And it's been another one of those months (June doesn't look like it'll be a vast improvement, either). But I managed to archive ten reviews on the main Brightdreamer Books site.
Enjoy!
Friday, May 31, 2024
Thursday, May 30, 2024
Pageboy (Elliot Page)
Pageboy: A Memoir
Elliot Page
Flatiron Books
Nonfiction, Memoir
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Since before grade school, Elliot knew something was different about him. What it was, he lacked the vocabulary to say, the life experience to articulate even to himself, but he never quite felt at home in the skin of the girl "Ellen" that his parents, his friends, and society at large insisted that he was. It would take three decades and a roller coaster of life events and setbacks and even instances of self-harm and near-suicidal depression before he would come to grips with his true identity... revelations that come as his acting career is taking off.
REVIEW: There would seem to be few things more inherently personal than gender and sexuality, yet we live in a world where society at large either tacitly permits or actively encourages total strangers (many with disturbing amounts of authority behind them) to strictly and intrusively police both. The scrutiny doesn't even need to rise to the level of law (though several places, unfortunately and terrifyingly, are doing just that) to create almost unbearable social pressures to conform, pressures that would rather see square pegs sledgehammered to splinters than admit that not everyone fits into neat little round holes. It's even worse for those in the public eye, especially when part of an industry that too often helps reinforce those pressures and associated social stereotypes. This memoir, written by a popular actor (whose works I admit to being only vaguely familiar with), digs deep to lay out a life often warped out of shape by the disconnect between internal truth and external expectations, by survival mechanisms that ultimately worked against him until confronted (and even then it's not as easy as flipping a switch to stop unhealthy coping mechanisms of avoidance and self-destruction). Events are not related in a strictly linear fashion, moving back and forth from Page's childhood through turbulent teenage years and adulthood and in and out of various relationships and breakups, but the process of discovering, let alone embracing, one's true self is rarely a linear process. The end result reveals some ugly moments and beautiful ones, times of gains and times of backslides, ultimately culminating in an epiphany that by no means ends the lifelong journey of self-discovery but marks a pivotal milestone. Throughout, Page must contend with other people telling him who and what he is, even beyond the scrutiny of Hollywood and tabloids; some of the most hurtful moments come from his own family. Page does not paint himself as a flawless hero of his own life story, and comes across as stronger and more empathetic for it. He also admits where he has some amount of privilege, insofar as getting access to help and even a supportive community, which too many people unfortunately lack in today's world. As many people seem eager to roll back gains in equality made in recent years, stories like this one, told honestly and from the heart, become all the more important - not because they serve as a template or substitute for all nonbinary experiences, but because they demonstrate how much pain and lasting damage is caused by trying to force people to live socially convenient lies rather than seek their own truths.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Never Say You Can't Survive (Charlie Jane Anders) - My Review
Light From Uncommon Stars (Ryka Aoki) - My Review
Across the Green Grass Fields (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
Elliot Page
Flatiron Books
Nonfiction, Memoir
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Since before grade school, Elliot knew something was different about him. What it was, he lacked the vocabulary to say, the life experience to articulate even to himself, but he never quite felt at home in the skin of the girl "Ellen" that his parents, his friends, and society at large insisted that he was. It would take three decades and a roller coaster of life events and setbacks and even instances of self-harm and near-suicidal depression before he would come to grips with his true identity... revelations that come as his acting career is taking off.
REVIEW: There would seem to be few things more inherently personal than gender and sexuality, yet we live in a world where society at large either tacitly permits or actively encourages total strangers (many with disturbing amounts of authority behind them) to strictly and intrusively police both. The scrutiny doesn't even need to rise to the level of law (though several places, unfortunately and terrifyingly, are doing just that) to create almost unbearable social pressures to conform, pressures that would rather see square pegs sledgehammered to splinters than admit that not everyone fits into neat little round holes. It's even worse for those in the public eye, especially when part of an industry that too often helps reinforce those pressures and associated social stereotypes. This memoir, written by a popular actor (whose works I admit to being only vaguely familiar with), digs deep to lay out a life often warped out of shape by the disconnect between internal truth and external expectations, by survival mechanisms that ultimately worked against him until confronted (and even then it's not as easy as flipping a switch to stop unhealthy coping mechanisms of avoidance and self-destruction). Events are not related in a strictly linear fashion, moving back and forth from Page's childhood through turbulent teenage years and adulthood and in and out of various relationships and breakups, but the process of discovering, let alone embracing, one's true self is rarely a linear process. The end result reveals some ugly moments and beautiful ones, times of gains and times of backslides, ultimately culminating in an epiphany that by no means ends the lifelong journey of self-discovery but marks a pivotal milestone. Throughout, Page must contend with other people telling him who and what he is, even beyond the scrutiny of Hollywood and tabloids; some of the most hurtful moments come from his own family. Page does not paint himself as a flawless hero of his own life story, and comes across as stronger and more empathetic for it. He also admits where he has some amount of privilege, insofar as getting access to help and even a supportive community, which too many people unfortunately lack in today's world. As many people seem eager to roll back gains in equality made in recent years, stories like this one, told honestly and from the heart, become all the more important - not because they serve as a template or substitute for all nonbinary experiences, but because they demonstrate how much pain and lasting damage is caused by trying to force people to live socially convenient lies rather than seek their own truths.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Never Say You Can't Survive (Charlie Jane Anders) - My Review
Light From Uncommon Stars (Ryka Aoki) - My Review
Across the Green Grass Fields (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
Wednesday, May 29, 2024
Z. Rex (Steve Cole)
Z. Rex
The Hunting series, Book 1
Steve Cole
Puffin Books
Fiction, MG Action/Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: For twelve-year-old Adam Adlar, life with his tech genius father Bill has its ups and downs. On the upside, he gets to play with Dad's cutting-edge "Ultra-Reality" equipment as the first (and thus far only) test subject, a system that can actually insert ideas and sensations into one's brain so a player is living the game in a way even virtual reality can only dream of imitating. On the downside, Adam often feels more like luggage than a son, following his dad around the world in pursuit of fresh funding and new backers, left behind in hotel rooms - sometimes for days at a time. Dad's latest gig lands them in New Mexico, about as far from Adam's beloved native Edinburgh as possible, but surely this project's the one that will get Ultra-Reality funded. Just two or three days, Dad promises, before disappearing into a sleek black car and riding off into the desert.
Five days later, and aside from a couple of ambiguous texts and a visit from a surly bodyguard, Adam hasn't had any contact with his father. Then a strange text arrives - just before the building is destroyed, demolished by an impossible, invisible monster.
At first, Adam thinks it's a Tyrannosaurus rex... but, while there's no way to know if the apex Cretaceous predators had chameleon skin like this brute, he knows for a fact that T. rexes didn't have five-fingered hands. Nor did they have wings. And they certainly couldn't talk, albeit in stunted, struggling sounds. The monster seems strangely fixated on locating Adam and his missing father, and from the carnage left in its wake Adam doesn't want to know what the "Z. rex" has planned for them. But first impressions might be deceiving. Perhaps the impossible dinosaur isn't his enemy, but his only ally against something far more dangerous, something that has already trapped his dad and is now coming for Adam himself.
REVIEW: I'll admit at the outset here that the rating might be mildly generous, but I'm taking into account both the target audience and my own middling-to-low expectations when I downloaded this audiobook from Libby. (I'll also admit that I initially thought Z. Rex would involve zombie dinosaurs, which sounded like it could've been a cheesy fun time.) But it turned out to have just a little more to it than it seemed - nothing hugely deep, but more than I expected.
Adam starts the story as the tagalong son of a single father. He loves his dad, and his dad loves him, but Bill Adlar's obsessive pursuit of Ultra-Reality (and the associated "Think-Send" tech that can pull memories from and implant knowledge into a living mind) hasn't provided the most stable home life, and thus far every would-be sponsor and backer has fallen through. Adam is so used to being left behind that he doesn't really think much of his father not coming back when he said he would... but when things start literally blowing apart, just when the "bodyguard" turns up at the apartment with a gun and a very unfriendly attitude, he's jarred out of his complacency. From here, Adam's off on a wild race, one that eventually sees him captured by "Zed" the Z-rex... and that name alone is enough to clue Adam into the fact that there's more to the monster than its apparent savageness; Bill Adlar was born in the American Midwest, but took to pronouncing "Z" as "zed" while raising a son with an Edinburgh woman, so hearing "zed" from a monster can't be a coincidence. Zed starts out an apparent beast, despite his stunted ability to speak; several brutes are mauled and outright killed while trying to take the dinosaur down, and Adam is terrified he'll be next on the menu. Yet it's also clear that Zed has some ulterior motive in mind as he holds the boy hostage in pursuit of Bill Adlar. The two find themselves in an uneasy alliance against greater enemies whose plans make one rampaging, genetically enhanced Tyrannosaurus rex seem downright insignificant.
