Book review: The Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning

Here’s the series, in order:

1. Darkfever
2. Bloodfever
3. Faefever
4. Dreamfever
5. Shadowfever

These five officially complete my Cannonball (52 books in a year!) Yay! I had initially signed up to do the half-cannonball (26 books) — a formerly avid reader, I hadn’t really done a lot of reading for pleasure in the past few years, and I was unsure how many books I’d be able to cover. I want to say: THANK YOU Cannonball read, and THANK YOU Pajiba, for giving me the motivation to rediscover reading, one of my true loves in life. For the remainder of this year, I won’t be writing any more reviews, because I’ll probably be re-reading some of my favorite new books that I discovered this year.

I read these based on Malin’s reviews. I’m fairly new to urban fantasy and paranormal romance, being somewhat averse to cheese. For some reason, despite that Darkfever cover, Malin’s review convinced me to give these a try, and I’m really glad I did.

The series is set in modern-day Dublin, which due to its ancient Gaelic roots in fae magic, is kind of a “ground zero” for interactions between humans and the Fae. The heroine, MacKayla Lane, travels to Dublin with the initially simplistic idea of lighting a fire under the ass of the Dublin police, who had been previously unable to solve her sister Alina’s murder. MacKayla quickly learns that there is a lot more to Alina’s murder than she previously suspected. For one thing, she discovers that she is a sidhe-seer, or a human that can see the Fae, whereas other humans can only see the glamours that the Fae project in order to look human and blend in. Mac finds that she shared this ability with her late sister, and it was these very connections that got Alina killed.

Grappling with these revelations, Mac falls into an uneasy alliance with Jerico Barrons, the ruthless, enigmatic, and powerful owner of a Dublin bookstore. Together, they seek the Sinsar Dubh, a text about which Mac knows little to nothing, other than that the final voicemail she received from Alina implored her to locate it. Barrons has his own reasons for seeking the book, and though his motives are unclear, it is plain to Mac that she needs his help and protection if she is going to pursue her sister’s dying request.

Several other players are introduced: V’Lane, a Fae prince of the Light (Seelie) Court; Rowena, leader of a coven of other sidhe-seers; the Keltar, a clan of Druids; Dani, another sidhe-seer who grows a sisterly bond with Mac; Darroc, Alina’s former lover, and so on. With every book in the series, Mac encounters situations that force her to profoundly change. In Darkfever, she’s bubbly, naive, flippant, and astutely described by Barrons as a lamb to slaughter in the world of the Fae. With his help and her innate intelligence, she’s able to adapt, becoming quite the compelling and kick-ass heroine in the process. If you’re annoyed by her early on — DON’T WORRY. She gets so much better, and you’ll almost certainly end up liking and admiring her even by the end of the second book.

I’m leaving out a lot of detail, particularly regarding the later books, because I don’t want to reveal too much and spoil anything. I would be remiss if I didn’t give lip service to the dynamic between Mac and Barrons, which starts off similarly to how you would expect a lion to interact with a hyperactive chihuahua (Mac is the chihuahua.) Initially, it seems that the only reason Barrons even tolerates her is because she has a particular gift that is uniquely and massively helpful in finding the Sinsar Dubh.  These two have some pretty steamy sexual tension throughout the series that is pretty wicked hot. Barrons himself, I can barely describe. Malin may have said it best in her review — he’s the ultimate alpha and a quintessential bastard of literature, which in a romance or romance-adjacent novel is pretty much the pinnacle of sexiness. The combination of their explosive chemistry and the compelling story made these all-nighters for me — I couldn’t put them down. I guess this kind of stuff is more up my alley than I thought it was, because the series became an instant Cannonball favorite and I re-read several parts of every book before returning them to the library, then promptly went and bought them on Amazon. Highly recommended!

Book review: Nerve by Jeanne Ryan

Goodreads summary: “When Vee is picked to be a player in NERVE, an anonymous game of dares broadcast live online, she discovers that the game knows her. They tempt her with prizes taken from her ThisIsMe page and team her up with the perfect boy, sizzling-hot Ian. At first it’s exhilarating–Vee and Ian’s fans cheer them on to riskier dares with higher stakes. But the game takes a twisted turn when they’re directed to a secret location with five other players for the Grand Prize round. Suddenly they’re playing all or nothing, with their lives on the line. Just how far will Vee go before she loses NERVE?”

This was a pretty quick read and a rather fluffy one too. The book is set in our reality, in our time, and as such, initially the premise was intriguing. I definitely believed in the idea that such a game could exist in our time and that there would be tons of people out there that would play dares to an online audience in exchange for cash prizes. The Grand Prize round, though, seemed really farfetched to me, and as such the whole climax to the story was a yawn for me. On top of that, I didn’t really connect with any of the characters, so I didn’t really feel that invested in the “lives on the line” outcome.

The writing itself was fine, about average caliber for your typical YA novels these days. There is a prologue that felt weirdly tacked on to the beginning, and is only referenced in passing once during the rest of the book as a throwaway sentence. This was my only issue with the editing/technical side of the story.

Overall, I wasn’t super impressed with this one, but I think I may be too old for it. It’s possible that an actual teenager could relate to the characters better, and possibly believe more than I did that their peer group would willingly participate in things like the Grand Prize dare. With good YA, being slightly out of the age demographic doesn’t jar me, but here it did.

Book review: The Mortal Instruments 1-3 by Cassandra Clare

This review covers the “original” trilogy of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, City of Ashes, and City of Glass. More books have been written and the series is up to five now; I have no idea how long the author intends for the series to run at this point.

