The Body
Stephen King
Penguin Random House Audio Publishing
Fiction, Thriller
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: A successful author with a happy family and fulfilling life, Gordie Lachance reflects upon the experience that both defined his childhood and, in a way, ended it. The year was 1960, the place a small Maine town called Castle Rock, and a young teen Gordie was hanging out with his friends Chris and Teddy one summer day when Vern showed up and told them he knows where they can see a dead body. Everyone knew about the boy Ray Brower who disappeared several days ago while out picking berries; surely this was the same kid. Vern claimed the body was in the woods off the railroad tracks, and they could probably get there in a day and a half following the rails. Partly from summer boredom, partly from a macabre childish fascination with death, the foursome decided to make the journey... not knowing how it would change them, and their relationship, for the rest of their lives.
REVIEW: This novella formed the basis of the classic 1986 movie "Stand By Me", which changed some details but kept the heart of the tale, a coming-of-age journey where the true natures of the four friends are laid bare and their childhood innocence is forever lost, in tact. As in other King works, the characters become real people, flawed and complex and often living under dark clouds that they may never escape. Also as in other King works, childhood is remembered not as a golden, happy time of love and safety and whimsy (as some adults like to remember it), but as a violent struggle that leaves scars, sometimes literal, that one rarely outgrows. The half-feral childhood in a 1960's small town, long before kids were boxed in by schedules and leashed by cell phones, comes through clearly, even as the adult Gordie can pause to reflect on events and memories, even interspersing excerpts from his own stories. King paints a vivid, if sometimes brutal, picture of the friends, the town, and the transformative journey whose implications Gordie wouldn't fully understand until later; even the grown and married Gordie is still processing everything that happened, everything that he learned, all the ways that one fateful decision to go look at a dead body set the stage for the lives that would unfold after. Even as the journey transforms from impulsive adventure to something darker and more serious, there are moments of profound meaning and beauty. Much like the movie, there's a lot to examine and process in this work, more to it than initially meets the eye (or ear, as this is yet another audiobook I checked out from Libby).
You Might Also Enjoy:
On My Honor (Marion Dane Bauer) - My Review
The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Neil Gaiman) - My Review
It (Stephen King) - My Review
Friday, July 7, 2023
Thursday, July 6, 2023
How It Unfolds (James S. A. Corey)
How It Unfolds
The Far Reaches series, Book 1
James S. A. Corey
Amazon Original Stories
Fiction, Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: The biggest problem with interstellar colonization has always been how to cross the vast distances of space to reach habitable worlds, but the discovery of "slow light" solved that issue in a unique way. With it, information could be transmitted far more economically than a large ship could travel, information that could "unfold" at the other end, basically faxing colonists and a starter habitat to the stars. Further, the same core information, including copies of the same two hundred crewmembers selected as foundation colonists, could be replicated on various target worlds... plus the originals would never have to leave Earth.
Roy Cort, one of the chosen, looks forward to the journey in more ways than the mission supervisors know. His ex-wife is one of the other colonists, the woman he had slowly reconnected with after their relationship and marriage fell apart years ago. Perhaps, in one of the innumerable unfoldings on innumerable worlds, he will have a second chance at the future he let slip through his grasp... but can even the vast distances of time and space across the stars be far enough to escape from a broken past?
REVIEW: Part of a new collection of Kindle novellas (despite being called a "series", the tales, by different authors, seem to be standalones), How It Unfolds takes an interesting idea and explores its implications, not just for humanity's future but for the humans who take the trip. Roy's optimism already seems a touch desperate and fragile before he is replicated for slow light transmission, and can't help colliding with reality at some point, no matter what world he wakes on. But it's not just a story of one man pining for the one who got away, where the woman is an object to pursue or a prize to regain; she's her own person, as is he, and though their fates are inextricably entwined by their history and their mission, that doesn't necessarily mean their hearts must be, as well. They aren't the only ones on the mission, for one thing, and other people always have their own secrets and fates. The lives of the Roys, on Earth and beyond, contribute to a larger picture of humanity's attempt at galactic immortality through colonization, a high-risk venture that may or may not pay off. The whole manages to evoke some of the old-school sense of wonder without the old-school flatness of characters.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Leviathan Wakes (James S. A. Corey) - My Review
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Dennis E. Taylor) - My Review
Children of Time (Adrian Tchaikovsky) - My Review
The Far Reaches series, Book 1
James S. A. Corey
Amazon Original Stories
Fiction, Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: The biggest problem with interstellar colonization has always been how to cross the vast distances of space to reach habitable worlds, but the discovery of "slow light" solved that issue in a unique way. With it, information could be transmitted far more economically than a large ship could travel, information that could "unfold" at the other end, basically faxing colonists and a starter habitat to the stars. Further, the same core information, including copies of the same two hundred crewmembers selected as foundation colonists, could be replicated on various target worlds... plus the originals would never have to leave Earth.