This easily could've been a shallow, simple book of running and screaming and fighting dinos and sneering baddies. On some level, yes, it does have all those. But there's also just a hair more going on. Zed isn't a simplistic beast, nor is he merely a misunderstood giant prehistoric puppy; he can and does kill in pursuit of his goals, and also has an animal temper at times that can be hard to rein in, so Adam isn't stupid to be reticent to team up with him for so long. With his wings, humanlike intelligence, and other enhancements, Zed straddles a line between dinosaur and dragon... and what kid in the target audience wouldn't love to befriend a dragon? (Heck, I'm in my upper 40's and I'd still love a dragon buddy.) Adam himself can be a bit slow on the uptake at times, but does eventually grow more of a spine. The baddies can be a slight bit mustache-twirly and shallow, but they really don't need to be more than that in a story like this, and they prove to be quite formidable foes even to a boy with a winged dinosaur in his corner.
There are some flaws, particularly in generous handwaves of tech and science and how evolution - even artificially-juiced evolution - would work. It's also a very boy-heavy cast, which starts to feel conspicuous. I expected a bit more of a follow-through on the opening scene and the Ultra-Reality gaming itself (which seems to be pretty much forgotten by the end). And a few "twists" are a bit obvious as an older reader. But those issues aside, looking at it as a younger reader (especially a boy and/or a dinosaur lover) would approach it, Z. Rex is actually entertaining for what it is, a story that doesn't insult the audience by glossing over the brutality of an apex predator (or the brutality of the kind of people who think recreating and unleashing said predator is a good idea).
You Might Also Enjoy:
Dragons vs. Drones (Wesley King) - My Review
Domesticating Dragons (Dan Koboldt) - My Review
Cryptid Hunters (Roland Smith) - My Review
The Hunting series, Book 1
Steve Cole
Puffin Books
Fiction, MG Action/Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: For twelve-year-old Adam Adlar, life with his tech genius father Bill has its ups and downs. On the upside, he gets to play with Dad's cutting-edge "Ultra-Reality" equipment as the first (and thus far only) test subject, a system that can actually insert ideas and sensations into one's brain so a player is living the game in a way even virtual reality can only dream of imitating. On the downside, Adam often feels more like luggage than a son, following his dad around the world in pursuit of fresh funding and new backers, left behind in hotel rooms - sometimes for days at a time. Dad's latest gig lands them in New Mexico, about as far from Adam's beloved native Edinburgh as possible, but surely this project's the one that will get Ultra-Reality funded. Just two or three days, Dad promises, before disappearing into a sleek black car and riding off into the desert.
Five days later, and aside from a couple of ambiguous texts and a visit from a surly bodyguard, Adam hasn't had any contact with his father. Then a strange text arrives - just before the building is destroyed, demolished by an impossible, invisible monster.
At first, Adam thinks it's a Tyrannosaurus rex... but, while there's no way to know if the apex Cretaceous predators had chameleon skin like this brute, he knows for a fact that T. rexes didn't have five-fingered hands. Nor did they have wings. And they certainly couldn't talk, albeit in stunted, struggling sounds. The monster seems strangely fixated on locating Adam and his missing father, and from the carnage left in its wake Adam doesn't want to know what the "Z. rex" has planned for them. But first impressions might be deceiving. Perhaps the impossible dinosaur isn't his enemy, but his only ally against something far more dangerous, something that has already trapped his dad and is now coming for Adam himself.
REVIEW: I'll admit at the outset here that the rating might be mildly generous, but I'm taking into account both the target audience and my own middling-to-low expectations when I downloaded this audiobook from Libby. (I'll also admit that I initially thought Z. Rex would involve zombie dinosaurs, which sounded like it could've been a cheesy fun time.) But it turned out to have just a little more to it than it seemed - nothing hugely deep, but more than I expected.
Adam starts the story as the tagalong son of a single father. He loves his dad, and his dad loves him, but Bill Adlar's obsessive pursuit of Ultra-Reality (and the associated "Think-Send" tech that can pull memories from and implant knowledge into a living mind) hasn't provided the most stable home life, and thus far every would-be sponsor and backer has fallen through. Adam is so used to being left behind that he doesn't really think much of his father not coming back when he said he would... but when things start literally blowing apart, just when the "bodyguard" turns up at the apartment with a gun and a very unfriendly attitude, he's jarred out of his complacency. From here, Adam's off on a wild race, one that eventually sees him captured by "Zed" the Z-rex... and that name alone is enough to clue Adam into the fact that there's more to the monster than its apparent savageness; Bill Adlar was born in the American Midwest, but took to pronouncing "Z" as "zed" while raising a son with an Edinburgh woman, so hearing "zed" from a monster can't be a coincidence. Zed starts out an apparent beast, despite his stunted ability to speak; several brutes are mauled and outright killed while trying to take the dinosaur down, and Adam is terrified he'll be next on the menu. Yet it's also clear that Zed has some ulterior motive in mind as he holds the boy hostage in pursuit of Bill Adlar. The two find themselves in an uneasy alliance against greater enemies whose plans make one rampaging, genetically enhanced Tyrannosaurus rex seem downright insignificant.
This easily could've been a shallow, simple book of running and screaming and fighting dinos and sneering baddies. On some level, yes, it does have all those. But there's also just a hair more going on. Zed isn't a simplistic beast, nor is he merely a misunderstood giant prehistoric puppy; he can and does kill in pursuit of his goals, and also has an animal temper at times that can be hard to rein in, so Adam isn't stupid to be reticent to team up with him for so long. With his wings, humanlike intelligence, and other enhancements, Zed straddles a line between dinosaur and dragon... and what kid in the target audience wouldn't love to befriend a dragon? (Heck, I'm in my upper 40's and I'd still love a dragon buddy.) Adam himself can be a bit slow on the uptake at times, but does eventually grow more of a spine. The baddies can be a slight bit mustache-twirly and shallow, but they really don't need to be more than that in a story like this, and they prove to be quite formidable foes even to a boy with a winged dinosaur in his corner.
There are some flaws, particularly in generous handwaves of tech and science and how evolution - even artificially-juiced evolution - would work. It's also a very boy-heavy cast, which starts to feel conspicuous. I expected a bit more of a follow-through on the opening scene and the Ultra-Reality gaming itself (which seems to be pretty much forgotten by the end). And a few "twists" are a bit obvious as an older reader. But those issues aside, looking at it as a younger reader (especially a boy and/or a dinosaur lover) would approach it, Z. Rex is actually entertaining for what it is, a story that doesn't insult the audience by glossing over the brutality of an apex predator (or the brutality of the kind of people who think recreating and unleashing said predator is a good idea).
You Might Also Enjoy:
Dragons vs. Drones (Wesley King) - My Review
Domesticating Dragons (Dan Koboldt) - My Review
Cryptid Hunters (Roland Smith) - My Review
Friday, May 24, 2024
Interior Chinatown (Charles Yu)
Interior Chinatown
Charles Yu
Pantheon
Fiction, Humor/Literary Fiction
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Being Asian in America often feels alienating. Perhaps that's why Willis Yu sees life as an endless movie where he and all his neighbors are playing roles in modern Chinatown. As Generic Asian Guy, playing bit parts in the background of everyone else's plotline, he aspires to someday be Kung Fu Guy like his father once was (though more recently he's faded to merely Old Asian Man), the closest Willis feels he can ever come to a starring role in his own life. But when the spotlight finally finds him, he discovers that it's not as easy or as wonderful as he always dreamed... and sometimes the things one wants the most are far, far away from the things one really needs.
