Pretties, Specials

This is going to be a two-in-one, because what would be the point of splitting them out? I’m glad you agree. Overall there were two things that I loved about these last two books. First was that he killed a major character. I’m going to assume that you don’t care about spoilers and proceed accordingly. I loved that ultimately Zane died. This was never meant to be about anyone other than Tally and I appreciate that he maintained the integrity of the story by not allowing it to become a love story. She doesn’t end up with David. She is cognizant of the fact that she is a really broken person and quite possibly incapable of real love. And the author allows her to remain broken, and at the same time she fully owns who she is, damaged goods and all. This leads me to the second thing I loved about the story. She chooses to stay a Special and quit being victimized.  It would be kind of awesome to be a Special and Tally isn’t ashamed to be that awesome. I kind of love books where the characters decide to embrace their own stories. That is inspirational to me, whether they embrace their own crazy hobby-turned-lifestyle or hilarious, random life, or that life is kind of messed up so you milk it for what you can. Overall it was really fun. It was good story (if a bit two dimentional) with decent writing (given the target audience), that ultimately had a few deeper themes and literary choices that made it worthwhile.

Breakfast At Tiffany’s

Now the literary snob in me can be appeased because I can say I’ve read Truman Capote. This was my choice for my turn in book club on the advice of my good friend, Jamie, who also is an English teacher and fellow snob. The consensus of my book club was that they liked Capote’s writing but couldn’t stand the main character. What the What? I didn’t get that and the more I think about it the less I get that. I love Holly Golightly. I want to stand back and look at her because she is interesting and different and broken and captivating in her own weird way. Not in a rage to become best friends with a Holly Golightly but I can appreciate her. It’s like my sister Chanel. She and her husband are both successful stylists at a very high-end salon and they both look the part. They are high fashion, (she wore beetle earings to go hiking…3 inches long an inch wide, brass beetles hanging from her ears) inaccessable and distant but beautiful. We get along well but are almost too different to really be good friends. Jamie explained it wonderfully: I love Picasso’s Guernica. I love looking at it, it is moving and poignant and emotional. But I’m not going to hang it in my living room. That’s how I feel about Holly Golightly.

I get now why Truman Capote is one of the great American authors. He is a master of Subtly and Nuance. For the most part pop culture is formulaic and straightforward. Not easy to predict but you just have to find the happy medium between “oh look! shiny and new and different” and “safe, comfortable,  known” without going into “new and different and distrubingly weird.” None of that needs or even wants subtly and nuance, but I think those two things are what make a classic. And it takes a great author to even start to do that well. Those two things allow me to make the book/movie/song what I need it to be in my head right now, but in ten years when I experience it again it can be what I need it to be at that time. Does that make sense? A classic grows with you. And that makes a classic timeless and brilliant. In Holly he created a character that speaks to a part of all of us, wether we admit it consciously or not. The part that so desparately wants to name the cat but can’t or won’t. I think most of us figure out a way to name the cat but alot of people never get there and live perpetually with the mean reds. The best part is, Capote asks you to look at this about yourself without telling you what you should do or think about it. Subtly. Nuance. I loved it.

Mirror, Mirror

Because I should be packing my kitchen.  Because I can’t take the smell of packing tape anymore. Because I’ve found yet another dead cockroach in my recently cleaned bathroom, I’m going to sit down and do one of five book reviews in my que.

This review and any review of a Gregory Maguire book must begin with this: “Gregory Maguire is dirty. Dirty, dirty dirty.” He is dirty to the point that you wonder what the point of that was. A squid? Really!? But on to the rest of the book.

I loved it. I loved that he used big words and didn’t care if I had to look them up. I loved that it was poetic enough that I had to re-read a few passages to make sure I was following the story right. I loved that he makes assertions that read as a subtle challenge, like he is forcing me to accept without question and keep reading. What? oh ok. we have dragons. no wait do we have dragons? But he is a skillful enough author that I’m not annoyed at him for doing that. I really loved that he took a very notorious family (the Borgias) from a period of time that is magical and dark and beautiful (The Italian Renaisance) and dropped a classic fairy tale right in the middle of it all. He also didn’t tell it straight. But he kept it familiar enough to be engaging on alot of different levels, nostalgia being one of them. I’m a little bit sad that the movie (at least what I can gather from the previews) will only share a title. I think this as a movie could be brilliant. It would probably have a  too limited audience appeal to ever be made into a movie but oh well. Julia Roberts as an evil queen will be pretty funny, if much more Disney-ified than Lucrezia Borgia. Also super excited to see Snow White and the Huntsman. Charlieze Theron will deffinately be the dark evil queen that I think is vital in a good Snow White re-telling. But I digress. To sum up Mirror, Mirror…READ IT!

