junior fiction - tally: 3
al capone does my shirts by gennifer choldenko
i was volunteering at pepper's school library and was bored during a lull so i picked this up off the shelf. it was good enough that i sought it out a month later to finish it.
what i liked best about this book was the realistic interactions between boys - their minute conversations contrasted to their inner dialogue. i thought it was a good capture of the seemingly superficial, but obviously deeper, connections between boys. although fiction, it's set in a true historical time, in a true (and interesting) setting: alcatraz. i always like when an author sneeks in all that good-for-jeopardy-trivia seemlessly into their novels. the best of both worlds when looking for books for our children: education and entertainment.
a long walk to water by linda sue parks
after watching 2 documentaries about the lost boys of sudan i wanted to know more, and i found this book - labelled as junior fiction. one of the benefits of books that target youth is the basic introduction they provide...these books never assume you're approaching the subject with prior knowlege or opinions. i really appreciated that. the book has a much more hopeful tone than i got from the documentaries, and spelled out more clearly themes i'd seen in the films. for example, sport would be the easiest way for the sudanese boys to fit into american life because the language and cultural barriers would be minimal.
i also found a 'lost boys' book targetting the very young - a picture book to read to bosco
from the mixed-up files of mrs. basil e. frankweiler by e. l. konigsburg
read for the mother/daughter bookclub, this was a charming book that, deservedly, won the newbery the year i was born. i found the themes of growing up, looking for validation, and needing something that is one's own timeless. i was especially surprised to see books THAT old figured parentless children. i really thought this was a more mordern construction and i've criticized it often. yet this plot was near harmless, and the absence of parental perspective made the whole endeavor innocent and sweet. i loved the book while pepper hated it - she's unable to conceive of a time before today's security-obsessed reality. what was a faint memory for me, was a totally foreign concept to her.
YA - tally: 4
catching fire by suzanne collins
there's a danger in the second book of a trilogy: trying to keep the momentum of the first, while saving the real action for the last. at first i thought this book was going to be too predictable: oh look, another games. and instead of rue, an infirm old lady impossible to protect. and another lie/secret for katniss to keep throughout the games.
but i didn't expect peeta's latest declaration; that was good. and then the plot didn't even revolve around this latest lie - instead the hunger games switched in tone as the tributes found solidarity. that was a nice touch. of course the ending wasn't a real ending at all; just a set-up for the next book.
the mockingjay by suzanne collins
so many thoughts; it's not as simple as commenting on one book, since this is the ending, so you reflect on the whole trilogy...
at first i was really bored by the whole peta or gale seesaw - hello? twilight called and they want their pathethic plot device back.
i thought it was geting better when peta hates katness - finally! cause it's annoying that she's automatically so desired - but that whole i'm-trying-so-hard to-hold-back-from-hurting-you(biting your neck and sucking your blood, delicious bella)even-though-it-goes-against-my-capital-induced-programming(nature) reminded me (again!) of lameduck twilight
i wonder if the author had the movie rights sold bought before she wrote mockingjay - so much of it was framed inside a tv screen. that bugged me. and the capital as a rigged arena with pods going off every which way was both overly violent (much more so than the other 2 books) and not believable in the least. why would a government place mines within it's own city walls? it's destructive to your population and infrastructure; it would not be tolerated.
lastly, i was shocked by how many of the beloved characters die. after 3 books, they become important and integral and it's hard to see them gone. but i guess the author had to have a futily-of-war message, and you can't do that if everone lives happily ever after.
and yet, i still enjoyed the series. i liked the ending because it's what i wanted to happen. and, as a young adult series, i liked the message that it gave: the ease with which a victim turns to a bully once power has shifted in their favour. any teenager reading the book can see how allowing just one more hunger games opens the door to just one more, then one more. no one wakes up a monster, it happens slowly if you lose sight of your original goal.
the graveyard book by neil gaiman
what at thoroughly charming book! i cannot say enough wonderful things about this allegory of childhood itself... there's a nolatalgia here for adults, and a delicious fear for older children, and a cohesive plot that uses most, if not all, the supposed tangents that come along - fierce and rob and i all loved it. (pepper's up next to listen to it)
oh yes - do it as an audiobook. it's voiced by the author himself and he captures the characters are perfectly as he conceived them
once again - loving the young adult genre!
