She visited Maine every summer with her husband and hoped to miss the torture of black fly season. This summer was no different and as she pulled into her dad's driveway she saw the new chicken hutch he'd built for the chicks. The old hens were muttering and clucking in their coop like old ladies gossiping at a church social.
After hugs and hellos they walked around the house to see the chicks who were already past that puff ball stage. Some of them had rudimentary combs and they pressed against the door chirping excitedly. There was a flat board propped against the bottom of the door and Dad explained about one of the chicks going missing. The plywood floor sagged slightly in the middle which created a gap at the bottom of the door. The chicks took turns sticking their heads through the gap as they watched. Probably it got out through the gap and wandered into the woods that edged up to the house. All sorts of things lived in those woods and many of them happy to make a chicken dinner among the dense foliage.
Two nights later she woke to the sounds of excited chirps. The guest bedroom had a window over looking the hutch and the sounds drifted through the cracked window. Usually they were quiet at night and the thought crossed her mind that perhaps she should go downstairs and have a look. The warmth of the bed was comfortable and the idea of stepping out into the cool evening air didn't appeal. After a few moments the chicks quieted down and she drifted back to sleep.
"Something got at one of the chicks," Dad said the next morning while she sat at the kitchen table blearily enjoying a cup of coffee.
"Oh," she said thinking about the excited chirping.
"Yeah," he said taking a sip from his coffee cup.
The next night she woke again to the sounds of excitable poultry. It was 1:30 and the sounds crescendoed in volume. The green light of the digital clock still left her fumbling in the dark for her reading clip lamp. The LED light, bright though it was only reflected off the screen and obscuring the ground below. The chirping was punctuated by a squawk and she padded downstairs in bare feet. Her shoes were by the back door and she turned on the back light to help her pick a path around the side of the house. The pool of light ended at the back corner of house and the hutch was just a dark shape among a host of dark shapes. That reading light would be useful now if she hadn't left it in the bed room. The birds chirped more sedately now and every thing seem still. Was it really necessary to go see.
Maine seems to foster a quality of darkness more palpable than that found in Atlanta. It was something that a person waded through and right now, for her, that hutch was in the middle of the ocean. She looked back at the back door, things seemed quiet, whatever it was was over now. The chicks flapped around in the hutch. When she turned back to peer into the darkness something was different. A shape missing in the darkness. Something thrashed through the underbrush. She waded into the darkness and peered at the ground around the hutch. Dark feathered globs littered the lighter colored ground and the board at the base of the hutch was pulled aside.
She turned and hurried back inside and up the stairs. She stopped outside her fathers room. "Somethings after the chicks," she said in what passed for a normal voice after all-night horror movie fests. Lucky light sleeping was a family trait. Her dad was up and down the stairs within seconds. Together they went out and surveyed the ground. There was blood on the ground and long mangled wing feathers. The remaining chicks were quiet now so they replaced the board and went back indoors.
The bed was inviting and the predator, whatever it was, probably wouldn't strike again. Still, even though she knew this, sleep was elusive. She lay in the dark and listened to the normal night sounds and eventually she drifted off.
She was awake, suddenly. Why was unclear. She had the sense of a noise. Something loud and brief. The clock said 3:30 and she sat in the darkness waiting. The chicks were moving around outside but were otherwise silent. She listened and waited for her heartbeat to slow. It was a dream, not surprising given the earlier events. Her head sank into the pillow and she resolutely closed her eyes. There was a loud squawk and the sounds of feathered bodies flapping in the hutch. She sat up and listened. Behind the panicked sound of chicks was something else.
This time she remembered to grab the reading lamp on the way downstairs. She hurried out to the hutch plunging into the darkness with the inadequate LED lamp providing a sense of security. Something crashed away into the woods. There were three feathered corpse in front of the hutch. One was laying next to its dismembered head. The crashing stopped and she froze in front of the hutch.
*and this stuff actually happens in Maine, it's no wonder so many horror writers are based here*
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
15. I'm A Stranger Here Myself
by Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson is enough of a phenomenon that it seems like I should have read one of his books before now. After all he has, nearly singlehandedly, repopularized travel writing, and I love traveling. Yet somehow there have always been other things to read, and, when I did pick his books up, I found myself not in the mood for them. It wasn't him, it was me.
This attempt was more successful and I managed to immerse in this collection of short essays Bryson wrote for the London Times about American culture. I started the book somewhere in Virginia and spent most of the rest of the trip to Maine happily NIB (nose in book). Each of the essays is about three pages long and they cover a mass of eclectic topics ranging from the fate of the traditional American diner to the nature of convenience in American culture. They are quick, pithy, and full of a charming self-deprecating humor. If the rest of Bryson's books are of a similar caliber, I will happily plough through them as well.
