Found via: Rachel in the comments to my review of Devil's Kiss
Holy crap this book is popular. I put it on hold at the library in mid-January and I was the 50th hold request. I only got it a week ago. So...people like this book. Angsty supernatural romance doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
Luce has been sent to the Sword & Cross boarding school after a mysterious fire at her last boarding school left a boy burned to death. On her first day at her new school, Luce meets the usual sort of characters one runs across at reform schools: mildly-psychotic girls that want to be BFFs, girls that appear to be total goody two-shoes and make you wonder why they're in reform school, and, of course, darkly handsome brooding young men. Luce actually gets two of that last category: Cameron Briel and Daniel Grigori.
Cameron is charming and handsome and latches onto Luce as soon as he can. Luce likes him well enough, but the real focus of her attention is Daniel, who alternates between giving her smoldering looks across the library and flipping her off. But Luce is determined to get closer to Daniel - she feels an immediate connection to him, like they've known each other before arriving at Sword & Cross. Luce is determined to find out more about him, and recruits her new friend Penn, the lone sane-person in the school, as an accomplice, while trying to avoid the attention of Arriane (an all-around trouble maker, Luce's guide on her first day and the closest thing she has to a friend at Stone & Cross before Penn) and Mary (whose sole purpose in life appears to be making Luce miserable).
As if adjusting to a new reform school and juggling boys and friends weren't enough for poor Luce, she also seems to have hallucinations. Since she was a child she's seen apparitions of threatening shadows, but until she arrived at Sword & Cross that's all they've been: hallucinations. Now the shadows are getting a lot bolder, and might even be able to hurt her, or her new-found friends.
There is a huuuuuuuuuuge Twilight vibe throughout this book, even though Rachel described this as one of the less-Twilight-esque angel stories out there. From the creepy atmosphere (perpetually overcast Forks vs. humid and creepy southern US reform school) to the plain Jane but irresistible main girl. She's even clumsy like Bella! The prime candidate for being a not-human cute boy saves her from a lethal accident! Aside from cuteness, Luce's continued attraction to Daniel is only slightly better than Bella's to Edward; at least Luce is convinced she knows Daniel from somewhere else.
Over at Teacozy, Liz suggests that this is the sort of book where you're not supposed to think too hard about the story. Just accept that it's a rather fluffy and angsty romance and roll with it. I can see her argument on the one hand, but that doesn't quite work for me with this one. I can overlook many of the small questions, like why the hell is there such an emphasis on the black uniforms? Co-ed dorms at a reform school notorious for being strict? Easily-evaded cameras in lieu of supervision from actual adults? (Okay, I really want an answer on the black uniforms thing. It's seriously emphasized so much that I was waiting for the big reveal as a Chekhov's gun) But Luce is kind of a passive protagonist. Stuff happens to her, but she doesn't cause anything to actually happen. And after the big reveal that angels exist, Luce is treated a lot like Thomas was in The Maze Runner when he first arrived in the Glade: don't ask stupid questions (even if the audience is wondering the same thing) because we're not telling you anything until the next book.
Unfortunately, because I appear to be missing the gene that makes me love straight-up romances, I don't think I'm going to be sticking around for the next book. Unless someone promises me the black clothes are explained.
As for this whole angel trend? Unless it starts popping up in non-romance stories (like Once Dead Twice Shy, I think I'm done. I can see their appeal in some ways (Fallen is a more chaste love story than even Twilight), but they hold zero for me.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
Review: Ice by Sarah Beth Durst
Found via: Liz B at A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Teacozy
My cat, Gopher, thinks that books are pillows. He approves of Ice!
My love of fairy tale retellings is well documented here, but Ice gave me something new to ponder. It re-tells a story I'd never heard before, East o' the Sun, West o' the Moon, and I've been trying to figure out if I like retellings of familiar or new stories more.
Not that it really matters when the story is so well written, as Durst's is here (even after going through and reading two versions of the original, my opinion holds).
As a little girl, Cassie's grandmother told her the story of how her mother made a deal with the Polar Bear King that went sour, and condemned her to being swept away to the ends of the Earth. At 18, Cassie recognizes that the story was just a way of explaining her mother's death to a little girl, and is far too focused on her life as a budding scientist with her father in an Arctic research station to think of childhood fairy tales.
Until Cassie learns that some fairy tales are true. There is a Polar Bear King, and part of her mother's bargain including betrothing her unborn daughter to become the king's wife. Cassie makes a deal of her own with the king in order to secure her mother's rescue from the trolls' castle east o' the sun and west o' the moon. In return, Cassie returns with the Bear to his castle of ice near the North Pole.
The Polar Bear King is, of course, not a real bear - he is a munaqsri, a "caretaker of souls." Every species on the planet has its own munaqsri (sometimes several for large populations, like humans, but the polar bears only have the one) who takes the souls from the dead in order to give them to the newborns of the species. Bear wants a wife so he can have children to take his place, but with the intelligence of humans, rather than polar bears. Cassie is appalled - she is only 18! She doesn't want to be a wife yet, let alone a mother - but she remembers her deal to save her mother's life, and consents to the marriage.
But because this is a fairy tale, that bargain she struck with Bear has a price. When Bear is forcefully wrenched from her by the trolls after Cassie violated the rules of the bargain (rules Bear couldn't tell her about, as part of the rules), Cassie finds herself alone and several months pregnant in the middle of the arctic. That is the start of her adventure to save her husband - a journey that takes her not only across the world, but beyond, to the castle east o' the sun and west o' the moon, both helped and hindered by other magical creatures along the way.
I absolutely loved most of this book. By the time I finally got this one from the library I'd forgotten what fairy tale it re-told, and actually was seeing a lot of Beauty and the Beast in Cassie's relationship with Bear. Perhaps that was intentional on Durst's part, because bits like Cassie arranging to visit home aren't in any of the original stories I read. Durst did, however, include excellent allusions to the original stories - one translator's last name is Dasent, which just so happens to be Cassie's last name in the novel. Another great touch is Durst's totally original take on trolls - fantasy lovers need to read this book for the trolls alone, because while I haven't read a lot of fantasy I'm pretty sure you've never seen trolls like these before.