 

Look at those covers — aren’t they kind of hilarious? Anyway, being the dedicated Tumblr user that I am, I couldn’t help but notice the fervor over these, particularly with the movie adaptation currently filming and slated for release in spring 2013. Turns out, I’m way behind on this phenomenon, since City of Bones was first released in 2008. Anyway. Onto the actual review-y stuff.

Set in modern New York, the series concerns the re-education of “mundane” Clary Fray, who grew up much like you and I, blind to the supernatural worlds that exist intertwined with ours. That changes one evening at a nightclub when she witnesses a group of Shadowhunters engaged in a bit of demon-slaying. Shadowhunters are humans that are angel-blessed and have the ability (and responsibility) to fight demons and other forces of evil. Shadowhunters are born only from the established bloodline of known Shadowhunters, so when the supposedly-normal Clary is able to see what ordinary humans, called “mundanes,” cannot, the Shadowhunter group takes her back to their lair. Meanwhile, her mother is kidnapped, as it turns out, by demons, and Clary and her new companions, along with her other mundane friend Simon, learn Clary’s true heritage and begin a quest to rescue her mother.

This is basically the setup for the first three books in the series, which has everything you would expect from a supernatural YA series: the epic and passionate romance that appears delayed by insurmountable circumstances and kind of leads to a love triangle, except that you’re never quite convinced that there is really any competition; the showdown between good and evil, which in this case is led by a former Shadowhunter-turned-bad; appearances from vampires, warlocks, werewolves, and faeries — etc, etc. There is also a lot of meta humor and current pop culture references, which make the books fun now but will probably lead to them seeming really dated in another few years.

Overall, yes, these were really fun. I read all three over the course of a single weekend, and I can understand why teenagers (aka, the actual target market for YA) have gone rabid over them. I really enjoyed the world-building and fast paced plot, both of which kept me engaged and caused me to want to zip through these quickly. The romance was fun too, due to a legitimately surprising twist, which keeps them “apart” for a good 2/3 of the trilogy and makes for some deliciously conflicted sexual tension. The writing itself was kind of hokey and immature, and didn’t really achieve the same kind of character depth or development that, say, Collins does in The Hunger Games, or even that THG would-be competitors like Divergent (Roth) do. What the characters lack in depth, though, they make up for in sassy quips. Again, these lend themselves to fun, quick reads rather than truly thought-provoking YA, but I’m not really complaining. One of the things that the Cannonball has done for me is taken away a bit of my prejudice regarding “serious” books. If I’m trying to read at least 52 books in a year, I owe myself a few silly fun ones along the way! So that’s what I recommend to my audience. The Mortal Instruments make a great palate-cleanser if you're used to reading more serious stuff: you’ll probably enjoy them, even if they don’t “stay with you,” as they say. And if this kind of stuff is actually right up your alley, you've probably already read them, since like I said, I'm late to this game.

Book review: Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

Description from Amazon: “Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author of the bestseller Into the Wild. On assignment for Outside Magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the mountain, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas as a client of Rob Hall, the most respected high-altitude guide in the world.  A rangy, thirty-five-year-old New Zealander, Hall had summited Everest four times between 1990 and 1995 and had led thirty-nine climbers to the top. Ascending the mountain in close proximity to Hall’s team was a guided expedition led by Scott Fischer, a forty-year-old American with legendary strength and drive who had climbed the peak without supplemental oxygen in 1994. But neither Hall nor Fischer survived the rogue storm that struck in May 1996.

Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people — including himself — to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer’s eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.”

I don’t really have a lot to add to the official description, as this is a nonfiction memoir, so a lot of the “stuff” I assess and critique in fiction are off the table here. I will note that Krakauer is an exceptional writer, so reading this does have the feel and pace of reading a suspenseful novel. It’s obvious that, as a reporter, Krakauer has made a point of gathering as much information and as many interviews as he could, and doing so has resulted in — what seemed to me to be — a comprehensive, insightful, empathetic, and reasoned take on the events of May 10/11, 1996. Into Thin Air is not without its controversy and detractors, but I think for his part Krakauer was able to elegantly cover a very sensitive subject.  In addition to the straightforward recollection of the summit attempt, Krakauer also engages in fascinating personal reflection and reveals a great deal of his own survivor’s guilt and grief. And, even though I know everyone loves to play psychologist on the internet, I wouldn’t be surprised if his emotional state after the disaster could be considered straight-up PTSD.

The way this book has written gives it wide-ranging appeal beyond the obvious target group of mountaineers and lovers of the outdoors. Though this bestseller is some 15 years old at this point, it’s well worth a read if somehow you, like me, had managed to miss it up until now.

Book review: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick

Plot summary from Amazon:

“By 2021, the World War had killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remained coveted any living creature, and for people who couldn’t afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacrae: horses, birds, cats, sheep. . . They even built humans.

Emigrées to Mars received androids so sophisticated it was impossible to tell them from true men or women. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans could wreak, the government banned them from Earth. But when androids didn’t want to be identified, they just blended in.

Rick Deckard was an officially sanctioned bounty hunter whose job was to find rogue androids, and to retire them. But cornered, androids tended to fight back, with deadly results.”

My enduring impression of Dick is that he is a genius when it comes to visions. The worlds he creates, the stories, the ideological conflicts — all are arresting and immediately engrossing. As a writer though, the words he puts on the page somehow fail (for me anyway) to inspire the kind of electric energy that could bring his books to the next level. That’s how it is with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the story that inspired the film Blade Runner. If you’ve seen the film before reading this book, you may be surprised, as I was, as to how different the book actually is. Without getting into a detailed description of all of the elements that were changed for the screenplay, I’ll just say that I think Blade Runner did a better job with Dick’s story than Dick did.

