BBAW 2009, Day 1

So, I'm a little late getting started. My family was in town visiting last week and I neglected all my usual bloggy reading till this morning. The Book Blogger Appreciation Week site has asked: What book blogs mean something to you? Who are your most trusted sources for recommendations, your greatest help, the blogger you turn to for a laugh or to vent? Whose writing do you admire or who introduced you to a whole new genre you didn’t know about? We want to hear all about them... because we want to know them too! Please share about the blogs we haven’t had a chance to meet via BBAW and let the party begin!

I haven't looked too closely at the shortlists for the awards, but I'm especially fond of The Literate Housewife, Devourer or Books, Presenting Lenore, and The Book Lady's Blog for their reviews and their tangents. I've especially enjoyed The Book Lady's tales of bookselling, though I don't think she's posted any recently (nudge, nudge). And though I've only just recently learned about her blog, I'm really enjoying Angieville.

Catching Fire (The Hunger Games #2) by Suzanne Collins

I think I convinced three people in the store to read The Hunger Games when I went in to pick up my copy of Catching Fire, which had been sitting behind the counter with my name on it for a week, waiting for September 1. (I declared I would read Catching Fire twice before my family arrives for a week-long visit this weekend--because that's how much this story gets into your head.)

Like Amy at My Friend Amy, I'm not sure how to review this without spoilers, so I'm just going give my opinion, saying as little as possible about the plot.

Better than The Hunger Games? Maybe not--but it's every bit as good. My inner teen self thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I totally let her take over during this reading, just like I did with my first reading of The Hunger Games. (My adult self hasn't really read Catching Fire yet.)

I love Katniss's feistiness--at the end of one chapter, I laughed and laughed and declared her--out loud--"cheeky" for the stunt she'd just pulled, though "cheeky" was a really mild word for the occasion. You'll know which part when you get to it.

I wish Peeta had been a little more rounded out. Yes, we know he loves Katniss and that his life would be miserable for the remainder if she died or something, but I want to know about his home, his parents--how what he said about his father in The Hunger Games affected his parents' lives at home.

Likewise, I'd like to chime in on the whole Team Gale/Team Peeta thing, but I don't feel like I can form an opinion without knowing Gale better--which I really hope happens in the third book. I totally expected it in this one, and it doesn't happen. (That's not much of a spoiler, really. I promise.)

Also, I was surprised by a lot more of the plot twists in this book. Yes, a lot of it is still predictable, but there were things I really was not expecting. Argh. I want to talk about this with someone, but no one I know here is reading it. I guess I'll have to wait for The Literary League's online book club discussion.

So, how long do we have to wait for the third (and final?) installment?*


*It should be noted that I do feel that the third book may be treading some dangerous ground; I'm not sure whether I'm going to like the end of this trilogy--though my not liking it would not necessarily indicate a bad ending.

Unforgettable: The Stone Fey by Robin McKinley

I bought The Stone Fey because it was written by Robin McKinley. I'd never heard of it, I had no idea she had written this picture book, but I was very excited to take it home and read it.

The Stone Fey was soooo not what I was expecting. First, it's not a kid's book. (Well, it is labeled as ages 9+.) I think the story and the characters are too complicated for a lot of kids.

The story, as I remember, follows a young woman who meets a stone fey on the mountain, who keeps going back to the mountain to be with the fey. She very nearly gives up everything normal about her life because of her obsessive need to be with him.

I didn't like this book at first, mostly because I wasn't expecting anything like it. But this is the kind of book that settles into your soul and nests there, and every now and then, some aspect of your life will line up unexpectedly with something from this book, and you will feel a kind of enchantment.

Book Blogger Appreciation Week 2009--and Muse Book Reviews was nominated!

Even though I've been really lax about updating my blog and keeping up with all the blogs in my reader (last week I finally sat down and went through over 1200 posts), I'm really excited about the upcoming Book Blogger Appreciation Week.

And imagine how surprised I was to find an e-mail in my inbox last Thursday informing me that Muse Book Reviews has been nominated for the BBAW award for Most Eclectic Blog!

Many thanks to the person(s) who nominated me. And thanks to Amy of My Friend Amy and all the volunteers who are going to make this year's BBAW even more amazing than last year's!

I also see, going through all those posts, that I missed the BBAW meme posted a couple weeks ago. So, here's that:

1) What was the highlight (something that happened, a post, an activity, etc.) of BBAW for you last year?

Last year, I had no idea there were so many book blogs out there, so what I mostly remember was being completely enchanted by all the other blogs.

2) What is one new blog you discovered during BBAW last year?

Oh, gracious. After BBAW last year, I had over 300 book blogs in my reader. I don't remember which ones I found during BBAW, but if I put a list on the wall and threw a dart, I'd bet that the one my dart hit would be one of them.

3) What tips would you share to help others get the most out of their BBAW experience?

Don't make any other plans for BBAW. You're going to be glued to your computer all week.

Nothing But Ghosts by Beth Kephart

Beth Kephart's writing has an elegance I envy. Graceful, lyrical and defiantly simple, her command of language is evident in her blog as well as her books. Well, I'm assuming it's evident in her other books; I'm a little embarrassed to admit that though I've been meaning to read Kephart's books since I found her blog, it took My Friend Amy's drive to get me to the bookstore to order it.

In Nothing But Ghosts, narrator Katie has lost her mom to cancer and is trying to cope by taking a summer job for the reclusive old lady down the street, whose life becomes a mystery for Katie to figure out. Why did Miss Martine disappear? And when? How is it possible that no one has seen her in all those years?

The characters are so delightful I couldn't get enough of any of them--I wish the book had been longer so that I could have spent more time with them. Actually, come to think of it, the characters were almost too perfect. Katie's father, an art restorer, has infinite trust and patience with his daughter; his only flaw seems to be that he loses track of time and gets lost in his work and stays up all hours. And who doesn't love the fashion plate librarian, who's another mystery in Katie's life?

Seriously, I want more. (In the best sense of wanting more.)

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I asked my library to bring The Hunger Games in, so they put it on the purchase request list (which doesn't guarantee they'll get it in) and said if they got it, I'd be the first on the waiting list. But I couldn't wait. I bought this book last weekend because so many book bloggers were so excited about the sequel being released in September.