One thing that was simultaneously awesome and uncool was Cassie's pregnancy. First of all, how the pregnancy came about was seriously uncool. But then Cassie goes on this epic journey, contents of her uterus be damned, because she has a quest she must complete in order to save her husband. They're on totally different scales, but as I was reading this in the middle of Olympic fever I couldn't help but think of Kristie Moore, the Canadian curler who was 5 1/2 months pregnant during the game. We have this cultural trope that pregnant women are delicate flowers who should just lay in bed eating bon bons for the duration of their pregnancy (but, y'know, not too many, lest they get fat). Cassie does some stuff that I'm sure isn't recommended for pregnant women, but then again we're also in a fairy tale so we can let it slide. But the other uncool part of Cassie's pregnancy comes from all the other characters who think that Cassie shouldn't be allowed to do anything because her fetus is practically sacred. She is literally imprisoned until she convinces other characters that she agrees with them. It definitely provided some great drama, and Cassie proves them all wrong, but it still freaked me out a little bit. But I guess since it wasn't really the good guys who were hindering her, that was probably the point.
One other weird thing: it seemed to me like Cassie has some misplaced anger issues. She spends a lot of time railing against her father for lying to her about the truth behind her grandmother's stories and for failing to rescue her mother from the trolls, when it's her mother that made the deal that arranged for Cassie to marry a supernatural being when Cassie was merely an infant. Her dad really had nothing to do with it.
Ice is an excellent story, period. It definitely doesn't rely on previous knowledge of East o' the Sun, West o' the Moon to be enjoyed. It's a flat out fantasy adventure story, that turns a few tropes on their heads, with a dash of romance for good measure. Highly recommended.
My cat, Gopher, thinks that books are pillows. He approves of Ice!
My love of fairy tale retellings is well documented here, but Ice gave me something new to ponder. It re-tells a story I'd never heard before, East o' the Sun, West o' the Moon, and I've been trying to figure out if I like retellings of familiar or new stories more.
Not that it really matters when the story is so well written, as Durst's is here (even after going through and reading two versions of the original, my opinion holds).
As a little girl, Cassie's grandmother told her the story of how her mother made a deal with the Polar Bear King that went sour, and condemned her to being swept away to the ends of the Earth. At 18, Cassie recognizes that the story was just a way of explaining her mother's death to a little girl, and is far too focused on her life as a budding scientist with her father in an Arctic research station to think of childhood fairy tales.
Until Cassie learns that some fairy tales are true. There is a Polar Bear King, and part of her mother's bargain including betrothing her unborn daughter to become the king's wife. Cassie makes a deal of her own with the king in order to secure her mother's rescue from the trolls' castle east o' the sun and west o' the moon. In return, Cassie returns with the Bear to his castle of ice near the North Pole.
The Polar Bear King is, of course, not a real bear - he is a munaqsri, a "caretaker of souls." Every species on the planet has its own munaqsri (sometimes several for large populations, like humans, but the polar bears only have the one) who takes the souls from the dead in order to give them to the newborns of the species. Bear wants a wife so he can have children to take his place, but with the intelligence of humans, rather than polar bears. Cassie is appalled - she is only 18! She doesn't want to be a wife yet, let alone a mother - but she remembers her deal to save her mother's life, and consents to the marriage.
But because this is a fairy tale, that bargain she struck with Bear has a price. When Bear is forcefully wrenched from her by the trolls after Cassie violated the rules of the bargain (rules Bear couldn't tell her about, as part of the rules), Cassie finds herself alone and several months pregnant in the middle of the arctic. That is the start of her adventure to save her husband - a journey that takes her not only across the world, but beyond, to the castle east o' the sun and west o' the moon, both helped and hindered by other magical creatures along the way.
I absolutely loved most of this book. By the time I finally got this one from the library I'd forgotten what fairy tale it re-told, and actually was seeing a lot of Beauty and the Beast in Cassie's relationship with Bear. Perhaps that was intentional on Durst's part, because bits like Cassie arranging to visit home aren't in any of the original stories I read. Durst did, however, include excellent allusions to the original stories - one translator's last name is Dasent, which just so happens to be Cassie's last name in the novel. Another great touch is Durst's totally original take on trolls - fantasy lovers need to read this book for the trolls alone, because while I haven't read a lot of fantasy I'm pretty sure you've never seen trolls like these before.
One thing that was simultaneously awesome and uncool was Cassie's pregnancy. First of all, how the pregnancy came about was seriously uncool. But then Cassie goes on this epic journey, contents of her uterus be damned, because she has a quest she must complete in order to save her husband. They're on totally different scales, but as I was reading this in the middle of Olympic fever I couldn't help but think of Kristie Moore, the Canadian curler who was 5 1/2 months pregnant during the game. We have this cultural trope that pregnant women are delicate flowers who should just lay in bed eating bon bons for the duration of their pregnancy (but, y'know, not too many, lest they get fat). Cassie does some stuff that I'm sure isn't recommended for pregnant women, but then again we're also in a fairy tale so we can let it slide. But the other uncool part of Cassie's pregnancy comes from all the other characters who think that Cassie shouldn't be allowed to do anything because her fetus is practically sacred. She is literally imprisoned until she convinces other characters that she agrees with them. It definitely provided some great drama, and Cassie proves them all wrong, but it still freaked me out a little bit. But I guess since it wasn't really the good guys who were hindering her, that was probably the point.
One other weird thing: it seemed to me like Cassie has some misplaced anger issues. She spends a lot of time railing against her father for lying to her about the truth behind her grandmother's stories and for failing to rescue her mother from the trolls, when it's her mother that made the deal that arranged for Cassie to marry a supernatural being when Cassie was merely an infant. Her dad really had nothing to do with it.
Ice is an excellent story, period. It definitely doesn't rely on previous knowledge of East o' the Sun, West o' the Moon to be enjoyed. It's a flat out fantasy adventure story, that turns a few tropes on their heads, with a dash of romance for good measure. Highly recommended.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Review: Fat Cat by Robin Brande
Found via: Galley Cat
Oh boy, do I ever have conflicting feelings over this title. I'm not sure exactly what I expected from this (it was starred in my Google Reader before I'd started keeping track of what I was looking forward to reading and why in my TBR spreadsheet), but for every time this book scored a hit, there was another glaring miss that had my literally cringing.