I rarely feel this way when it comes to books vs. movie adaptations, but I don’t really think this book is required reading at this point. It’s bizarre: very cold and detached, with all of the tension building to Deckard’s final showdown with the remaining androids, though the final meeting wraps up in a matter of seconds. It’s the ultimate in anti-climatic; I literally blinked and missed it and had to go back and make sure I had really just read the entire encounter in about four sentences. I don’t really have much else to say. It’s a short review for a short book.

Book review: The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice

I’m doing these two together because I read them together, and because Queen of the Damned picks up right were Lestat left off. Beginning in Lestat, the titular character has awoken some time in the 1980′s after years of sleep. He comes across the “memoir” Interview with the Vampire, written by Louis, the vampire he had created over a century earlier. He decides, partly to get the attention of Louis, and partly to set the record straight, to form a hugely popular rock band and release an album and novel (all called “The Vampire Lestat”) at the same time to create intrigue. What we are reading, then, is his novel of his early life as a vampire, bookended by more recent exposition at the time of his awakening.

Queen of the Damned begins on the evening of The Vampire Lestat’s debut concert, when Lestat’s music has awoken Akasha, the millenia-old original vampire. Lestat is the narrator of this story, too, but he has also “collected” the stories of other vampire characters as they concern their whereabouts and doings that evening of Akasha’s rise. Akasha, herself, has a plan (that Valerie Solanas would love) to “save” humankind from itself, and she has taken Lestat with her as her prince to put the plan into motion.

Taken together with Interview with the Vampire, I found the story overall to progressively pick up steam. Interview was an interesting read, but a rather slow one. Lestat started off much the same, and I wasn’t intensely interested in most of his backstory; he engaged in a lot of the kind of existential whining and drama that Louis did for most of Interview. It wasn’t really until Lestat relates the story of Marius, which gets into the detailed history of vampires themselves and introduces Akasha and Enkil, the original Mother and Father, that I started to really feel engaged. That anticipation continued into Queen, and as such I finished this novel much more quickly than either of the other two. It had a lot more action, and the idea that it was taking place in the present rather than being presented as a memoir worked to up the excitement for me as well. Finally, in the third novel, we also get to meet many more of the older vampires, and the dynamics of the group as they come together provided a welcome dimension of interaction that differed from the histrionic “fatal attraction” type of love that was often described between several of the vampire “couples.”

As these are “classic” (in their own way) vampire novels, it is hard for me to recommend some over the other, as there are extremes these days in what people like in their vampire stories. For me, if I were to do it over again, I would skip Interview entirely and begin with Lestat’s story. Though the first half of the novel wasn’t my favorite, it provided the necessary backstory to understand Queen, which was my favorite.

Book review: Partials by Dan Wells

Amazon: “The human race is all but extinct after a war with Partials—engineered organic beings identical to humans—has decimated the population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by RM, a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island while the Partials have mysteriously retreated. The threat of the Partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to RM in more than a decade. Our time is running out.
 
Kira, a sixteen-year-old medic-in-training, is on the front lines of this battle, seeing RM ravage the community while mandatory pregnancy laws have pushed what’s left of humanity to the brink of civil war, and she’s not content to stand by and watch. But as she makes a desperate decision to save the last of her race, she will find that the survival of humans and Partials alike rests in her attempts to uncover the connections between them—connections that humanity has forgotten, or perhaps never even knew were there.”

I’m just going to keep on rolling with the dystopian/survival thing. Partials was a lot of fun: there is a varied cast of characters, personality-wise and racial/ethnically (fistbump for diversity in YA literature,) a great fast pace that had me finishing this one in about a day, and a nice twist in the middle of the book. The protagonist, Kira Walker, is an interesting character. She’s kind of a smartass, and she’s intelligent, moral, and brave. I also really enjoyed the aspect that within the community of surviving humans, it’s not as if there is complete peace and concord. The government has enacted some desperate measures that divide the survivors and has caused some of them to live in the open, beyond the protection of the Defense Grid and therefore more immediately vulnerable to attack from the Partials. The particular law at the center of the ideological chasm is the Hope Act, which states that women 18 and older are required to try and get pregnant as often as possible, in order to potentially have even a single child that is born immune to the RM virus. It’s drastic in the way that government laws often are in dystopian literature, but still, it eerily reflects a political climate today in the US that seems rather focused on legislating women’s bodies. Partials was published early in 2012; I’m not sure, given the timing of writing and publication, if Wells was “inspired” by current events, or that the similarities are coincidental. In any case, the parallels did amp up my reading experience.

Overall, this one is recommended. It’s a quick read, with a story that draws you in, and IMO likeable characters. I’m looking forward to the sequel next year (are there any YA novels coming out right now that don’t have intended sequels?)

Book review: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

From Amazon: “The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. 
 
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway: a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them both, this is a game in which only one can be left standing. Despite the high stakes, Celia and Marco soon tumble headfirst into love, setting off a domino effect of dangerous consequences, and leaving the lives of everyone, from the performers to the patrons, hanging in the balance.”

I’m not going to spend a ton of time on little details because I'm a lazy reviewer again today.

I will, however, offer criticism, as this book wasn’t 100% perfect for me. (Yes, I’m holding it to a higher standard than my pet genre of YA dystopian lit.) Essentially, what everyone before me has said is true: Morgenstern is a master storybuilder, and her vivid imagination of the Night Circus leaps off the page. It’s lush and beautiful and it’s the circus I wish I have always wanted to see. The off-linear pacing from the converging timelines was skillfully performed, but I was a little distracted by the second-person narratives that were thrown in from time to time.