Uglies

Where to start with this one…it’s tough because I haven’t decided if I like it yet. I can’t decide if I like the simple child-like slang because it feels familiar or feel like the author is being condescending. I can’t decide if I think the plot was unbearably predictable or very life-like (epic plot twists and turns usually do not happen in everyday life). I do respect that he took on body image and did so without being preachy and dogmatic one way or the other. Sadly, he didn’t achieve that same level of un-bias with regards to environmental issues. I mean he had a point about a society that destroyed nature and that being less than ideal, but I felt like he was one chained-to-a-tree hippie away from an environmentalist commercial. The vapid shallowness of the pretties was well done because it was in so many ways accurate. However, I felt insulted in behalf of intelligent teenagers everywhere. And maybe that was the point. And I really, really want a solar-powered hoverboard now. Just saying.

I have been informed that the rest of the series becomes more philosophical and I’m looking forward to that. I can put up with a generic plot for a great ethical discussion on body image anyday. Review of the rest of the series to follow when I get around to reading it.

Winter Dance

Thank you Jamie, for recommending this perfect palate cleanser. I have been reading alot of feminine literature. Stuff written by women about women and the female experience. So on the whole very estrogen drenched. I needed a break, something written by a man about a man where the characters run around and beat things (or run dogs as it turned out). This was perfect.

Its not that I could realate to the author and this period in his life. He would go off for days with no responsibilities at all, just to experience life. I don’t even know what that would feel like. At one point he talked about it being so warm he just layed on his sled and sun bathed. Oh and it was maybe zero degrees! Yeah, I start to die about 30 degrees. Gary Paulsen is something of a masochist. On his first night run with his dogs, they attacked 6 skunks and he got sprayed by 5 of them. Sprayed like his clothes were dripping, and he was out again the next night. I shudder at a whiff of skunk smell on the freeway, and would have been done running dogs after that experience if not sooner. So no, I can’t relate to him. But I really respect him. I don’t respect him because he did something ridiculously hard. I repect him because he owned every minute of the whole experience. His ignorant rookie mistakes that almost killed him on several occasions. His addiction, that seemed as real as a crack addiction if not worse. His shameless love of the whole life of an Iditarod racer and that there were quite a few times where he never wanted to return to his wife and son. I want to own my life the way he did. Especially my mistakes. It’s been a while since I felt like a better, stronger person for having read a book. Thank you, crazy survivalist dog racer / author man. This was indeed perfect.

The Hunger Games

I am a snob. I can be self righteous, condescending, and well snobby. Especially about books. For example, had I not read the first two books in the Twilight Series before they were The Twilight Series, I would not have read them. As it is, I didn’t read the last one (I thought the story was nicely resolved after Eclipse and felt no need to continue) and it is a source of personal (albeit snobby) pride that I haven’t seen any of the movies. The Hunger Games was evoking the same response. My sisters raved about it and I thought, “Great. Another teenage romance set in a dystopia. Angst, here we come.” Then I met Jamie. Brilliant and an English teacher to boot.

She more or less had me sold, but then she mentioned a t-shirt that made me giggle. It said “Katnis could kick Bella’s trash” and I knew my snobby resistance was done.

It started out being my motivation as I ran. I listened to it on my Zune (the reader was unbearably slow and so Neil worked some computer magic and sped it up about 40%, understandable but much faster, obviously). Then it wasn’t enough to just listen. Neil started reading them and making weird faces that he wouldn’t explain because it would ruin it for me and so I just started reading them and finished in a few days.

I loved that the first one was simple and straight forward. I love that the third one was crazy complicated with plot twists and totally unexpected deaths (little duck anyone?) The second was a nice blend. Because the first question my sisters asked was basically “team Peeta or team Gale?” I’ll answer that question. I liked Peeta better and I agree with Katnis’ choice for the reason she gave. And I loved loved, loved that Peeta chose to be with her after he lost all his twitterpation. I think it would have meant less had he not had such a rude awakening that forced him to know all of her, good, bad and sometimes a bit ugly.

Overall I loved the depth and the physchology. The writing was very good and the characters real and more than just archetypes. Probably won’t read this series again though. It was graphic and disturbing and didn’t have a happy ending. Not that I would have believed a happy ending, the ending was right and well done. I just really like me a happy ending. Now I get the hype, and yes I might just break my “no crazy crowded midnight premiers…no movie is worth that” rule and sport a Katnis vs. Bella shirt as I’m hearded like cattle amongst teenage girls and youngermiddleaged mothers on March 23rd. Maybe.