Cat has one goal for her Special Topics in Research Science class - come up with a project so awesome she'll beat the pants off of Matt McKinney, her rival since the seventh grade. Cat thinks she has the perfect plan: replicate the diet and lifestyle of early hominids as closely as possible, and observe the results, using herself as a test experiment. Minimal electricity usage, walking instead of driving, and eating only the foods that would have been available to homo erectus. A killer project with a side bonus: Cat is sure she'll look fabulous by the end of the school year.
What she doesn't count on is suddenly becoming something of a boy magnet. And not just any boys. Hot boys. Athletic boys. Boys that seem to be making Matt more than a little jealous. Not that Cat cares what Matt thinks; he betrayed her terribly back in the seventh grade, and finally having a science project that beats him at the science fair will be worthy payback.
But living a la homo erectus isn't always easy, and navigating the murky world of boys and romance is difficult for anyone. The pressure is rising for Cat, not only to keep up with her project, but to keep the boys at bay long enough for her to truly heal her broken heart.
Okay, yes, that broken heart bit makes me gag a little bit too, but it's a running theme throughout this book.
Let me get the cringe-inducing moments out of the way so I can end on a positive note, okay?
First of all: almost all of the boys in this book suck. Brande gives us two guys who date Cat who don't understand the meaning of "no." Which is okay on the surface - it gives the story dramatic tension and it's good to see that Cat knows exactly where her boundaries are and knows how to say "no." But then her best friend comes along and doesn't care that these boys don't respect her boundaries. One boy grabs Cat's rear end in the hallway, and she forcefully tells him to knock it out. He does it again and she shoves him against a locker (which made me cheer). But when he comes back with a flower and begging for forgiveness, not only does Cat accept but her best friend tells her she really needs to give the guy another chance.
The best friend, Amanda, is actually the source of a lot of my tension with the novel, because while she is funny and smart and a great poet and seems to love Cat, she's also super annoying and lacks some fundamental respect for Cat. She repeatedly tells Cat that she's going to grow up to be a bitter old hag if she doesn't date in high school and constantly lures Cat away from the tenets of her science experiment. If it had happened once or twice I would have overlooked it, but Amanda never seems willing to compromise her plans for the sake of Cat's experiment; instead it's always Cat trying to rationalize breaking her own rules. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
Because most of the time I really liked Cat. She's unapologetically smart and knows what she wants in life (well, as much as you can really know at 17). I loved it when she said early on in the novel that dating was not what she wanted to do right now - she wasn't ruling out the possibility of romance and love and marriage in the future, but she doesn't feel she needs to rush into things. Also, over the course of the novel, she becomes much more athletic, and revels in it:
I also liked how Cat's weight was handled in the novel. The only specific sizes we are told is that she would one day like to be a size eight and her rapidly shrinking bra size. We don't see anyone shame Cat for her weight except for episodes in her past like from Willie Bleeping Martin, and we're never told what her weight or jeans size is before or after the experiment starts. I thought it was a tactful way to avoid shaming or embarrassing a reader who is larger than a size eight.
I really enjoyed seeing how Cat's experiment evolved over the course of the novel; there were some interesting scientific theories proposed. Of course, I also felt sometimes that the reader was being lectured about nutrition through Cat's dietitian. Also, WTF, dietitian, saying that cutting out pop and chocolate will reduce acne? Because I'm pretty sure that myth has been debunked. I really hope the rest of the science in the book wasn't flawed like that, because there's some interesting stuff in here.
So Fat Cat gets points for having a smart, athletic, not-skinny protagonist, but loses a lot of points for her unhelpful best friend. I think what was most disappointing about that best friend is that one of Brande's books made the 2008 Amelia Bloomer Project list. While Cat definitely has some feminist cred, the boys and Amanda combined cancel out those positive points.
Oh boy, do I ever have conflicting feelings over this title. I'm not sure exactly what I expected from this (it was starred in my Google Reader before I'd started keeping track of what I was looking forward to reading and why in my TBR spreadsheet), but for every time this book scored a hit, there was another glaring miss that had my literally cringing.
Cat has one goal for her Special Topics in Research Science class - come up with a project so awesome she'll beat the pants off of Matt McKinney, her rival since the seventh grade. Cat thinks she has the perfect plan: replicate the diet and lifestyle of early hominids as closely as possible, and observe the results, using herself as a test experiment. Minimal electricity usage, walking instead of driving, and eating only the foods that would have been available to homo erectus. A killer project with a side bonus: Cat is sure she'll look fabulous by the end of the school year.
What she doesn't count on is suddenly becoming something of a boy magnet. And not just any boys. Hot boys. Athletic boys. Boys that seem to be making Matt more than a little jealous. Not that Cat cares what Matt thinks; he betrayed her terribly back in the seventh grade, and finally having a science project that beats him at the science fair will be worthy payback.
But living a la homo erectus isn't always easy, and navigating the murky world of boys and romance is difficult for anyone. The pressure is rising for Cat, not only to keep up with her project, but to keep the boys at bay long enough for her to truly heal her broken heart.
Okay, yes, that broken heart bit makes me gag a little bit too, but it's a running theme throughout this book.
Let me get the cringe-inducing moments out of the way so I can end on a positive note, okay?
First of all: almost all of the boys in this book suck. Brande gives us two guys who date Cat who don't understand the meaning of "no." Which is okay on the surface - it gives the story dramatic tension and it's good to see that Cat knows exactly where her boundaries are and knows how to say "no." But then her best friend comes along and doesn't care that these boys don't respect her boundaries. One boy grabs Cat's rear end in the hallway, and she forcefully tells him to knock it out. He does it again and she shoves him against a locker (which made me cheer). But when he comes back with a flower and begging for forgiveness, not only does Cat accept but her best friend tells her she really needs to give the guy another chance.