But the biggest issue for me was the romance. I couldn’t grasp any motivation or reasoning behind Celia and Marco falling in love, other than that they were “supposed to.” As far as I can tell, Marco is enchanted at first sight, but Celia never seems to much register his existence; then, she discovers that he is her “opponent,” and a few brief meetings later, they are DEEPLY IN LOVE, owing to their magical cosmic connection or something. Celia goes from a strong, composed, charismatic and powerful person into a simpering “I don’t have the strength to do this without him!” trope.

It was so easy, with the rest of this book, to be picked up and swept away into the beauty and magic of the circus. The romance dragged me out of my reverie; it was too cliched and seemed to have been built on nothing. Clearly, this was not as distracting for a lot of people as it was for me, and truthfully, I still do highly recommend this book. It is a gorgeous and unique read, and it was evocative of vivid imagery in a way that few other novels have been recently. I just could have been truly blown away with some more depth to the characters and more truth to their romance.

Book review: The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

Amazon description: “The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God’s Gardeners–a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life–has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God’s Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.
 
Have others survived? Ren’s bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers…

Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo’hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can’t stay locked away…”

(This is going to be kind of a lazy review — sorry.) Like Oryx and Crake, I had a bit of trouble with this one. Not so much with the story or the book itself, I suppose, but the way that Atwood (and many reviewers) seem to think that this world is an inevitability. I suppose only time will tell if I’m the one that’s naive here, but I find all of the “a world so similar to our own” rhetoric around these two books a bit overdramatic and tinfoil-hat-y. I mean, sure, genetic engineering and gene-splicing exist, but not like this. There are elements of truth and feasibility, but I don’t think we are depraved enough collectively to move in the direction portrayed in these novels. We’ll see, I guess.

Anyway, story-wise, I liked this one more than Oryx and Crake, mostly because I liked the narrators in The Year of the Flood a lot better than I liked Jimmy/Snowman in Oryx and Crake. What can I say — Toby and Ren’s backstories of survival and coping with adversity were a lot more interesting than Jimmy’s “Woe is me, my best friend is smarter than me and I’m in love with a manic pixie dream former child prostitute” memoir. The narrative gets a little jumpy, as the characters’ backstories catch up to the present, and the switches between character POVs are broken up by God’s Gardener sermons and hymns, which I found a little trite and tiring. Overall though, it was an interesting read, but not one of my favorite books this year.

Book review: The Passage by Justin Cronin

Amazon says: “An epic and gripping tale of catastrophe and survival,The Passage is the story of Amy—abandoned by her mother at the age of six, pursued and then imprisoned by the shadowy figures behind a government experiment of apocalyptic proportions. But Special Agent Brad Wolgast, the lawman sent to track her down, is disarmed by the curiously quiet girl and risks everything to save her. As the experiment goes nightmarishly wrong, Wolgast secures her escape—but he can’t stop society’s collapse. And as Amy walks alone, across miles and decades, into a future dark with violence and despair, she is filled with the mysterious and terrifying knowledge that only she has the power to save the ruined world.”
 
That’s… a pretty condensed description, given that this book is ~800 pages long and Amy is in about 60% of it (not because she dies! Not a spoiler.) In fact, that’s really more of a set-up than it is in the description. The majority of the novel concerns human refugees trying to survive following a viral pandemic that killed most humans, and turned the rest into a vampiric species that has decimated most remaining human enclaves.
Immediately after I finished this a few weeks ago, I had a lot of thoughts about it, positive and negative. After those few weeks of reflection, the aspects of the book that stick with me the most are, unfortunately, the ones that left a negative impression. To start with the positive before I get too critique-y: I always love a good pandemic/survival plot, and Cronin keeps good pacing and suspense throughout the lengthy expanse of the novel. I didn’t get bored of reading and was overall invested in the story. But.

The novel is as long as it is mainly because Cronin insists on having, like, 20 main characters, and giving each of them a few narrative pages, and then giving some supporting characters narrative first-person pages too, just for shits and giggs. As a result, there are so many characters, and very few of them are really developed. Or, a character will become fully fleshed out, and we’ll start caring about him/her, and then we won’t hear from him/hear again for the next 200 pages. It’s quite frustrating. The Passage is still essentially linear, and the shifts between character POVs don’t break up the time continuum much, but character continuity is often completely destroyed. I got so tired of having to jump to another character just when one got interesting.
Given all of that, it shouldn’t have been surprising how disappointing, nay, infuriating, the ending was. There are “open” endings, and there are cliffhanger endings, and this was worse. Whatever precious little emotional goodwill invested in the characters is absolutely shat on, as precisely zero of the characters are granted any kind of resolution whatsoever. The ending read like one of the abrupt transitions between character POVs, except it was the end of the whole book. It’s almost like Cronin was like, “Well, I’m tired of writing, and after 800 pages, they’re probably tired of reading, so this should be good enough!”

So — would I recommend this book? Well, no, honestly. And I feel bad, saying so, because it didn’t really feel like a bad or sub-par book as I was reading it. I was engaged. It was well-written. But it was a bit jumpy and abrupt, and for it to end as such just seemed lazy. I understand, and often enjoy, open endings, because they are thought provoking, and on top of collecting my own thoughts, I often want to go out into the fandom and connect with other people and read their thoughts. But this wasn’t like that. It just pissed me off, to be honest. It’s like the last 50 pages of the book just got lost in between the editor’s desk and the printing press. It’s as if I were to end this review without actually

Book review: Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Summary: “One choice can transform you–or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves–and herself–while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.
 
Tris’s initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable–and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.”

