg.
Little, Brown and Company, 2017

Read: May 2, 2017

It’s hard to give a thumbnail pitch for this book — my gut wants to compare it to Coupland’s Microserfs, just because I liked that so much. But it’s more like a feminist Po Bronson’s The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest, I think. It’s been about 20 years since I read that, and my memory is more than fuzzy on the details. It’s about web/app-based companies in New York and the strange (especially to outsiders) culture that surrounds them. You don’t have to know a lot about tech — or venture capitalism — to appreciate this, however. You just have to know about people.

Because at the end of the day, this book isn’t really about startup culture, apps or technology — it’s about people. There are 5 central characters — and a couple that hover around central — to this book, and yes, they’re all involved with startups, but that’s just where they happen to be. You could set this novel in the Wall Street culture of the mid 80’s and not have to change much about it at all, because the relationships, the people are what matter — not the industries/subcultures they’re in.

You’ve got Mack McAllister — the driving force and face of TakeOff — an app promoting mindfulness, happiness and productivity; he seems pretty harmless (initially, anyway), but gets reckless with money and sloppy with interpersonal issues — when that starts to snowball out of control, he then crosses the line into something worse. Isabel is in charge of Engagement and Marketing for TakeOff, she had a little thing with Mack awhile ago, but has started to see someone else recently. Sabrina works for Isabel, is ten years her senior, but has just got back in the workforce after having kids — she’s got some money problems and a husband that seems to be checked out of the relationship and parenting. His name is Dan, and he’s an editor for a Tech News website — he’s pretty oblivious to a lot, really (like his wife’s problems) and the crush he has on one of his reporters (actually, he may be very aware of that, come to think of it). Her name is Katya, the child of Russian immigrants — a hungry reporter, trying to figure out just how to make it in the world where journalism is judged by quantifiable results (views, shares, retweets). Katya needs a break, and stumbles upon a story about Mack — and Isabel — and this could be the thing to solidify her position at the news site.

That’s all you really need to know going in — actually, I knew far less, so that’s more than you need to know. You take those people and their goals, their problems — but ’em in a blender and this book comes out. It’s pretty easy to see how — the part that isn’t obvious is how Shafrir accomplishes this. She does it by: 1. making these all very relatable characters, with strengths and weaknesses; 2. by making even the villains of the piece not that villain-y (I’m not saying, for example, that Mack is a paragon of virtue — he does some horrible things, but he never sets out to be horrible, he just ends up that way); 3. by making the heroes of the piece not all that heroic — just people trying to do (and keep) their jobs, while not screwing up the rest of their life.

I love the fact that Sabrina and Katya are both pretty serious grammar Nazis who find themselves in jobs where they have to do so much that violates grammar — it’s a nice touch, and I enjoyed their reactions to poor grammar. Similarly, Katya’s attitude toward smoking is a lot of fun to read about — but not really something you want to inculcate to kids, or even see in someone in real life.

This is Shafrir’s first novel, but she’s been writing for forever — most notably as an online journalist. She knows the world she’s depicting, she’s lived it and wrote about it — this is just a barely fictionalized version of her reality, so it reeks of authenticity. I have no doubt I could find people very much like her main characters without trying very hard if I put myself in the right cities. She’s not so close to this world that she can’t comment on it, nor is she so close to it that she’s bitter, nasty and cynical about it.

There’s a very slow build to this book — around the 40% mark, I noticed that while I was enjoying the book, appreciating the writing, and so on — I wasn’t really “hooked” by it, I wasn’t invested in any of the characters, which I thought was odd. So, I resolved to make note of when it happened, to see if it was an event, or a development with a character or whatever that prompted it. By the time I hit 80%, the hook was set (it happened well before then, but don’t ask me where), but there wasn’t anything that I could point to that did it. Just slowly but surely, these people and their individual struggles wormed their way into my subconscious. Which is a great way for a book to be — not that I mind those that hook you from the start, or those that a have a big, dramatic moment that grabs you — but those that gradually get you without you noticing.

The ending sneaks up on you — I really didn’t realize the novel ended when it did — I got to the words “Acknowledgements” on the next page before I realized that the book had ended. I really liked the way it ended (once I figured out it happened), even if I found the last sentence annoying. I still do, actually — but I see what she was going for and she achieved it. But I still would’ve liked a few more pages to follow that last sentence.

I can’t help feeling like I should have a lot more to say about this book — but I can’t figure out how to do so without giving everything away. So I’d better leave it by saying that I really liked these people, Shafrir’s writing, and the way she told a story. Startup was honest, heart-felt, compassionate, and real — this debut is as strong as it is winning. I hope to read more from Shafrir in the future.

—–

4 Stars

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from Little, Brown and Company via NetGalley in exchange for this post — thanks to both for this.