I read The Hunger Games immediately, in a matter of hours (split up by grown-up things I had to do). And then I reread the end.

I tried to move onto another book a couple days later, but I just couldn't. My head was still stuck in The Hunger Games. So I read it again. (My husband thought this was very odd bevahior.)

On the second reading, I noticed a few errors (copy editing) that I didn't notice the first time through. For those who don't know, I almost always spot these mistakes the first time through. That I didn't notice a single one should tell you how engrossed I was in this story.

This book is Survivor meets the Roman Colloseum, and it has the feel of The Long Walk by Richard Bachman (Stephen King) with a teenage love triangle. Seriously, how can you go wrong?

Now I'm one of the people eagerly awaiting Catching Fire, which you can pre-order at your favorite bookstore.

If you are also eagerly awaiting the sequel, you should bounce over to BookWorming in the 21st Century and enter her Catching Fire giveaway.

Did I mention this is the best book I've read this year?

Harry Potter Reading Challenge!

I have decided that it's time to do my first reading challenge.

Galleysmith is hosting a Harry Potter reading challenge. The goal: to read (or re-read) the whole Harry Potter series by the end of next July. This actually works out well for me, because I was going to re-read them all anyway. Well, I was going to start with Goblet of Fire, but I can do the whole series. Maybe my husband and I will make these our next read-to-mes. (He's only read the first one.)

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

I put this book on my wishlist when it was first released, years ago, but I didn't seek it out when I went book shopping or to the library (although a couple times I saw it in the reserved stack behind the desk). When I saw that it was being made into a movie, though, I thought, "I really want to read that before I see the movie." And then I found it at a garage sale the weekend after I saw the movie commercial. Clearly, I was meant to read this book!

I liked My Sister's Keeper quite a bit. I've never read Picoult before, and though she's been recommended often enough, I just kept not getting around to her. I'm not running out to read more of her books immediately, but I will, I'm sure.

Picoult tells the story of a family experiencing the slow death of their daughter/sister from leukemia, and she tells it from everyone's angle--except Kate's, the dying girl's. Pleasant surprise: this multi-directional approach works really well. No one person gets more sympathy than another; Picoult (probably with the help of her editorial team) manages to walk a fine line and keep everything balanced. And I really liked all of the characters; they were just unfortunate people thrown into a no-win situation and trying to deal with it the best way they could figure out how to.

However, I was a little skeptical of the gratuitous sub-plot romance thrown in between the lawyer and the court-appointee watching out for Anna's welfare. Anna is the youngest in the family, the one who was conceived to be a genetic match so that they could use her umbilical stem cells to try to force Kate's cancer into remission.

Even though I made a point of reading the book before seeing the movie, once I was finished with the book, I had no intention of actually seeing the movie; the ending of the book didn't work for me at all. But I see on Picoult's site that the movie's ending is different from the book's, so maybe I'll see it after all.

Still here...

Hi, everyone. I'm still here, really! We've been taking the move slowly, because--well, because we can. We have till the end of July to be out of our apartment. So even though we've been sleeping in the house, and are 85% moved in (which is not the same as unpacked), there are still things in the apartment, and we still have cleaning to do. I'm completely confused about where to put things in the kitchen. It's a bigger kitchen than the apartment had, but I'm not used to having drawers instead of shelves and I'm not sure where to stash all my kitchen stuff. The good news is that most of it will be at hand no matter where I decide to put it, so it's not as big a deal as I'm making it.

And we have a kitten who doesn't understand boundaries yet. Or what skin is. Or why I shriek when she climbs my leg. (And she keeps coming back to do it again, even after I've removed and scolded her.) I really have to get a squirt bottle so I can nail her with a splash of water next time she takes a running leap at my bare shoulder.

And Blogger is being weird about letting me upload pictures, so even though I've got a few reviews on the go, I can't upload the cover pictures. I suspect this isn't Blogger so much as a Firefox add-on conflict. I'm working on resolving it. Be patient--reviews for Tattoo Machine and My Sister's Keeper are forthcoming!

Tattoo Machine by Jeff Johnson

When I got my tattoo, it was a last-minute thing. My friend had decided it was the night to get her tattoo, and she'd done a little bit of research but hadn't made an appointment, so we walked into what she was assured was one of the better tattoo parlors in the city. Lots of flash on the wall, and binders full of it. (Flash is the paper typically tacked up all over tattoo parlor walls, a display of what the tattoo artists can do or have done; it also serves as idea fodder.) We ended up waiting five hours because there was only one artist working (which we found odd for a Friday night) and he was coloring in a huge tattoo on a woman's back; we both thought that if we left, we might make excuses not to come back. And boy, were there a lot of interesting people wandering in and out of that place. The girl doing the piercing that night was plenty busy.

Jeff Johnson's book Tattoo Machine, a collection of memories and analysis of the tattoo business (past, present and future), was an interesting book to spend a few hours with. Johnson co-owns a successful tattoo shop in Portland, Oregon. His stories are sad and funny and infuriating--and one story about the guy who wanted a banner with a name and number in it creeped me out. It seems obvious through his style that Johnson spent some time learning the craft of writing stories. He probably worked especially hard on his voice; I wouldn't be at all surprised if the persona he presents in the book is the persona the people who visit his shop see.

He does take off on tangents every now and then, rants that I would've recommended removing. But mostly he tells stories, and he does it well.

Anyone who has even the slightest interest in what goes on behind the scenes in a tattoo shop should read this. As you can imagine, he runs into all sorts of people--and he spares no one.

Read to Me: The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx

My husband and I met because we love books, reading and good writing. For a long time, we had a long-distance (4000+ miles) relationship, and we'd talk about the things we wanted to do when we were finally able to be together every day. Reading to each other was at the top of the list, and now that we've been married for over a year, we've decided to make reading to each other a nightly routine.

Our first book was The Shipping News, a book my beloved husband R. had told me I had to read, so I'd picked up a copy at Grounds for Thought (my favorite used bookstore/coffeeshop in Ohio) and it had been in my TBR pile ever since.

I know that the experience of reading it myself would have been quite different; I probably would've sorted out the characters much sooner. I would've had different voices for them in my head--and because R. spent some time working with a bunch of Newfies, he was able to give accents where appropriate.