Awihle back, Feminist Frequency’s Anita Sarkeesian made a video about True Grit’s Mattie Ross, saying that while she is a good character, and an interesting character, we should caution ourselves against  holding her up as the feminist ideal for strong female characters:

As we know, all people regardless of gender are capable of the entire range of human behaviours but since we live in a male dominated, male centered society traits stereotypically identified as masculine are most valued and consequentially more celebrated by Hollywood while traits stereotypically identified as feminine are undervalued and often denigrated…

In True Grit, Mattie is certainly subverts expected gender roles by being witty and smart and competent and independent yet she’s not challenging the set of patriarchal archetypal male values ever present in most mass media narratives – she’s actually adopting them.

In other words, having a woman “act like a man” doesn’t necessarily a Strong Female Character make. I’ve seen this described elsewhere as Strong Character, Female vs. Character, Strong Female. The former implies a strong character who happens to be female (we like this), while the latter is just about taking a female character and making her “strong” (can be problematic, depending on what “strong” means to the creator.)

Which brings me to this book. I’ve seen two main criticisms:

1. Tris is a mess in this book. What happened to the girl I loved in Divergent?
2. There is so much more ROMANCE in this book. Yuck! This isn’t Twilight! Get that shlocky stuff away from my dystopian YA lit!

Clearly, I’m about to disagree with these criticisms (I have my own, which I’ll get to a little later.) In Insurgent, Tris is very clearly traumatized by the events of the previous novel. I want to avoid spoilers, so suffice it to say she has some pretty damn good reasons to be messed up. It takes her most of the novel to “recover,” but she’s still not quite the same. To me, this is completely okay. I expect people who have been through that kind of crap to have a rough go for awhile, especially when the person in question is a sixteen year old girl. It is frustrating to see that kick-ass girl from Divergent go through this period, but to me it’s much more realistic that she would change based on what she’s experienced (and remember, Insurgent picks up immediately after Divergent, so she’s literally had no time to process what has happened when we meet her again in this novel) than if she had stayed exactly the same. I think her turmoil makes her a stronger (female) character, in terms of being a more interesting one. Tris continuing to kick ass without consequence would have been fun, but would this actually be a compelling, realistic human being? It is a more difficult read to be in the head of someone who doesn’t always think completely clearly, but to me, this doesn’t take away from the novel.

Regarding the romance, all I can really say is that the Twilight backlash has really ruined the ability to have romance in YA novels for awhile. Tris’ boyfriend is her emotional center in this novel out of necessity; she doesn’t really have anyone else. That doesn’t mean that the whole book is about them, but it does mean that there is a lot of gravity placed on their relationship and their interactions. It may seem melodramatic at times, but only because of the extreme situation these teens are in — they literally don’t know if they will live or die from one day to the next. So with all that said, no, I don’t think this book is “too much” about the romance. But even if the scales had tipped more in that direction, I take issue with the seeming idea that our young lady protagonists have to be compared to Bella just because part of their stories involve love.

Now — my impassioned defense thus far should make it pretty evident that I liked this book, and I did, basically for all the same reasons I liked Divergent. My main issue with it was the issue of “the secret,” and the ending reveal. Basically, there is this whole buildup where Tris is trying to get this other character to tell her the major secret that would shake up their society, and he’s all “I can’t, I have to SHOW you.” And then you find out what it is 200 pages later, and I was kind of like, “Really?” For one thing, it’s not all that shocking (I didn’t think) and for another thing, it was absolutely NOT anything that he couldn’t have just told her. The quest for the secret drives the plot in a major way, so for me it kind of made the whole part of the conflict surrounding it based on a pretty faulty premise. Despite that pretty major plot hole, though, the story is still extremely enjoyable. So even considering that AND the major cliffhanger ending, this still has been one of my favorite books of the cannonball so far.

Book review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

Amazon: In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.
During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she’s chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she’s kept hidden from everyone because she’s been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

This one has been reviewed already and loved by many, so I’ll not get too long-winded, and just add my voice to the chorus. I loved this one; I’m truly a sucker for dystopian YA, it seems! Books of this ilk will be inevitably compared to The Hunger Games for awhile, but while Divergent shares its tone of dark anxiety and element of dangerous competition, the novels are otherwise obviously different. I liked that the reveal of what it meant to be Divergent wasn’t given away immediately — it allowed suspense to build and the conflict to become more urgent. I did not like, as much, that some people were revealed as Divergent, a bit too conveniently, I think, toward the end; though Tris (the protagonist) still did have to force her own resolution without relying too much on these reveals.

I don’t have it in me to do a much longer review, so suffice it to say that if you’re into YA or dystopian lit, you should absolutely check this one out. I, myself, am waiting for the sequel to come off of hold at the library!

Book review: The Fat Years by Koonchung Chan

Amazon: “Beijing, sometime in the near future: a month has gone missing from official records. No one has any memory of it, and no one could care less—except for a small circle of friends, who will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of the sinister cheerfulness and amnesia that have possessed the Chinese nation. When they kidnap a high-ranking official and force him to reveal all, what they learn—not only about their leaders, but also about their own people—stuns them to the core. It is a message that will astound the world.
A kind of Brave New World reflecting the China of our times, The Fat Years is a complex novel of ideas that reveals all too chillingly the machinations of the postmodern totalitarian state, and sets in sharp relief the importance of remembering the past to protect the future.”

This book is allegedly banned in China, and no wonder: it’s a chilling story that blends fiction and reality to construct an image of modern China, and if not China of exactly today, then the China of ~5 years from now. The novel introduces several characters with a range of lifestyles, motivations, and adaptations to the realpolitik of the Communist Party. The protagonist is not himself prone to revolutionary ideas, but he finds himself “taking the red pill” when he chooses to pursue a woman who has gone into hiding out of protection from the Party. He is one of those who has “forgotten” the lost month, but the woman he loves and a few other friends from the past remember vividly the crackdowns and fear that the government appears to have completely erased. When he falls in with them, he doesn’t begin to remember with complete clarity what happened, as they do, but he better understands his periodic feelings of unease and disillusionment with the seeming happiness and naiveté around him.