liar by justine larbalestier
what a wild ride - a self-proclaimed compulsive liar as a narrator. and yet our instinct, as readers, is to believe the narrator, to identify with her, understand and sympathize with her...
this book took C-R-A-Z-Y twists and turns. and took me with them! i'm done, and still don't know what to believe! the author's blog begs the reader not to give anything away - so i won't. but this is a book that is ideal for discussion. even though it had alot of swearing, and some questionable content, i'll pass it on to pepper this summer (when we'll have time to hash it out, chapter by chapter, part by part).
graphic novels - tally: 4
walking dead - volume 3
i think i'm thru with this series... the violence is escalating beyond my comfort range.
now the group is being terrorized by fellow (evil) human beings rather than zombies. made-up violence with zombies eating arms and necks is one thing - but torture (graphic or otherwise) is another thing altogether.
mom's cancer by brian fies
no one will care more about your life than you do, and no one is better qualified to chart its course than you are.
and so begins a poignant account of the author's family - and what happens when his mom is diagnosed with brain and lung cancer. told as a graphic novel, the story is simple enough for a everyman tale, and the simplicity is it strength. it feels real enough to me, with a longtime smoker for a mom, multiple siblings to squabble over choice of care, a divorced dad who offers the opposite of comfort.
the strongest takeaway from the book: when people face an emergency, they just become more of what they already are - like they get superpowers.
i'm going to remember that.
the unwritten - volume 1 by mike carey and peter gross
great hook: the main character's father (before he mysteriously disappears) wrote a series of books featuring a 'harry potter' type child that was named for his son. years later, there's kind of cult that believes the author's now-grown son IS the mythical boy from the series.
but that's just the hook - what follows is a literary landscape where ominous beings control the storytellers and their tales: shelly, twain, kipling... and we've only just begun. there's 4 volumes in this series, the library has 3, so i'll keep reading as far as i can.
the watchmen by alan moore and dave gibbons
i know, right?
me? the watchmen?
looking for a new graphic novel to start, i googled 'best graphic novels of all time' and this one kept showing up.
i leafed thru it - ugh, superheroes? but i thought i'd give the first few pages a try... wow. layered, incredibly complex, and even poetic in spots - this was beyond what i've seen in the genre. for the first time i can see the value in re-reading (and re-reading again!) a comic book. these issues must have been thumbed raw before the next installment was released. maybe my brother's comics weren't so dumb after all.
novels and short stories - tally: 6
olive kitteridge by elizabeth strout
a masterfully crafted novel told in short story form. it reminded me so much of alice munroe's who do you think you are?, which was first time i'd read a collection where the characters were interwoven in different stories. that book, read decades ago, was relevant to my young-adult life, and this book (read as i look forward to menopause) was even more relevant. i sometimes think short stories are the Aesop's Fables of today: one quick lesson after another.
i think, if margaret lawrence had lived long enough and tried her hand at short stories, this is what she would have come up with. a modern hagar, told in multiple perspectives.
cutting for stone by abraham verghese
this book insisted on plunging the reader, elbows deep, into the bloody mess of biology: horridly wrong birthing procedures, obstructed bowels and rectal tubes. i found the vocabulary incredibly distasteful. i've never read the word labia in a novel so many times. and when used in reference to a nun, it was revolting to me.
after the first part (there are 4) i tried to recenter myself. afterall, it's hard to read a book if you continue to actively dislike it. so i was happy that part 2 focused on the young twins and their childhood. unfortunately, that couldn't last forever. everyone grows up
. . . . . .
this book tried really hard, and it was informative on many levels: about surgical procedures, ethiopian history, religious orders, tribal superstitions, and the dependance of america on the importation of cheap medical interns. these things were new to me, and of some value. but to be honest it felt that the author bit off more than he could chew. too much in one book. like he didn't think he'd get another chance.
at almost 700 pages, there were lots of tangents in minor characters' backgrounds that i could do without. and even with such a length, sometimes a sub-plot or conversation veered off course with little explaination or believability
i'm sure the author railed against fistulas and female circumsion earnestly, but.... you know, i've heard it before. and it felt like a checklist of african tragedies to check off.