I can't say I'm crazy about the end of the book; it seems too abrupt, too much like the author was meeting a deadline and thought, "Well, I'll just tack this scene on and that can be the end." But I loved everything leading up to it--the characters are wonderful and fun-- and the beginning of nearly every chapter starts with a knot from The Ashley Book of Knots. I do recommend reading The Shipping News*, if you haven't already.

And if you can get someone to read to you with the accents, I highly recommend letting it be read to you.



*I watched the movie once, but remember nothing about it. Husband swears it's nothing like the book.

Argh! A book I would have liked to finish: The O. Henry Prize Stories 2008

A couple weeks ago, hubby & I took a road trip to Nanaimo to see Ezra Levant speak. In preparation for the road trip (which would include ferry rides), I made a trip to the library to get some audiobooks and walked out with two short story collections and a teen book, too. Damosel I finished. The O. Henry Prize Stories 2008, I got halfway through--and I want to finish it. But I can't right now. Severance by Robert Oren Butler didn't even get opened (even though that book is on both hubby's & my Powell's wish lists).

But I've finally been granted permanent residency in Canada, we're buying a house (we looked at about 20 houses), and next month we'll be moving, and life has just been kinda crazy. You know how it gets. We're back to having little paths through the apartment to be able to get from room to room, and I want to start packing NOW.

At least I know the library has these, and as long as no one checks them out and then fails to return them, I know they'll be there. And now that I've had to return them (for some reason--maybe because they were on the "NEW" shelf--I couldn't renew them), I'll go back to reading the ARC's publishers have been kind enough to send.

Damosel by Stephanie Spinner

Damosel is a retelling of Arthurian legend for teens from the point of view of the Lady of the Lake and Twixt, a dwarf in Camelot.

I think I tend to think of myself as more of a fan of Arthurian legend than I really am. I liked The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley a lot, which I read at the recommendation of one of my English teachers. I've read I Am Morgan Le Fay by Nancy Springer, The Last Enchantment by Mary Stewart, "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and at least a little bit of Le Morte d'Arthur.

I liked, in this telling of the legend, that Damosel was really a distant observer to all the happenings. She learns most of her news from others--her cousin Nimue, Merlin, and a few other characters she connects with along the way--and prefers to stay away from mortal goings on when possible, which is true to classic portrayals of the Lady of the Lake.

I think I could have done without Twixt, but he did provide a certain kind of balance, a view of life in Camelot. He, too, is mostly an observer, so he doesn't do much; things just happen around him and sometimes draw him in. And without Twixt's complementing stories, Damosel's might have become deadly dull.

Damosel is definitely a book I would have had on my classroom shelf for those students interested in Arthurian tales, and those interested few (the girls especially) probably would have liked it. To an adult, the story will likely lack depth of character and a satsfying level of complexity. (Mostly, this book reminds me that I have yet to read The Once & Future King.)

Brain Injury Survivor's Guide by Larry & Beth Jameson

First, June is Brain Injury Awareness Month here in Canada. (In the US, it's March.) If anyone in your family rides a bike or skateboards or any of those other activities that can involve nasty spills, I'd like to encourage you to make sure that you & your kids wear helmets that are up-to-date and fit properly. (And don't be one of those parents who tells their kids to wear a helmet to ride a bike but doesn't wear one him-/herself.)

Now, about the book:

Beth Jameson suffered a brain injury nearly twenty years ago, caused by an anoxic stroke, and with her husband's love and support, she has created a new life for her brain-injured self, and together they have created Brain Injury Survivor's Guide as a manual for other brain-injury survivors and their families.

I'm not part of their audience, despite having married a man who suffered a brain injury nine years ago. This book is really for people who have recently suffered ABI (acquired brain injury) and their families. The Jamesons detail major parts of Beth's recovery and the strategies they implemented (including lists of schedules and how-to's for daily tasks like applying make-up) to help Beth be as functional as possible. They also include a list of resources in the last chapters.

They don't dwell on things like health care insurance battles, though they do mention them, and this is not a book filled with self-pitying tales. Beth fought for all the ground she's gained, and they're proud of it--and they want readers to know that doctors know surprisingly little about brain injury and what can be accomplished and/or relearned after a person suffers such an injury.

Despite some editorial flaws, this seems to me a book that should be handed out to family members of the brain-injured in hospitals, to start preparing them for what may lie ahead. Even though no two brain injuries are the same, and the methods employed by the Jamesons won't necessarily be useful for everyone in the target audience, it will still provide an initial layer of support and community that they will find helpful.

Larry and Beth maintain a useful website, About Brain Injury and Beth keeps Beth's Brain Injury Blog.

Random Complexity Writing Challenge (May)

I made it! Thanks to Laurie Halse Anderson's prompt, I found myself writing a page and a half about a robin egg in a garden. That was 1009 words. Not to mention my other writings of the month--by now, you know I don't keep track of all the word counts.

And because I've never shared, I'll share one paragraph of what I wrote based on that prompt:

L. doubted that even a soul looked as beautiful as that bright blue egg almost crushed by her knee. She took off her glove and picked it up. A piece was missing out of the other side; a little beak peeked through. L. held it egg carefully in her palm, exposing the hole to the sun, willing the beak to keep forcing its way through. With her nail, she picked another little piece off. And another. And another, till she had the dead baby bird half exposed. It could have been out here for days; she wouldn’t have noticed it. But no, the ants would have dismantled it by now, used it to feed their gigantic family.

I feel a little self-conscious about sharing any more; it's been ages since I've even contributed to 100 Words.

When Women Were Warriors: The Warrior's Path by Catherine M. Wilson

When Catherine Wilson queried me about writing a book review for the first book in her When Women Were Warriors trilogy, I naturally went to check out her site. And I almost said no because in my experience, self-published fiction tends to be the result of delusions of grandeur. But after I read the excerpt on her site, I decided to give it a try.

I'm glad I did. Wilson's book was intended to be the first part of an epic book, but when she decided to self-publish, she decided (considering advice from an editor and friends) to publish it as a trilogy instead. The Warrior's Path follows a young woman who's desire is to become a warrior, like her mother before her. In order to do this, she must find a warrior in the Lady's service who will apprentice her, but she's a small woman, a trait not treasured in the warrior mind. The Lady assigns her as a companion to a warrior who is a stranger to the realm and is tasked with learning more about her.