Bill Bryson is enough of a phenomenon that it seems like I should have read one of his books before now. After all he has, nearly singlehandedly, repopularized travel writing, and I love traveling. Yet somehow there have always been other things to read, and, when I did pick his books up, I found myself not in the mood for them. It wasn't him, it was me.
This attempt was more successful and I managed to immerse in this collection of short essays Bryson wrote for the London Times about American culture. I started the book somewhere in Virginia and spent most of the rest of the trip to Maine happily NIB (nose in book). Each of the essays is about three pages long and they cover a mass of eclectic topics ranging from the fate of the traditional American diner to the nature of convenience in American culture. They are quick, pithy, and full of a charming self-deprecating humor. If the rest of Bryson's books are of a similar caliber, I will happily plough through them as well.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
14. The Twits
by Roald Dahl
A week or so ago, I expressed a certain set of expectations from Dahl. Specifically, a certain sense that a proper Dahl story should have a dark almost wicked side to it. While this quality was distressingly absent in Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Twits has it in spades.
The Twits is the story of two absolutely awful old stinky people who delight in tricking each other. It's a kids book version of a dysfunctional marriage. Clearly neither of these old stinky mean people make good protagonists, so we get monkeys. It's a kids book and kids like monkeys. So, this family of monkeys, who are captives of the dastardly Twits, need to escape in a clever monkey-like manner. Which they do.
On another note, I've begun to notice a theme in Dahl's kid material: all the villains have woefully bad personal hygiene. Dahl doesn't just say these characters have stinky breath, he goes to the lengths of describing moldy bits of cheese and slimy decaying sardines trapped in facial hair. I know kids like gross things but ew.
A week or so ago, I expressed a certain set of expectations from Dahl. Specifically, a certain sense that a proper Dahl story should have a dark almost wicked side to it. While this quality was distressingly absent in Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Twits has it in spades.
The Twits is the story of two absolutely awful old stinky people who delight in tricking each other. It's a kids book version of a dysfunctional marriage. Clearly neither of these old stinky mean people make good protagonists, so we get monkeys. It's a kids book and kids like monkeys. So, this family of monkeys, who are captives of the dastardly Twits, need to escape in a clever monkey-like manner. Which they do.
On another note, I've begun to notice a theme in Dahl's kid material: all the villains have woefully bad personal hygiene. Dahl doesn't just say these characters have stinky breath, he goes to the lengths of describing moldy bits of cheese and slimy decaying sardines trapped in facial hair. I know kids like gross things but ew.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Hold the Mayo
I have never understood people's love affair with mayonnaise. Even from a very young age I can remember not liking it. I get that there must be some redeeming qualities to it but a sandwich slathered with it just turns my stomach, and don't get me started on what the dutch do to perfectly good french fries.
My distaste stems from two things. One: it's on and in everything and I genuinely don't care for the taste, in small doses I can get by it but people tend to slather it on with a putty knife. Two: when I eat it my throat gets itchy and I start having coughing fits. Whether this is a result of a genuine allergy or a psycho-somatic response is up it the air. Regardless I've long since been in the habit of ordering things without mayo even if I think they shouldn't have mayo anyway. "Excuse me waiter, is that a thin layer of mayo in between the meets and noodles in my lasagne?" I get a lot of strange looks by waitstaff. What really get's my goat about it, is that any other condiment gets listed in food descriptions. I can get a burger that is described as being layered with a two kinds of cheese, caramelized onions, and a peppy Dijon mustard. I think to myself a ha! there are condiments in the description and nary a mention of mayo, it must be safe. I order it thinking my life charmed, and lo and behold, when it comes it's not only all mayo-ed up, there are thick layers of the goo on each piece of bread the thickness of groat in a brick wall and, just in case I don't have enough, there's a small tub of the stuff on the side.
The gods are truly laughing at me. Is it too much to ask Lord? I just want a ham sandwich, hold the mayo. Amen.
My distaste stems from two things. One: it's on and in everything and I genuinely don't care for the taste, in small doses I can get by it but people tend to slather it on with a putty knife. Two: when I eat it my throat gets itchy and I start having coughing fits. Whether this is a result of a genuine allergy or a psycho-somatic response is up it the air. Regardless I've long since been in the habit of ordering things without mayo even if I think they shouldn't have mayo anyway. "Excuse me waiter, is that a thin layer of mayo in between the meets and noodles in my lasagne?" I get a lot of strange looks by waitstaff. What really get's my goat about it, is that any other condiment gets listed in food descriptions. I can get a burger that is described as being layered with a two kinds of cheese, caramelized onions, and a peppy Dijon mustard. I think to myself a ha! there are condiments in the description and nary a mention of mayo, it must be safe. I order it thinking my life charmed, and lo and behold, when it comes it's not only all mayo-ed up, there are thick layers of the goo on each piece of bread the thickness of groat in a brick wall and, just in case I don't have enough, there's a small tub of the stuff on the side.
