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Fiction Archive

Friday

4

December 2015

0

COMMENTS

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight

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Four Stars.

I bought this book at noon today, and finished it tonight at 7PM. Admittedly, I bought it at the airport as I was FOUR HOURS early for my flight and really looking for something that might be a quick and compelling read. Woo, did I choose wisely.

The book is told in alternating chapters from the perspective (in the third person) of Kate, a single mother to 15-year-old Amelia, and in the first person from the perspective of Amelia herself. The Kate chapters start with Amelia’s death (ostensibly by suicide); Amelia’s chapters cover her life starting two months earlier, at the beginning of her sophomore year.

The main question we’re trying to figure out is whether Amelia has actually killed herself, or if someone else may have helped her off the roof of her school. There are multiple mysteries within this book – who really is Amelia’s father? Who is Ben? Why the fuck does Zadie hate her so much?

It’s possible I had a little more love for this book because it is set in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn, and the author (who lives there) calls out actual shops and restaurants that I used to visit. I could very vividly picture the scenes in the book because I’d actually been to those places. But mostly I think I enjoyed it because it was a well-told story. It was interesting, it wasn’t totally predictable (at least not to me), and the high-school students weren’t all silly or making utterly inexplicable decisions.

I think it’s worth a read. If you’re travelling over the holidays and find yourself looking for a book that will make the wait and the flight go by, this is a good choice.

Tuesday

4

March 2014

0

COMMENTS

A Feast for Crows: A Song of Ice and Fire Book 4

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Oooooh boy. So this one took me awhile to get into again. I think a lot of people are big fans of how each book tends to start with this sort of long chapter that focuses on people we don’t know and won’t likely see again (or see much of any time soon). I … am not. I think in retrospect those chapters are an interesting way to set the tone of the book, but it also means that I’m going to really need to struggle to get through it to get to the characters that I know and love.

AFeastForCrows

Without getting into further detail on this, I have to say that while I don’t think book was as full of “HOLY SHIT” moments as book three, it still definitely has some very strong and shocking moments. I didn’t really realize it until the end, but Mr. Martin only tells the next chapters for about half of the well-known characters in this book. I won’t say which ones, but there’s a cute little note at the end, where he says that he could have either told half of everyone’s stories, or a book’s worth of half the stories, so the next one (book five, which thankfully is already out) should tell what was going on with the rest of the characters during this time.

I think there’s definitely some good character development in this one, especially for one character (I won’t say which because given the propensity for people to get killed, it seems like mentioning that someone is still alive is now considered a spoiler), who I think Mr. Martin has done just a fabulous job with. I want to get started on the next book, especially before season five (plus I really want to go back and read Joanna Robinson’s spoiler posts from Pajiba), but at over 1000 pages I think I need to take a break before tackling that tome.

Thursday

17

October 2013

0

COMMENTS

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

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Three Stars

mad-about-boy-24jul13-01

 

I was trying to figure out how to write this review without spoiling the book (beyond the whole Mark is dead thing, which is not a spoiler, but instead the whole premise of the book). Most of what bothered me about the book involves pretty specific plot lines, but I’m going to try to get through the review by speaking at a general level. However, if you want to read the book and don’t want to know ANYTHING about the plot, maybe just stop reading at the end of this paragraph. I’ll TL:DR it for you: pretty entertaining, retreads much of the same ground from the first two books, Bridget does seem like Bridget still (but older), worth downloading in e-version or checking out of the library for a quick read.

Alright, the longer, slightly spoiler-y stuff. So Bridget is 51 in the book. For those of you who were introduced to her via the movie, that sounds too old, but I think the time line is based on the original books, but even so it’s not that far off as the first move came out TWELVE YEARS AGO.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

Overview:

As stated above, we’re visiting Bridget over a decade down the road, and four years after Mark has died, leaving her a widow with a young son and a three-month-old daughter. I noticed this comment when Pajiba originally reported the news, from Sara_Tonin00 “There’s a decent romcom to be made about a young widow trying to figure out how to date again – but I don’t think it’s about Bridget Jones.” To that person I would say this works better than I thought it would, but that’s not to say that it’s groundbreaking or earth shattering. It’s a pleasant book, and to me it strikes true to the Bridget we’ve gotten to know in the first couple of books: still self-centered but not much more so than most folks seem to be these days.

The high points:

She doesn’t utterly forget about her children; they aren’t like Emma in “Friends,” they serve more than just a plot twist every few chapters. In fact I actually came to care for them. They aren’t angels but they aren’t devils; I don’t have children of my own but my experience with my nieces seems to fit. And while the children certainly feature in the book, Bridget still has experiences that aren’t entirely about them.