I like Wilson's style, despite a little repetitiveness. Story-telling plays a pretty major role in the story, and I'm certain that this probably remains the case throughout the rest of the trilogy, which appeals me. You know how much I like story-telling in books. I love that all the stories, instead of "Once upon a time," start, "In ancient days, when only women were warriors..."

The setting is well-developed, but the characters fell short of my expectations. I would have liked more conflict, internal and external; even at the end of book one, I don't have a deep sense of most of the characters. And the lack of men in the story (the few in the book are peripheral characters) threw a balance off; I'm curious as to whether this will be remedied in the next two installments.

If Wilson had published her story as one long book, I would certainly have kept reading; I'm not sure, though, whether I will go about the process of getting the next two books (as I already have 30 books to read before the summer's out--and that's just by the end of summer). Though I mostly enjoyed this first in the trilogy, I'm afraid many of her readers will feel the same: I really wish this had been one book.

Unforgettable: Aurian by Maggie Furey

I picked Aurian up at a garage sale when I was in college. I figured it looked like a great summer read--and I'm glad to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. I've re-read it several times since, and even when you know exactly what's going to happen, it's still a wonderful story.

And you'll be familiar with the basic plot--girl discovers that she has wondrous powers and abilities (not a surprise, since both her parents are mages), is trained in physical combat (because a girl can't rely on magic to get her out of every scrape), and of course get wrapped up in a twisted kind of love/lust triangle. And amongst the hierarchy and class struggles between the mages and the non-magical people (who I really want to call muggles), Aurian saves the city and then has to flee because she upset the grand plan of the head mage--and all that in the first third of the book.

When I finished Aurian the first time, I was completely dismayed to find I'd hooked myself on yet another trilogy. So I ordered the next two books (and found that there was actually a fourth book about to be released).

Unfortunately, I found the rest of the books to be less enjoyable. It felt like it should've been a whole saga, but instead it was forced into four books. (The last one, especially, the story felt crammed between the covers.)

Still, I find myself wanting to reread Aurian, even knowing that the books to follow can't live up to what I want them to be. And maybe next time I'll just be able to call it quits after reading just the first book in the trilogy+1.

Surrey International Writers Conference Young Writer Scholarship

This is for all teen writers--

The Surrey International Writing Conference is an international phenomenon that draws all levels and ages of writers to Vancouver, BC. Editor Lisa Rector has graciously sponsored a full scholarship for a teen writer to attend. Here are the details Lisa sent me; eventually, this will be posted on the SIWC site, too.

The 2^nd Annual Lisa Rector Young Writers Scholarship

Postmark Deadline: July 30, 2009.

1st place, SIWC Full Scholarship,2009.
2nd place, critique by a Literary Agent
3rd place, critique by an Editor or Writer

The winner will be invited to attend the Surrey International Writers’ Conference October 23-25, 2009 in Surrey, Canada. 3-day conference pass includes entry to an awards banquet announcing the winner and a consult with a participating a

gent or editor attending this year’s conference. Scholarship does not includemeals, travel or accommodation.

Students between the ages of 12-18, currently enrolled in a junior high, senior high or college program, are eligible to enter. Contest is open to Canadian, US and Worldwide residents.

Submission guidelines

Please include:

1. An original, unpublished work of less than 1000 words, typed and double-spaced in 12-point Courier or Times New Roman font. Each page of the work should be titled but should not contain any information about the author. Work that previously appeared in school publications is eligible.

2. A cover letter with the author’s contact information, the title of their submission and a paragraph outlining the student's goals as a writer.

3. A letter of recommendation from an instructor in the current or previous academic year.

Submit entries to the following address:

Lisa Rector

c/o Young Writers Scholarship
95 Horatio Street., Suite 9M
New York, NY 10014 USA.

MS Word attachments are also accepted via email to: lisa@thirddraftnyc.com. Emailed submissions must adhere to the above rules and must be received by midnight on the postmarked deadline of July 30, 2009 in order to qualify. A confirmation email will be sent to the applicant once their submission has been received.

Entries may be made in any of the following genres: fiction, poetry, personal essay or memoir. One entry per applicant.

Important dates

Application Deadline: July 30, 2009
Finalists Announced September 5, 2009
Scholarship Awarded October 23-25, 2009

Finalists are responsible for their own meals, accommodation and travel to and from the conference.

For further information, please contact Lisa Rector at lisa@thirddraftnyc.com

____________________________________________________________________

Adults intereseted in similar contests can find last year's guidelines on the SIWC contest page; this year's should be posted relatively soon (I think.)

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane approaches a familiar period in history--the Salem witch trials--with a different slant: What if there really were witches in Salem?

Howe has clearly done a lot of research to write this book, and the way it's presented (through the perspective of a history grad student about to embark on her dissertation) may grate on the nerves of some readers, but for this reader (who's been missing grad school), it's geekishly satisfying.

Unfortunately, the story affords no surprises. Everything is heavily foreshadowed, the characters are all stock and the writing occasionally feels a little graceless; some scenes are filler, unoriginal or poorly executed (especially compared to the writing Howe proves elsewhere in the story she is capable of offering).

I do appreciate the ease with which Howe's story flows between the historical periods and the modern (1991) setting. And did I mention that I really admire not only the amount of research Howe must have done, but also that a research process is incorporated into the story? (I am such a geek.)

Bottom line: I enjoyed this book, but not as much as I'd anticipated.


The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane will be available June 2009.

Complexity of Night Writing Challenge Update (April)

Okay. So I confess--I have no idea how much I wrote last month, because it was all so fragmented, but I seriously doubt that those fragments come anywhere near the 1000 word goal. I am disgusted that I somehow failed to write 1000 words. I mean, yes, we were house-sitting and pet-sitting. Yes, there was some tax drama (which turned out to be completely unnecessary). But I'm still looking for all my April writing files, hoping that maybe I did actually make the goal. You know, I just save everything to the documents file, so I can't just open the April file in Documents and check word counts. I'll keep looking. But I'm pretty sure I didn't make it.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (book group)

On Saturday afternoon, I found out that our book group was on Sunday, so I spent all Sunday breezing through the pick of the month: Water for Elephants. It's not a book I would have picked up for my own reading, in spite of so many reviews. I didn't want to read about the abuses of circus life, of which I knew there were many.