The gods are truly laughing at me. Is it too much to ask Lord? I just want a ham sandwich, hold the mayo. Amen.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
13. Around the World in Eighty Days
by Jules Verne
I often forget that I'm reading Verne in translation. His big three novels are so a part of the cultural fabric that I tend to think of him as British. I've read Around the World before a few years back and found it oddly relevant even though it was written during the Victorian period. It seems like technology is developing and replacing itself at an exponential rate. The world feels small. I imagine that the Victorians had a similar feeling. Between rampant empire building and the advances of the Industrial Revolution, i.e. the railroad, people could move around at a speed never possible before.
The story of a British gentleman racing around the world to satisfy a bet and en route saving a lovely exotic young woman from a tragic death at the hands of 'scary heathens' sounds like the plot of a summer adventure movie. It's short and it's fun. The main character Phileas Fogg is saved from two-dimensionality by well crafted secondary characters. All and all, well deserving of its status as a 'classic.'
I often forget that I'm reading Verne in translation. His big three novels are so a part of the cultural fabric that I tend to think of him as British. I've read Around the World before a few years back and found it oddly relevant even though it was written during the Victorian period. It seems like technology is developing and replacing itself at an exponential rate. The world feels small. I imagine that the Victorians had a similar feeling. Between rampant empire building and the advances of the Industrial Revolution, i.e. the railroad, people could move around at a speed never possible before.
The story of a British gentleman racing around the world to satisfy a bet and en route saving a lovely exotic young woman from a tragic death at the hands of 'scary heathens' sounds like the plot of a summer adventure movie. It's short and it's fun. The main character Phileas Fogg is saved from two-dimensionality by well crafted secondary characters. All and all, well deserving of its status as a 'classic.'
Saturday, June 18, 2011
12. Fool
by Christopher Moore
Whenever I pick up a Christopher Moore novel and show it to my husband, he invariably says, "Haven't you read that before?" In fact, of his dozen or so novels, I had previously read only two. Apparently I am always so enthusiastic when reading a Moore novel that Ryan got the idea I was a big Moore fan (Moorian? Moorista? Mooron? hmmmmm.) I do like Moore's sense of humor and his novels are full to the brim with it. I also like that he tends to pick interesting projects. When vampire books were in vogue, for example, he wrote You Suck which was a tongue in cheek version of a vampire novel.
Fool, on the other hand, is an adaptation of Shakespeare's "King Lear" told from the point of view of Lear's Fool, Pocket. The very first page is a content warning written by the author himself cautioning the reader that the contents are full of explicit language and bawdiness. The contents live up to the warning, but not in a gratuitous way. A constant stream of lewd innuendo interspersed with witty sarcastic dialog and painfully tragic moments. I spent a large portion of the recent trip to Mississippi in the passenger seat giggling. I don't know how close Moore's tale is to the original Shakespeare since I've never read it. However, this was great fun despite the tragic events throughout and became more of a tragi-comedy. I heartily recommend this for Shakespeare buffs, as long as they have a sense of humor.
Whenever I pick up a Christopher Moore novel and show it to my husband, he invariably says, "Haven't you read that before?" In fact, of his dozen or so novels, I had previously read only two. Apparently I am always so enthusiastic when reading a Moore novel that Ryan got the idea I was a big Moore fan (Moorian? Moorista? Mooron? hmmmmm.) I do like Moore's sense of humor and his novels are full to the brim with it. I also like that he tends to pick interesting projects. When vampire books were in vogue, for example, he wrote You Suck which was a tongue in cheek version of a vampire novel.
Fool, on the other hand, is an adaptation of Shakespeare's "King Lear" told from the point of view of Lear's Fool, Pocket. The very first page is a content warning written by the author himself cautioning the reader that the contents are full of explicit language and bawdiness. The contents live up to the warning, but not in a gratuitous way. A constant stream of lewd innuendo interspersed with witty sarcastic dialog and painfully tragic moments. I spent a large portion of the recent trip to Mississippi in the passenger seat giggling. I don't know how close Moore's tale is to the original Shakespeare since I've never read it. However, this was great fun despite the tragic events throughout and became more of a tragi-comedy. I heartily recommend this for Shakespeare buffs, as long as they have a sense of humor.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
B.B. King & More Books
I love road trips. In the age of rapid transport jetting from location to location tuned out behind an ipod, I love the slower pace of car and interstate. Every new place is full of potential and possibility. My husband always finds a yellow pages, where ever we are, and looks up all the used cd places in the area. His passion for music is such that even when in Mississippi for a BB King concert, he pauses to look up all the used music places. So it is from him that I learned to find all the used bookstores in a new area.