I also think that Ms. Fielding does a good job (as far as I can say, not having experienced the death of a spouse) of capturing how, as time passes, sure the grief isn’t top of mind all the time, but it’s there, and can pop up as easily at a mundane event as during the holidays. I think it made sense to set the book well after the death so it’s not so much about getting through every day but instead about getting through life and what Bridget wants it to include since it can no longer include Mark.

Most of the same folks figure in this book, so it’s fun to see how the past few years have been treating them. I especially enjoyed catching up with Daniel, who surprisingly does make an appearance. The writing was also pretty good – I started on Monday night (the benefit of being on the west coast – it came through on my Kindle just after 9PM) and finished up Thursday at lunch, and it only took that long because I had a bunch of stuff to do on Tuesday and Wednesday evening. I am traveling this week and wish I had saved it because I know it would have made the flight go faster.

The low points:

Yes, the book now incorporates Twitter and OK Cupid (woo, up to the minute technology!) but so much of it seems like a retread of the previous books. Obviously there are only so many different ways to talk about searching for love but, without spoiling anything, a lot of the book seems VERY familiar, and I was able to (accurately) imagine the last page of the book a few chapters in.

There’s also a storyline about her being fat, and I get that Ms. Fielding was looking for a total transformation / look what’s happened but COME ON. That’s a pretty lazy writing device, and also offensive to anyone who is, well, fat, because fat is a substitute here for letting everything go. Fat isn’t bad, isn’t even necessarily unhealthy, and the fact that once she decides to lose it the method she picks just .. works? Not realistic. It’s obnoxious and I would hope Ms. Fielding was better than that.

Also the Twitter component seems a little OOH! Look at the older folks and the hip new technology! It eventually serves a purpose but I did start giggling because it seemed like the start of a bad SNL sketch more than a plot component.

Suggestions:

If you enjoyed the first two books (or the first move – let’s all just pretend that second movie never happened, shall we?), I think you’ll be able to get past the whole no more Mark component and enjoy checking in with Bridget. It’s not a feminist tome, and I doubt that any women who have lost their husbands will be looking to it as a guide, but it’s a fun quick read.

Monday

14

October 2013

0

COMMENTS

Warm Bodies

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Three stars

marion_warmbodies

I know it might be blasphemy to admit this, but here goes: I’m not really into zombies. I have no desire to watch The Walking Dead (and have muted all related hashtags on Twitter); no interest in World War Z. I did see Shawn of the Dead about two years ago and I recall laughing very loudly at Zombieland. But that’s it for me.

I say this all because the reason I ended up reading Warm Bodies is because I saw the movie. It was available on Redbox, my husband and I wanted to watch something, and we both thought we’d remembered someone saying it was cute and different from standard zombie fare. And that generic someone was correct: the movie was adorable. So adorable that we ended up watching all the extras, including one where they speak with the author of the book. If I’m remembering correctly, the book was actually written to fulfill an option placed on a short story Mr. Marion had written, and which a film director had picked up. That sounded kind of interesting, so I decided to read the book.

The book is a quick read – it’s not short, but the action moves at a nice clip. If you’re familiar with the film, you’ll recognize most of what’s in the book, although there are some differences. Based loosely on Romeo and Juliet, Warm Bodies follows the life (or “life”) of R., a zombie who has a very rich inner monologue. He lives in an airplane at the airport (flight has stopped long ago), goes out hunting with his fellow zombies, and even has a zombie wife. Until he runs into Julie and her friends, regular humans out on a scavenging mission from their home, an old sports stadium. Julie gets caught up with the zombies in R.’s hunting group, and R. saves her, taking her back with him to the airport and hiding her from the other zombies who just smell the life in her.

While the book certainly has some connection to the star-crossed lovers concept of Romeo and Juliet (I mean, how much more star-crossed can you get when one of you is, you know, dead), I enjoyed it more for its exploration of what being a zombie means. Why DO they eat brains? What happens when they do? Do they have any feelings? Can they be helped? What does that mean for the regular, living humans? As I said, I’ve never really cared for zombies once they are seen as this threat to the humans, but the back story? The view from their eyes? That’s pretty cool indeed.

Thursday

19

September 2013

0

COMMENTS

Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason

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As you may have read yesterday, I loved Bridget Jones’s Diary. It was fun, honest, shallow, deep. Everything I want in a quick read. So naturally I downloaded the second Bridget Jones book. Still a quick read, still entertaining, probably not as great, but still fun.

Spoilers ahead, sort of.