Jacob T. Marley

I loved this book! First off, something you should know about me is that I’m a sucker for back story. It is a brave patient person who will start watching a TV series with me because I won’t do it unless we watch every episode in order (luckily Dr. Who didn’t have as many seasons as any Star Trek show, it gives me hope for catching up and seeing all of it). I hate feeling like there is somehing I missed. So the fact that the whole book is back story and then some was a huge point in its favor. Second, I think he did a good job mimicking Charles Dickens. Admitedly, he was replicating a simpler style than, Idon’tknow, Dickens in Tale of Two Cities…what a nightmare that would be to match! It was a simple read, a well told story and more than anything it was an interesting take on what man’s life is really for. That we are here to serve each other, and the real Hell is a full knowledge of all the good you might have done. My friends were bugged that a lifetime of cruelty and heartless avarice and pride was redeemed with a moment of genuine remorse and forgiveness, but I buy that. I think that is possible. I mean if it isn’t, where would the line be drawn. ok now you’ve felt bad enough to be good to go, but two senconds ago you were a bit short. I think it is a much more hopeful message that a life can be turned in a single epic instant or a life time of subtle guidence. The book made me smile and I think next year I’ll read this and A Christmas Carol together. Not sure which one I’ll read first…

The Time Machine

Ready for an awesome book review? One that will expound the deeper metaphysical themes that H.G. Wells was to outline in his ground breaking science fiction classic? A book review to make you ponder humanity itself and the very nature of our souls? Yeah, this is not that book review. I’m tired. I did however love this book. It is interesting to step back from the story and appreciate the beautiful skill with which he used words to paint a picture in my head. He painted simply and without the trite-ness that seems to go along with even the best pop fiction. Most of my favorite authors (C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Nix, L’Engle [bit of a fantasy/sci fi nerd, I know]) do this, and I appreciate it because it allows me to make it real in my own head. Not enough description and I don’t know what they are saying to me. Too much and I have to try to see what they see and it doesn’t mean a whole lot to me. H.G. Wells hit that balance. The story was very thought provoking as it does raise questions about the nature of man and man’s purpose. It brought up thoughts I had had while reading “Unbroken” about man’s relationship with hardship. Highly recommend it, and as it is only about 115  pages long, you have no excuse.

black heels

This book really made me smile. I love that she is sarcastic but not mean, sophisticated but does really klutsy stuff, and is beautiful and put together but has a serious nervous sweating problem. So to sum up…I love that she is a real person who leads an unusual but believebale life. And right after she had her baby and was nursing and her cowboy brother-in-law said that she really didn’t want to get sour bag (I’m guessing a female cow problem) I laughed out loud. seriously. for like 5 minutes. I’ve loved her blog for a while and it was really fun to get to know a bit of her back story. It also helps that we both homeschool our kids, know how much it sucks to be an adult child watching your parents divorce, and have dabbled with being vegitarian.  She is a woman I’d want to spend Labor Day with. Hanging out, chatting over good food and occaisionally yelling at a pack of kids and babies running around.

Unbroken

So I have decided that I really like man vs. nature stories. At the end of those stories (assuming the man wins) I am left with a feeling that there was a positive quantity added to the total sum of human greatness and nobility. That was why I loved the first third of this book. Louie and Phil made it 47 days through storms, starvation, and sharks to an island. They triumphed over everything thrown at them and they did so with faith and dignity. Then they are captured by the Japanese. It was at that point that I stopped liking the book.

When it is man vs. man and one side is trying to survive the sadistic, cruel, and inhuman subjegation of the other side you don’t end up with a positive. The barbaism and horrific actions of the one side (at least for me) outweigh the mere survival of the other side, and I feel like something is taken away from the idea of human greatness. This ick feeling is why I suffered through the middle third of this book.

The last third was back to man vs. himself and I was so impressed and inspired with how Louie came to grips with his ordeal and forgave the man who had made his life hell. So because Louie once again triumphed with faith and dignity there was an overall addition to the total sum. I am now inspired to face what ever difficulties are thrown at me with more grace and more clarity. I mean, I’ll most likely never have 9 foot sharks trying to eat my head or be beaten with a brass belt buckle or have flies/lice/other bugs crawling on me almost constantly for months…so really, life is pretty good.