barney's version by mordecai richler
i thought he was gona leave us hanging - wondering where the truth lay (i already felt 98% sure in my conviction)
but no - richler leaves us satisfied. and in so many ways: here's a book that is so steeped in his passions - hockey, montreal, literature, jews, the seperatist movement, hard drinking and cigar smoking - heck even the infamous duddy kravitz shows up for a reprise
i loved the tiny truths that fell out everywhere: see a man at his weakest and make an enemy for life, abhoring a character trait that we ourselves have, gratitude has a short shelf-life, the more we read, the more difficult it is to come up with an original thought... and although life may be 'absurd' (barney's word) it is worth hanging on to, regardless of our sorry state.
lamb: the gospel according to biff, christ's childhood pal by christopher moore
this book started out quite humourously, but fizzled out quickly. recommended by a (usually) impeccable source, i didn't find the charm she saw. perhaps i read it too slowly, giving me the time to notice the repetitiveness and the overuse of profanity in order to shock. in retrospect, the one sentence review by Playboy on the dustjacket was a dead giveaway.
this jesus is called joshua (josh for short) and he starts off as an interesting character, but by the end, he's morphed into the stoic wise man we've all seen on tv. blah.
ultimately this book was a one-trick-pony that tired itself out in the first 100 pages. too bad the book goes on for another 300 plus...
eternal on the water by joseph monninger
i hated this book. it was sooooo sentimental and contrived. although meant to be a romance, it was very plot-driven. the author had to keep trotting out new characters to keep the story moving (cause he had no talent to sustain the romance) - including a smart black kid from the projects. oh god. here comes the great white hope to make it all better... vomit.
everyone liked everyone immediately. no actual depth to people's relationships with each other. the author did exactly what a bad writer does: tells you what a great person that guy is, or how important this girl is, or how deep their relationship goes... tells you, instead of shows you through actual plot.
at the end, all these supposedly important people gather to see mary off, and everyone tears up (again!)
ok (full disclosure), i cried when i was supposed to - but you'd had to be a machine not to! that doesn't automatically mean it was a good book. why is her tragedy one that draws everyone in? if she comes from a foundation that helps sick and dying children, why didn't we witness her participating in someone else's farewell? and lastly, who still buys into the romanticism of a slow, graceful death? pale ladies swooning with the consumption. lord, give me a break. and someone write a REAL story of watching someone you love die. of course, that would never sell
the white tiger by aravind adiga
set in present day bangolore, this charming narrator immediately reminded me of the uncle from a fine balance - always cheerful among the despair and corruption. but this man ends up being an antidote to him: breaking out of his 'rooster cage' through murder and by turning his back on his family. and yet - you can't help but like him! and why not? we've read our share of loyal, pious, rural indians who can never escape their poverty, even if they escape their limited choices in their village. so finally: a happy ending (for him... for now) maybe that's the best you can hope for.
non-fiction - tally: 4
ulysses western canada
this travel guide was almost impossible to decipher - the info is awkwardly organized, and the authors are some sort of cultural snobs who only seem to like wine tours. they've labelled things kitchy and/or tourist traps but i've travelled all the way out there: i want to see the capilano suspension bridge, and walk on the columbia icefields, and do the maybe-stupid touristy things! if the library had a better selection, i'd have dropped the whole thing. well, after i'd photocopied a few of the maps - those were good
in contrast - i thoroughly enjoyed the DK Top Ten book for Vancouver and Victoria. easy to navigate, lots of pictures, full of info. and it's so slim! i'm thinking of buying a copy to take with us
spousonomics: using economics to master love, marriage, and dirty dishes by paula szuchman and jenny anderson
what an utter load of crap -
first off, the authors (2 of them) imply they are economists when justifing why they wrote the book, then they list the resources they consulted during the writing: lots of primary sources for economics plus some semi-famous economists too. so i'm getting the feeling they aren't actually economist - just thought this would be a good hook.
to be honest, i guessed the authors were male (i was wrong): such a unnecessarily wordy book, full of riduculous stereotypes as their 'real-life' examples, and their desperate attempts to be humurous (yes, they fail on that one too). they used the word sex two dozen times in their introduction alone (as in: use sex to get your partner to do something unpleasant, OR if you do a chore for your partner, you'll get sex (and yes i know those are the same example: maybe someone should tell them)
they skim relationship problems with over simplistic solutions like go on strike if your husband doesn't pull his share of the load with respect to the household and children. as if washing only yours and the children's dishes, and leaving his to fester, will do anything but cause a literal stink as the extra sets of dishes (we all have more than the number of people in our family) pile up beside the sink.