The best friend, Amanda, is actually the source of a lot of my tension with the novel, because while she is funny and smart and a great poet and seems to love Cat, she's also super annoying and lacks some fundamental respect for Cat. She repeatedly tells Cat that she's going to grow up to be a bitter old hag if she doesn't date in high school and constantly lures Cat away from the tenets of her science experiment. If it had happened once or twice I would have overlooked it, but Amanda never seems willing to compromise her plans for the sake of Cat's experiment; instead it's always Cat trying to rationalize breaking her own rules. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
Because most of the time I really liked Cat. She's unapologetically smart and knows what she wants in life (well, as much as you can really know at 17). I loved it when she said early on in the novel that dating was not what she wanted to do right now - she wasn't ruling out the possibility of romance and love and marriage in the future, but she doesn't feel she needs to rush into things. Also, over the course of the novel, she becomes much more athletic, and revels in it:
Because there was a time in my life, before Willie Martin pointed out how fat I was, that I would have known I could beat those two people and anyone else in the pool. Maybe not an Olympic swimmer or someone twice my age with longer arms and legs, but definitely someone my own size, Willie Bleeping Martin included.
Because I was good. Really good. I was a strong girl, and I loved my sport. I loved competing (203).
I also liked how Cat's weight was handled in the novel. The only specific sizes we are told is that she would one day like to be a size eight and her rapidly shrinking bra size. We don't see anyone shame Cat for her weight except for episodes in her past like from Willie Bleeping Martin, and we're never told what her weight or jeans size is before or after the experiment starts. I thought it was a tactful way to avoid shaming or embarrassing a reader who is larger than a size eight.
I really enjoyed seeing how Cat's experiment evolved over the course of the novel; there were some interesting scientific theories proposed. Of course, I also felt sometimes that the reader was being lectured about nutrition through Cat's dietitian. Also, WTF, dietitian, saying that cutting out pop and chocolate will reduce acne? Because I'm pretty sure that myth has been debunked. I really hope the rest of the science in the book wasn't flawed like that, because there's some interesting stuff in here.
So Fat Cat gets points for having a smart, athletic, not-skinny protagonist, but loses a lot of points for her unhelpful best friend. I think what was most disappointing about that best friend is that one of Brande's books made the 2008 Amelia Bloomer Project list. While Cat definitely has some feminist cred, the boys and Amanda combined cancel out those positive points.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Review: Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork
Winner: 2010 Schneider Family Book Award
I've been hearing wonderful things about Marcelo in the Real World for months. Everyone seems to love it. Lots of people were saying it was going to win the Printz (and then were stunned when it didn't even get an honor). But I held back. Because everyone was describing this as a book about an autistic kid, and that's a touchy subject for me; if you don't get the description of autism right I'll immediately shut the book and walk away. It's a subject that hits too close to home for me so I'm wary about what I'll pick up just to save myself the stress.
It turns out people just need to be a lot more accurate in their descriptions of Marcelo. He is not autistic; he hasn't even been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. Instead he's on the autism spectrum in an unidentifiable way. This seemed to me an excellent way to present Marcelo: not only does it highlight the wide variety of ways that autism can present itself, but Stork could describe Marcelo and his disabilities however he wanted, and since Marcelo didn't have a medical label attached to him, there was really no wrong way to go.
In case you've been living under a rock, here's the quick story: it's the summer before Marcelo's last year of high school and he's extremely excited to pick up his summer job working with the ponies at Paterson, his private school for children with disabilities. His father, a powerful lawyer, however, has other plans: Marcelo needs to get out into the real world and interact with other people, because he wants to send Marcelo to the public high school for his senior year. The two make a deal: Marcelo will work in the mail room at the law firm for the summer and if he's successful he will get to go back to Paterson for his senior year. If he fails, then it's off to public school. While going through some routine files, Marcelo uncovers a mysterious photograph: a girl with a horribly scarred face. The picture obviously relates to the case his father is currently defending, but is filed to be thrown out rather than be kept with the rest of the evidence. Marcelo and Jasmine, his boss in the mail room, begin an investigation of their own, giving Marcelo some of his greatest real world lessons in friendship, work and doing the right thing.
The law firm setting is absolutely perfect for exploring ideas of right and wrong and the rules of social interaction that Marcelo is supposed to absorb over his summer. The legal system is murky, and in this case Marcelo's father is defending a company that is accused of making dangerous windshields that crack into dangerous shards rather than tiny little pieces in an accident. The company doesn't want to settle any of its lawsuits out of court, but then Marcelo overhears his father discussing a possible settlement with a high-powered lawyer while absolutely refusing a settlement with another lawyer representing a poor client. It's a confusing set of social mores for the best of us, and especially confusing for someone like Marcelo who is used to seeing the world in relatively black and white terms.
Another great/terrible addition is Wendell, the son of the other major partner in the law firm. Wendell is a slimeball. I felt creepy just reading about him. He is the exact opposite of the kind and open Marcelo and I wanted to punch him in the face several times, an excellent quality in the "villain" of the story. So he's great because he functions exactly how the bad guy should, but terrible because he's so creepy and manipulative.
There's a great bit of narration in the novel that describes Marcelo perfectly, after hearing from Jasmine that his father described him as having a cognitive disorder:
It's constantly apparent that there is something different about Marcelo. He'll slip into speaking in the third person. He hears what he calls internal music that no one else can sense. He is almost obsessive over studying religion and has to be reminded not to quote scripture or correct or cite quotations that have slipped into idiomatic usage. But this difference is impossible to define. I can see why people have used autistic or Asperger to describe Marcelo, but neither is quite right. I'm very glad I got over my own hesitations and picked this one up. I'm a terrible judge at what should win the major prizes, but I can definitely see why people would be surprised this one didn't get any major recognitions.
I've been hearing wonderful things about Marcelo in the Real World for months. Everyone seems to love it. Lots of people were saying it was going to win the Printz (and then were stunned when it didn't even get an honor). But I held back. Because everyone was describing this as a book about an autistic kid, and that's a touchy subject for me; if you don't get the description of autism right I'll immediately shut the book and walk away. It's a subject that hits too close to home for me so I'm wary about what I'll pick up just to save myself the stress.
It turns out people just need to be a lot more accurate in their descriptions of Marcelo. He is not autistic; he hasn't even been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. Instead he's on the autism spectrum in an unidentifiable way. This seemed to me an excellent way to present Marcelo: not only does it highlight the wide variety of ways that autism can present itself, but Stork could describe Marcelo and his disabilities however he wanted, and since Marcelo didn't have a medical label attached to him, there was really no wrong way to go.