I'm happy to report that it wasn't hard to read in one day. It's not a book I'm highly recommending, though I'm certainly not discouraging anyone from reading it either. There are characters you want to sock, characters you want to shake, characters you want to hug--characters you're glad to see get what they had coming to them and characters whose fates are really hard to swallow. If we had any problems with any of the characters, it would be that Marlena fell a little flat; she remained an idealized woman throughout, and even though she was a hard worker and a tough cookie, we would have liked more dimension to her.

The setting was thoroughly researched and well-written, and even if the ending was too far-fetched for me, Gruen's novel deserves its praises.

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

A Reliable Wife is a fast book. Reading it in two days was a breeze.

That said, I'm not sure how I feel about it. Mostly, I thought it was great. Except for one thing: I felt lied to. What should have been a plot twist caused, instead of surprise, a confusing re-evaluation of narrator and character. And in fact, the twist wasn't particularly surprising; I'd suspected it at first but disregarded it because based on the character's thoughts and plans, it didn't make sense.

Isn't there a rule about omniscient narrators? Aren't they supposed to tell it like it is? Omitting details may be one of a writer's suspense-building tools, but completely misrepresenting a character's thoughts, plans or schemes seems like bad form to me. (My husband thinks this has to do with the betrayal theme; I told him omniscient narrators don't get to do that.)

That pretty much deteriorated the rest of the book for me; I felt a little less invested in the characters thereafter (and a little annoyed with their sexual obsessions), and though the plot was intense enough to keep me glued till the end, and the small details were seldom tedious, and overall, the writing was fantastic, I couldn't shake the oily feel of the author's trick--and if it weren't for that, I would be singing its praises hither and yon.

But isn't the Canadian cover (left) lovely?


Thanks to HarperCollins Canada for the review copy.

Sweet Hearts by Melanie Rae Thon

There's no way out of this story.
It must be told and told.
How can we know ourselves without it?
--Chapter 52

So I signed, My mother is drowning. Agnes did not correct me. She understood: some things happen in present time forever.
--Chapter 31

Melanie Rae Thon is an author I've enjoyed before--I absolutely adored Iona Moon--but her stories and characters are slippery sorts, just out of reach of feeling a bond to them.

In Sweet Hearts the deaf narrator, the renegade children's aunt, induces this sense of a just-missed connection; she is ever hovering at the edge of the story herself, and she keeps her audience firmly at her side, never letting us get too close, even when she seems to address us. Also, we can never be entirely sure if the story she tells us is as she imagines events, or whether she has a sixth-sense (omnipotency, in this case) to make up for her lack of hearing.

At first, it seems as though this is a story about two kids who go on an assault and robbery spree, and about their relationship with their mom and, to a lesser degree, their step-dad. But then the story devolves into a family history of disconnected mothers, and equally into a narrative to the children's mother who won't listen, and so you take her place by default, a surrogate listener.

You might think detachment from the story wouldn't work, but Thon has a terrific sense of words. Her craft is finely honed, her language often memorable, if not outright lyrical. And even though you feel detached, your compassion for every single character is evoked and your need to blame someone is nullified.

When you came home after dark, Mother didn't scold because she never knew you were missing. But I knew. You came to my room, Frances, white blouse torn, legs and arms scraped by brambles. Dried blood pearled along a hundred tiny cuts. And this was the beginning, a glimpse of our future. You had learned the first and most valuable lesson of our new lives together: if you ditched your bike by the road, nobody would notice; if you ran down by the river where the rosehip briars grew thick and tangled, nobody would look for you; if the thorns cut your arms and legs, if the snagged your clothes and ripped, if they scratched your face, you could yell into the night and nobody, nobody would hear you.
--Chapter 20

If you liked Poppy Adams's The Sister or if you enjoy Robin McKinley's writing style, you may want to add Melanie Rae Thon to your list of authors to look up; Thon's style has a similar story-tellingness to it. On the other hand, if you prefer page-turners with hyper-intense plots and have no patience for slower, meticulously crafted stories, skip it.

Attention writers:

I'd like to know what would entice you (or has enticed you) to attend writing festivals/conferences, near or far. Here's the situation: I'm on the board of a writing festival. We hope to grow our festival, but we're not sure how to make it more appealing to writers outside our community (or even within our community, since as I figure it, fewer than 2% of the writers in the area attend our spring or fall festivals).

So--What would you be interested in hearing presentations about? What kinds of speakers would you want/expect? What would make a trip to the coast of BC worthwhile? And what would make you turn tail and never revisit the idea of attending?

This is our festival's website, if you want to make specific suggestions. (Please do!)

Rubies in the Orchard by Lynda Resnick with Francis Wilkinson

Sadly, I can't recommend Rubies in the Orchard to readers (unless they're really interested in POM Wonderful, Resnick's personal Camelot company). This book should have been more engaging. Maybe if Resnick had been as emphatic as she tells us she is with her products, she wouldn't have let so much mediocre writing slip by. Or maybe Wilkinson wasn't the right "with" guy for the job--excellent book writing is far different from newspaper or magazine writing.

Throughout the book, I got the feeling Resnick dictated, with little revision between dictation and printing. Resnick creates a sense of talking to a student-reader, which another blog reviewer calls a condescending tone, but I think the tone Resnick strove for is one of assertion; Resnick has a lot of experience and wants you to benefit from her hard-earned wisdom. Of course, if statements like, "Believe me, I know," had been stripped from drafts, some of that perceived condescension might have been mitigated.

Resnick's use of truisms and statistical yet unquantified generalities ("A number of geologists" is referred to on page 173) further undermines her authority. And for someone who declares a high level of eco-awareness, I found it hard to comprehend so many pages wasted on lauding the book, praises most people won't read--poor trees! (Myself, I tend to veer away from books with so much space utilized for curried praise, usually a precursor to my disappointment.)

There are times when the book feels like "a celebration of Me and My accomplishments," learning from"My mistakes"--all so very Mr. Rogers.

And it's not that the book is awful--it's not. It's just that the reader has to work a little too hard to stay interested from point A to point B to point C. Mostly, Resnick seems not to have fully realized what she wanted this book to be--a book about marketing or a marketing memoir.* It would have been better if she had gone with one or the other. Instead, she straddles the two options, which results in a list-style of writing. Clearly she had some parts that would have benefited from a better narrative approach.