200px-Bridget_Jones_-_The_Edge_of_Reason_(book_cover)

This book starts with our heroine still dating Mark Darcy. There are some challenges, and they spend the better part of the year apart, possibly due to a scheming ‘friend’ who has decided that SHE belongs with Mark Darcy, not Bridget. There are bits that made me somewhat uncomfortable – basically the entire storyline involving Bridget’s mother and a trip to Africa – but there were also a lot of moments where I genuinely laughed. There’s also an entire chapter that I admit to reading with one eye closed because OH MY GOD EMBARRASSING. If you’ve read this book, I think you know the chapter. Ah, Colin Firth.

This book has a few more absurd components than the first one, and I have to say that I was a bit annoyed that the same plot device from the first book – Horrible Legal Misunderstanding Fixed by Dashing Mark Flying Somewhere To Fix It – was unnecessary and seemed to be a bit … lazy? I mean, it worked in the first one, so perhaps Ms. Fielding felt if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it? I don’t know. The second half of the Thailand storyline was ridiculous, but the first? I do have to admit that I didn’t see it coming. So there’s that.

Also, there’s a weird language issue – I don’t know if this is an England thing, and I don’t recall it from living there a year, but instead of referring to someone as Asian, the author has the characters saying ‘oriental.’ That’s … not right. And was jarring every time I saw it.

I don’t see myself re-reading this book, but I am still excited for the third installment. I like Bridget. I don’t know if I would be friends with her, but I’m invested. She can be shallow, but I do think Ms. Fielding has written her with a good heart. She’s flawed but she’s not insufferable. I want good things for her.

Tuesday

17

September 2013

0

COMMENTS

Bridget Jones’s Diary

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Five stars.

Bridget Jones

 

This book is so good.

I saw the movie. I laughed at the idea that Renée Zellwegger was fat. I drooled a bit over Colin Firth’s Mark Darcy. I loved the screw-up at work where Bridget claimed she was on the phone with an author who had, unbeknownst to her, died three decades earlier, when the word fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck scrolled across the bottom of the screen. I recognized the friendship archetypes.

The book isn’t better, or worse. It’s different, and frankly, I thought it was fantastic. I was expecting a sad, ridiculous stereotype of a woman – instead the Bridget Jones in print is a complex woman who isn’t overly intellectual but isn’t flighty or ridiculous. She’s living in a world where she’s been told what her value is in terms of looks and in terms of her marriagability. She is rational, then irrational, then rational again.

The book has a somewhat similar storyline to the film – there is a relationship with her boss Daniel, there is a disdain, then attraction, then disdain, then attraction with Mark Darcy, all her friends are accounted for – but there are also some diversions. For example, she has a brother in the book. And her mother’s journey takes something of a dark turn. But the core of the book – and of Bridget herself – remains.

I’m newly married, and I only spent one year as properly single in my 30s. However, I could relate to so much of Bridget’s internal monologue. Some of it was so ridiculous – like when she leaves a potential sex partner because she doesn’t want to just fuck around, and has this triumphant feminist moment … then muses “I may have been right, but my reward, I know, will be to end up all along, half-eaten by an Alsatian” – but still relatable. She’s so hard on herself – tracking her daily food consumption, her weight, her cigarette intake – and beating herself up with each weight fluctuation.

One favorite part is when she somehow manages to get her weight down to her goal, and everyone comments that she looks a bit tired, and looked ‘better before.’ “Now I feel empty and bewildered…Eighteen years – wasted. Eighteen years of calorie- and fat-unit-base arithmetic…I feel like a scientist who discovers that his life’s work has been a total mistake.” Observations like that – as well as the one that she has lost 72 pounds and gained 74 pounds over the course of the year – are real, at least, to me, and they represent the constant struggle many women face, and how they feel they can’t win. I’ve been there. Shoot, I live there.

She’s also hard on herself when it comes to work, and men. Whenever she has a flash of self-confidence or makes an attempt to start fresh, something inevitable pops up to derail her. Sometimes it’s silly, but most of the time it seems fairly realistic. It’s not like everything is bad, always, but there is this sort of constant underlying stress. It’s not the same stress as someone who is facing poverty, or racism, or anything so serious, but it’s that steady undercurrent saying you aren’t thin enough, or smart enough, or attractive enough, or enough like society wants you to be (i.e. married and having children). It’s the stress of wanting to fit convention, then buck it, then fit it again.

The book feels light and deep at the same time. I’m sure if I spent more time analyzing it I could find some problems to dissect (is she an active agent, or does she fixate her life around finding a mate?) but I kind of don’t want to spend more time focusing on it because I don’t want to ruin a really fun reading experience.

