It's been a while

This is to make up for, and explain, the lack of a post since April 4. Here's what I have for the months of April and May, and part of June; the rest of June -- which is shaping up to be the best reading month so far this year -- will come at the end of the month, as before.

Booklist 2009 (After The Fall)

Our computer melted, and destroyed our hard drive and everything we had saved. Including the books I had been writing up, though I confess I was weeks behind when the whole thing went kerplooey. Toni suffered much worse than I, since mine were online. But here's my attempt to reconstruct what I had before, and to take the thread back up now that the new computer is installed and I'm ready to get rolling again.


Back Before the Fall:
(These are the ones that I meant to write up but hadn't -- other than the Amazon reviews. This is the best I could do.)


The Good, the Bad, and the Undead by Kim Harrison

I liked the book, I love Algaliarept, and Jenks, and Trent and his cronies. This time through I like Ivy more, and Rachel a little bit less -- I like the way she pouts, but she does it a little too much, and I still have trouble relating to the danger-loving adrenaline junkie thing. Makes me feel like she's just stupid, and that's no good.

Tales of Terror from the Black Freighter by Chris Priestly

Great kid's book of scary stories. Really creepy. I reviewed it on Amazon.

When Skateboards Will Be Free by Said Sayrafiezadeh

Best thing about the book is the guy's name. The rest of it was fair-to-cruddy. Reviewed this one, too, though it made everyone hate me.

American Nerd: The Story of My People by Benjamin Nugent

Love the title and the concept, but the book was a little overly concerned with the origin of the term nerd and the development of the popular image of same. I wanted more sociology and history, more analysis of famous nerds. But has some great insights into nerdishness, and made me reminisce about my own nerdy childhood. And my nerdy teenage years. Young adulthood, too -- oh yeah, and every other part of the last 34 (almost 35) years. I dug it, overall.

Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski

I had a student who was reading this leave it in my class after a Philosophy Club meeting; I've always wondered about Bukowski's writing, since he's such a cult icon in the literature world, so, after the student recommended it highly, I gave it a shot. And the end result: Bukowski was indeed a truly wonderful writer, but holy shit: what a depressing book. I think this is another one I can check off my lifetime list, and call it good.



After the Fall:

1. Kim Harrison: Every Which Way But Dead
2. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Emerson's Essays
3. Carrie Vaughn: Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand
4. Vivian Vande Velde: Stolen
5. Jamila Gavin: See No Evil
6. Julia Gregson: East of the Sun
7. Charlaine Harris: From Dead to Worse
8. Dale Peck: Sprout
9. Laurell K. Hamilton: Skin Trade

I will try to get back to my old method of analyzing the books, but for now, it's early, and I want to play Sims. So:

Every Which Way But Dead
I like this one, because I like the character of Lee and how everything turns out. I find Ceri fascinating as well, and Kisten's okay in this one. I still have trouble with the vampires: too much strength, not enough detractions apart from being really, really, whiny and self-absorbed, and Ivy's still a pain in the ass. I didn't like David, what with all his judging of Rachel. But I love the ending.

Emerson's Essays
Yeah: by the time I finished this, I felt like I had run an intellectual marathon, and the last ten miles I had two broken ankles. Way too hard to actually follow everything Emerson said. But it helped when the introduction talked about how Emerson is not meant to be grasped as a whole, the his real genius was at the level of the sentence, and so you need to sift through looking for the gems. There were gems in all of the essays, and I plan to go back and read them again, with more depth. Just not all of them. And I'm glad I read it.


Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand
This was a nice one. I thought she did an excellent job getting Kitty out of her comfort zone and yet still keeping the character the same; I liked the bad guys, particularly the ones who weren't so bad -- Ben's bounty hunter friends and the "king" of Las Vegas. I thought the Babylonian thing was cool, especially when they managed to take out so many of the weres who served Tiamat -- but somebody just stepped up to take their place and continue it on. Shades of the Long Game. I like that these are getting deeper and more serious in some ways, and yet still Kitty is a talk show host who does a pretty goofy show, really, and who has a somewhat troubled relationship with her now-husband, who she maybe doesn't know all that well. These are good books.



Stolen by Vivian Vande Velde

Pick:
Jaime asked me to give a quick read to a pair of little YA books she had just finished herself; sadly, since I am still not in heavy reading mode, those two quick little books took me, mm, three weeks? Maybe only two and a half. I went for this one first because it has the more interesting cover, by which I judged the book.