In case you've been living under a rock, here's the quick story: it's the summer before Marcelo's last year of high school and he's extremely excited to pick up his summer job working with the ponies at Paterson, his private school for children with disabilities. His father, a powerful lawyer, however, has other plans: Marcelo needs to get out into the real world and interact with other people, because he wants to send Marcelo to the public high school for his senior year. The two make a deal: Marcelo will work in the mail room at the law firm for the summer and if he's successful he will get to go back to Paterson for his senior year. If he fails, then it's off to public school. While going through some routine files, Marcelo uncovers a mysterious photograph: a girl with a horribly scarred face. The picture obviously relates to the case his father is currently defending, but is filed to be thrown out rather than be kept with the rest of the evidence. Marcelo and Jasmine, his boss in the mail room, begin an investigation of their own, giving Marcelo some of his greatest real world lessons in friendship, work and doing the right thing.
The law firm setting is absolutely perfect for exploring ideas of right and wrong and the rules of social interaction that Marcelo is supposed to absorb over his summer. The legal system is murky, and in this case Marcelo's father is defending a company that is accused of making dangerous windshields that crack into dangerous shards rather than tiny little pieces in an accident. The company doesn't want to settle any of its lawsuits out of court, but then Marcelo overhears his father discussing a possible settlement with a high-powered lawyer while absolutely refusing a settlement with another lawyer representing a poor client. It's a confusing set of social mores for the best of us, and especially confusing for someone like Marcelo who is used to seeing the world in relatively black and white terms.
Another great/terrible addition is Wendell, the son of the other major partner in the law firm. Wendell is a slimeball. I felt creepy just reading about him. He is the exact opposite of the kind and open Marcelo and I wanted to punch him in the face several times, an excellent quality in the "villain" of the story. So he's great because he functions exactly how the bad guy should, but terrible because he's so creepy and manipulative.
There's a great bit of narration in the novel that describes Marcelo perfectly, after hearing from Jasmine that his father described him as having a cognitive disorder:
He has always insisted that there's nothing wrong with me. The term "cognitive disorder" implies that there is something wrong with the way I think or with the way I perceive reality. I perceive reality just fine. Sometimes I perceive more of reality than others
It's constantly apparent that there is something different about Marcelo. He'll slip into speaking in the third person. He hears what he calls internal music that no one else can sense. He is almost obsessive over studying religion and has to be reminded not to quote scripture or correct or cite quotations that have slipped into idiomatic usage. But this difference is impossible to define. I can see why people have used autistic or Asperger to describe Marcelo, but neither is quite right. I'm very glad I got over my own hesitations and picked this one up. I'm a terrible judge at what should win the major prizes, but I can definitely see why people would be surprised this one didn't get any major recognitions.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Review: Scarlett Fever by Maureen Johnson
Yay, another Scarlett book! I loved Suite Scarlett, so I was checking my library every day after Scarlett Fever was published to make sure I'd get this one ASAP!
Scarlett Fever picks up shortly after Suite Scarlett left off - Hamlet has closed and the set is being struck. Lola is still at her job at the spa. Spencer has signed with newly minted agent (and former Hopewell Hotel guest) Amy Amberson, and Scarlett is her assistant. Melanie is at her Powerkids summer camp, so Scarlett has a few blessed days without her antagonism to wallow in her own self-pity.
Why is Scarlett wallowing? She's still hung up over Eric, the super cute Southern boy who teamed up with Spencer in Hamlet and was a total jerk to Scarlett by seeing her when he already had a girlfriend back home.
Yeah, I wasn't an Eric fan.
School is about to start, and happens to bring big changes to the Martin family. Perhaps the biggest is Spencer's surprise role in Crime and Punishment (an homage to Law and Order) which makes him an overnight celebrity - the kind that attracts semi-creepy people to wander into the hotel and up into the family's living quarters looking for him. Chip, Lola's former boyfriend, is back in the picture with Lola, much to Spencer and Scarlett's disappointment. Oh, and Melanie? Melanie is back from camp and being nice. It totally freaks Scarlett out.
And Scarlett has enough on her plate. Mrs. Amberson is as demanding as ever - she wants to sign a promising young Broadway performer to the agency. Chelsea is 15 and has a beautiful voice, but is stuck in one of the worst Broadway performances in memory. Not to mention she is saddled with a crazy stage mother and a bitter older brother who just so happens to sit next to Scarlett in biology class. Mrs. Amberson has asked Scarlett to "keep an eye" on him on top of her assistant duties, which now include taking a terrified little dog out for daily walks. And to top everything off - Eric is trying to hang around again, ostensibly to get Scarlett's advice on acting, but how is she supposed to get over him if he won't just leave her alone?
I love the Martins. They are a crazy, mixed up, and totally loving family. Even Melanie this time around! (Even though I agree her being nice is really kinda creepy). I also love Johnson's descriptions of New York City. I've been here a year and a half now so I'm really beginning to get the geography. I also cackled with glee when Scarlett took Chelsea to my favorite food place in Manhattan, the Shake Shack.
Johnson also does a great job with the class issues the Martins face, both subtle and overt. The subtle bits are with Scarlett and her relationship with money and her thoughts about her friends who clearly have more money than her (friends who spent the summer in Europe rather than staging plays in their dining rooms). On the one hand it seems like her family should be fabulously wealthy since they own a hotel and all, but since the hotel gets next to no guests and the massive medical bills that piled up during Melanie's cancer, money is tight in the household. More overt bits are with Lola and Chip and his family. Chip comes from money and some of the Martins, Scarlett and Spencer in particular, feel he's a bit ostentatious with it. There are serious questions of why Lola is back with him, so once more I really appreciated a look at life for a family that is neither incredibly rich nor nearly destitute. The Martins get by, but it's no cakewalk.
Two gripes on this book: first of all, it just ends. It's really abrupt and I closed the book thinking "that's it?" The last scene isn't bad (it's actually quite hilarious), but it doesn't feel like a complete ending. There's definitely more Scarlett books to look ahead to, I guess.
Second of all, I feel totally bleh about the cover
It's a golden key on a purple wallpaper background. It feels dull. It's really uninspiring to me.
Suite Scarlett in paperback has been redesigned to have a coordinating cover. I'm not saying the original cover was perfect, but it had a bit more character than the new covers:
I have some nitpicks on this cover - Scarlett's hair is way too perfect for example - but that's so minor and so nitpicky that it doesn't matter. At least it has more character than the new ones.