The B.B. King concert was hosted at the New Moon Casino in Choctaw Mississippi. They converted the entire casino floor into a concert venue and I have to say the seats were much more comfortable than most concerts. For 85 years old, B.B. is in great shape and still has a great voice. Bobby Bland was there watching the concert from the stage and B.B. called him over to sing with him. And they sat there talked about old times and tried to figure out something to sing. That took so long that by the time B.B. gave up finding something, most of the crowd was upset and the concert was over. Lots of people stormed out saying what crap that it was and bemoaning the songs they didn't hear. Everyone was disappointed. I think though, that I got to see something so rare. I got to see two blues legends just talking to each other. They weren't performing, not really. They were talking about things that I can't even imagine because I'm too young. They talked about Memphis in the 50s and the first black police officer. They talked about getting in trouble and getting out of trouble. They talked about a time past but still greatly a part of the cultural fabric. And because I got to see it, I got to experience it for just a little while. So, while it wasn't what I walked in the door expected, I wasn't disappointed walking out.
The next day, Ryan and I raided the used bookstores and cd stores of Meridian and Tuscaloosa. Tuscaloosa got hit hard by tornadoes and we drove ride through the disaster zone. It's amazing the damage a tornado can do. We saw buildings toppled and trees snapped like matchsticks on our way. There is only one used bookstore and one used cd store in Tuscaloosa as far we could tell. They are in the same shopping center. The bookstore was tiny but had a bizarrely good selection. Below is the inventory of my haul both from there and from the local Books-a-Million.
The B.B. King concert was hosted at the New Moon Casino in Choctaw Mississippi. They converted the entire casino floor into a concert venue and I have to say the seats were much more comfortable than most concerts. For 85 years old, B.B. is in great shape and still has a great voice. Bobby Bland was there watching the concert from the stage and B.B. called him over to sing with him. And they sat there talked about old times and tried to figure out something to sing. That took so long that by the time B.B. gave up finding something, most of the crowd was upset and the concert was over. Lots of people stormed out saying what crap that it was and bemoaning the songs they didn't hear. Everyone was disappointed. I think though, that I got to see something so rare. I got to see two blues legends just talking to each other. They weren't performing, not really. They were talking about things that I can't even imagine because I'm too young. They talked about Memphis in the 50s and the first black police officer. They talked about getting in trouble and getting out of trouble. They talked about a time past but still greatly a part of the cultural fabric. And because I got to see it, I got to experience it for just a little while. So, while it wasn't what I walked in the door expected, I wasn't disappointed walking out.
The next day, Ryan and I raided the used bookstores and cd stores of Meridian and Tuscaloosa. Tuscaloosa got hit hard by tornadoes and we drove ride through the disaster zone. It's amazing the damage a tornado can do. We saw buildings toppled and trees snapped like matchsticks on our way. There is only one used bookstore and one used cd store in Tuscaloosa as far we could tell. They are in the same shopping center. The bookstore was tiny but had a bizarrely good selection. Below is the inventory of my haul both from there and from the local Books-a-Million.
- Trader by Charles de Lint
- House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
- The Secrets of a Fire King: Stories by Kim Edwards
- From Russia, With Love by Ian Fleming
- The Spy Who Loved Me by Ian Fleming
- Diamonds Are Forever by Ian Fleming
- Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
- Moonraker by Ian Fleming
- Thunderball by Ian Fleming
- You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming
- Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard
- Freaky Deaky by Elmore Leonard
- Bad Traffic by Simon Lewis
- Songs for the Butcher's Daughter by Peter Manseau
- Rumpole and the Reign of Terror by John Mortimer
- Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan
- The Twentieth Wife by Indu Sundaresan
- Slumdog Millionaire by Vikas Swarup
- The Corpse Walker by Liao Yiwu
- Queens Own Fool by Jane Yolen & Robert J. Harris
Sunday, June 12, 2011
11. Florida Road Kill
by Tim Dorsey
I've often wondered what it's like in the head of someone with ADHD. After reading this book, I'm pretty sure I have a good idea of it now. Dorsey manages to keep a dozen characters bouncing in a fast paced murder caper and it's a lot like reading a Guy Richie movie. All these seemingly unrelated characters come together like a row of dominoes by the last chapter in a way that seems natural.