I love the cover, and some of the stories she has to tell are interesting. But those may be the best compliments I have for Rubies in the Orchard (which is really too bad, because I eagerly approached this reading).


*And then there are the textbook-style boxes highlighting her key points.

Thanks to Molly Peters at POM Wonderful for sending me this review copy.

Oonagh by Mary Tilberg

This is one of those books that's hard to review because you want readers to experience the book--called an "act of narrative resurrection" by another reviewer--without knowing too much in advance.

The origin of this book is as fascinating as the book itself: Tilberg was reading Susanna Moodie's Roughing It in the Bush, and a tiny bit of paragraph kindled an idea. Moodie mentioned the shivaree of a black man (a barber, an escaped slave from America) and his white wife, a pretty Irish girl he'd "persuaded to marry him." Moodie said nothing else about this couple in the book, just a few sentences on a page, but they rooted in Tilberg's imagination; she had to know more.

Tilberg sought out the remnants of the Underground Railroad. She scoured newspapers for mentions of this strange couple. From a scrap--a barber's ad--and her wider research of their likely histories, Tilberg has created a love story spliced from Chauncey's escape and survival and Oonagh's emigration from Ireland just before the cholera epidemic in the early 1830's.

The book has left me feeling sad; I wasn't prepared to be done with Chauncey and Oonagh, yet. I wanted to know Oonagh's family better; I wanted to know more about her sisters and brother who didn't come to Canada. Mostly, though, I wanted there to be more to Oonagh and Chauncey's story.

My only two (tiny) complaints:

1. Oonagh's apparent selective obliviousness to the extent of racial tensions in the town defied belief at times.
   
2. The last chapter felt more like a history lesson and less like part of the narrative that had been flowing so smoothly before. I would have liked one more chapter before the last one to act as a bridge to the future, more mature Oonagh's mindset; I wasn't ready to be there yet when I arrived at the 30-year-jump.

Though my immigration experience to Canada has been very different from Oonagh's, her dreams and desires and emotions are universal. Even people who have never gone far from home and family will ache and laugh, celebrate and mourn with her.








I haven't yet read Galway Bay, but I'd expect that those who enjoyed it would also be well advised to add Oonagh to their wish list, though the only common thread may be the Irish immigrant narrators and readers' love of thoroughly researched, well written historical fiction.


Many thanks to Cormorant for sending a review copy.

Complexity of Night Writing Challenge Update (March)

So.

It's been a weird month. I got my required word count in early this month, when I tried to turn a dream I had into a story. It's too steamy for me to actually share any of it with you; sorry to disappoint.

Then I did a lot of writing by hand in my beloved Moleskine at the local writers festival last weekend--probably about 500 words, which is a lot, considering that the festival doesn't really allow time to write, which meant I was writing while our presenters were talking. Normally, I walk away from writers festival day feeling motivated to write; this year, I felt oddly disconnected. Maybe a lot of it was because I'd done so little for it this year (I'm on the board), seeing as how I was sick with a strain of virus notorious for relapses, and I hadn't wanted to commit to do anything while I was still running at half-speed and in danger of getting sick again (or passing it on).

So, total word count for the month? Roughly 2000 words.

And a question for all you writers: When you're looking for a writers festival/conference to attend, what are the things that motivate you to go out of your way to attend?

Water Ghosts by Shawna Yang Ryan

Yes, Water Ghosts is as haunting as its title suggests.

The characters are haunted by their lives, by old expectations. Mostly, though, they are haunted by the spectre of love--what they want it to be, how they wish it were different, what could have been if.... The characters are subject to, more than anything else in their lives, love's morphability, its capricious nature, its temperaments, and all the other feelings that come with it (or its absence): power, longing, protectiveness, desperation, jealousy.

The people in Locke, California, a town of Japanese and Chinese immigrants, are settled (read: resigned) into their lives before the three women arrive in their strange little boat, appearing out of a surreal mist during a town celebration. But the boat-women upset a balance. In a town of men looking for wives, where men significantly outnumber the women, two of the strange women are courted by every free man (and probably a couple who aren't really free) in town.

One of the strange boat-women is the wife of one of the more successful men in town, the manager of a gambling hall; she was left behind when he came seeking fortune in America, and afraid she had been abandoned, she risked everything she had to be with him. One woman is searching for her husband, who she hadn't heard from for months before she left. One woman, the youngest, seems to have no story at all.

Poppy, a brothel madame who has long been in love with the gambling hall manager and who has a gift of second sight, is disturbed by the presence of the women; there is something not right about the ever-cold, almost luminescent survivors of the sea.

In spite of their arrival putting town order into disarray, though, the women themselves remain on the outskirts of the stories that had been in motion before their arrival. But it is the boat-women who effect the characters' decisions, their courses of action, the reinvention of their lives, in the end.

With clear, unpretentious prose, the stories come together in the end like an unexpectedly high, intense wave rushing onto the shore. I was left breathless by the last fifty pages of this book.

Ryan has crafted a fantastic collection of lives and illusion, and I'll be adding her to my list of authors to watch.

Water Ghosts will be released April 16.


Many thanks to Penguin Press for sending me an ARC of Water Ghosts, and for choosing to, as Ryan puts it, give this book a second life. And to El Leon Literary Arts for publishing it the first time around. I'm ever so glad you did.

The Engine's Child by Holly Phillips

It’s been a while since I’ve read a fantasy, so I was jonesin’, and The Engine’s Child seemed like a good bet. Awards. Praise. All that.*

That praise is well deserved. Holly Phillips creates a remarkably intricate society and land. Their society is at a breaking point; revolution stirs.

Our cast of characters includes: Moth, a slum orphan who's been sponsored into the world of priests and scholars; Lady Vashmarna, a noblewoman who has big plans that include Moth; and Lord Ghar, a nobleman who has designs of his own.

I only have two complaints about this book. First, and most important, the world and civilization is so complex that I had a hard time getting into it: language, magic, machinery, politics, political history, religions, and so on. I had a really hard time figuring out whether the machinery was mechanical as we understand it, magical, or some combination. (It’s a combination, by the way.) Thank goodness for the glossary of terms in the back.