Roy Cort, one of the chosen, looks forward to the journey in more ways than the mission supervisors know. His ex-wife is one of the other colonists, the woman he had slowly reconnected with after their relationship and marriage fell apart years ago. Perhaps, in one of the innumerable unfoldings on innumerable worlds, he will have a second chance at the future he let slip through his grasp... but can even the vast distances of time and space across the stars be far enough to escape from a broken past?
REVIEW: Part of a new collection of Kindle novellas (despite being called a "series", the tales, by different authors, seem to be standalones), How It Unfolds takes an interesting idea and explores its implications, not just for humanity's future but for the humans who take the trip. Roy's optimism already seems a touch desperate and fragile before he is replicated for slow light transmission, and can't help colliding with reality at some point, no matter what world he wakes on. But it's not just a story of one man pining for the one who got away, where the woman is an object to pursue or a prize to regain; she's her own person, as is he, and though their fates are inextricably entwined by their history and their mission, that doesn't necessarily mean their hearts must be, as well. They aren't the only ones on the mission, for one thing, and other people always have their own secrets and fates. The lives of the Roys, on Earth and beyond, contribute to a larger picture of humanity's attempt at galactic immortality through colonization, a high-risk venture that may or may not pay off. The whole manages to evoke some of the old-school sense of wonder without the old-school flatness of characters.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Leviathan Wakes (James S. A. Corey) - My Review
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Dennis E. Taylor) - My Review
Children of Time (Adrian Tchaikovsky) - My Review
Dogs of War (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
Dogs of War
The Dogs of War series, Book 1
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Head of Zeus
Fiction, Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Rex runs. Rex hunts. Rex kills. Rex is a Good Dog. A canine Bioform, he is the leader of a mixed group of elite Bioform soldiers in the employ of the mercenary group Redmark, currently deployed in war-ravaged Mexico. With the bear-formed Honey, the lizard Dragon, and the many-bodied Bees, all linked through headware, he does everything his Master, a man named Murray, tells him to do. Honey sometimes voices doubts about their missions, but a Good Dog does not doubt, let alone disobey, his Master.
Then something goes terribly wrong, and he and his unit are alone in the countryside... where it becomes apparent that Murray may not be a Good Man.
What happens next, the choices Rex makes now and in the future, may determine the fates of not only his pack, but the rest of the world's many Bioforms, military or otherwise. But how is Rex supposed to know what the right thing to do is anymore, if he doesn't have a Master to tell him if he's being a Good Dog?
REVIEW: Dogs of War is a dark tale of a future where humans, having failed to properly control artificial intelligence in war robots, "uplift" animals in the form of altered Bioforms to do all the dangerous, inhumane tasks the robots used to do, particularly on the battlefield - providing one more layer of plausible deniability between commanders and war crimes. Rather than create a better world for all beings or even all people, everything just gets worse for everyone (except those at the top of the pyramid, as usual). Rotating points of view give the perspectives of humans and Rex, a dog who is trying very hard to be Good and struggles with the idea that a Master might be Bad. His growth is uneven and filled with setbacks, goaded on one end by the bear Honey, who understands far more than she lets on to anyone and tries to help him see the truth, and Murray, the Master he is intrinsically programmed to trust and obey. Meanwhile, the human world is its usual fickle, often short-sighted self, all too willing to see the worst in everything, even their own creations, and resent being forced to see just what they have done. Through this maze of ever-shifting public and political opinion, Rex must wend his way if he's to help secure a future for his kind.
While the ideas were interesting, and the plot not too predictable, sometimes Dogs of War felt a little long, like it was padded out to book length from a stronger, shorter work. There was also a plot twist that could've been set up a little more. On the whole, though, it's a decent, if sometimes bleak, story of war and how hope is too often throttled by baser elements of human nature.