REVIEW: From the outset, Interior Chinatown - a novel largely in screenplay format - establishes a surreal meta-reality where life both is and isn't a series of movies or TV episodes... none of which, at least in America, seem to have room for an Asian lead. The son of immigrants, Willis absorbed culture as much through TV reruns and their stereotypes as through his parents and Chinatown surroundings. Even when a show ostensibly starred an Asian character, as in the old TV series Kung Fu, it's almost invariably a white man in costume. Still, he grew up aspiring to be "Kung Fu Guy", the most powerful role he's seen on screen and in his life; his father was once the neighborhood Kung Fu Guy, but even that was still just a role invented by white people, another box to put Asian people into rather than seeing them as real people, real Americans, with their own dreams and hopes and histories. As Willis works to rise above Generic Asian Guy level three ("delivery boy", working for the same Chinatown restaurant where his parents worked, the one beneath their run-down apartment and the heart of Willis's community), he finds himself part of a detective show featuring a white woman and Black man, yet more boxes checked... even as, more than once, people step out of and around their roles to talk directly to the reader and/or Willis. As the young man unexpectedly finds a chance at genuine happiness, one beyond scripted scenes, he must confront what internalizing stereotypes and archetypes has done, both to his own life and his community (and the country at large). The whole is a complex examination of what it means to be an Asian in America, a country that has, at various times, tried to criminalize, dehumanize, and categorize Asians in various ways that perpetually brand them, in big ways and small, as not "really" American (read: not white American). At times the surreality threatened to swamp the story, and there was more than one time I thought Willis needed a conk on the skull to get some sense through his cranium, but overall it was entertaining and thought-provoking, offering no easy answers or quick fixes. (It also was short enough not to overstay its welcome.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
This Book is Not Yet Rated (Peter Bognanni) - My Review
Jade City (Fonda Lee) - My Review
The Dragon and the Stars (Derwin Mak and Eric Choi, editors) - My Review
Charles Yu
Pantheon
Fiction, Humor/Literary Fiction
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Being Asian in America often feels alienating. Perhaps that's why Willis Yu sees life as an endless movie where he and all his neighbors are playing roles in modern Chinatown. As Generic Asian Guy, playing bit parts in the background of everyone else's plotline, he aspires to someday be Kung Fu Guy like his father once was (though more recently he's faded to merely Old Asian Man), the closest Willis feels he can ever come to a starring role in his own life. But when the spotlight finally finds him, he discovers that it's not as easy or as wonderful as he always dreamed... and sometimes the things one wants the most are far, far away from the things one really needs.
REVIEW: From the outset, Interior Chinatown - a novel largely in screenplay format - establishes a surreal meta-reality where life both is and isn't a series of movies or TV episodes... none of which, at least in America, seem to have room for an Asian lead. The son of immigrants, Willis absorbed culture as much through TV reruns and their stereotypes as through his parents and Chinatown surroundings. Even when a show ostensibly starred an Asian character, as in the old TV series Kung Fu, it's almost invariably a white man in costume. Still, he grew up aspiring to be "Kung Fu Guy", the most powerful role he's seen on screen and in his life; his father was once the neighborhood Kung Fu Guy, but even that was still just a role invented by white people, another box to put Asian people into rather than seeing them as real people, real Americans, with their own dreams and hopes and histories. As Willis works to rise above Generic Asian Guy level three ("delivery boy", working for the same Chinatown restaurant where his parents worked, the one beneath their run-down apartment and the heart of Willis's community), he finds himself part of a detective show featuring a white woman and Black man, yet more boxes checked... even as, more than once, people step out of and around their roles to talk directly to the reader and/or Willis. As the young man unexpectedly finds a chance at genuine happiness, one beyond scripted scenes, he must confront what internalizing stereotypes and archetypes has done, both to his own life and his community (and the country at large). The whole is a complex examination of what it means to be an Asian in America, a country that has, at various times, tried to criminalize, dehumanize, and categorize Asians in various ways that perpetually brand them, in big ways and small, as not "really" American (read: not white American). At times the surreality threatened to swamp the story, and there was more than one time I thought Willis needed a conk on the skull to get some sense through his cranium, but overall it was entertaining and thought-provoking, offering no easy answers or quick fixes. (It also was short enough not to overstay its welcome.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
This Book is Not Yet Rated (Peter Bognanni) - My Review
Jade City (Fonda Lee) - My Review
The Dragon and the Stars (Derwin Mak and Eric Choi, editors) - My Review
Wednesday, May 22, 2024
Illuminations (T. Kingfisher)
Illuminations
T. Kingfisher
Tantor
Fiction, MG Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Once, Studio Mandolini produced the best illuminations - magical artwork, capable of nearly anything from keeping food fresh in the pantry to turning back a raging housefire - in the city. But those days are fading, and today's Mandolini family of artists seem to be fading with it, disappearing into their own projects. Young Rosa hopes to become an illuminator herself, but she grows so bored with the lessons, with having to draw the same things over and over and over again, when all she really wants to draw is monsters like fanged radishes. It doesn't help that she also still can't infuse her art with power, the key to a true illumination, though everyone agrees that she's almost there; "almost" still isn't good enough, and it makes all the tedium of practice, practice, practice seem all the more useless. Discouraged and more than a little bored, Rosa ends up rummaging around in the studio's basement and the collected artistic detritus of several generations of Mandolinis... which is where she found the forgotten box with the crow on the lid - a crow that must have some powerful illumination magic infused, as the very sight of it keeps making her turn around and temporarily forget she even saw the box. But one thing she definitely has in common with her family is her stubborn determination; if a box doesn't want to be seen, let alone opened, nothing is going to stop her from doing just that.
Which is how Rosa unleashes a magical monster that may well spell the doom of Studio Mandolini: an enspelled mandrake root known as a Scarling, whose charcoal scribbles can come to life and drain power from illuminations.
Helped only by the talking crow Payne, come to life from the box lid, Rosa decides that, since she unleashed the Scarling (and since nobody would believe her anyway), it's up to her to stop the malicious little beast... but the Scarling has had centuries to plot its revenge against the Mandolini family, and Rosa can't even paint a working illumination to fight against its ever-growing army of evil scribbles.
REVIEW: I had hoped that Illuminations would follow in the vein of T. Kingfisher's rather enjoyable A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, which had an outwardly light premise that hid darker shades and a sharper tooth underneath. This story, though, is a doodle that stays on the surface of the page, aimed younger and being rather more silly, and even at its relatively short length it felt a little long for the story it contained.
Rosa starts out as, frankly, a whiny and selfish little kid, complaining to her family about her boredom and expecting them to solve the problem. Everything about the crow box in the basement screams "Dangerous Magic - Do Not Touch", and a girl raised in a studio full of people who work with magical artwork should well recognize trouble when she sees it, but nevertheless she does the selfish, short-sighted thing... after quite a bit of drawing out and dithering by the story, enough that I came close (more than once) to finding another audiobook. Once the Scarling is released (along with its guardian, the living artwork crow Payne), things pick up a little, but still often wander into tangents about the exaggerated and often silly Mandolini family (who are Artists in the purest, most eccentric and distractable sense of the term) and Rosa's frustrations with being a kid, often talked down to when she isn't outright overlooked. There are some themes about family and friendship and forgiveness and how complicated all three can be, and how art as a job can feel more like a repetitive grind and less like a joyous connection with the muses (further exacerbated by how illuminations work: styles and specifics differ, but each illumination must contain specific elements if it is to do its job, meaning that, for instance, a cat must have blue eyes if it's to ward off mice... and painting dozens of cats, even of different sizes and in different poses, with blue eyes will inevitably start to feel monotonous by the fifth or six feline on the easel, even if that's what one must do to pay the bills). Rosa does some growing up, of course, and it's almost inevitable that she levels up in the art department while fighting malicious scribbles (that her family initially assumes must be her, even though she never once, not even as a child, drew on the studio walls or made art in such a crude style and would have no reason in the world to act out against the other Mandolinis). Some points are repeated more than even a younger reader should need to figure things out, and characters often need several blows to the skull to figure some things out. The ending draws itself out (and never follows through on an earlier setup that I was absolutely positive would come into play, given how much time went into showing off that particular project), after a climax where I was almost shouting at the characters to do the one thing that they obviously needed to do (which they eventually did even without my input).
There's a light, whimsical tone and several silly moments, and Payne in particular was a fun character (for all that even he could've used a rap on the skull more than once for wandering off on tangents and not spitting things out clearly). The concept of illuminations also was interesting. I just found Rosa and the others a bit too frustratingly obtuse and the story itself a little too thin for my tastes.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Stone Girl's Story (Sarah Beth Durst) - My Review
The Rithmatist (Brandon Sanderson) - My Review
Behind the Canvas (Alexander Vance) - My Review
T. Kingfisher
Tantor
Fiction, MG Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Once, Studio Mandolini produced the best illuminations - magical artwork, capable of nearly anything from keeping food fresh in the pantry to turning back a raging housefire - in the city. But those days are fading, and today's Mandolini family of artists seem to be fading with it, disappearing into their own projects. Young Rosa hopes to become an illuminator herself, but she grows so bored with the lessons, with having to draw the same things over and over and over again, when all she really wants to draw is monsters like fanged radishes. It doesn't help that she also still can't infuse her art with power, the key to a true illumination, though everyone agrees that she's almost there; "almost" still isn't good enough, and it makes all the tedium of practice, practice, practice seem all the more useless. Discouraged and more than a little bored, Rosa ends up rummaging around in the studio's basement and the collected artistic detritus of several generations of Mandolinis... which is where she found the forgotten box with the crow on the lid - a crow that must have some powerful illumination magic infused, as the very sight of it keeps making her turn around and temporarily forget she even saw the box. But one thing she definitely has in common with her family is her stubborn determination; if a box doesn't want to be seen, let alone opened, nothing is going to stop her from doing just that.