As a psuedo-documentary, this book works really well. The characters are fictional, and the specific conflict in the story (alleged government orchestration of an entire month being erased from public consciousness and history) is also fictional. However, the suggestions of power hierarchies and international political maneuvering are 100% believable, if not based in literal truth — and they might very well be, but I can’t consider myself suitably well-informed on  the interactions of the Party and middle-class Chinese to know for sure.

As a fictional novel, the pacing and structure are a little lacking. The “big reveal” when the characters kidnap the Party leader takes place as an enormous infodump that spans close to twenty pages (I don’t remember the exact number, but it’s quite a lot,) and though it’s effective in the “pseudo-documentary” format I mentioned above, as a climax to the story it’s too overwhelming in scope to be punchy and effective. The characters do get the answer to their question, and then essentially the novel ends, but when “the answer to the question” reads like a senior thesis on contemporary Chinese politics, the effect on me at the end of the book was like “What just happened?”

Overall, I’d recommend this book as it was absolutely interesting and revealing. Be prepared for the quick shift from fiction to (alleged) nonfiction at the end, though.

Book review: The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus

From Amazon: "A terrible epidemic has struck the country and the sound of children’s speech has become lethal. Radio transmissions from strange sources indicate that people are going into hiding. All Sam and Claire need to do is look around the neighborhood: In the park, parents wither beneath the powerful screams of their children. At night, suburban side streets become routes of shameful escape for fathers trying to get outside the radius of affliction.
 
With Claire nearing collapse, it seems their only means of survival is to flee from their daughter, Esther, who laughs at her parents’ sickness, unaware that in just a few years she, too, will be susceptible to the language toxicity. But Sam and Claire find it isn’t so easy to leave the daughter they still love, even as they waste away from her malevolent speech. On the eve of their departure, Claire mysteriously disappears, and Sam, determined to find a cure for this new toxic language, presses on alone into a world beyond recognition."

Okay, I did not have an easy time with this one. It's another one where critics are falling all over themselves to come up with attention-grabbing superlatives about how much of a genius the author is. Sometimes, novels with these kinds of accolades end up being wonderful, breathtaking novels, and sometimes they are The Flame Alphabet. Four adjectives to describe this book are: pretentious, confusing, depressing, and disjointed. I had a really hard time getting through it. The narrator is canonically 'unreliable,' and though I wouldn't call him misanthropic, he's at the very least cynical with regard to most human interaction. Sometimes his suspicions are justified, but mostly I felt myself wondering if his family members and acquaintances actually did all treat him as awfully as he described?

The plot is, itself, more or less easy to follow. There are, however, attempts to be "creative" with the linearity and pacing that contributed to my inability to enjoy The Flame Alphabet. The main conceit here is a pandemic of language, and its resulting illness and isolation. I don't think this theme really benefited from jarring the reader's sense of time, and it really didn't benefit from the absolutely bizarre sideplot about an imagined form of  mystical Judaism. Basically, the narrator and his wife are members of a secretive sect of Judaism that receive sermons in  individual huts from cables that are wired through the ground, and the story's main antagonist believes that the Jews are the cause and the solution to the pandemic? I think? Anyway, it's really, really strange (and for me, barely understandable.)

I had read a lot of mixed reviews for this before I picked it up, but I found the premise intriguing enough that I eventually decided to add it to the reading list. I don't regret reading it, per se, in that "I wish I had those days of my life back!" kind of way, but ultimately I feel that it tried too hard to be too different. If the author could have explored, more simply and with less distraction, the consequence of losing language, and expressed more chillingly the fear and paranoia inherent in pandemic situations, this would have, I feel, been a much better book. Instead, major conflicts play out with the help of a deus ex machina that allows our characters to speak to each other in the thick of the illness (circumstances which should have killed them both.) Weak emotional connections to seemingly indifferent family members provide the only heart in the book, and as a result I barely cared about any of the characters.

Based on my experience, I can't recommend this book, but there are others out there who did like it, so if you're curious go ahead and give it a read, I suppose.

Book review: Replay by Ken Grimwood

Amazon: “Jeff Winston, forty-three, didn’t know he was a replayer until he died and woke up twenty-five years younger in his college dorm room; he lived another life. And died again. And lived again and died again — in a continuous twenty-five-year cycle — each time starting from scratch at the age of eighteen to reclaim lost loves, remedy past mistakes, or make a fortune in the stock market. A novel of gripping adventure, romance, and fascinating speculation on the nature of time, Replay asks the question: “What if you could live your life over again?”
 
This was a really enjoyable read, and as such I raced through it in about a day. I think Grimwood hit on some really poignant human truths here, in terms of one’s experiences adding up to shape their future, and how one would change their future if they could. On his first replay, Jeff pursues wealth. He finds himself in a mostly loveless marriage, but with enough money and enough of a loving connection to his daughter, he seems to more or less enjoy his life. On his second replay, he is profoundly affected by the loss — or non-existence, really — of his daughter, but places more importance on the value of human connection over massive wealth. By the third replay, he becomes cynical, having lost so many lifetimes of meaningful companionship, and his early existence is marked by careless hedonism and somewhat destructive behavior. It is during this “lifetime” that Jeff experiences a crucial turning point, which I won’t give away, but it lends stability to the rest of the novel by grounding Jeff.

The writing here was simple but affecting, and the pacing was good. The characters, as I implied above, were believable, and given extra dimensionality by the opportunity to meet them several times under different circumstances. This one is a definite recommendation from me.