A trio of mentally unstable ex-con con-artists force a dishonest dentist into an insurance scam. When the money goes missing, it starts murderous road trip from Tampa to Key West. Two essentially nice guys get unwittingly tied up in the fall out. Along the way, there is a Rube Goldberg style murder, murder using a can of Fix-a-Flat as a murder weapon, and a macaw blown through a plate glass window by a cannon.
While the manic fast pace of the book is off-putting to start, within 50 pages it hits a groove. Practically every character manages to kill some other character by the end and many of them are endearingly loathsome. The twists and turns are engaging and even though it ends on a cliff-hanger, it doesn't feel like a cheat. My brain needs a break but I'll be picking the sequel, Hammerhead Motel soon.
I've often wondered what it's like in the head of someone with ADHD. After reading this book, I'm pretty sure I have a good idea of it now. Dorsey manages to keep a dozen characters bouncing in a fast paced murder caper and it's a lot like reading a Guy Richie movie. All these seemingly unrelated characters come together like a row of dominoes by the last chapter in a way that seems natural.
A trio of mentally unstable ex-con con-artists force a dishonest dentist into an insurance scam. When the money goes missing, it starts murderous road trip from Tampa to Key West. Two essentially nice guys get unwittingly tied up in the fall out. Along the way, there is a Rube Goldberg style murder, murder using a can of Fix-a-Flat as a murder weapon, and a macaw blown through a plate glass window by a cannon.
While the manic fast pace of the book is off-putting to start, within 50 pages it hits a groove. Practically every character manages to kill some other character by the end and many of them are endearingly loathsome. The twists and turns are engaging and even though it ends on a cliff-hanger, it doesn't feel like a cheat. My brain needs a break but I'll be picking the sequel, Hammerhead Motel soon.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
10. Fantastic Mr. Fox
by Roald Dahl
Being a fan of Dahl means that I've come to expect certain things from his stories. I expect excellent descriptions, sinister characters, and delightful twists. It is possible that my expectations from Dahl are much higher than they would be for most other writers.
What I don't expect from Dahl is a straight forward kid's book. I just don't. So when I read Fantastic Mr. Fox I was a little disappointed. As a kid's book, it's fine. Crafty Mr. Fox outsmarts the despicable mean old farmers with bad personal hygiene. I expected more though.
The characters were cute and it's a quick little read. Good book for a beginning reader, and fun illustrations.
Being a fan of Dahl means that I've come to expect certain things from his stories. I expect excellent descriptions, sinister characters, and delightful twists. It is possible that my expectations from Dahl are much higher than they would be for most other writers.
What I don't expect from Dahl is a straight forward kid's book. I just don't. So when I read Fantastic Mr. Fox I was a little disappointed. As a kid's book, it's fine. Crafty Mr. Fox outsmarts the despicable mean old farmers with bad personal hygiene. I expected more though.
The characters were cute and it's a quick little read. Good book for a beginning reader, and fun illustrations.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Commitments
This is a blog continually in transition. I started the original version in 2005 when I was working through a reading challenge with a couple of coworkers. I was a librarian at the time so I was surrounded by people who had reading habits every bit a voracious as my own. That initial iteration was probably the most successful run I had with the blog. I think partly that was because it was a new idea and I think partly it was because I was surrounded by big readers. Even though I work at a school now, I am the undisputed biggest reader of the campus. Talking books just isn't as much fun as it used to be. Inevitably, I end up talking people into the glassy eye stage.
I've restarted the blog a half dozen times now and through each iteration, except this one, I've had some sort of reading goal usually something like 200 books a year. Even though I probably hit the low hundreds each of those years, I got nowhere near that many reviews written. Part of it is time. When I'm teaching, time to do anything else is sparse. Part of it is the sense that I'm speaking into the void. I love reading for its own sake but having an actual dialog with other book lovers would be nice. I write my reviews and there is some personal value in that, but I miss working with fellow book nerds.
So, this time, instead of a reading goal, I have a posting goal. The inconsistency of my previous blogs mean that even if some random person tripped across my blog, they probably wouldn't keep reading it through my dry spells. The goal then is to post three times a week: Saturday and Sunday for book reviews and Wednesdays as a hodgepodge. If I'm lucky, maybe we'll get some dialog going.