Story:
Stolen is about a girl who wakes up running through the woods, being chased by dogs. She "wakes up" because she has no memory, none at all -- she remembers running through the woods, being chased by dogs. She is treed and lightly mauled by the dogs, but is rescued by their owner, who hears them barking wildly -- as excited as if they had tracked down quarry that had long eluded them. The man, a farmer named Browley, takes the girl home so his wife, Avis, can treat her wounds. There the girl meets their granddaughter, Ravyn, and her dog, Hercules Turnip -- and the only reason I included their names is so I could write that one, it's so good.

The family does not know the girl, but they take her in, hoping that her amnesia will be temporary and she will remember her name and where she came from, and why she was running through empty woods near a village where she does not live. Once word of the girl reaches town, there seems to be an answer: Mady and her husband Frayne had lost their daughter Isabelle six years before, when the witch who lived in the woods apparently stole her. Isabelle would be the same age as this girl is now, so Mady comes to see -- and is overjoyed to find that her daughter is returned at last!

Maybe. Despite Mady's assurances, her face and voice, and the name Isabelle, and the reminiscences she showers on the girl, do not spark a single memory from her. But since Mady seems so sure, the girl goes home with her, hoping that seeing the farmhouse where she may have been raised will ring a bell.

That doesn't do it either, though the situation quickly raises suspicions once the girl meets Mady's oldest daughter, the spoiled and self-centered Honey, and Mady's aunt, the wealthy and cantankerous Isabelle -- for whom the girl, if she is indeed the stolen daughter, was named. But Mady coaches the girl before she meets the aunt, telling her fond memories of the missing Isabelle's childhood so she can react as if she remembers for herself. It becomes clear that Mady tried very hard to place her daughter to become Aunt Isabelle's heir, and despite differences in appearance and the continued lack of true memories, she is determined to put this girl right back in Isabelle's place.

And as it turns out, she succeeds, though not in a way she had ever imagined.

Thoughts:
It's a nice little book, with an outstanding twist at the end. I expected a surprise, but never the actual solution, which comes complete with several surprises. There is a tease in the first chapter of the book that led me down the wrong path, as the author intended, and that was very nicely resolved in the end. I didn't think there was enough comeuppance for the villains, but justice is served, nonetheless -- and how can you go wrong when there's a dog named Hercules Turnip? It was a fast but satisfying read.



See No Evil by Jamila Gavin

Pick:
This was the second of the books Jaime asked me to glance over. This one was tougher to get through, because it sucked more.

Story:
Everybody knows the classic surprise princess story, the one about the girl who dreams that she is a princess, with a fairy tale life, whose real parents are loving and wonderful people who will whisk her away from the terror and squalor of her present meager circumstances and give her everything she ever wanted -- and in the end, it turns out that reality is just as she had dreamed it. But what if the story went the other way? What if a girl was a princess, with a fairy tale life, complete with swimming pools and movie stars and ponies, maids and chauffeurs and personal chefs and everything she could ever want, including two parents who are so sweet and loving that no child could ever be happier? And what if it turned out that the reality was something rather different, and far more horrible, than the girl ever imagined?

That would make a good story. And if that was the only story told in See No Evil, it would be a great book. Where the book focuses on that story, it is a nice one: Jamila Gavin writes it well, giving a realistic and touching portrait of the princess-who-is-not, Nettie Roberts; Nettie is sympathetic and genuine, and a lovely character in an interesting and poignant story. But that story is somewhat hard to read, because Gavin apparently didn't feel that telling one good story was enough.

This book also tells the story of a young girl, isolated by wealth and privilege, who has no friends, until a tutor comes to educate her, and the two of them bond, quickly and completely -- and then the tutor vanishes, without a reason, without a trace, without a goodbye. Nettie is despondent, and desperately wishes for an explanation -- especially when she sees someone who looks like her missing tutor, and her mother lies about what happened to her, and Nettie finds a hidden clue in her tutor's former rooms.

It also tells the story of a young girl who has no friends, isolated by wealth and privilege, until she meets the Boy: a young man, whom she had thought to be a ghost, who sneaks through the hidden passages and doorways of her palatial home, exploring the world that he only touches upon from his and his father's basement apartment: his father is the night doorman for the lonely girl's father, and the boy knows a secret that the girl must hear -- but his father has taught him that in order to survive, they must follow the rule of the three monkeys: see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.

It also tells the story of a young girl who loves to dance, and her aged and failing great-aunt, who was once the greatest ballet dancer in the world: beloved and sought after by wealthy suitors across the globe. When the old woman comes to live with the young girl -- who is lonely, without friends, isolated by wealth and privilege -- the girl is at first intimidated and confused by the old woman's behavior. But once the girl sees her dance, she can't help but ask for lessons; and once the old woman sees the girl dance, and recognizes her potential, she can't help but begin to mold her great-niece into her successor. And Nettie will dance Swan Lake some day.