Monday

19

August 2013

0

COMMENTS

A Song of Ice and Fire: A Clash of Kings

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Lollygagger’s #CBR5 Review #37: A Song of Ice and Fire: A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin

I didn’t consume this book in the same manner as the first one in the series. It was on an e-reader instead of paperback, so that possibly had something to do with it; it wasn’t staring up at me from my nightstand, begging to be finished so it could take its rightful place on the bookshelf.

[Spoilers ahead]

clash_of_kings

As the title suggests, this book in the series focuses on the fights between Stannis Baratheon, Renly Baratheon, Robb Stark and Joffrey Baratheon (Lannister). Joffrey continues to be a little shit, Renly makes a brief appearance before taking his leave thanks to a creepy death fog baby, Stannis gets all eaten up by some wildfire (well, his troops at least), and Robb wins some battles and loses some he isn’t even fighting (sorry Winterfell). Theon is also a shit, although one can sort of understand how he came to be shit. I have little sympathy for him, but I can imagine a world where he wouldn’t make such piss-poor decisions. Tyrion, as Hand of the King, makes some great decisions, plays and nearly beats Cersei at her own game, and is rewarded with a missing nose.

The women continue to be complex but also frustratingly bound by duties. Cersei is a fascinating character, and one whose perspective is not readily shared, so she’s also a bit of a mystery. When she loses it, it’s interesting. Sansa and Arya are going about their own adventures, both devastating in their own ways. And Daenerys remains in search of ships, braving some pretty rough going to find people who may help (or may not). Jon is also still beyond the wall, Bran and Rickon are doing … things, and Catelyn believes they are dead.

Much like last time, I found myself speed-reading the chapters focused on Arya and Tyrion. I was less interested in most of the rest, although the chapters providing the perspectives on the Blackwater Battle were difficult to put down. The chapters from Bran and Jon’s perspectives were especially boring to me (I just don’t find the beyond the wall stuff that interesting right now; silly political infighting is so much more my speed) and even Martin’s great writing couldn’t keep me interested if anything remotely shiny or pretty were nearby to distract me.

One thing that was sort of fun was seeing things that didn’t show up until the third season of the TV show. Because I’m still catching up to that, my images are colored by what I’ve seen on HBO; I’m looking forward to book three because I know there are things in there that have not yet made it on screen. As for a recommendation – yes. Of course. Read it if you like the TV show. Read it if you don’t like the TV show. Just read it.

Wednesday

17

July 2013

0

COMMENTS

Virgin Suicides

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This novel is one of my sister’s favorites so I needed to check it out. While it isn’t one of mine, it isn’t bad. It was a pretty quick read, and definitely held my interest. I just had some issues with it.

The Virgin Suicides book

The title tells you what’s going to happen in the book. There’s no surprise, really, except in how the five sisters will all take their lives by the end of the book, but the first couple of pages make it clear that they do. As a plot device, that works in this instance.

The first issue is the narrative structure – the book is told from a collective first person. The guys in town who attended school with the sisters provide all of the detail. The guys have names (well, some of them do), but the perspective is of them as a group. It’s an okay idea, but it definitely prevents anyone from taking personal responsibility for their perspective. They appear to be discussing the events years and years after they occurred, trying to figure it all out in their minds by piecing together evidence and interviews, but it’s sort of awkward.

The second issue stems from the first, and that is that because the narrative comes from a group of men, all we learn about these women is how guys see them. How they may be idealized, or put on a pedestal, or judged by their male peers seems especially cruel given the subject matter. These women are apparently only coming alive to the reader because of how some men noticed them. That’s sad to me.

Because of the above two issues I almost feel like I’m missing something. I’d love to talk about this book in a literature class to see if maybe the devices that bothered me just completely went over my head. But the further I get from the book the less I like it.

Wednesday

17

July 2013

0

COMMENTS

Where’d You Go Bernadette?

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Bernadette

This book is popular among Cannonballers, and I get why. It’s got a different structure, a bit of whimsy and focuses much of its hatred on my grungy / crunchy little hometown of Seattle. In fact, the only thing that made me interested in reading the book was the tie to Seattle. However, I think people who have either never visited the Pacific Northwest or have no animosity towards it will still enjoy the book.

The book is told through some absurd narrative devices – the perspective of a middle school child, emails between neighbors and desperate private school marketers, investigators, magazine articles – but remains fairly coherent throughout. The main narrator is Bernadette’s daughter, although we do get to view things from Bernadette’s perspective as she communicates with her personal assistant (who is based in India – perhaps she got the idea from A.J. Jacobs’s book?). Bernadette going missing, while ostensible the focus of the book, only happens about 2/3 of the way through, which allows us to build up the characters and learn a bit more about them.