Which is how Rosa unleashes a magical monster that may well spell the doom of Studio Mandolini: an enspelled mandrake root known as a Scarling, whose charcoal scribbles can come to life and drain power from illuminations.
Helped only by the talking crow Payne, come to life from the box lid, Rosa decides that, since she unleashed the Scarling (and since nobody would believe her anyway), it's up to her to stop the malicious little beast... but the Scarling has had centuries to plot its revenge against the Mandolini family, and Rosa can't even paint a working illumination to fight against its ever-growing army of evil scribbles.
REVIEW: I had hoped that Illuminations would follow in the vein of T. Kingfisher's rather enjoyable A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, which had an outwardly light premise that hid darker shades and a sharper tooth underneath. This story, though, is a doodle that stays on the surface of the page, aimed younger and being rather more silly, and even at its relatively short length it felt a little long for the story it contained.
Rosa starts out as, frankly, a whiny and selfish little kid, complaining to her family about her boredom and expecting them to solve the problem. Everything about the crow box in the basement screams "Dangerous Magic - Do Not Touch", and a girl raised in a studio full of people who work with magical artwork should well recognize trouble when she sees it, but nevertheless she does the selfish, short-sighted thing... after quite a bit of drawing out and dithering by the story, enough that I came close (more than once) to finding another audiobook. Once the Scarling is released (along with its guardian, the living artwork crow Payne), things pick up a little, but still often wander into tangents about the exaggerated and often silly Mandolini family (who are Artists in the purest, most eccentric and distractable sense of the term) and Rosa's frustrations with being a kid, often talked down to when she isn't outright overlooked. There are some themes about family and friendship and forgiveness and how complicated all three can be, and how art as a job can feel more like a repetitive grind and less like a joyous connection with the muses (further exacerbated by how illuminations work: styles and specifics differ, but each illumination must contain specific elements if it is to do its job, meaning that, for instance, a cat must have blue eyes if it's to ward off mice... and painting dozens of cats, even of different sizes and in different poses, with blue eyes will inevitably start to feel monotonous by the fifth or six feline on the easel, even if that's what one must do to pay the bills). Rosa does some growing up, of course, and it's almost inevitable that she levels up in the art department while fighting malicious scribbles (that her family initially assumes must be her, even though she never once, not even as a child, drew on the studio walls or made art in such a crude style and would have no reason in the world to act out against the other Mandolinis). Some points are repeated more than even a younger reader should need to figure things out, and characters often need several blows to the skull to figure some things out. The ending draws itself out (and never follows through on an earlier setup that I was absolutely positive would come into play, given how much time went into showing off that particular project), after a climax where I was almost shouting at the characters to do the one thing that they obviously needed to do (which they eventually did even without my input).
There's a light, whimsical tone and several silly moments, and Payne in particular was a fun character (for all that even he could've used a rap on the skull more than once for wandering off on tangents and not spitting things out clearly). The concept of illuminations also was interesting. I just found Rosa and the others a bit too frustratingly obtuse and the story itself a little too thin for my tastes.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Stone Girl's Story (Sarah Beth Durst) - My Review
The Rithmatist (Brandon Sanderson) - My Review
Behind the Canvas (Alexander Vance) - My Review
Friday, May 17, 2024
The Game of Sunken Places (M. T. Anderson)
The Game of Sunken Places
The Norumbegan Quartet, Book 1
M. T. Anderson
Scholastic
Fiction, MG Adventure/Fantasy/Humor/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Wisecracking Gregory and reserved Brian are polar opposites; perhaps that's what makes them best friends. So when Gregory gets a mysterious invitation to spend an October week in the remote Vermont estate of his Uncle Max (who isn't really even his uncle, just the guardian of his older cousin Penelope after her parents died) and is told to bring a friend, Brian is his first and only choice. But even though he knew Max was a trifle eccentric, Gregory had no idea just how strange the man was - or how strange the visit would turn out to be. Max not only seems vague on what century it is, but insists that the boys dress like schoolchildren from a bygone era, down to the knickerbockers and starched collars. Accommodations include a play room full of old dolls and stuffed toys and a board game with no pieces and no instructions and a picture of a sprawling old house almost exactly like Max's estate. The more they explore, the more the boys realize the truth: they themselves are the game pieces, the estate and surrounding woods are the game board, and the stakes are literal life and death.
REVIEW: I know I just reviewed another M. T. Anderson book last week, but work has been light and his books slot in nicely to fill a shorter shift (especially on a Friday). In any event, The Game of Sunken Places ventures into deeper, darker territory than his Pals in Peril tales, placing a toe or two over the horror/thriller line (though suitable for middle-grade audiences), while still having a strong streak of adventure and imagination, with shades of Jumanji (and possibly a touch of Zork around the edges, though maybe that's just me showing my age; more than once, when the boys were warned about exploring dark places, I mentally filled in the old Infocom text adventure threat about being eaten by a grue).
After setting the stage with a prologue featuring an unlucky real estate developer who stumbles into the dark secrets of the Vermont woods, the story gets off to a quick start with the gilded invitation and the journey to Max's estate, complete with a lurking stranger and an old man in town who warns them to flee while they still can. Things only get weirder when Max turns up - in a horse and buggy, no less - and informs them of the house rule about modern dress (namely, it's forbidden). Brian is the first to clue in that something very unusual is afoot, as the game board starts filling itself in; the encounter with the actual troll on a bridge just confirms what he already knows. It takes Gregory a bit longer, but he gets on board soon enough. Along the way, a deeper, longer history is unearthed, reaching into old-school faerie lore (the kind where the fae are amoral and inscrutable beings to whom short-lived mortals are playthings at best; the "other" beings are never named fae as such, but there's a strong Seelie and Unseelie vibe to them, or at least light and dark elf) and a forgotten civilization, while a mysterious figure keeps dogging the boys' footsteps with ominous warnings to give up before it's too late. Along the way, they both grow up a little, facing riddles and challenges and enough genuine chills and danger to knock any lingering "it's just a game" jocularity out of even Gregory. There are a few unexpectedly emotional turns and revelations, and an ending that promises more adventures ahead; once one has crossed paths with the fae, after all, one's life can never be the same. Toward the end I thought it started stretching a bit, drawing out chases and tension just a touch too long, and something about the conclusion sat a little crooked for me (not counting the "book one of a quartet" loose threads). For the most part, though, I rather enjoyed this, and will likely follow through on at least one more installment.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Dragon Magic (Andre Norton) - My Review
Full Tilt (Neal Shusterman) - My Review
The Glass Town Game (Catherynne M. Valente) - My Review
The Norumbegan Quartet, Book 1
M. T. Anderson
Scholastic
Fiction, MG Adventure/Fantasy/Humor/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Wisecracking Gregory and reserved Brian are polar opposites; perhaps that's what makes them best friends. So when Gregory gets a mysterious invitation to spend an October week in the remote Vermont estate of his Uncle Max (who isn't really even his uncle, just the guardian of his older cousin Penelope after her parents died) and is told to bring a friend, Brian is his first and only choice. But even though he knew Max was a trifle eccentric, Gregory had no idea just how strange the man was - or how strange the visit would turn out to be. Max not only seems vague on what century it is, but insists that the boys dress like schoolchildren from a bygone era, down to the knickerbockers and starched collars. Accommodations include a play room full of old dolls and stuffed toys and a board game with no pieces and no instructions and a picture of a sprawling old house almost exactly like Max's estate. The more they explore, the more the boys realize the truth: they themselves are the game pieces, the estate and surrounding woods are the game board, and the stakes are literal life and death.
REVIEW: I know I just reviewed another M. T. Anderson book last week, but work has been light and his books slot in nicely to fill a shorter shift (especially on a Friday). In any event, The Game of Sunken Places ventures into deeper, darker territory than his Pals in Peril tales, placing a toe or two over the horror/thriller line (though suitable for middle-grade audiences), while still having a strong streak of adventure and imagination, with shades of Jumanji (and possibly a touch of Zork around the edges, though maybe that's just me showing my age; more than once, when the boys were warned about exploring dark places, I mentally filled in the old Infocom text adventure threat about being eaten by a grue).