I've restarted the blog a half dozen times now and through each iteration, except this one, I've had some sort of reading goal usually something like 200 books a year. Even though I probably hit the low hundreds each of those years, I got nowhere near that many reviews written. Part of it is time. When I'm teaching, time to do anything else is sparse. Part of it is the sense that I'm speaking into the void. I love reading for its own sake but having an actual dialog with other book lovers would be nice. I write my reviews and there is some personal value in that, but I miss working with fellow book nerds.
So, this time, instead of a reading goal, I have a posting goal. The inconsistency of my previous blogs mean that even if some random person tripped across my blog, they probably wouldn't keep reading it through my dry spells. The goal then is to post three times a week: Saturday and Sunday for book reviews and Wednesdays as a hodgepodge. If I'm lucky, maybe we'll get some dialog going.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
9. Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story
by Carolyn Turgeon
It is rare for me to post a mostly negative review of a book and I think there two reasons for this. 1. If a book is bad, I generally won't finish it and I don't tend to review books I haven't finished. I don't think it's fair. 2. I don't like being overly critical of people's babies. Any book, outside of ghostwritten pulp, is someone's heart and soul poured out on paper and looking for approval. While I have no problem pointing out flaws, I usually try to balance it with enough positives that it doesn't feel like a slaughter. I'm not going to be able to do that this time, and I'm very sorry Ms. Turgeon.
Godmother presents itself initially as a fractured fairytale centered around the Cinderella story. The premise is that instead of getting Cinderella to the ball, the fairy godmother, Lil in this case, took her place. In response to this grave offense, Lil is cast out of the fairy world to live as a human which she does. She lives her life, works in a used bookshop, gets old just like any other human. In fact, the only thing that marks her as more than human is a pair of gigantic white feathered wings that she hides by tying them down to her back with bandages. As far as a premise goes, it's not bad. Veronica and George, the two main side characters, are pretty good. They are a little two dimensional, maybe, but it is a close first person point of view to Lil so that is forgivable. The end even could be a nice, if tragic, twist.
So what's so awful about this book? It's the structure and the writing. Structurally, Turgeon told the story on two timelines. The first is far in the past when Lil was still a fairy and it retells Cinderella from her point of view. The second timeline is Lil as an old (mostly) human woman who finds the opportunity to redeem herself by setting up George and Veronica as a modern version of Prince Charming and Cinderella. Each chapter starts in the fairytale and switches midway through to the modern. This is not an unusual technique, but for it to work well, there needs to be a way to tie the two sections in each chapter together. There needs to be either a plot link or some thematic link between to two segments that is a reason for the juxtaposition. While there were a couple of places the two plot lines did indeed meet up, most of the time there was no discernible link between the two sections which made the transitions jarring and often irritating. There were several segments of the fairytale plot line that didn't feel necessary and were, I suspect, written simply to satisfy the format.
The writing style was clearly trying for the ethereal voice of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. However, the POV was so firmly tied to Lil that it bogged down badly in her rather obsessive and circular thoughts. Instead of being lyrical, it was tedious. It's hard to do a first person narrative well because the only things the reader can know are the things the protagonist knows. This is very limiting for an author because it is often convenient to pull back and deliver the story from a wider point of view. On the other hand, when it is done well, the first person narrator can be stunningly unreliable. When it's done well. Unfortunately, in this case, Turgeon fell short of the mark. When the twist came at the end, the reader was mostly unprepared for it. To pull it off, there needed to be more hints and preparation from the beginning and more people around Lil needed to behave in accordance with the twist.
Ultimately the problem is that Godmother couldn't decide if it was a fractured fairy tale or a psychological drama. The shift between the two genres was clumsy and every time I nearly gave up on it, I found myself deciding to give it just a few more pages to prove itself out. By the time I hit the end of the book, I'd been waiting for 273 pages. It never came together and I wish I'd given up on page 50.
It is rare for me to post a mostly negative review of a book and I think there two reasons for this. 1. If a book is bad, I generally won't finish it and I don't tend to review books I haven't finished. I don't think it's fair. 2. I don't like being overly critical of people's babies. Any book, outside of ghostwritten pulp, is someone's heart and soul poured out on paper and looking for approval. While I have no problem pointing out flaws, I usually try to balance it with enough positives that it doesn't feel like a slaughter. I'm not going to be able to do that this time, and I'm very sorry Ms. Turgeon.
Godmother presents itself initially as a fractured fairytale centered around the Cinderella story. The premise is that instead of getting Cinderella to the ball, the fairy godmother, Lil in this case, took her place. In response to this grave offense, Lil is cast out of the fairy world to live as a human which she does. She lives her life, works in a used bookshop, gets old just like any other human. In fact, the only thing that marks her as more than human is a pair of gigantic white feathered wings that she hides by tying them down to her back with bandages. As far as a premise goes, it's not bad. Veronica and George, the two main side characters, are pretty good. They are a little two dimensional, maybe, but it is a close first person point of view to Lil so that is forgivable. The end even could be a nice, if tragic, twist.