Book review: Among Others by Jo Walton

Raised by a half-mad mother who dabbled in magic, Morwenna Phelps found refuge in two worlds. As a child growing up in Wales, she played among the spirits who made their homes in industrial ruins. But her mind found freedom and promise in the science fiction novels that were her closest companions. Then her mother tried to bend the spirits to dark ends, and Mori was forced to confront her in a magical battle that left her crippled–and her twin sister dead.
Fleeing to her father whom she barely knew, Mori was sent to boarding school in England–a place all but devoid of true magic. There, outcast and alone, she tempted fate by doing magic herself, in an attempt to find a circle of like-minded friends. But her magic also drew the attention of her mother, bringing about a reckoning that could no longer be put off…

This was a really interesting book; reading it felt like an adventure. I don’t think it can be accurately described as ‘magical realism,’ at least not in the way I usually think of it, where magical/supernatural occurrences are presented as being the reality of the setting. Rather, this is the story of a girl who is so deeply connected to fantasy and science fiction stories that she applies the fantastical possibilities therein to her own world. Her magic, she explains, isn’t like the magic we read about though, with its spells that are cast from grimoires. It’s more like a re-arranging of the world and time so that things come to pass. If she wishes for the bus to come early, magic makes it so that the bus actually did leave earlier so that she perceives it coming to her earlier. Or when she wishes for friends, the universe doesn’t just make people start liking her; instead, she finds out about a book club that meets weekly to discuss SF.

It’s written in a diary format, and in addition to the ‘entries’ about what is actually happening in her life, we also get witty, insightful, and amusing reflections on the books Mori is reading, and her thoughts about the authors. This is a protagonist that lives to read and gain wisdom from these stories. This book has been called “a love letter to SF books and those who read and write them” and, more generally, “a book about books.” It’s true — these novels are Mori’s solace, and when she talks about any of your favorites (and if you read SF, she WILL mention at least one of yours) you’ll feel a connection and spark of happiness that somehow seems more substantial than the passing bemusement of having your fandom namedropped. You just know she takes it seriously.

Beyond all of the meta SF adoration and in jokes, the sections about Mori herself, and her family, and her interactions with other people, are hilarious, touching, sad, wistful, and suspenseful. This was one of those books that, like Angela’s Ashes, manages to turn some pretty depressing scenes and themes into something altogether different — transcendent, in a way. And yet, even though I just made the Angela’s Ashes comparison, this book is really nothing like that book, or any other book I’ve read. I highly recommend it, and especially if you’re into fantasy and SF, but even if you’re not, because it’s just a good story with a strong literary voice.

Book review: Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

Amazon: “Eight years after Graceling, Bitterblue is now queen of Monsea. But the influence of her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities, lives on. Her advisors, who have run things since Leck died, believe in a forward-thinking plan: Pardon all who committed terrible acts under Leck’s reign, and forget anything bad ever happened. But when Bitterblue begins sneaking outside the castle–disguised and alone–to walk the streets of her own city, she starts realizing that the kingdom has been under the thirty-five-year spell of a madman, and the only way to move forward is to revisit the past.
Two thieves, who only steal what has already been stolen, change her life forever. They hold a key to the truth of Leck’s reign. And one of them, with an extreme skill called a Grace that he hasn’t yet identified, holds a key to her heart.”

Okay, I just impatiently barreled through the whole Graceling trilogy (as it currently stands — is Cashore planning a fourth? Or is she creating some new adventure? All I know is I want in) and I wish there were more! To me, Kristin Cashore is a total badass. I can’t believe it took me 3 years to hear about this series (thanks again, CBR4!) In this trilogy, she’s created three female protagonists with complete personal agency. They are flawed, of course, as all human beings are, but they are also sympathetic and relatable. I’ve made this point in my reviews for Graceling and Fire, so I don’t need to belabor it again, but it seems to be such a wonderful thing that an author has made it a priority to explore so many different women and make them real people.

Anyway — about Bitterblue. This was a very different story, thematically, from the prior two novels in the series. Whereas its two predecessors had a lot of adventure and travel and a more epic scale, Bitterblue was more focused on the political machinations of one kingdom viewed from the microcosm of her base town, Bitterblue City. It’s a bit more of a mystery and detective story rather than action-adventure, as Bitterblue (the character) works to undo the layers of deception that keep her kingdom in a state of apathy. As with both Katsa of Graceling and Fire of Fire, much of Bitterblue’s motivation has to do with setting herself apart from, and making reparations for, her father/predecessors. She is determined to do right, even as in her immaturity and inexperience she is forced to rely on a network of staff that have been selected for her, rather than by her, with her trust. For some readers, the smaller scope of this novel may make it less *exciting*, but I found it to be a refreshing change of pace — Bitterblue is the first protagonist in the series that is not Graced or gifted with some kind of supernatural power. Though she does request the help and expertise of her Graced friends, her strength is in her natural intelligence, empathy, persistence, and leadership.

 

Overall, I couldn’t recommend this series more highly to anyone.

Book review: Fire by Kristin Cashore

As in all of my recent reviews, and especially the ones that people have already reviewed a few times for Cannonball, I’m going to Amazon for the 10-second plot summary before I go on to talk about other themes: "It is not a peaceful time in the Dells. In King City, the young King Nash is clinging to the throne, while rebel lords in the north and south build armies to unseat him. War is coming. And the mountains and forest are filled with spies and thieves. This is where Fire lives, a girl whose beauty is impossibly irresistible and who can control the minds of everyone around her."