The book also tells the story of a desperate and hopeless young immigrant, deceived by the man who said he would help her, dumped alone and pregnant and lost on the shores of England. She is picked up by a man who, mysteriously, knows her name and everything about her, and who offers her a ride . . .

This book tells all of those stories. And more: there is the mysterious hint that the girl's father is nicknamed Vlad the Impaler; there is Nettie's first trip on the London Underground; there is her first day at school and the development of her first real school friend -- and oh, so much more. Unfortunately, since it is a young adult book -- and therefore tends to avoid overly complex and lengthy expositions -- and since it is only 200 pages long, it cannot tell all of these stories well. They run into and over each other, and threads get dropped and lost from every one. The mystery man who picks up the pregnant immigrant, for example, is never explained: who he is, how he knows all about her, why he was driving down that empty road at night, why he picked her up, why he left her unconscious in a ditch -- I dunno. The book never says. By the time the climactic moment arrives, it seems like small potatoes, because one event simply cannot tie up all of these tales -- and it seems terribly false and manufactured, because too much of the book leading up to that moment was dedicated to exploring the other plotlines, and the main story was never completely developed.

Thoughts:
Because the story was too full of ideas, and because those ideas are all fairly shallow, I didn't like the book. It was hard to get into, and then once the third or fourth plot line came up, I just wanted to get through it. The author does write well, and Nettie is nicely characterized and very sympathetic -- but there were just too many stories here. Since I am not the target audience, however, the book may be very successful for those who like complicated stories, simply told, that involve wealth and privilege, and friendship, and dark hidden secrets. I hope people like that exist, so that they can enjoy this book more than I did.


East of the Sun by Julia Gregson

Pick:
My very first Vine Voice book! Amazon invited me to join the Vine program, when they send out books and various other goods before they are released to the public in order to get advance reviews; my first newsletter had maybe a dozen books I was interested in reviewing, and this was one. It wasn't my first choice, but my first several choices were already taken -- those book people jump on free books faster than Charlie pouncing on something disgusting and edible -- and it sounded good.

Review for Amazon:
When you look at this book, what do you see? You see a historical novel, a romance, a tale of adventure and excitement, of upright and proper young women who are given a chance to spread their wings and fly, and they seize it. You see a story of a tumultuous and fascinating place, at a pivotal moment in history, as depicted through the very human eyes of people who were immersed in it, but whose lives were not controlled by it. You see a narrative rich in color and texture, noise and scent, that approaches sensory overload for the reader, much like the lives of the characters in that place at that time. You see an excellent reading experience.

"East of the Sun" is like an onion. Or maybe a cake would be a better metaphor -- or parfait. Everybody likes parfait. (Forgive the completely inappropriate Shrek reference.) At any rate, it has many layers, and thus offers readers not only a pleasant way to pass the time, but also a series of surprises that adds excitement to the otherwise mellow reading experience. In that, the experience of reading the book resembles the book's plot: in "East of the Sun," a controlled, stoic, even staid group of characters are taken out of their normal circumstances and given a chance to jaunt off on a bit of a wild ride. Perhaps the book is like an onion parfait: sweet and tasty, and also pungent; definitely not what one would expect, and sometimes, maybe a bad mix of flavors -- those onions are just a little too strong.

Enough of the metaphors. The story revolves around three young women: one already engaged, one seeking to become engaged, and one who has not a shred of interest in becoming engaged, but who wishes to find herself, to be herself, free from the weight of others' expectations and perceptions. These three characters are the book's best feature: every reader should be able to find a reflection of himself or herself in one or all of them, from the naive and ever-pleasant Rose, to the foolish and courageous Tor (Short for Victoria, not named for the obscure word for a rocky hilltop, more's the pity), to the mysterious and wounded Viva. The characters are both genuine and universal, and so the reader not only identifies with them, but wishes them all the best: as if they were friends, or past selves, glimpsed through a crystal ball, and we find it all too easy to imagine ourselves in their places, shaking our heads at their foolishness, smiling fondly at their successes.

The book is a great piece of writing, though without real brilliance; the shine is in the story and the characters, rather than the wordsmithing. The plot drags in the middle; none of the three characters receives short shrift, and so the book is lengthy, and all three of them go through their darkest times just before the dawn at the same point in the narrative, which made it a little hard to keep on reading. But the dawn comes and the story ends well, without absurdity. A great book for those fond of romantic fiction (Not of the pirate/sheik/viking bodice-ripper kind) and/or historical fiction set in the last hundred years.