After setting the stage with a prologue featuring an unlucky real estate developer who stumbles into the dark secrets of the Vermont woods, the story gets off to a quick start with the gilded invitation and the journey to Max's estate, complete with a lurking stranger and an old man in town who warns them to flee while they still can. Things only get weirder when Max turns up - in a horse and buggy, no less - and informs them of the house rule about modern dress (namely, it's forbidden). Brian is the first to clue in that something very unusual is afoot, as the game board starts filling itself in; the encounter with the actual troll on a bridge just confirms what he already knows. It takes Gregory a bit longer, but he gets on board soon enough. Along the way, a deeper, longer history is unearthed, reaching into old-school faerie lore (the kind where the fae are amoral and inscrutable beings to whom short-lived mortals are playthings at best; the "other" beings are never named fae as such, but there's a strong Seelie and Unseelie vibe to them, or at least light and dark elf) and a forgotten civilization, while a mysterious figure keeps dogging the boys' footsteps with ominous warnings to give up before it's too late. Along the way, they both grow up a little, facing riddles and challenges and enough genuine chills and danger to knock any lingering "it's just a game" jocularity out of even Gregory. There are a few unexpectedly emotional turns and revelations, and an ending that promises more adventures ahead; once one has crossed paths with the fae, after all, one's life can never be the same. Toward the end I thought it started stretching a bit, drawing out chases and tension just a touch too long, and something about the conclusion sat a little crooked for me (not counting the "book one of a quartet" loose threads). For the most part, though, I rather enjoyed this, and will likely follow through on at least one more installment.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Dragon Magic (Andre Norton) - My Review
Full Tilt (Neal Shusterman) - My Review
The Glass Town Game (Catherynne M. Valente) - My Review
Thursday, May 16, 2024
The Sun Dog (Stephen King)
The Sun Dog
The Four Past Midnight series, Story 4
Stephen King
Scribner
Fiction, Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Kevin Delevan of Castle Rock, Maine only wanted one thing for his fifteenth birthday: a Polaroid Sun 660 camera. But his delight soon turns to confusion, when he tries to take a picture of his family and instead gets a photo of a strange, feral-looking black dog by a picket fence, neither of which he's seen before in his life. The next photo shows the same thing... as does a fresh pack of film. Only when he takes it to local junk dealer "Pop" Merrill, who has a seedy reputation but is oddly resourceful, does Kevin notice that, in every frame, the dog is moving - as if it realizes someone has taken its photo, and is not happy about it. And when Pop smells a profit in a camera that may be possessed by an actual demon, the whole town might be endangered, because with every click of the shutter the Sun Dog comes closer and closer.
Originally part of the novella collection Four Past Midnight.
REVIEW: Stephen King delivers another solid horror story in a small Maine town, revisiting Castle Rock with a tale of a boy, his father, a greedy shopkeeper, and a monstrous being hungry for human blood. Kevin, understandably, does a lot of growing up in a short time, while his father forges a renewed connection by learning to trust his son, even about things that defy all rational thought (perhaps especially about those things). As in other King stories, most characters become fairly fully realized entities during the tale (Kevin's mother and sister being exceptions; they feel somewhat extraneous throughout in a story strongly focused on boys like Kevin, his dad, and "Pop"). The Sun Dog itself is a fearsome creature, not just bloodthirsty but cunning enough to manipulate those who hold the camera (or perhaps whatever created the Dog is responsible; again, as in many King titles, there are implications of greater forces at play in which the conflict we see is just one round in a much larger and longer game). If there are times when it feels like the tale is drawing itself out and dancing around points before reaching them, the whole comes together well enough to make up for the sidetracks and circling.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Fragile Things (Neil Gaiman) - My Review
Cujo (Stephen King) - My Review
Run (Patti Larsen) - My Review
The Four Past Midnight series, Story 4
Stephen King
Scribner
Fiction, Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Kevin Delevan of Castle Rock, Maine only wanted one thing for his fifteenth birthday: a Polaroid Sun 660 camera. But his delight soon turns to confusion, when he tries to take a picture of his family and instead gets a photo of a strange, feral-looking black dog by a picket fence, neither of which he's seen before in his life. The next photo shows the same thing... as does a fresh pack of film. Only when he takes it to local junk dealer "Pop" Merrill, who has a seedy reputation but is oddly resourceful, does Kevin notice that, in every frame, the dog is moving - as if it realizes someone has taken its photo, and is not happy about it. And when Pop smells a profit in a camera that may be possessed by an actual demon, the whole town might be endangered, because with every click of the shutter the Sun Dog comes closer and closer.
Originally part of the novella collection Four Past Midnight.
REVIEW: Stephen King delivers another solid horror story in a small Maine town, revisiting Castle Rock with a tale of a boy, his father, a greedy shopkeeper, and a monstrous being hungry for human blood. Kevin, understandably, does a lot of growing up in a short time, while his father forges a renewed connection by learning to trust his son, even about things that defy all rational thought (perhaps especially about those things). As in other King stories, most characters become fairly fully realized entities during the tale (Kevin's mother and sister being exceptions; they feel somewhat extraneous throughout in a story strongly focused on boys like Kevin, his dad, and "Pop"). The Sun Dog itself is a fearsome creature, not just bloodthirsty but cunning enough to manipulate those who hold the camera (or perhaps whatever created the Dog is responsible; again, as in many King titles, there are implications of greater forces at play in which the conflict we see is just one round in a much larger and longer game). If there are times when it feels like the tale is drawing itself out and dancing around points before reaching them, the whole comes together well enough to make up for the sidetracks and circling.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Fragile Things (Neil Gaiman) - My Review
Cujo (Stephen King) - My Review
Run (Patti Larsen) - My Review
Friday, May 10, 2024
Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware (M. T. Anderson)
Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware
A Pals in Peril Tale, Book 3
M. T. Anderson
Beach Lane Books
Fiction, MG Action/Humor/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: In the drab little town of Pelt, there isn't much worth getting excited about (well, excepting the odd invasion by stilt-walking whale armies, but thus far that was a one-off event). One thing that does grab the town's attention is a good sports match, particularly when it comes to the rousing game of Stare-Eyes. The high school varsity team could well make the state finals... if they can beat the champion team from Delaware, that is. But the day gets off to an inauspicious start when hordes of beetles swarm the town, as if panicked by some approaching force of great and terrible evil, and things only get worse from there.
Jasper Dash (Boy Technonaut, and star of a nearly-forgotten series of young adventurer books promoting the wonders of Gargletine breakfast drink) is the varsity team's secret weapon, having honed incredible staring powers during his stay at a remote monastery. But something is very, very strange about today's match, and the Delaware team - such as how their eyes change to slit-pupiled serpent eyes mid-match (which is clearly an illegal substitution, though the referees don't seem to notice it). And his friend Katie sees illegal artifacts being smuggled in the back of their team van. Then a psychic call for help reaches Jasper, summoning him (and his friends, Katie and ordinary girl Lily) to the wildest place on Earth, a realm of impenetrable jungles and lost cannibal tribes and mystical secrets beyond understanding, a civilization ruled by an iron-fisted despot with spies on every corner and in every spigot, a location cut off from the rest of civilization for over a hundred years by impossibly high tolls: the fabled, mystic realm of Delaware.
REVIEW: The third installment of the hilarious adventure series spoof turns its focus on exotic ethnic stereotypes as it transforms the state of Delaware into a fantastical realm out of a pulp writer's fever dream, a mythologized "Other" land with strong dashes of untrustworthy foreign governments for spice. Once more, the author flings himself gleefully into the conceit, spinning a wild and tangled yarn that hits about every "exotic adventure" trope and cliche available (and more besides). Whereas the last book progressed the characters a little, this one feels more like a holding pattern. Katie is still hoping to be a "normal" girl someday, not the weekly savior of Horror Hollow; her crush on a Stare-Eyes school champion, Choate Brinsley, ends in inevitable heartbreak (whereupon her mother reminds her of her advice never to fall for boys whose names sound like prep schools), but she makes little more effort to "normalize" her life. Jasper, meanwhile, still knows he's out of step with the rest of the world but not what to do with it... and, here, being out of step comes in handy, as he's the only one who knows the truth about Delaware. (Or is it the truth? Perhaps, as a character notes later, the Delaware they find themselves in, the tin-pot dictatorship with a sprawling capital city full of mules and goats and massive cargo-hauling tortoises from the desert lands, is the sort of place only a boy like Jasper Dash could reach, defying conventional wisdom and modern cartography and probably at least one lesser law of physics to exist.) Lily still feels out of place with her two world-saving companions, being not nearly as athletic or good in a fight or clever with a comeback, and struggles to fit in and not hold them back. But the story centers more on Jasper, who by nature cannot grow or change, as the whole adventure ties into more of his lost history; the hidden monastery where he acquired so many useful skills wasn't in Nepal or Tibet but in the misty mountains of Delaware (a state that normally has no mountains, but then normally the state doesn't have jungles or dinosaurs or kangaroo-riding cannibals or six-armed, tusked mountain tribespeople and the like, so "normal" can take a hike down the freeway). Along the way the reader is treated to some brilliant, if nonsensical, mind's-eye candy and great turns of phrase, and a few sly observations and moments that slip in sharp underneath the silliness. It's still quite a fun series overall, though one wonders if it isn't growing a touch stagnant around the edges.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Whales on Stilts (M. T. Anderson) - My Review
Bad Unicorn (Platte F. Clarke) - My Review
Story Thieves (James Riley) - My Review
A Pals in Peril Tale, Book 3
M. T. Anderson
Beach Lane Books
Fiction, MG Action/Humor/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: In the drab little town of Pelt, there isn't much worth getting excited about (well, excepting the odd invasion by stilt-walking whale armies, but thus far that was a one-off event). One thing that does grab the town's attention is a good sports match, particularly when it comes to the rousing game of Stare-Eyes. The high school varsity team could well make the state finals... if they can beat the champion team from Delaware, that is. But the day gets off to an inauspicious start when hordes of beetles swarm the town, as if panicked by some approaching force of great and terrible evil, and things only get worse from there.