You Might Also Enjoy:
WE3 (Grant Morrison) - My Review
War Girls (Tochi Onyebuchi) - My Review
Mort(e) (Robert Repino) - My Review
The Dogs of War series, Book 1
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Head of Zeus
Fiction, Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Rex runs. Rex hunts. Rex kills. Rex is a Good Dog. A canine Bioform, he is the leader of a mixed group of elite Bioform soldiers in the employ of the mercenary group Redmark, currently deployed in war-ravaged Mexico. With the bear-formed Honey, the lizard Dragon, and the many-bodied Bees, all linked through headware, he does everything his Master, a man named Murray, tells him to do. Honey sometimes voices doubts about their missions, but a Good Dog does not doubt, let alone disobey, his Master.
Then something goes terribly wrong, and he and his unit are alone in the countryside... where it becomes apparent that Murray may not be a Good Man.
What happens next, the choices Rex makes now and in the future, may determine the fates of not only his pack, but the rest of the world's many Bioforms, military or otherwise. But how is Rex supposed to know what the right thing to do is anymore, if he doesn't have a Master to tell him if he's being a Good Dog?
REVIEW: Dogs of War is a dark tale of a future where humans, having failed to properly control artificial intelligence in war robots, "uplift" animals in the form of altered Bioforms to do all the dangerous, inhumane tasks the robots used to do, particularly on the battlefield - providing one more layer of plausible deniability between commanders and war crimes. Rather than create a better world for all beings or even all people, everything just gets worse for everyone (except those at the top of the pyramid, as usual). Rotating points of view give the perspectives of humans and Rex, a dog who is trying very hard to be Good and struggles with the idea that a Master might be Bad. His growth is uneven and filled with setbacks, goaded on one end by the bear Honey, who understands far more than she lets on to anyone and tries to help him see the truth, and Murray, the Master he is intrinsically programmed to trust and obey. Meanwhile, the human world is its usual fickle, often short-sighted self, all too willing to see the worst in everything, even their own creations, and resent being forced to see just what they have done. Through this maze of ever-shifting public and political opinion, Rex must wend his way if he's to help secure a future for his kind.
While the ideas were interesting, and the plot not too predictable, sometimes Dogs of War felt a little long, like it was padded out to book length from a stronger, shorter work. There was also a plot twist that could've been set up a little more. On the whole, though, it's a decent, if sometimes bleak, story of war and how hope is too often throttled by baser elements of human nature.
You Might Also Enjoy:
WE3 (Grant Morrison) - My Review
War Girls (Tochi Onyebuchi) - My Review
Mort(e) (Robert Repino) - My Review
The Smart Neanderthal (Clive Finlayson)
The Smart Neanderthal: Cave Art, Bird Catching, and the Cognitive Revolution
Clive Finlayson
Oxford University Press
Nonfiction, Anthropology/Archaeology/Nature
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Popular culture has long relegated Neanderthals to the roles of dumb brutes who were outsmarted by the genetically and cognitively superior humans, leading to their extinction. Over the years, various criteria have been put forth to define the so-called "cognitive revolution", the traits that allowed our branch of the family tree to succeed where lesser hominins failed - traits that were generally considered beyond the supposedly slow, shambling Neanderthals. But more recent studies have turned these notions on their ear. For one thing, genetic evidence shows that there was significant interbreeding during the times when the theorized eradication was supposed to occur. For another, far from being our inferiors, the Neanderthals seem to have been our equals, perhaps our superiors, in some important ways. Author Clive Finlayson, an evolutionary biologist, draws on decades of research, both in the caves of Gibraltar and elsewhere where generations of the ancient human relatives lived and beyond in the natural world, to debunk a few particular common myths, with a special interest what the many bird bones found in the dwelling areas can tell us about the life and times of the Neanderthals.