Thoughts:
It really is a good book for people who like what I said, romance and history. I liked it fine. I identified with Viva, of course, the would-be writer who doesn't trust herself in a romance, but I also liked Tor, who falls head over heels for the one who ends up being her soulmate. And though I didn't think a whole lot of Rose, having almost no personal connection to her story, I liked the realistic glimpse of a life that isn't mine, a family that isn't like my own.


From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris

Pick:
I wanted to read something light and fun after that big serious novel and the end of the school year. This is one book back in the Sookie series, so that I can refresh my memory before reading the newest one. Yay Sookie!

Story:
I read this one last year and it's on my list in greater depth -- I think. Yep, looked good to me. I'll leave it at that.

Thoughts:
Perfect book to read at this point: finished it in about a day, had a wonderful time reading it. Gotta love Sookie.



Sprout by Dale Peck

Pick:
The second book I have read which I ordered from Amazon Vine, but the first I chose. Young adult, and I like the cover -- a picture of a boy's hair and scalp, the hair dyed bright green. I wasn't totally clear what the book was about when I picked it; I didn't realize until I checked the other reviews on Amazon that it was about a gay teenager -- I thought the main character would be younger. But sometimes those random choices work out.

Amazon Review:

I've read a fair number of young adult books. I've read a larger number of books about people who don't quite fit in, outsiders and outcasts and outlandish outlaws, the out-of-the-way, the outrageous, and the outre. That sentence was a lot of fun to write. Turns out we have quite a few words in English that begin with "out." And I looked them up in my pocket dictionary, which the main character of Sprout would fully appreciate. The fact that the main character in this book is gay is totally coincidental to this out-of-sync monologue; I actually had no idea that homosexuality was an element of this book when I picked it -- out. And none of this matters because the point is: I loved Sprout.

The place I meant to go before I got caught on my own words was this: out of all the YA fiction I've read, this book came closest to my own experience. The character was extraordinary, fascinating and insightful and brilliant, and also completely, miserably blind about himself and his life and his interactions with those around him. Just as I was, just as thousands or millions or maybe only two other teenagers are. Those two teenagers should get this book and read it.

The story was poignant and heartbreaking and difficult, just as the teen years always are; it starts in one place, goes somewhere unexpected, jumps around in several directions, landing on spots you would never think would hold weight, and yet they do. The narration was utterly brilliant: sharp and witty, hilarious and beautiful, and dorky and self-conscious, all at the same time. This is an engaging and powerful book, both fun and necessary. Dale Peck has won a fan.

Thoughts:
Yup, I liked it. Sweet and funny and everything a good novel should be, including easy and fun to read. Highly recommended, especially to people who are or were sensitive teenagers.


Skin Trade by Laurell K. Hamilton

Pick:
I read a book for Amazon -- a sweet, funny, young adult coming-of-age type book -- so I had to read one for myself, and it had to be evil and dirty and horrifying. So that would be Anita Blake, then. Mwahahahaha.

Story:
So what are the major complaints people have about Anita Blake? First, that she is too powerful: there are constant rumors that this character is a Mary Sue, an idealized version of the author herself, and thus the author cannot stand to have the character lose or fail because that would hurt the author's ego too much. Personally, I have no idea how they got this idea -- every time Anita starts listing her scars, a list that is seemingly increased with every book and was brutally long to begin with, it seems to me that this character loses quite a lot -- but it is a common complaint. The second is that Anita Blake's sexual prowess is overdone: that it takes over too much of the storyline, and that her abilities which focus around sex give her too much power. These two seem the main complaints. There are others, of course -- the writing and/or editing is subpar; the character and/or the author. and/or fans of the book are too fascinated by bondage, violent sex, rape, and pedophilia; the male characters are too weak and too whiny and also too beautiful and sexy to be realistic; none of the important characters ever die -- but all of these complaints are stupid. Well, no: they're stupid, facile, simplistic, spurious lumps of bullshit that show the ignorance and self-righteous arrogance of the would-be critics of the series, who have found themselves unable to show genuine flaws in these books beyond the first two (Anita's power and the preponderance of sex in the books), and thus have turned to, basically, making shit up and then screaming at the top of their lungs that it's true, absolutely true, a position they defend mainly by being so shitty to anyone who disagrees with them that their opponents give up in disgust -- which action they take as further proof that their "criticisms" are valid.