So what's so awful about this book? It's the structure and the writing. Structurally, Turgeon told the story on two timelines. The first is far in the past when Lil was still a fairy and it retells Cinderella from her point of view. The second timeline is Lil as an old (mostly) human woman who finds the opportunity to redeem herself by setting up George and Veronica as a modern version of Prince Charming and Cinderella. Each chapter starts in the fairytale and switches midway through to the modern. This is not an unusual technique, but for it to work well, there needs to be a way to tie the two sections in each chapter together. There needs to be either a plot link or some thematic link between to two segments that is a reason for the juxtaposition. While there were a couple of places the two plot lines did indeed meet up, most of the time there was no discernible link between the two sections which made the transitions jarring and often irritating. There were several segments of the fairytale plot line that didn't feel necessary and were, I suspect, written simply to satisfy the format.
The writing style was clearly trying for the ethereal voice of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. However, the POV was so firmly tied to Lil that it bogged down badly in her rather obsessive and circular thoughts. Instead of being lyrical, it was tedious. It's hard to do a first person narrative well because the only things the reader can know are the things the protagonist knows. This is very limiting for an author because it is often convenient to pull back and deliver the story from a wider point of view. On the other hand, when it is done well, the first person narrator can be stunningly unreliable. When it's done well. Unfortunately, in this case, Turgeon fell short of the mark. When the twist came at the end, the reader was mostly unprepared for it. To pull it off, there needed to be more hints and preparation from the beginning and more people around Lil needed to behave in accordance with the twist.
Ultimately the problem is that Godmother couldn't decide if it was a fractured fairy tale or a psychological drama. The shift between the two genres was clumsy and every time I nearly gave up on it, I found myself deciding to give it just a few more pages to prove itself out. By the time I hit the end of the book, I'd been waiting for 273 pages. It never came together and I wish I'd given up on page 50.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
8. And Only to Deceive
by Tasha Alexander
A year or so ago, I stated a goal of buying one new book a month by an author who was still living. The point of this was to support living authors, and preferably authors who were not already popular. I abandoned that year's book challenge but I still think it's important to support contemporary authors. In my recent book buying binge, the vast majority of the books I bought fell into this category, including this one.
This is the first of Alexander's books and one that I bought on sale because of the blurb on the back cover. It is an impressive debut. Alexander avoids all the usual first book problems. In fact, I wouldn't be too surprised to find out that Alexander is a pseudonym. However, wild speculation aside, this was a well plotted mystery set in Victorian England. The main character, Lady Ashton, is a newlywed turned widow after her husband dies on a hunting expedition in Africa. Mourning for Victorian women was a strange and oddly rigid thing, and for a while the oddity of setting hides the beginnings of the mystery plot-line.
Overall the book reads as though Jane Austen wrote a mystery novel and I applaud Alexander for creating a thoroughly enjoyable book. The history was well integrated and the voice absolutely superb. This book is the beginning of a series and I have no idea how well it holds up but I say it's worth a try.
A year or so ago, I stated a goal of buying one new book a month by an author who was still living. The point of this was to support living authors, and preferably authors who were not already popular. I abandoned that year's book challenge but I still think it's important to support contemporary authors. In my recent book buying binge, the vast majority of the books I bought fell into this category, including this one.
This is the first of Alexander's books and one that I bought on sale because of the blurb on the back cover. It is an impressive debut. Alexander avoids all the usual first book problems. In fact, I wouldn't be too surprised to find out that Alexander is a pseudonym. However, wild speculation aside, this was a well plotted mystery set in Victorian England. The main character, Lady Ashton, is a newlywed turned widow after her husband dies on a hunting expedition in Africa. Mourning for Victorian women was a strange and oddly rigid thing, and for a while the oddity of setting hides the beginnings of the mystery plot-line.
Overall the book reads as though Jane Austen wrote a mystery novel and I applaud Alexander for creating a thoroughly enjoyable book. The history was well integrated and the voice absolutely superb. This book is the beginning of a series and I have no idea how well it holds up but I say it's worth a try.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Summer: The Season of Reading
Over here, on the East Coast (South end thereof), there are three big bookstore chains: Borders, Barnes and Noble, and Books-A-Million. Of which, in Atlanta Books-A-Million bowed out of the market almost 10 years ago. Therefore inside the city limits and immediate metro environs, one can only find Borders and Barnes & Noble locations. With readerships going down and the publishing industry less inclined to take risks, I've never thought that the market could bare two huge book chains competing for the same demographic. So as everyone seems to be aware, the inevitable has occurred: Borders is going through "restructuring." This process has involved in a large number locations closing down which means SALES.