REVIEW: Storytelling is one of our our species' strengths, a way to pass down knowledge and culture, but it can also be one of our weaknesses if the stories we tell, particularly about ourselves, are built on distortions and lies... and once a story takes hold, it can be very, very difficult to get us to revise the narrative. The story of our own origins is perhaps the most entrenched in our cultural consciousness. For a long time, it had everything people love in a story: a hero (us) facing monsters (those lowly, lesser hominin species, who surely must've been little better than base animals) and proving our inherent, even divinely-gifted superiority with victory over all comers. Even those who determined the "other" was not monstrous tended to show their extinction as sadly inevitable due to inherent flaws in their intellects, their brain shapes, their simple lack of being us. This book is not only an interesting update to outdated notions about "inferior" human ancestors (ones which, as he notes, bear reflections of how different H. sapiens groups belittle and malign others of our own species when cultures collide), but an exploration at how limiting it is to look at any one species in isolation. By looking at the other animal remains, particularly the birds, Finlayson recreates the shifting climates that the Neanderthals would've experienced as global conditions shifted, plus some eye-opening insights into how they must've lived and hunted and viewed the world. The author and his son travel to various regions, observing living birds and their habitats and learning how a primitive hominin might have hunted them. Certain species seem to have been taken not to eat, but for their feathers and talons (as evidenced by tool marks on wing bones and signs of polishing and shaping on the claws), hinting at minds that, far from being animalistic and brutish, could conceive of aesthetic decoration, abstract thought, and perhaps even spiritual notions. That this activity predates the arrival of "modern" humans in their regions nixes the idea that these were just learned and imitated from our "superior" ancestors. Through it all, the author's love of both Neanderthals and the natural world (which really are one and the same, all things considered, as we and other hominins are ultimately animals of Earth) shines clearly, an infectious enthusiasm.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Unbound (Richard L. Currier) - My Review
Last Ape Standing (Chip Walter) - My Review
Paleofantasy (Marlene Zuk) - My Review
Clive Finlayson
Oxford University Press
Nonfiction, Anthropology/Archaeology/Nature
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Popular culture has long relegated Neanderthals to the roles of dumb brutes who were outsmarted by the genetically and cognitively superior humans, leading to their extinction. Over the years, various criteria have been put forth to define the so-called "cognitive revolution", the traits that allowed our branch of the family tree to succeed where lesser hominins failed - traits that were generally considered beyond the supposedly slow, shambling Neanderthals. But more recent studies have turned these notions on their ear. For one thing, genetic evidence shows that there was significant interbreeding during the times when the theorized eradication was supposed to occur. For another, far from being our inferiors, the Neanderthals seem to have been our equals, perhaps our superiors, in some important ways. Author Clive Finlayson, an evolutionary biologist, draws on decades of research, both in the caves of Gibraltar and elsewhere where generations of the ancient human relatives lived and beyond in the natural world, to debunk a few particular common myths, with a special interest what the many bird bones found in the dwelling areas can tell us about the life and times of the Neanderthals.
REVIEW: Storytelling is one of our our species' strengths, a way to pass down knowledge and culture, but it can also be one of our weaknesses if the stories we tell, particularly about ourselves, are built on distortions and lies... and once a story takes hold, it can be very, very difficult to get us to revise the narrative. The story of our own origins is perhaps the most entrenched in our cultural consciousness. For a long time, it had everything people love in a story: a hero (us) facing monsters (those lowly, lesser hominin species, who surely must've been little better than base animals) and proving our inherent, even divinely-gifted superiority with victory over all comers. Even those who determined the "other" was not monstrous tended to show their extinction as sadly inevitable due to inherent flaws in their intellects, their brain shapes, their simple lack of being us. This book is not only an interesting update to outdated notions about "inferior" human ancestors (ones which, as he notes, bear reflections of how different H. sapiens groups belittle and malign others of our own species when cultures collide), but an exploration at how limiting it is to look at any one species in isolation. By looking at the other animal remains, particularly the birds, Finlayson recreates the shifting climates that the Neanderthals would've experienced as global conditions shifted, plus some eye-opening insights into how they must've lived and hunted and viewed the world. The author and his son travel to various regions, observing living birds and their habitats and learning how a primitive hominin might have hunted them. Certain species seem to have been taken not to eat, but for their feathers and talons (as evidenced by tool marks on wing bones and signs of polishing and shaping on the claws), hinting at minds that, far from being animalistic and brutish, could conceive of aesthetic decoration, abstract thought, and perhaps even spiritual notions. That this activity predates the arrival of "modern" humans in their regions nixes the idea that these were just learned and imitated from our "superior" ancestors. Through it all, the author's love of both Neanderthals and the natural world (which really are one and the same, all things considered, as we and other hominins are ultimately animals of Earth) shines clearly, an infectious enthusiasm.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Unbound (Richard L. Currier) - My Review
Last Ape Standing (Chip Walter) - My Review
Paleofantasy (Marlene Zuk) - My Review
Wednesday, July 5, 2023
This Book Is Not Yet Rated (Peter Bognanni)
This Book Is Not Yet Rated
Peter Bognanni
Dial Books
Fiction, YA General Fiction/Humor
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Since before he can reliably remember, Ethan Ashby has loved movies, thanks to his film professor father and the local Green Street Cinema. From obscure foreign films to modern popcorn flicks, there's nothing he won't watch. But it wasn't until his dad's unexpected death three years ago that his love became an obsession.