If we may ignore (and I do) the bullshit arguments, this book addresses the first two problems quite well. Though there is sex (as there has to be -- Anita is a succubus, after all, who feeds on lust; without sex she quite literally would die, after killing Nathaniel and Damian and maybe several others), it doesn't happen until the last hundred or so pages of the book, and even then it isn't over the top (though it certainly is steamy, like all of Laurell Hamilton's visceral scenes, as describing things that are sexy and/or violent being one of the author's strengths) and doesn't take over the story as it has in past books. And though Anita is certainly powerful, as she has many natural advantages and gifts that have allowed her to gain power over the course of the series, her power is not the story here. The story here is her vulnerability, and her self-doubt.

This book is about Anita being in trouble. She is in trouble because she is losing control in her relationships -- not something that is necessarily a threat, but something that the control-obsessed Anita is certainly troubled by -- and so she reacts badly, as this character often does when threatened, and she runs away from her family to be on her own and try to regain the life she has very nearly left behind. It works about as well as running away always does: her problems follow her, and she gains a few new ones on top of it -- most notably Jean-Claude's anger and attempted manipulation by the weretiger queen and then by a powerful vampire. She is also in trouble because the ardeur and her need to feed, along with her reputation and the inevitable change in her feelings about her job as the Executioner, now that she is in love with several of the monsters and has become one herself by almost any definition, have begun to inhibit her ability to be an effective vampire hunter. She spends much of the book questioning whether she is, in fact, still able to hunt monsters effectively -- and if she is not, whether she should give up the career that has defined her and made her who she is. Finally, she is in trouble because she is the target: not only of the villain in this book, Vittorio the serial killing vampire, but also of the Mother of All Darkness, who still seeks to possess Anita and thus escape her own decrepit and much-hunted body, as well as the lovely and personable Olaf, who decides in this book that he not only wants to hunt Anita, but wants to be her steady boyfriend in the most mundane sense -- and that he is jealous of anyone else who has a claim on her. Which means he is really, really, jealous. Which, since he is a highly trained assassin and a violent sexual sadist and serial killer who hates women and targets women who look like Anita, is, y'know, really bad.

So the point is this: there is very little sex in this book, all of it at the end, though Anita has to deal with the consequences of her sex life before that. Anita is far more powerless than powerful in this book: she is scared and flustered by Olaf, she is nearly overpowered by the weretiger queen and is entirely overpowered by the vampiric villains, and she kills -- nothing. She actually saves the lives of ten vampires who were victimized by the true villain, Vittorio. Of course, some see that as a flaw as well, because they share the bigoted view of Sheriff Shaw (the main non-supernatural adversary that Anita faces in this book) that Anita is a slut who will have sex with anyone, and also share Shaw's blindness to any evidence that might contradict their conclusion -- like the number of men who express an interest in Anita who she DOESN'T sleep with, a fairly frequent occurrence -- and so think that Anita should be killing every vampire she sees because they are monsters and nothing more, ever. Fortunately, Anita has evolved, something these people seem incapable of doing, and she recognizes vampires as no different from people: some are monsters like Olaf, some are good people like the innocent stripper Brianna in this book, and some are in between, like Edward, Bernardo, herself, and the SWAT operative Cannibal, a very nice little mirror for Anita.

This book is, in some ways, a response to the criticisms against Anita Blake, and I hope it satisfies those non-idiot critics who have voiced genuine concerns with the books. I also hope it drives the idiots to distraction with the intentional pushing of their buttons: Anita sleeps with a 16-year-old, who then becomes infatuated with her; as I said, she kills nothing but does have sex; she uses her sexual powers to defeat the villain. This also seems to me an intentional response to the overblown and almost insane criticism of these books on the part of Laurell Hamilton, and I congratulate her for her courage in doing so. Give 'em hell, Laurell and Anita!

Thoughts:
I loved this book as I have loved the others: imperfectly, but pretty damned deeply. It was slow at first, I was annoyed by some minor things (like Jean-Claude throwing a hissy-fit about Anita not being his servant -- like that's freaking news, JC!), but I very quickly got wrapped up in it and read almost all of it in 24 hours. The ending was too abrupt, and felt like it was done to appease a deadline, but I am hopeful that later books will continue the apparently-ended story lines, especially the MOAD, who can't end up like that. Just can't. But the main characters were outstanding as always, I liked the new complications and concepts for the most part -- specifically, I liked the Wiccans and the black dog, Michael, and the experience he shared with Anita, but the blue tiger is completely lame -- and I look forward to reading the next book. Now I just have to decide if I want to put this on Amazon and get into a fight. Nah, probably not worth it. We'll just throw it on the book blog and if any of the haters want to comment, bring it on, jerkass!