Coupled with my natural tendency to occasionally go on book buying rampages, and added to the middling number of books that people lend me, I am currently awash in books and need to make some headway. This is a state I find enjoyable even if it does make it difficult to move through the living room around all the towers of books. While, I doubt it is possible to read them all over the course of the Summer, I'd like to make a good sized dent in my unread masses. What follows is a list of "candidates" for summer reading. This list does not represent every unread book in the house, but is a subsection created lest I get too overwhelmed by options. The key will be at bottom.
(LTR)LibraryThing Review book (HR)Husband Recommendation (NF)non-fiction (Rec)Recommended *followed with the origin if remembered*
Coupled with my natural tendency to occasionally go on book buying rampages, and added to the middling number of books that people lend me, I am currently awash in books and need to make some headway. This is a state I find enjoyable even if it does make it difficult to move through the living room around all the towers of books. While, I doubt it is possible to read them all over the course of the Summer, I'd like to make a good sized dent in my unread masses. What follows is a list of "candidates" for summer reading. This list does not represent every unread book in the house, but is a subsection created lest I get too overwhelmed by options. The key will be at bottom.
- Love and Ghost Letters by Chantel Acevedo
- And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander
- The Teahouse Fire by Ellis Avery
- American Fuji by Sara Backer
- Eating Mammals by John Barlow
- The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
- The Stories of Richard Bausch by Richard Bausch
- The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
- Blood Music by Greg Bear
- A Continuous Harmony by Wendell Berry (NF)
- Stories by T.C. Boyle
- I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson (NF)
- Dawn by Octavia E. Butler
- Adulthood Rites Octavia E. Butler
- Imago by Octavia E. Butler
- Invictus by John Carlin
- Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon
- Candy Girl by Diablo Cody (NF)
- George's Marvelous Medicine by Roald Dahl
- James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
- The Twits by Roald Dahl
- The BFG by Roald Dahl
- Matilda by Roald Dahl
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
- Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl
- Fantastic Fox by Roald Dahl
- For the King by Catherine Delors
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
- Desert Flower by Waris Dirie (Rec Brianne)
- Florida Road Kill by Tim Dorsey
- The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards
- The Best American Non-Required Reading 2008 edited by Dave Eggers
- The Unvanquished by William Faulkner
- World Without End by Ken Follett (Rec Mom)
- Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman (NF)
- All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen
- Jump and Other Stories by Nadine Gordimer
- Jesus Is Sending You This Message by Jim Grimsley
- Real Murders by Charlaine Harris
- High on the Hog by Jessica B. Harris (NF)(LTR)
- The Island of Lost Maps by Miles Harvey (NF)
- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (HR)
- The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman
- Lulu in Marrakech by Diane Johnson
- The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka
- Don't Open This Book selected by Marvin Kaye
- The Fair Fold edited by Marvin Kaye
- The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
- Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
- Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard
- Blue World by Robert R. McCammon (HR)
- Stinger by Robert R. McCammon (HR)
- Swan Song by Robert McCammon (HR)
- Books by Larry McMurtry (NF)
- The Host by Stephenie Meyer (Rec Brianne)
- Parsival or a Knight's Tale by Richard Monaco
- Fool by Christopher Moore
- A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies by John Murray
- Sorceress of the Witch World by Andre Norton
- Spell of the Witch World by Andre Norton
- Wraiths of Time by Andre Norton
- Facing Unpleasant Facts by George Orwell (NF)
- In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
- Disquiet, Please! edited by David Remnick and Henry Finder
- Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds
- Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins
- The Stars Dispose by Michaela Roessner
- What I Was by Meg Rosoff
- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
- The Best American Short Stories 2009 by Alice Sebold
- White Teeth by Zadie Smith
- At the Same Time by Susan Sontag (NF)
- Ghost Train to the Eastern Star by Paul Theroux (NF)
- First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung (Rec Brianne)
- Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
- Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
- Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas by Jules Verne
- Contemporary Fiction: 50 Short Stories Since 1970 edited by Lex Williford and Michael Martone
- The Tomb by F. Paul Wilson (HR)
- How I Learned to Cook edited by Kimberly Witherspoon and Peter Meehan (NF)
(LTR)LibraryThing Review book (HR)Husband Recommendation (NF)non-fiction (Rec)Recommended *followed with the origin if remembered*
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