I’ve seen Fire alternatively described as either a prequel or a “companion” to Graceling. Indeed, they are two separate stories in the same universe, but Fire does actually spoil Graceling a bit. Basically, reading Graceling first is recommended, not because either story is required for the other to make sense, but because a fairly pivotal reveal in Graceling is given away in the prologue of Fire with little fanfare. In any case, I surely enjoyed Cashore’s second foray into the fantasy universe she constructed for Graceling, and as with that novel, much of Fire’s strength comes from its wonderful characters. I love that Cashore is seemingly relishing the opportunity to write as many different “strong women” as possible, while demonstrating that there isn’t some kind of mold that these women need to fit into in order to be considered “strong.” Within Fire alone, we meet Fire herself, Princess and Clara, members of Fire’s guard Musa and Mila, and more. All of these women are admirable, intelligent, capable human beings who are also obviously different, personality-wise, from one another.

I also love that Cashore does not shy away from some “political” issues. She candidly discusses birth control and abortion (without using those words, but there are explicit descriptions of herbs that can do these things,) and sex is treated as — shockingly! — a pretty normal course of action for relationships. Amusingly, on Amazon, this is always brought up in reviews as a “parents beware!” kind of thing. I understand to an extent; if there are really younger kids reading this, it may be a bit inappropriate, but as a slightly older “young adult,” I can only think it is a good thing that there is good literature out there that is encouraging these kinds of discussions and not pretending that sex doesn’t exist.

I only have one complaint about this novel, and it does involve the SPOILER FOR GRACELING. Basically, I kind of thought that the whole subplot with Leck was kind of unnecessary. It may be that Cashore’s intent was to weave this character into Fire in order to make the Graceling connection more obvious, but all things considered, his involvement added up to very little that couldn’t have happened in the context of the war that was already going on. For me, this subplot broke up the pacing of the rest of the book and was an unnecessary distraction from the more compelling story in the main plot.

Overall, I obviously liked this (I definitely wrote enough about it.) I’m going to stop reviewing so that I can tear into the final book in the series!

Book review: Graceling by Kristin Cashore

From Amazon: “Graceling tells the story of the vulnerable yet strong Katsa, a smart, beautiful teenager who lives in a world where selected people are given a Grace, a special talent that can be anything from dancing to swimming. Katsa’s is killing. As the king’s niece, she is forced to use her extreme skills as his thug. Along the way, Katsa must learn to decipher the true nature of her Grace . . . and how to put it to good use. A thrilling, action-packed fantasy adventure (and steamy romance!) that will resonate deeply with adolescents trying to find their way in the world.”

Thank you Cannonballers for clue-ing me in to this one! I really enjoyed Graceling and now have Fire and Bitterblue on hold at the library so I can dive into more of Cashore’s world. I loved the alternative takes on love and marriage presented here, as well as the fabulously nuanced and normal (well, inasmuch as supernaturally gifted royalty can be “normal”) female protagonist. This is the the type of “strong female character” I really like; there is a lot of discussion around the net if taking a girl, and giving her all “traditionally masculine” qualities and taking away anything “traditionally feminine” really makes a “strong female character,” or just the same kind of masculine character we are always supposed to root for, but in a dress. (Sorry for all the scare quotes in that last sentence. Geez.) Anyway, Cashore doesn’t do that here. Katsa is a fighter, and fiercely independent, strong-willed, and certainly no delicate flower, but she also loves, has maternal and protective qualities, and has deep, powerful emotions that she doesn’t care to suppress. She’s well-rounded, a complete human. It’s awesome.

And, on top of all that, the story is well-paced, gripping, well-written, and satisfying. Everyone does seem to live happily ever after, but not in the saccharine, cliched way we’ve come to expect. When YA is done well, it is so, so good.

Book review: Spoiled by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

Amazon: Sixteen-year-old Molly Dix has just discovered that her biological father is Brick Berlin, world-famous movie star and red-carpet regular. Intrigued (and a little) terrified by her Hollywood lineage, Molly moves to Los Angeles and plunges headfirst into the deep of Beverly Hills celebrity life. Just as Molly thinks her life couldn’t get any stranger, she meets Brooke Berlin, her gorgeous, spoiled half sister, who welcomes Molly to la-la land with a smothering dose “sisterly love”…but in this town, nothing is ever what it seems. 
 
This was a snappy, short read, and good fun. A devotee of GoFugYourself, I had wanted to pick this one up for awhile, and it was pretty much what I expected — chock full of witty one-liners and good-natured jabs at celebrity culture. I think, though, I was hoping for a bit more. GoFugYourself is, of course, ultimately just about making fun of celebrities’ horrible outfits, but the writing itself is intelligent and clever. The Fug Girls’ voice in Spoiled definitely comes through clearly, but the novel never quite rises above its shallow premise the way that GFY does.

As I said earlier, the Girls’ trademarks are there: hilarious commentary on outfits and witty pop-culture references, snarky take-downs of gross Hollywood caricatures, and quotable one-liners make this overall a very quick and entertaining read. Part of the reason it reads so quickly, though, is because we race through the plot without much description of the scenery, which may not seem important in a book like this, but to me it stuck out. I’ve read in interviews that the Girls really wanted this to be an “Only in LA” type story, and that they wanted to use their experiences and lives in LA to influence the setting. Despite this, other than throwaway references to the sunshine and obvious Hollywood stereotyping, LA wasn’t really that much of a character.

Taking a bit more time with setting the scene and improving the character depth a bit more could have really added some meat to the story, and I’m really not talking about trying to transform a beach read into War and Peace. I think you’d see what I mean if you read it. It’s fast and funny, moreso than many other entries in this category of summer reads, but it relies on the same stock characters and weak story as we’ve seen before in many other YA chick-lit. I’ll still probably pick up the sequel, because at the end of the day it made me laugh, and that’s not a bad way to spend a few hours!