Cover and ending aside, this is another great Maureen Johnson book. She has her own brand of wit and humor and uses it with ease. Scarlett Fever works excellently as a sequel (right up until that ending), and I can't wait to read the next Scarlett story.
Scarlett Fever picks up shortly after Suite Scarlett left off - Hamlet has closed and the set is being struck. Lola is still at her job at the spa. Spencer has signed with newly minted agent (and former Hopewell Hotel guest) Amy Amberson, and Scarlett is her assistant. Melanie is at her Powerkids summer camp, so Scarlett has a few blessed days without her antagonism to wallow in her own self-pity.
Why is Scarlett wallowing? She's still hung up over Eric, the super cute Southern boy who teamed up with Spencer in Hamlet and was a total jerk to Scarlett by seeing her when he already had a girlfriend back home.
Yeah, I wasn't an Eric fan.
School is about to start, and happens to bring big changes to the Martin family. Perhaps the biggest is Spencer's surprise role in Crime and Punishment (an homage to Law and Order) which makes him an overnight celebrity - the kind that attracts semi-creepy people to wander into the hotel and up into the family's living quarters looking for him. Chip, Lola's former boyfriend, is back in the picture with Lola, much to Spencer and Scarlett's disappointment. Oh, and Melanie? Melanie is back from camp and being nice. It totally freaks Scarlett out.
And Scarlett has enough on her plate. Mrs. Amberson is as demanding as ever - she wants to sign a promising young Broadway performer to the agency. Chelsea is 15 and has a beautiful voice, but is stuck in one of the worst Broadway performances in memory. Not to mention she is saddled with a crazy stage mother and a bitter older brother who just so happens to sit next to Scarlett in biology class. Mrs. Amberson has asked Scarlett to "keep an eye" on him on top of her assistant duties, which now include taking a terrified little dog out for daily walks. And to top everything off - Eric is trying to hang around again, ostensibly to get Scarlett's advice on acting, but how is she supposed to get over him if he won't just leave her alone?
I love the Martins. They are a crazy, mixed up, and totally loving family. Even Melanie this time around! (Even though I agree her being nice is really kinda creepy). I also love Johnson's descriptions of New York City. I've been here a year and a half now so I'm really beginning to get the geography. I also cackled with glee when Scarlett took Chelsea to my favorite food place in Manhattan, the Shake Shack.
Johnson also does a great job with the class issues the Martins face, both subtle and overt. The subtle bits are with Scarlett and her relationship with money and her thoughts about her friends who clearly have more money than her (friends who spent the summer in Europe rather than staging plays in their dining rooms). On the one hand it seems like her family should be fabulously wealthy since they own a hotel and all, but since the hotel gets next to no guests and the massive medical bills that piled up during Melanie's cancer, money is tight in the household. More overt bits are with Lola and Chip and his family. Chip comes from money and some of the Martins, Scarlett and Spencer in particular, feel he's a bit ostentatious with it. There are serious questions of why Lola is back with him, so once more I really appreciated a look at life for a family that is neither incredibly rich nor nearly destitute. The Martins get by, but it's no cakewalk.
Two gripes on this book: first of all, it just ends. It's really abrupt and I closed the book thinking "that's it?" The last scene isn't bad (it's actually quite hilarious), but it doesn't feel like a complete ending. There's definitely more Scarlett books to look ahead to, I guess.
Second of all, I feel totally bleh about the cover
It's a golden key on a purple wallpaper background. It feels dull. It's really uninspiring to me.
Suite Scarlett in paperback has been redesigned to have a coordinating cover. I'm not saying the original cover was perfect, but it had a bit more character than the new covers:
I have some nitpicks on this cover - Scarlett's hair is way too perfect for example - but that's so minor and so nitpicky that it doesn't matter. At least it has more character than the new ones.
Cover and ending aside, this is another great Maureen Johnson book. She has her own brand of wit and humor and uses it with ease. Scarlett Fever works excellently as a sequel (right up until that ending), and I can't wait to read the next Scarlett story.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Book Thoughts: Women's History Month
Last month, Ari at Reading in Color had a great post about Black History Month, sharing her frustrations with relegating all of the rich history of African Americans to the shortest month of the year. I wanted to applaud her post, because every word she said was so true, and her thoughts are so similar to mine on women's history month.
Women's history month is unfortunately necessary in some ways. I would rather women be recognized a little bit rather than not at all. But I have a love/hate relationship with this month, because I've witnessed first hand how women really do get left out of our collective consciousness the rest of the year.
I still distinctly remember having to get special permission to do projects on women at least twice in my school career. In elementary school, third grade I think, we were doing some sort of biography project on famous Americans - and there wasn't a single woman on the list. I had just found out I am related (distantly) to Abigail Adams and figured she had to count - so I asked to do a project on her. Mine was the only presentation in an entire class of third graders that was about a woman. Oh, and my teacher that year? Was a woman.
Years later, this time as a senior in high school taking AP English, our summer reading list was heavily skewed towards male writers. We got the list before the start of the summer at a meeting to be sure we all knew exactly what we were getting into. Seeing the dearth of female names, I asked if the reading list for the whole year was going to look like this, and the teacher assured me it wasn't - that there would even be explicitly feminist texts in our midterm reading project.
When that midterm project came around, the entire list consisted of novels written by (non-feminist) men. I was furious and asked the teacher where was the promised feminist work - she gave me the title she had been considering and warned me I might find it "too extreme." Yes, again this class was taught by a woman. (The book she gave me was Susan Faludi's Backlash, which I found far from being extreme at the time - clearly the teacher underestimated my feminist streak!).
So for years and years in school, the only time I learned about women's contributions to history, science, or literature was either in March or when I made enough of a fuss to get them included (and I was always the sole rabble-rouser). This, as I alluded to yesterday, is why my reading tastes to this day skew heavily female and contemporary: I had to spend so much time reading about the exploits of men (usually white men), that in my free time I wanted to read about people like me. I do consider myself incredibly lucky that I can focus so much on women's and girls' stories and find no lack of compelling stories to read, but I certainly wish there had been more emphasis on getting these stories into the everyday curriculum.