My second complaint is that the events were mostly expected; nothing surprised me. Normally, the lack of surprises would bother me a lot more—but the setting is that fantastic.

So, yes, I look forward to reading more of Phillips's work. And I would be neither surprised nor disappointed to hear that this is actually the first in a series.



*Except the title. I really am not crazy about the title.


Thanks to Ballantine Books for sending me a review copy!

Unforgettable: The Darkangel Trilogy by Meredith Ann Pierce

As you can see, these books have been re-released with new covers (above), which are very different from the covers of the books I bought ten years ago (below).

These books are definitely intended for at least a junior high audience. Still, that didn't stop me from checking The Darkangel out of the school library when I was in third grade. I loved the summary on the back and was determined to read it. Unfortunately, my reading skills weren't quite up to the challenge of reading this fantasy book written for kids much older than me. So I reluctantly returned it to the library, having only read maybe twenty pages; I returned it early in the morning when the librarian wasn't in the library yet so that I wouldn't have to admit to her that she had been right, that it was a little too old for me.

But I certainly didn't forget about. When I got to sixth grade, I went back to the library in search of it. It wasn't there. I figured it must've been one of the books the school library borrowed from the public library, but they didn't have a listing for it either. A few years later, our town library networked their catalog with those of the other libraries in northwest Ohio, and I went back to check the other libraries. I searched both Darkangel and Dark Angel. I got a few hits for the latter, but none of them were the book I sought (but I did get a hit on a VC Andrews book that I did read).

I checked library catalogs intermittently throughout high school, but never with any luck.

And then, in my junior year of college, I took an adolescent literature course. One of our last assignments was to read a book--any book--from the YA/teen section of the university library, a section I hadn't paid much attention to prior to that class. We had to talk to the class about the book, why we'd chosen it, and whether we'd use it as a class book (why/why not). A week before the book had to be read, I went browsing. I'd fallen out of touch with the world of YA books, so I wasn't sure what I'd find. I had three books in my hand--a biography, a science fiction book, and a general fiction book--when I decided to make my decision without going through the last few shelves. And that's when I glanced at the shelf, and there it was: The Darkangel by Meredith Ann Pierce.

I took Pierce's book home, and read it all that night in front of the fireplace. And the next day, I went to work (at the university bookstore) and ordered the other two books in the trilogy, feeling at once excited and silly for not realizing that it was a trilogy. (I'm drawn to trilogies, so I should just assume that every book I pick up is the beginning of a trilogy.)

I'm inclined to think that fans of Robin McKinley's YA books will also like Pierce's, even though this is a strange kind of fairy tale, in which the darkangel of the title is a kind of vampire that sucks souls instead of blood, and he has to collect thirteen souls--his brides--to take to his witch-mother in order to complete his transformation. Aerial, our heroine, is a slave to the woman he takes as his twelfth bride, and she volunteers to be his thirteenth, knowing of nothing else she could possibly be suited for.

It becomes Aeriel's mission, both in the first book and through the rest of the trilogy, to save both herself and the vampire; she knows he's not beyond redemption yet.

This is one of the trilogies on my shelf that I don't ever plan to part with.

A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder by Eric Abrahamson & David H. Freedman

I've never been an organized person, and this has never caused me more problems than it did in my first year of teaching, when I was constantly misplacing stacks of papers (graded, ungraded, not handed out yet, things to run off, etc.). After that first year though, I managed to iron out enough kinks that my classroom ran pretty smoothly. And I've never been the person who minded having a messy desk, though it drove my mom (and my super-organized sister of the eight-page wedding day itinerary) a little crazy.

I suppose, then, that it was only natural that I was drawn to A Perfect Mess, which encourages embracing (or adding) bits of disorganization in our days.

To clarify: A Perfect Mess does not encourage hoarding or complete chaos or unsanitary living conditions. Instead, Abrahamson and Freedman have researched ways in which being a little messy about how you do things can be helpful in your life (at home, in offices or science labs, etc.). The book is full of stories of how being hyperorganized can be detrimental and how serendipity tends to fall to those of us who allow ourselves room to be messy. I especially appreciated their narative illustrations, and also how often bookstores were used as examples (and I have added a new bookstore to my must-visit list).

But though they do poke fun at the billions of dollars people spend (usually futilely) trying to get organized (and this includes hiring professional organizers to come to your house to unmess it), Abrahamson and Freedman don't discourage organization. What they encourage is a happy medium. And they want people to quit apologizing for the messy states of their homes; stacks of mail on dining room tables, kids' toys on the floor, piles of to-be-filed papers on your desk--these are all perfectly normal and we shouldn't be made to feel by the hyper-organized (who are outnumbered by the rest of us, I'd like to point out) that these things make us some kind of failure.

Abrahamson and Freedman also explore messiness in other, sometimes unexpected, areas--music (did you know improvisation used to be expected in Baroque music?), computers, search engines, hospitals, law offices, machine design, traffic patterns, jaywalking, schools, and lots more. Sometimes these other areas felt like overkill, and sometimes they seemed redundant (subjects did tend to overlap between chapters here and there), but overall, this book offered a pleasing tour through various aspects of organization and mess.

I highly recommend A Perfect Mess. It would make a great counterweighted perspective to books like the forthcoming Throw Out Fifty Things (which provokes a challenge being undertaken this weekend and being documented in a series of posts over at Devourer of Books).


Many thanks to Little, Brown & Co. for the review copy!

Unforgettable: Serilda's Star by Olive Rambo Cook

My grandfather picked up this book at a garage sale or flea market when I was in fourth grade--he was always doing that; he loved having bookworm grandkids--and I loved this book so much that I'd always borrow it again the week after I returned it, drawn by the brittle yellow paper cover with the girl in a red dress leading a horse down a hill. Grandpa noticed my re-borrowing and suggested I should just keep it.

Even though I only admired horses from afar, I couldn't resist this story set in the early 1900's of a girl who loves horses and desperately wants one of her own. One day, she sees a neighbor abusing his horse and intercedes. She, of course, ends up rescuing the horse and healing its wounded leg.