Jasper Dash (Boy Technonaut, and star of a nearly-forgotten series of young adventurer books promoting the wonders of Gargletine breakfast drink) is the varsity team's secret weapon, having honed incredible staring powers during his stay at a remote monastery. But something is very, very strange about today's match, and the Delaware team - such as how their eyes change to slit-pupiled serpent eyes mid-match (which is clearly an illegal substitution, though the referees don't seem to notice it). And his friend Katie sees illegal artifacts being smuggled in the back of their team van. Then a psychic call for help reaches Jasper, summoning him (and his friends, Katie and ordinary girl Lily) to the wildest place on Earth, a realm of impenetrable jungles and lost cannibal tribes and mystical secrets beyond understanding, a civilization ruled by an iron-fisted despot with spies on every corner and in every spigot, a location cut off from the rest of civilization for over a hundred years by impossibly high tolls: the fabled, mystic realm of Delaware.
REVIEW: The third installment of the hilarious adventure series spoof turns its focus on exotic ethnic stereotypes as it transforms the state of Delaware into a fantastical realm out of a pulp writer's fever dream, a mythologized "Other" land with strong dashes of untrustworthy foreign governments for spice. Once more, the author flings himself gleefully into the conceit, spinning a wild and tangled yarn that hits about every "exotic adventure" trope and cliche available (and more besides). Whereas the last book progressed the characters a little, this one feels more like a holding pattern. Katie is still hoping to be a "normal" girl someday, not the weekly savior of Horror Hollow; her crush on a Stare-Eyes school champion, Choate Brinsley, ends in inevitable heartbreak (whereupon her mother reminds her of her advice never to fall for boys whose names sound like prep schools), but she makes little more effort to "normalize" her life. Jasper, meanwhile, still knows he's out of step with the rest of the world but not what to do with it... and, here, being out of step comes in handy, as he's the only one who knows the truth about Delaware. (Or is it the truth? Perhaps, as a character notes later, the Delaware they find themselves in, the tin-pot dictatorship with a sprawling capital city full of mules and goats and massive cargo-hauling tortoises from the desert lands, is the sort of place only a boy like Jasper Dash could reach, defying conventional wisdom and modern cartography and probably at least one lesser law of physics to exist.) Lily still feels out of place with her two world-saving companions, being not nearly as athletic or good in a fight or clever with a comeback, and struggles to fit in and not hold them back. But the story centers more on Jasper, who by nature cannot grow or change, as the whole adventure ties into more of his lost history; the hidden monastery where he acquired so many useful skills wasn't in Nepal or Tibet but in the misty mountains of Delaware (a state that normally has no mountains, but then normally the state doesn't have jungles or dinosaurs or kangaroo-riding cannibals or six-armed, tusked mountain tribespeople and the like, so "normal" can take a hike down the freeway). Along the way the reader is treated to some brilliant, if nonsensical, mind's-eye candy and great turns of phrase, and a few sly observations and moments that slip in sharp underneath the silliness. It's still quite a fun series overall, though one wonders if it isn't growing a touch stagnant around the edges.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Whales on Stilts (M. T. Anderson) - My Review
Bad Unicorn (Platte F. Clarke) - My Review
Story Thieves (James Riley) - My Review
No Two Persons (Erica Bauermeister)
No Two Persons: A Novel
Erica Bauermeister
St. Martin's Press
Fiction, Collection/Literary Fiction
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Millions dream about writing the "great American novel", but only a handful actually do it. Writing is a peculiar alchemy, melding skills, talents, perseverance, timing, and a healthy dose of luck... and even then, once a book is released, there is no sure way to predict how people will react to it, no two people ever reading the same story in the same way. One reader's treasured tale is another's one-star trash, and one generation's brilliant bestseller is the next's cringe-worthy and forgotten dust collector. Some books, though, seem to transcend.
After Alice's wayward brother Peter dies of an overdose, she manages to turn her emotional devastation into a novel, "Theo", about a young man struggling with a broken life - a character who is and is not her brother. Her book survives the gauntlet of the slush pile and debuts to solid reviews, passing into the hands of all manner of readers from all walks of life. Each pick up Theo's story with different expectations, and each are changed in ways Alice could never have imagined.
REVIEW: The title refers to a quote attributed to Edmond Wilson: "No two persons ever read the same book." It's not just about different tastes or different reading levels, but about life experiences and expectations. The book one reads at eighteen will likely seem like a different story entirely at forty. Baurmeister's novel, in truth a collection of shorter stories linked by the fictional novel "Theo", explores that idea, starting and ending with the author Alice. In between, "Theo" comes to the hands a variety of people - an agent's reader, a frustrated artist, a recently-homeless teenager, a widower struggling to move on, an actor facing a crumbled career, and more - in a variety of ways. None of them see the exact story Alice intended, let alone glimpse Peter's shadow lurking behind the main character, but all find something in the story that helps them re-evaluate their lives or rediscover something they'd lost or forgotten. As the novel is discovered by more people, some of the threads overlap around the edges, though each person experiences "Theo" as most reading is experienced: on their own, in their own heads and hearts.
This being "literary" fiction, the stories comprising No Two Persons are prone to meandering and slow character buildups; the central novel often doesn't land in their hands for quite some time. There was also a sense of... I don't want to say "sameness", but a familiarity in characters across several stories. I can't quite put my finger on just why that was, and since it was an audiobook I was listening to at work it's not like I can flip back and check my notes, but I found myself feeling a bit "been there, done that" with more than one character. (And I also had to wonder about some vicarious wish fulfillment in the idea of one woman writing not just any debut novel, but the debut novel, the one that so deeply and irrevocably touches so many readers... and is then apparently able to live off that one success for many years.) Throughout are insights into storytelling, writing, and reading, and even audiobook recording. Speaking of, the audiobook version I borrowed via Libby included an interview between the author and one of the voice actors (it was a "full cast" presentation), which was interesting but sometimes felt like it ran a bit long.
After thinking it over for a while, I wound up shaving a half-star off a Good rating for the meandering and sense of repetition, and also the usual subjective "just not my cup of cocoa" reasons that sometimes hold down ratings. My blog, my call, etc. That said, I can see what it was going for and what it accomplished, even if it didn't quite hit the mark for me.
You Might Also Enjoy:
How This Book Was Made (Mac Barnett) - My Review
Fangirl (Rainbow Rowell) - My Review
Book Love (Debbie Tung) - My Review
Erica Bauermeister
St. Martin's Press
Fiction, Collection/Literary Fiction
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Millions dream about writing the "great American novel", but only a handful actually do it. Writing is a peculiar alchemy, melding skills, talents, perseverance, timing, and a healthy dose of luck... and even then, once a book is released, there is no sure way to predict how people will react to it, no two people ever reading the same story in the same way. One reader's treasured tale is another's one-star trash, and one generation's brilliant bestseller is the next's cringe-worthy and forgotten dust collector. Some books, though, seem to transcend.
After Alice's wayward brother Peter dies of an overdose, she manages to turn her emotional devastation into a novel, "Theo", about a young man struggling with a broken life - a character who is and is not her brother. Her book survives the gauntlet of the slush pile and debuts to solid reviews, passing into the hands of all manner of readers from all walks of life. Each pick up Theo's story with different expectations, and each are changed in ways Alice could never have imagined.