Now the de-facto manager of the Green Street after the old manager walked away (even though Ethan's only seventeen), he tells himself he's too busy to study for a second crack at the SATs and work on college admissions or do any of the things his mother keeps pushing him to do to "get on with life"... and, in truth, there's a lot to do at the decrepit old cinema, what with the worn-out seats and aging equipment and the rat issue, none of which help with declining ticket sales. Then a man shows up with eviction papers: the university that owns the land plans to demolish the place, and with it Ethan's last physical tie to his late father's legacy. Just when he's reeling from that, an old friend returns to town unexpectedly: Raina Allen, the girl he used to have a crush on until she was "discovered" and moved to Los Angeles to kick off a film career. He'd thought their friendship was over when she didn't even text him after his father died, but now she's asking about him, like she wants to mend bridges... or maybe more.
In the movies, there would surely be a way for the underdog hero Ethan Ashby to both save the Green Street Cinema and get the girl... but life is not a movie, not even for a young man who lives and breathes films.
REVIEW: The aging old grand dame filmhouse, the evil developer, the misfit employees, the one-time friend turned rising Hollywood starlet seeming to materialize at the exact right place and exact right time to fix everything wrong in the young main character's life... This Book Is Not Yet Rated has all the ingredients for a solid rom-com, a coming-of-age drama, a rebellious last stand against the inevitable March of Progress, a love letter to movies and movie lovers, or a dozen other familiar stories. This could result in a tangled mess, a forgettable flop, or - as is the case here - a story with humor, sadness, hope, and pain built around a surprisingly solid heart.
Interspersing the narrative with notes on films and film making, Ethan tells a story of what turns out to be a pivotal time in his life. When his father died, he lost all interest in his real life; despite graduating early, he has no interest in pursuing the higher education he once wanted - not even to pursue, like his father, an academic career studying films. Instead, he hides in movies of all stripes, even ones he doesn't necessarily like. Ethan can drop quotes from hundreds of iconic films, and does whenever he can't think of what else to say, another way he uses movies to shield himself from a world he can't always make sense of, let alone find a place in. Meanwhile, he's been the acting manager of the Green Street Cinema, the staff of which form the closest things to friends he has. They call him "Wendy", after the girl who becomes the impromptu "mother" to the Lost Boys in Peter Pan, and a peculiar collection of wayward souls they are indeed, all of whom seem like they'd be lost without the Green Street. At home, Ethan struggles to cope with a mother who seems intent on moving on and seeming to forget about the husband she lost, who even suggests that his love of movies and his job at the cinema are holding him back from his own healing. How can she not understand how his world fell apart when his dad died, how movies are literally his lifeline? When the eviction notice is delivered, it feels like his world is falling apart all over again... but when Raina returns, he sees a glimmer of hope. At one time, they were best friends. She even talked him into joining a theater group, though he was never interested in acting. Their relationship frayed and apparently disintegrated after she left town and started appearing in her own movies, to the point where she never even texted him condolences for his father's passing. Now that she's back, he has understandably mixed feelings - and when he realizes why she returned, those feelings get even more complicated. As he's dealing with her, and the re-ignition of the torch he carried for her, he's trying to figure out how to save the Green Street, and why nobody but the Lost Boys seems to care about the destruction of a local cinematic icon. It could all easily fall into stilted cliches and obvious plot points, but Bognanni manages to add more nuance and character development, as Ethan finally learns to see the world and the people around them for who they are; even the "evil developer" has a backstory worth knowing, and isn't some plot-shaped villain existing solely to goad the protagonist to heroism. Along the way, Ethan comes to realize just what it is he's really resisting, and what about it is worth fighting for versus what needs to be released, unless he wants the movie of his own life to be a sad and drifting tragedy.