Part of what I found so interesting in the book was the discussion of horse-breeding. A big deal is made in the book about Star (the horse) being a thoroughbred, but without the papers to prove her lineage, Star is regarded as just another horse (beautiful though she is). I'd never considered breeds of animals before; a dog was a dog and a horse was a horse. Like people, they came in different sizes, shapes and colors.

Twenty years later, I'm very sorry I parted with this book. I'm pretty sure I let Mom sell it at a garage sale because I felt I'd outgrown it. Silly me. I must have been nineteen or so and filled with that nearly-no-longer-a-kid mindset.

Copies do come up on Ebay every now and then, and there are copies to be had from Amazon and localized auction sites. If you have a daughter of nine or ten who loves chapter books and/or horses--up close or from afar--I'd recommend trying to get your hands on this lovely story.

Unforgettable: Matilda by Roald Dahl

I read Matilda when I was in sixth grade. I think I bought it at a book fair.

I tucked into it that night, and when I finished it the next day, I gave it to my sister (two years younger) to read. We both read it more than once. A few years later, my other sister read it for class. As she had some trouble reading, Mom often helped by reading aloud to her, and I remember when K. was reading Matilda, we took a road trip, and we all got to enjoy Mom reading Matilda out loud (I would've been 15 by then).

It takes a major talent to write books that are laugh-out-loud funny every chapter, and to make books funny for both kids and any adults who might be reading with them takes much more.

When was the last time you experienced the Trunchbull in all her horridness, with her pokey and her riding crop? Do you remember how much different the book is from the movie? Do you remember how the book ends, as opposed to how the movie ends?

And if you haven't read it, what are you waiting for? Consider this an invitation to revel with me in fits of childish giggles as Matilda befuddles the grown-ups in her life.

Weebeasts: Plight & Weebeastology by Micah Linton

I'm not usually one to review picture books for kids, but when Micah Linton asked if I'd be interested in reviewing Plight, the second book in his Weebeasts series, I had to say yes. If his books imitated the free spirit of the website, I was sure I'd enjoy them.

I wasn't disappointed. This is a beautiful book.

The story itself is simple--the Weebeasts have been bullying (and enslaving) their neighbors, and when their neighbors fight back, the Weebeasts are driven out and forced to search for another home. Along the way, they learn to engineer things and to be more self-sufficient, and just as important, they don't give up their search. In the end, they meet another creature whose help they have to take to find a home, which I assume isn't something they would have done in their old home.

At first, I wished for an individual to follow through the story, rather than following a whole group, but I realized that's something I look for as an adult; it wouldn't have bothered me as a kid not to have one main character. The quest of the group is more important than any one character.

The day after Plight arrived, I received another box--this one containing Weebeastology and a Weebeast toy.* Weebeastology contains illustrations of Weebeasts and their adventures, some from the books and some not.** I'm undecided as to whether I prefer the wordless books or the book with a story; I like the idea of making up your own story to go with Linton's illustrations.

My husband suggested I send Weebeasts to my sister and niece to enjoy, but I like the idea of having it to read to our own kids someday, so I'm going to hold onto them. And if we do have those kids, I'll be looking for the rest of the Weebeasts series to add to the kids' book collection.
At the moment, Linton has planned seven books, but may have more. Since the Weebeasts' history parallels much of humanity's, Linton says, "it will be fun to explore new paths" for their stories, and he suggests that one story will reveal how Weebeasts "evolve into elves of folklore." (I'm really looking forward to that one.)


*You can see pictures at Reading Rumpus, who received the same package--and is giving hers away.

**Unfortunately, some of the artwork in Weebeastology gets lost in the crease.


Many thanks to Micah Linton for sending me this wonderful set.

Complexity of Night Writing Challenge Update (February)

I'm at a mere 1300 words this month--the end of the month crept up on me. Again. And again, I wrote a couple of character sketches. The first was about a dancer who had been scarred in a car crash and after plastic surgery, she no longer looks like herself. The second is a little stranger. At first, it was about a young woman who's gotten a little lost in life, but now it seems that this is really more about her mother than her.

After the Fire by Robin Gaby Fisher

After the Fire is the recovery story of two college boys who were badly burned in a dormitory fire January 19, 2000.

This book must have been complicated and difficult to write, considering the subject matter, but I feel that the author tried to simplify it for her readers, which resulted in a book that read like a very long Reader's Digest story, reinforcing every positive angle (the unfalteringness of the parents' faith, burn ward staff dedication, the boys' determination, etc.) in every chapter.

Personally, I was expecting something more complex. The people portrayed in this book had very minor flaws, if any, and nearly all negativity was filtered out, which made it seem a bit less true.

So, if you like--or at least don't mind--Reader's Digest-style stories, this might be right up your alley.

College Girl by Patricia Weitz

Here's the premise of College Girl: Natalie is a college senior majoring in Russian history. She supposes she's fairly attractive. She's never had a boyfriend and is more than a little obsessed with the fact that she's a virgin. She feels like the only 20-year-old on campus who still is.

There you go. That's about it. You can probably guess what happens, but just to be clear: She hooks up with this cute guy who seems to be into her. At first. And she completely loses track of her sense of self. Not that she has much sense of self, outside of her awareness of being perceived as a studious introvert--when she thinks she's perceived at all.

I felt I should've been able to connect more with Natalie's character--my 20-year-old self and Natalie had quite a bit in common on the surface--but from the beginning, she was a character I didn't especially feel sympathy for or empathize with. Her perception of what her college experience should be is nothing I recognized of my own 20-year-old self's expectations. (In college, I never smoked anything and never got soused, and I was never especially tempted to.)

In the end, though, it comes down to this: Natalie has no confidence and does too much navel-gazing, mistaking it for reflection. The extent of her navel-gazing gets in the way of other characters' development, which results in mostly static characters throughout.

And then there's the issue of plot. There's only one. Potential sub-plots were quashed as the book progressed, and it all boiled down to the cute guy and sex, no matter how detrimental the relationship became. (The lack of plot did make this book a very quick read.)

Natalie reminds me a little bit of Bee at the end of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, after Bee has slept with the college-bound soccer guy and becomes a lost shell of a person and spends the whole second book trying to reclaim her self.

I appreciate what I think Weitz tried to create, but in the end the story comes up short. I'm sorry to say that I can't recommend this book; there are far better books to spend your time with. (Of which The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is just one.)