REVIEW: The title refers to a quote attributed to Edmond Wilson: "No two persons ever read the same book." It's not just about different tastes or different reading levels, but about life experiences and expectations. The book one reads at eighteen will likely seem like a different story entirely at forty. Baurmeister's novel, in truth a collection of shorter stories linked by the fictional novel "Theo", explores that idea, starting and ending with the author Alice. In between, "Theo" comes to the hands a variety of people - an agent's reader, a frustrated artist, a recently-homeless teenager, a widower struggling to move on, an actor facing a crumbled career, and more - in a variety of ways. None of them see the exact story Alice intended, let alone glimpse Peter's shadow lurking behind the main character, but all find something in the story that helps them re-evaluate their lives or rediscover something they'd lost or forgotten. As the novel is discovered by more people, some of the threads overlap around the edges, though each person experiences "Theo" as most reading is experienced: on their own, in their own heads and hearts.
This being "literary" fiction, the stories comprising No Two Persons are prone to meandering and slow character buildups; the central novel often doesn't land in their hands for quite some time. There was also a sense of... I don't want to say "sameness", but a familiarity in characters across several stories. I can't quite put my finger on just why that was, and since it was an audiobook I was listening to at work it's not like I can flip back and check my notes, but I found myself feeling a bit "been there, done that" with more than one character. (And I also had to wonder about some vicarious wish fulfillment in the idea of one woman writing not just any debut novel, but the debut novel, the one that so deeply and irrevocably touches so many readers... and is then apparently able to live off that one success for many years.) Throughout are insights into storytelling, writing, and reading, and even audiobook recording. Speaking of, the audiobook version I borrowed via Libby included an interview between the author and one of the voice actors (it was a "full cast" presentation), which was interesting but sometimes felt like it ran a bit long.
After thinking it over for a while, I wound up shaving a half-star off a Good rating for the meandering and sense of repetition, and also the usual subjective "just not my cup of cocoa" reasons that sometimes hold down ratings. My blog, my call, etc. That said, I can see what it was going for and what it accomplished, even if it didn't quite hit the mark for me.
You Might Also Enjoy:
How This Book Was Made (Mac Barnett) - My Review
Fangirl (Rainbow Rowell) - My Review
Book Love (Debbie Tung) - My Review
Tuesday, May 7, 2024
The Legend of Charlie Fish (Josh Rountree)
The Legend of Charlie Fish
Josh Rountree
Tachyon
Fiction, Fantasy/Western
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: A carpenter in Galveston off the Texas coast, Floyd never intended to return to the small, mean-spirited swamp town of Old Cypress until his drunkard father needed burying. He certainly never intended to take on two orphaned children he found near the church, outcasts whose parents had been burned alive for witchcraft... but he knows just how miserable a place that town is, and it's not like he could leave them there. On the way back to Galveston with his new charges Nellie and Hank, Floyd picks up the strangest companion of all: a man with fish-scale skin and gills, held captive by a pair of thuggish scoundrels Professor Finn and Kentucky Jim. Rescuing the man - dubbed "Charlie Fish" by Nellie, who can hear the "whisper talk" of people's minds and communicate with the stranger - earns the travelers a pair of relentless enemies, who will follow them all the way to Galveston to reclaim their future meal ticket and exact revenge... but another danger waits for them all, a gathering storm the likes of which the progressive island city has never seen before.
REVIEW: A pinch of The Creature from the Black Lagoon, a dash of True Grit, and the devastating storm that nearly wiped Galveston off the map in 1900 come together in this novella, a quick-reading "weird west" tale with some interesting ideas and characters.
With alternating chapters, Nellie - daughter of a minor witch, inheritor of the family gift she dubs "whisper talk" that lets her see the minds of others (and occasionally influence them) - and Floyd spin a story of family lost and found, failures and regrets and redemption, and survival against all manner of storms. The characters, while interesting, sometimes feel a bit flat and story-shaped, particularly the baddies Finn and Jim but also with key players like the peculiar Charlie Fish, who seems to have large holes in his history and adventures that are barely hinted at. Everyone has suffered traumas and betrayals, which helps bind them into an impromptu (if temporary, for a few of them) family, as well as the shared threats of the scoundrels and the massive storm... a storm nobody else in Galveston seems to take seriously, smug in the preparations that have seen them stand against previous bad weather. They are all soon reminded that, despite modern measures and human hubris, the ocean always wins, and even those few who survive pay a steep toll and acquire lifelong scars.
For all that it read fast and was reasonably satisfying, it did have some odd little wobbles, like a table whose legs don't quite sit square on the floor. I couldn't tell if the story was too short to quite explore what it wanted to explore or too long for what was, at the heart, a short story with filler. The baddies seemed flat and almost cartoonish, and even Charlie Fish was largely an enigma for being the catalyst of so much that went on, veering from oddly passive to terrifyingly protective. Still, I mostly enjoyed it for what it was, even with its minor flaws that held it back from being truly great.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Wake of Vultures (Lila Bowen) - My Review
The Once and Future Witches (Alix E. Harrow) - My Review
True Grit (Charles Portis) - My Review
Josh Rountree
Tachyon
Fiction, Fantasy/Western
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: A carpenter in Galveston off the Texas coast, Floyd never intended to return to the small, mean-spirited swamp town of Old Cypress until his drunkard father needed burying. He certainly never intended to take on two orphaned children he found near the church, outcasts whose parents had been burned alive for witchcraft... but he knows just how miserable a place that town is, and it's not like he could leave them there. On the way back to Galveston with his new charges Nellie and Hank, Floyd picks up the strangest companion of all: a man with fish-scale skin and gills, held captive by a pair of thuggish scoundrels Professor Finn and Kentucky Jim. Rescuing the man - dubbed "Charlie Fish" by Nellie, who can hear the "whisper talk" of people's minds and communicate with the stranger - earns the travelers a pair of relentless enemies, who will follow them all the way to Galveston to reclaim their future meal ticket and exact revenge... but another danger waits for them all, a gathering storm the likes of which the progressive island city has never seen before.
REVIEW: A pinch of The Creature from the Black Lagoon, a dash of True Grit, and the devastating storm that nearly wiped Galveston off the map in 1900 come together in this novella, a quick-reading "weird west" tale with some interesting ideas and characters.
With alternating chapters, Nellie - daughter of a minor witch, inheritor of the family gift she dubs "whisper talk" that lets her see the minds of others (and occasionally influence them) - and Floyd spin a story of family lost and found, failures and regrets and redemption, and survival against all manner of storms. The characters, while interesting, sometimes feel a bit flat and story-shaped, particularly the baddies Finn and Jim but also with key players like the peculiar Charlie Fish, who seems to have large holes in his history and adventures that are barely hinted at. Everyone has suffered traumas and betrayals, which helps bind them into an impromptu (if temporary, for a few of them) family, as well as the shared threats of the scoundrels and the massive storm... a storm nobody else in Galveston seems to take seriously, smug in the preparations that have seen them stand against previous bad weather. They are all soon reminded that, despite modern measures and human hubris, the ocean always wins, and even those few who survive pay a steep toll and acquire lifelong scars.
For all that it read fast and was reasonably satisfying, it did have some odd little wobbles, like a table whose legs don't quite sit square on the floor. I couldn't tell if the story was too short to quite explore what it wanted to explore or too long for what was, at the heart, a short story with filler. The baddies seemed flat and almost cartoonish, and even Charlie Fish was largely an enigma for being the catalyst of so much that went on, veering from oddly passive to terrifyingly protective. Still, I mostly enjoyed it for what it was, even with its minor flaws that held it back from being truly great.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Wake of Vultures (Lila Bowen) - My Review
The Once and Future Witches (Alix E. Harrow) - My Review
True Grit (Charles Portis) - My Review
Wednesday, May 1, 2024
Whalefall (Daniel Kraus)
Whalefall
Daniel Kraus
Atria Books
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Thriller
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Seventeen-year-old Jim Gardiner grew up in the shadow of professional scuba diver Mitt Gardiner, a man whose rage, expectations, and disappointment smothered the boy and drove him to run away from home at fifteen... which is why Jim wasn't there when Mitt, after a terminal cancer diagnosis, dropped himself into the waters off California's deadly Monastery Beach with diving weights in his pockets and no air. The suicide and bodyless funeral left Jim full of churning emotions and unresolved anger, a cloud that he can't seem to escape from, not helped by how his mother and sisters (and the rest of California's diving community) now see him: the coward, the failure, the kid too selfish to even visit his locally-famous father in the hospital.
Now, Jim stands on the shores of Monastery Beach, in diving gear for the first time in two years, about to brave the waters where his father died. If he can recover the bones, give his family something tangible to bury and mourn, maybe he can redeem himself in their eyes (and his own), prove that he isn't the waste of oxygen that Mitt so often made him feel like he was. But the ocean is a tricky place, even moreso to a rusty diver with a preoccupied mind. A series of mistakes and accidents, one too many boundaries pushed, and he finds himself drug into the first stomach of a massive sperm whale - and haunted by the ghostly voice of his father, who may be a hallucination or may be his only guide to survival.