and passing on the responsibility of carpooling to a lazy hubby will result in being kicked out of said carpool since most people don't want to wait patiently (or have you not show up at all) as you iron out your marital inequality. yet somehow, in one after another anecdote, problems simply disappeared without the awkward middle phase of suffering before the playing field rights itself.
and in the authors' characterizations, alot of the couples talked either horribly to each other, or about each other - contempt, contempt, contempt.
much of it sounded like there would be no hope of recconciliation (and then: tah-dah! a wife's strike, or a marriage contract, made it all better. yuck - a marriage contract dictating how many back rubs a months and/or who does which chores - why don't you just a declare yourself a business and take love entirely out of the equation?)
i could go on, ad nauseum, but i will finish with one last example of their poor reasoning/ lack of math skills (sort of a requisite skill for economists, don't you think?)
ex: to cure hubby's bad behaviour (in this case - losing his temper), wife offers sex in return for 3 days in a row of good behavior, 2 nights of sex in a row if hubby is 'good' for a week, and an 'anything goes' sex card if hubby is 'good' for a full month. so here's how a month would go if hubby was cured of said behavior (and let's not forget this is the point, you want this to happen, you're happy it gets to this point...):
day 3 - sex, day 6 - sex, day 7 & 8 - back-to-back sex reward for the one week goal, day 9 - sex, day 12 - sex, day 14 &15 - (another week so) sex &sex, day 15 (yup, again) sex for the every 3 days (so that's 2 sessions in one day, or maybe you push it to day 16), day 18 - sex, day 21 - sex, but that's also another week so day 21 & 22 - sex & sex, so maybe you push that extra time to day 23, day 24 - sex, day 27 - sex, day 28 & 29 - sex & sex b/c another week, day 30 - sex, oops, but day 30 is also the end of the month and so maybe you tack on a ménage à trois what with the 'anything goes' reward. or bump that to day 31.
i'll add that up for you: 19 times over 30 days. ouch.
the agony and the agony: raising your teenager without losing your mind by betty londergan
here are the best takeaways:
* if having 'the talk' gives you the willies, then a well-thought letter might do the trick
* boys will be stinky (amen to that - the daily chore of laundry is now getting positively gross to me; where did my sweet smelling babies go?) so institute basic hygiene rules: daily showers, use deoderant (not anti-persperant), and show them show to do the sniff-test on their own clothes
* teens act out a primal battle between different parts of themselves - child and adult. as a parent, you're merely an unfortunate target. learn to listen to their tirades with a spirit of compassion, and then get amnesia
* when faced with the inevitable "i hate___." don't add to the conflict, a quick respose of "good to know" can shut down the conversation, after all - there's no request in there, nothing to negotiate
* maybe fun of your own tendencies - that will deflate a teen's rising hostility , and maybe even make them laugh, diffusing the situation
* never let kids have tvs or computers in their bedroom: you'll lose all control of access to popular (and let's face it: horribly mismatched with our values) culture
* think of the internet as a tangible place. if you don't let them go somewhere new without such & such information, don't let them 'go' to the internet under the same circumstances
* don't assume your parental controls have any effect: get an independant person to see how easy it is to breach them. better yet, get an older cousin or a young aunt to offer your teen advice about computers and priviacy issues
* it's ok, as parents, to spot check a child's bedroom, pockets, computer history. it's our job to keep them safe. but a journal is a spot for thoughts & feelings and should be kept off limits
* most teens have access to booze by grade 9. talk honestly with your child and have a plausible story ready for your child to use if offered alcohol or drugs. (case in point: my daughter and i have a code we've agreed to in advance: if she asks to do something if front of a peer, i turn her down, so i play the heavy)
* threats show you are on the defensive; if used, they should not be long term or you'll forget to enforce them
* puppy love: take your teen's emotions seriously, but be indiferent to their relationship, maybe even slightly hostile. joining in your teen's fatansy of forever-and-ever sends a messages that she needs this guy, and she doesn't
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