I enjoyed it more than I expected, though I think the ending could've been a little stronger.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Borderline (Mishell Baker) - My Review
When Lightning Strikes (Brenda Novak) - My Review
Fan Fiction: A Mem-Noir (Brent Spiner) - My Review
Peter Bognanni
Dial Books
Fiction, YA General Fiction/Humor
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Since before he can reliably remember, Ethan Ashby has loved movies, thanks to his film professor father and the local Green Street Cinema. From obscure foreign films to modern popcorn flicks, there's nothing he won't watch. But it wasn't until his dad's unexpected death three years ago that his love became an obsession.
Now the de-facto manager of the Green Street after the old manager walked away (even though Ethan's only seventeen), he tells himself he's too busy to study for a second crack at the SATs and work on college admissions or do any of the things his mother keeps pushing him to do to "get on with life"... and, in truth, there's a lot to do at the decrepit old cinema, what with the worn-out seats and aging equipment and the rat issue, none of which help with declining ticket sales. Then a man shows up with eviction papers: the university that owns the land plans to demolish the place, and with it Ethan's last physical tie to his late father's legacy. Just when he's reeling from that, an old friend returns to town unexpectedly: Raina Allen, the girl he used to have a crush on until she was "discovered" and moved to Los Angeles to kick off a film career. He'd thought their friendship was over when she didn't even text him after his father died, but now she's asking about him, like she wants to mend bridges... or maybe more.
In the movies, there would surely be a way for the underdog hero Ethan Ashby to both save the Green Street Cinema and get the girl... but life is not a movie, not even for a young man who lives and breathes films.
REVIEW: The aging old grand dame filmhouse, the evil developer, the misfit employees, the one-time friend turned rising Hollywood starlet seeming to materialize at the exact right place and exact right time to fix everything wrong in the young main character's life... This Book Is Not Yet Rated has all the ingredients for a solid rom-com, a coming-of-age drama, a rebellious last stand against the inevitable March of Progress, a love letter to movies and movie lovers, or a dozen other familiar stories. This could result in a tangled mess, a forgettable flop, or - as is the case here - a story with humor, sadness, hope, and pain built around a surprisingly solid heart.
Interspersing the narrative with notes on films and film making, Ethan tells a story of what turns out to be a pivotal time in his life. When his father died, he lost all interest in his real life; despite graduating early, he has no interest in pursuing the higher education he once wanted - not even to pursue, like his father, an academic career studying films. Instead, he hides in movies of all stripes, even ones he doesn't necessarily like. Ethan can drop quotes from hundreds of iconic films, and does whenever he can't think of what else to say, another way he uses movies to shield himself from a world he can't always make sense of, let alone find a place in. Meanwhile, he's been the acting manager of the Green Street Cinema, the staff of which form the closest things to friends he has. They call him "Wendy", after the girl who becomes the impromptu "mother" to the Lost Boys in Peter Pan, and a peculiar collection of wayward souls they are indeed, all of whom seem like they'd be lost without the Green Street. At home, Ethan struggles to cope with a mother who seems intent on moving on and seeming to forget about the husband she lost, who even suggests that his love of movies and his job at the cinema are holding him back from his own healing. How can she not understand how his world fell apart when his dad died, how movies are literally his lifeline? When the eviction notice is delivered, it feels like his world is falling apart all over again... but when Raina returns, he sees a glimmer of hope. At one time, they were best friends. She even talked him into joining a theater group, though he was never interested in acting. Their relationship frayed and apparently disintegrated after she left town and started appearing in her own movies, to the point where she never even texted him condolences for his father's passing. Now that she's back, he has understandably mixed feelings - and when he realizes why she returned, those feelings get even more complicated. As he's dealing with her, and the re-ignition of the torch he carried for her, he's trying to figure out how to save the Green Street, and why nobody but the Lost Boys seems to care about the destruction of a local cinematic icon. It could all easily fall into stilted cliches and obvious plot points, but Bognanni manages to add more nuance and character development, as Ethan finally learns to see the world and the people around them for who they are; even the "evil developer" has a backstory worth knowing, and isn't some plot-shaped villain existing solely to goad the protagonist to heroism. Along the way, Ethan comes to realize just what it is he's really resisting, and what about it is worth fighting for versus what needs to be released, unless he wants the movie of his own life to be a sad and drifting tragedy.
I enjoyed it more than I expected, though I think the ending could've been a little stronger.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Borderline (Mishell Baker) - My Review
When Lightning Strikes (Brenda Novak) - My Review
Fan Fiction: A Mem-Noir (Brent Spiner) - My Review
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