For me, every month is women's history month. That's why I spend so much of my time on this blog discussing feminist issues, whether they are underdeveloped female characters, women's roles in historical events or dissections of class and racial struggles. That's the beautiful thing about feminism - so many topics fit under the umbrella I'll never be bored! Nothing is going to change here for the duration of March - in venues where people are struggling to fully include women's stories, highlight the month makes sense, but here it really wouldn't make much of a difference, would it?
I hope you have a happy March - and some woman-positive experiences from unexpected sources.
Women's history month is unfortunately necessary in some ways. I would rather women be recognized a little bit rather than not at all. But I have a love/hate relationship with this month, because I've witnessed first hand how women really do get left out of our collective consciousness the rest of the year.
I still distinctly remember having to get special permission to do projects on women at least twice in my school career. In elementary school, third grade I think, we were doing some sort of biography project on famous Americans - and there wasn't a single woman on the list. I had just found out I am related (distantly) to Abigail Adams and figured she had to count - so I asked to do a project on her. Mine was the only presentation in an entire class of third graders that was about a woman. Oh, and my teacher that year? Was a woman.
Years later, this time as a senior in high school taking AP English, our summer reading list was heavily skewed towards male writers. We got the list before the start of the summer at a meeting to be sure we all knew exactly what we were getting into. Seeing the dearth of female names, I asked if the reading list for the whole year was going to look like this, and the teacher assured me it wasn't - that there would even be explicitly feminist texts in our midterm reading project.
When that midterm project came around, the entire list consisted of novels written by (non-feminist) men. I was furious and asked the teacher where was the promised feminist work - she gave me the title she had been considering and warned me I might find it "too extreme." Yes, again this class was taught by a woman. (The book she gave me was Susan Faludi's Backlash, which I found far from being extreme at the time - clearly the teacher underestimated my feminist streak!).
So for years and years in school, the only time I learned about women's contributions to history, science, or literature was either in March or when I made enough of a fuss to get them included (and I was always the sole rabble-rouser). This, as I alluded to yesterday, is why my reading tastes to this day skew heavily female and contemporary: I had to spend so much time reading about the exploits of men (usually white men), that in my free time I wanted to read about people like me. I do consider myself incredibly lucky that I can focus so much on women's and girls' stories and find no lack of compelling stories to read, but I certainly wish there had been more emphasis on getting these stories into the everyday curriculum.
For me, every month is women's history month. That's why I spend so much of my time on this blog discussing feminist issues, whether they are underdeveloped female characters, women's roles in historical events or dissections of class and racial struggles. That's the beautiful thing about feminism - so many topics fit under the umbrella I'll never be bored! Nothing is going to change here for the duration of March - in venues where people are struggling to fully include women's stories, highlight the month makes sense, but here it really wouldn't make much of a difference, would it?
I hope you have a happy March - and some woman-positive experiences from unexpected sources.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Review: The Maze Runner by James Dashner
Found via: B&N Post-Apocalyptic Teen Fiction Panel
I heard about this one back in the day, but put off picking it up. Now that I've read it (and read it fairly quickly), I've been delaying writing my review, because I feel like I have a major bone to pick with the characterization of the lone girl in the story - but I've been having trouble articulating my feelings about her. More on that after the summary:
Thomas enters the Glade in the Box. He doesn't remember where he came from, or even his last name. He knows he is Thomas, and he knows the basics of how the world works, but all of the details of his life have apparently been erased.
He emerges from the Box into the Glade and a group of teenage boys, most of whom don't seem too keen on giving Thomas too many answers on where he is or why he's there. And just when Thomas is supposed to start his grand tour of the Glade, a wrench is thrown into the works.
A girl shows up.
Thomas gets a crash course in the rules of the Glade: two years ago a group of boys was dumped into the Glade, which seems to be in the center of a giant, ever-changing maze. Since that first group, one new boy has joined them on the same day every month. The girl, Theresa, shows up one day after Thomas and is, clearly, the wrong gender. She also comes bearing an ominous message: she is the last teen to be delivered to the Glade. Clearly, everything is about to change.
Thomas is a boy of action - he doesn't like sitting around and obeying the rules of the Glade. The rules are there for a reason, as is explained to him many times: when dozens of nervous and scared boys are forced to live together for years, the rules bring order, and order is the only thing that keeps them sane. The rules include assigned jobs for every boy - and one particularly prestigious, and dangerous, job is that of the runners. The runners are the boys who spend every day running frantically through the Maze, trying to map the corridors and find an exit, even though the walls move every night. The runners have to be fast, because the maze is populated by Grievers - horrifying creatures, part machine and part flesh, that will kill anyone who gets in their way - or at least sting them with a poison that causes the boy to see flashes of terrifying memories of life before the Glade.
After Thomas and Theresa's arrivals, life in the Glade changes quickly. Thomas and Theresa discover they have some sort of connection to each other from Before, and life in the Glad becomes progressively more dangerous until one thing becomes clear: the Gladers need to find that way to escape, or one by one they are all going to die.
Let me get some of the good points out of the way before I launch into my thoughts on Theresa: there are lots of interesting characters in the Glade, and the world is definitely very interesting. There's all sorts of slang in the book, which judging from other reviews has thrown people, but isolated communities are naturally going to create their own slang (two years is more than long enough) and the general meaning of the slang I felt was pretty obvious (it's used in place of traditional curse words. Even if you don't know what "klunker" actually means, context lets you know it's some sort of expletive most of the time).
I was torn between being annoyed with the Gladers a lot, and accepting their portrayals as realistic. Thomas has lots of questions, naturally, upon waking up - and absolutely no one will answer them. This is a recurring theme - if Thomas (and we as the readers) have a question, there's going to be a lot of hesitation and arguing before the answer is given to us. Likewise, every single idea Thomas has is immediately shot down because of course the Gladers have already tried it. It makes the Gladers rather unsympathetic initially. On the other hand, if Thomas really did come in and save the day on his second day in the Glade, I would have questioned the intelligence of the rest of the Gladers that a boy figured out in two days what they couldn't in two years. Generally I think the constant belittling of Thomas just went overboard.