REVIEW: I've heard a fair bit of buzz about this one, and the concept looked unique, so when it popped up as available via Libby I decided it was worth a listen. Unfortunately, despite the admittedly-unique concept and some very visceral imagery, the story turns into a plodding, overlong gaze into the abyss of one self-absorbed boy's navel.
Jim starts (and for quite some time remains) a young man scarred by a father who never really wanted to be a father, particularly to a boy like Jim, a sensitive kid prone to crying and who just can't seem to grasp Mitt's worldview or care about the wisdom he clumsily tries to pass on. Mitt could rarely hold onto a job for long, too outspoken and generally poor at people skills, growing increasingly reckless as life in the suburbs ground against his inherent free spirit, throwback nature. One starts to wonder why he married at all, and whether he realized he had daughters, too; there is no indication that he made any effort to pass on his homespun diving wisdom and experience to either of them (or to his wife), just that only a boy was worthy of inheriting his true passion... and that Jim, by not also being a hotheaded throwback acting out his anger at random intervals, was one disappointment too many. For Jim's part, he spent his childhood alternately coddled by his mother and yelled at by his father, the moments of true father-son bonding few and far between and only getting fewer and further between as he reached adolescence. Still, Mom and his sisters are too oblivious in their femininity to see how Mitt is traipsing right up to the emotional abuse border and stepping over it more than once, taking out his frustrations at being trapped in a life he comes to resent on the boy (if not consciously), and thus can't possibly comprehend it when the last straw finally breaks him and Jim runs away from home to a friend's house; they keep trying to drag Jim back into the home that crushed him. Soft, motherly women never will comprehend Real Men (TM), is the unsubtle message here. It takes some time, and being literally trapped in the belly of a whale (hands up, anyone surprised by how this story takes a turn into the religious and spiritual weeds at the earliest opportunity), for Jim to reflect and realize he wasn't entirely blameless for the rift in the relationship, at least when he was older and had a little more autonomy. Through flashbacks, the horrible pressures that Mitt's mercurial moods and overbearing personality subjected Jim to are revealed, the forces that shaped and twisted the boy into the angry, confused young man who plunges into Monastery Beach without a diving partner or much of a plan, save a driving need to seek Mitt's remains and, with them, a sense of closure that eludes him.
As mentioned earlier, the story itself is plodding, full of sensory details and technical diving terminology while turning almost everything into some sort of reflection or metaphor of Jim's inner confusion and directionless rage. It takes some time to actually get to the whale, though the horror of that incident, and the time spent trapped in the whale, almost become numbing at some point; even in a life-or-death situation, Jim just won't listen and often does the stupidest thing... though the ghost-voice of Mitt could also spit things out a little more clearly, given the dire circumstances. From there, things degenerate into lessons on spirituality, the nature of life and death and birth and rebirth, the meaning of the universe in a speck of dust, and so on and so forth, often repeated in various forms to make sure the reader Gets It and sees the Profound Meaning the author is driving at with the subtlety of a charging sperm whale. The climax drags out to excruciating lengths (seriously, if you have trigger issues about claustrophobia or bodily injury and mutilation, this is not the story for you), and the conclusion is in no hurry to conclude. It darned near lost another half-star by then. That said, there are moments of profundity and glimmers of beauty and wonder now and again. It's clear the author has a deep love for the ocean and diving and the wonders beneath the waves. It was just far too slow, too gory, and too steeped in heavy-handed spirituality for me to really enjoy it.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Adventurer's Son (Roman Dial) - My Review
Into the Drowning Deep (Mira Grant) - My Review
We Shall Sing a Song into the Deep (Andrew Kelly Stewart) - My Review
Daniel Kraus
Atria Books
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Thriller
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Seventeen-year-old Jim Gardiner grew up in the shadow of professional scuba diver Mitt Gardiner, a man whose rage, expectations, and disappointment smothered the boy and drove him to run away from home at fifteen... which is why Jim wasn't there when Mitt, after a terminal cancer diagnosis, dropped himself into the waters off California's deadly Monastery Beach with diving weights in his pockets and no air. The suicide and bodyless funeral left Jim full of churning emotions and unresolved anger, a cloud that he can't seem to escape from, not helped by how his mother and sisters (and the rest of California's diving community) now see him: the coward, the failure, the kid too selfish to even visit his locally-famous father in the hospital.
Now, Jim stands on the shores of Monastery Beach, in diving gear for the first time in two years, about to brave the waters where his father died. If he can recover the bones, give his family something tangible to bury and mourn, maybe he can redeem himself in their eyes (and his own), prove that he isn't the waste of oxygen that Mitt so often made him feel like he was. But the ocean is a tricky place, even moreso to a rusty diver with a preoccupied mind. A series of mistakes and accidents, one too many boundaries pushed, and he finds himself drug into the first stomach of a massive sperm whale - and haunted by the ghostly voice of his father, who may be a hallucination or may be his only guide to survival.
REVIEW: I've heard a fair bit of buzz about this one, and the concept looked unique, so when it popped up as available via Libby I decided it was worth a listen. Unfortunately, despite the admittedly-unique concept and some very visceral imagery, the story turns into a plodding, overlong gaze into the abyss of one self-absorbed boy's navel.
Jim starts (and for quite some time remains) a young man scarred by a father who never really wanted to be a father, particularly to a boy like Jim, a sensitive kid prone to crying and who just can't seem to grasp Mitt's worldview or care about the wisdom he clumsily tries to pass on. Mitt could rarely hold onto a job for long, too outspoken and generally poor at people skills, growing increasingly reckless as life in the suburbs ground against his inherent free spirit, throwback nature. One starts to wonder why he married at all, and whether he realized he had daughters, too; there is no indication that he made any effort to pass on his homespun diving wisdom and experience to either of them (or to his wife), just that only a boy was worthy of inheriting his true passion... and that Jim, by not also being a hotheaded throwback acting out his anger at random intervals, was one disappointment too many. For Jim's part, he spent his childhood alternately coddled by his mother and yelled at by his father, the moments of true father-son bonding few and far between and only getting fewer and further between as he reached adolescence. Still, Mom and his sisters are too oblivious in their femininity to see how Mitt is traipsing right up to the emotional abuse border and stepping over it more than once, taking out his frustrations at being trapped in a life he comes to resent on the boy (if not consciously), and thus can't possibly comprehend it when the last straw finally breaks him and Jim runs away from home to a friend's house; they keep trying to drag Jim back into the home that crushed him. Soft, motherly women never will comprehend Real Men (TM), is the unsubtle message here. It takes some time, and being literally trapped in the belly of a whale (hands up, anyone surprised by how this story takes a turn into the religious and spiritual weeds at the earliest opportunity), for Jim to reflect and realize he wasn't entirely blameless for the rift in the relationship, at least when he was older and had a little more autonomy. Through flashbacks, the horrible pressures that Mitt's mercurial moods and overbearing personality subjected Jim to are revealed, the forces that shaped and twisted the boy into the angry, confused young man who plunges into Monastery Beach without a diving partner or much of a plan, save a driving need to seek Mitt's remains and, with them, a sense of closure that eludes him.
As mentioned earlier, the story itself is plodding, full of sensory details and technical diving terminology while turning almost everything into some sort of reflection or metaphor of Jim's inner confusion and directionless rage. It takes some time to actually get to the whale, though the horror of that incident, and the time spent trapped in the whale, almost become numbing at some point; even in a life-or-death situation, Jim just won't listen and often does the stupidest thing... though the ghost-voice of Mitt could also spit things out a little more clearly, given the dire circumstances. From there, things degenerate into lessons on spirituality, the nature of life and death and birth and rebirth, the meaning of the universe in a speck of dust, and so on and so forth, often repeated in various forms to make sure the reader Gets It and sees the Profound Meaning the author is driving at with the subtlety of a charging sperm whale. The climax drags out to excruciating lengths (seriously, if you have trigger issues about claustrophobia or bodily injury and mutilation, this is not the story for you), and the conclusion is in no hurry to conclude. It darned near lost another half-star by then. That said, there are moments of profundity and glimmers of beauty and wonder now and again. It's clear the author has a deep love for the ocean and diving and the wonders beneath the waves. It was just far too slow, too gory, and too steeped in heavy-handed spirituality for me to really enjoy it.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Adventurer's Son (Roman Dial) - My Review
Into the Drowning Deep (Mira Grant) - My Review
We Shall Sing a Song into the Deep (Andrew Kelly Stewart) - My Review
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