Without giving too much away, there is a whole lot of absurdity / unavailability throughout the book. From a super-last-minute trip to Antarctica to a bit of a deus ex machina ending, I definitely had to suspend disbelief numerous times. However, the details about Seattle were pretty spot on, so at least that wasn’t distracting to me.

I read this book over the course of two red-eye flights to Europe for my honeymoon. I was tired and not really interested in anything that taxed my brain too intensely. This book definitely fit the bill. Call it a beach read, or a plane read, or whatever. But I think it’s worth adding to you ‘when I need to turn off my brain but still feel like I’m using it’ list.

Monday

1

July 2013

0

COMMENTS

One Second After

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Are we a pampered country? Are we full of wimps who wouldn’t know what to do if our iPhones and MacBooks stopped working? Is that premise dismissive of those who have to face really terrible circumstances on a daily basis?

“One Second After” is a book about life in a small North Carolina town in the days and months after a suspected electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack. It’s an interesting premise – possibly similar to “Revolution,” which I believe was a TV show about a world without electricity – told from the perspective of the protagonist John, a widowed former military colonel with two daughters (12 and 16), an ever-present mother-in-law and two dogs. He is a professor at the local Christian college, and a respected man around town.

one-second-after

The first chapter sets up the town, daily life, and provides some glimpses into John’s background. What is initially thought to be a temporary power outage proves far worse as the vast majority of cars immediately stop working, radios fail and back-up generators will not turn on. If you’re unfamiliar with an EMP, read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse

Once I got past the silly forward by Newt Gingrich (who, as an aside, makes mention of how grateful we all should be that the U.S. prevented a Big Brother-type state. Ahem.), the book itself was a quick read. My copy was about 350 pages long but I read it in two days. That was a function both of the quality of writing and the fact that it is too hot to function right now. When it is 87 degrees in my bedroom at 9:30 at night, all I want to do is read a book in front of a fan.

Speaking of fans, we rely on technology for a lot – not just the creature comforts of a warm shower or an iPod, but for the preservation of life for many people. One of the best components of this book is the description of all the things that would not be available once an EMP hit. Cars would stop working unless they were built before computer components were incorporated into the design. Jets would drop from the sky. Our means of distribution would stop (trucks, railway), so some areas of the country would have rotting crops with no way to transport them to the starving people in deserts. Tradesmen and hobbyists would be hot commodities as they might be able to get a steam engine working to provide some power to the nursing home full of Alzheimer’s patients.

This is all fascinating and the author does a great job with his descriptions. I do, however, have some issues with the narrative choices he made. First, while there are some strong women in the book, they are all strong in traditionally female ways. John’s mother-in-law is clearly a steel magnolia, but she’s primarily relegated to child care. John makes a new friend with a female ‘outsider’ (someone stuck in the town but not from there) who is in a medical profession, but is a nurse, not a doctor. There’s nothing wrong with being a nurse, but there is such a stereotype of women in the nursing profession that this could have been an easy chance to break away from that trope. The town mayor is a woman, but the public safety and former military men make all the decisions. Would it have been so difficult for the author to have made the mayor a man and one of the major public safety figures a woman? Just to mix it up to try to avoid making the story hyper-masculine?

Additionally, there is a lot of writing focused on these military people patting themselves on the back, and a whole lot of denigration of pacifists. As you can imagine for a book that has a forward by Newt Gingrich, there is a heavy military overtone that is not just limited to wanting to fight whoever is responsible for setting off the EMP. There are the ‘outsiders,’ along with bands of criminal elements desperate for food and happy to make life miserable for others. One conversation is focused on the ‘hippies’ who are useless and wouldn’t survive without the military folks, apparently attempting to prove that it’s definitely not worth being true to your values and ethics when the times get difficult. I cannot agree with that sentiment as presented in this book.

There is also a disturbingly ableist tone to much of the book, especially when the town doctor is discussing the challenges the town will face when mental health medications – antidepressants, antipsychotics – are no longer available. The dismissive tone – that so many people are just ‘coddled’ being on these medicines, and the ones who really need it are ‘wackos’ – was deeply disappointing. Especially when such a tone was not struck when discussing John’s daughter’s need for insulin. I appreciated that there were frank discussions about triage and the ethics of using medication on someone who was going to die soon anyway when it could be used on others who have a chance to live, but there was clearly a bias prevalent suggesting that physical ailments were real, and mental health ones either were not, or were only important in how they impacted to town, not the individuals suffering.

With those caveats, I can still recommend this book primarily for much of the human story and some of the details and reminders of what technology does for so many of us on a daily basis. The militaristic feel is a bit much for me, but it is not a deal breaker.