And now. Theresa. I think part of the reason I avoided this book for so long is that I have an aversion to guys-only stories - a habit carried over from middle school and high school when I was protesting the forced-reading of so many stories by and about Dead White Guys so I focused my reading on female-centric stories. I've broadened my reading horizons a lot since then, but I still hesitate before picking up a book that I know features only a token female character. I figured I'd give The Maze Runner a chance finally because I liked The Knife of Never Letting Go so much, and that after all is sold as a story about an entire planet with no women until Viola shows up. But Theresa is no Viola, and Thomas is no Todd. For one thing, Viola is given character development, while Theresa is in a coma or otherwise separated from the action for most of the story, which makes her more of a plot device than an actual character. Despite it being so strange for a girl to show up in the Glade, we don't get to see any actual repercussions from that because Theresa rarely interacts with anyone. I hope her presence is setting something up for the sequel that will explain her importance, but as a character (or even as a plot device) she doesn't work at all in The Maze Runner. Ultimately I was left wondering why Thomas on his own couldn't have served the purpose Theresa ended up doing (aside from future dramatic and romantic possibilities in the sequel. Oh man, was Theresa included just to prove these guys weren't gay? That's a terribly depressing thought - because several guys do go out of their way to mention or ask about how hot Theresa is).
As another contribution to the ever-growing list of YA dystopian fiction, The Maze Runner is a solid attempt. A weird and creepy world was definitely created - and we only get the smallest glimpses of what life may be like outside of the Maze. I'm mildly curious to see where this trilogy goes, but I'll probably wait to hear other people's opinions on it before jumping in myself.
Has anyone else read this one? I looked around for other reviews, but I couldn't find any commentary on Theresa. I would love to know if I'm the only one that has a hangup about her.
I heard about this one back in the day, but put off picking it up. Now that I've read it (and read it fairly quickly), I've been delaying writing my review, because I feel like I have a major bone to pick with the characterization of the lone girl in the story - but I've been having trouble articulating my feelings about her. More on that after the summary:
Thomas enters the Glade in the Box. He doesn't remember where he came from, or even his last name. He knows he is Thomas, and he knows the basics of how the world works, but all of the details of his life have apparently been erased.
He emerges from the Box into the Glade and a group of teenage boys, most of whom don't seem too keen on giving Thomas too many answers on where he is or why he's there. And just when Thomas is supposed to start his grand tour of the Glade, a wrench is thrown into the works.
A girl shows up.
Thomas gets a crash course in the rules of the Glade: two years ago a group of boys was dumped into the Glade, which seems to be in the center of a giant, ever-changing maze. Since that first group, one new boy has joined them on the same day every month. The girl, Theresa, shows up one day after Thomas and is, clearly, the wrong gender. She also comes bearing an ominous message: she is the last teen to be delivered to the Glade. Clearly, everything is about to change.
Thomas is a boy of action - he doesn't like sitting around and obeying the rules of the Glade. The rules are there for a reason, as is explained to him many times: when dozens of nervous and scared boys are forced to live together for years, the rules bring order, and order is the only thing that keeps them sane. The rules include assigned jobs for every boy - and one particularly prestigious, and dangerous, job is that of the runners. The runners are the boys who spend every day running frantically through the Maze, trying to map the corridors and find an exit, even though the walls move every night. The runners have to be fast, because the maze is populated by Grievers - horrifying creatures, part machine and part flesh, that will kill anyone who gets in their way - or at least sting them with a poison that causes the boy to see flashes of terrifying memories of life before the Glade.
After Thomas and Theresa's arrivals, life in the Glade changes quickly. Thomas and Theresa discover they have some sort of connection to each other from Before, and life in the Glad becomes progressively more dangerous until one thing becomes clear: the Gladers need to find that way to escape, or one by one they are all going to die.
Let me get some of the good points out of the way before I launch into my thoughts on Theresa: there are lots of interesting characters in the Glade, and the world is definitely very interesting. There's all sorts of slang in the book, which judging from other reviews has thrown people, but isolated communities are naturally going to create their own slang (two years is more than long enough) and the general meaning of the slang I felt was pretty obvious (it's used in place of traditional curse words. Even if you don't know what "klunker" actually means, context lets you know it's some sort of expletive most of the time).
I was torn between being annoyed with the Gladers a lot, and accepting their portrayals as realistic. Thomas has lots of questions, naturally, upon waking up - and absolutely no one will answer them. This is a recurring theme - if Thomas (and we as the readers) have a question, there's going to be a lot of hesitation and arguing before the answer is given to us. Likewise, every single idea Thomas has is immediately shot down because of course the Gladers have already tried it. It makes the Gladers rather unsympathetic initially. On the other hand, if Thomas really did come in and save the day on his second day in the Glade, I would have questioned the intelligence of the rest of the Gladers that a boy figured out in two days what they couldn't in two years. Generally I think the constant belittling of Thomas just went overboard.
And now. Theresa. I think part of the reason I avoided this book for so long is that I have an aversion to guys-only stories - a habit carried over from middle school and high school when I was protesting the forced-reading of so many stories by and about Dead White Guys so I focused my reading on female-centric stories. I've broadened my reading horizons a lot since then, but I still hesitate before picking up a book that I know features only a token female character. I figured I'd give The Maze Runner a chance finally because I liked The Knife of Never Letting Go so much, and that after all is sold as a story about an entire planet with no women until Viola shows up. But Theresa is no Viola, and Thomas is no Todd. For one thing, Viola is given character development, while Theresa is in a coma or otherwise separated from the action for most of the story, which makes her more of a plot device than an actual character. Despite it being so strange for a girl to show up in the Glade, we don't get to see any actual repercussions from that because Theresa rarely interacts with anyone. I hope her presence is setting something up for the sequel that will explain her importance, but as a character (or even as a plot device) she doesn't work at all in The Maze Runner. Ultimately I was left wondering why Thomas on his own couldn't have served the purpose Theresa ended up doing (aside from future dramatic and romantic possibilities in the sequel. Oh man, was Theresa included just to prove these guys weren't gay? That's a terribly depressing thought - because several guys do go out of their way to mention or ask about how hot Theresa is).
As another contribution to the ever-growing list of YA dystopian fiction, The Maze Runner is a solid attempt. A weird and creepy world was definitely created - and we only get the smallest glimpses of what life may be like outside of the Maze. I'm mildly curious to see where this trilogy goes, but I'll probably wait to hear other people's opinions on it before jumping in myself.
Has anyone else read this one? I looked around for other reviews, but I couldn't find any commentary on Theresa. I would love to know if I'm the only one that has a hangup about her.
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