weekly book review: sharp objects, by gillian flynn

Firstly, it's been a bit since I've posted on what I've been reading, although that is in no way a reflection of my recent reading habits. I've actually read quite a bit this month. I just haven't written about any of it. So, in order to catch up I'm planning on posting shorter, more frequent reviews for the next couple of weeks or so. I'm talking, like, straight to the point reviews. No messing around. 250 words or less. (And if your response to that is, "About time, windbag!" then, well, that's a bit mean, don't you think?)

I'll begin with Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects, a book which, to put it mildly, disappointed. I normally try to be especially kind to first-time novelists, but this book really pissed me off for some reason. No, scratch that. It pissed me off for several, very sound reasons. To list: I hated how Flynn, a woman, wrote about women - like she had to make them extra gritty, boozy, troubled, violent, and hypersexual in order to prove she can attract male readers. Even for a pulpy murder mystery, the characters risk absurdity in their level of caricature. It's sloppily edited, entirely too heavy-handed in its use of "sharp objects", and the plot twists are both absurdly convenient and glaringly obvious. In fact, I had the murderer pegged by page 37, but read the other 235 pages anyway in the hopes that I was wrong. Unfortunately, I wasn't. The plot really was that clunky and obvious, and yet Stephen King gave it a very favorable blurb. (Because Flynn and King both write for Entertainment Weekly, perhaps? Book politics. Blech.)

I have no doubt that Sharp Objects could make a passable made-for-T.V. movie, but that's hardly a compliment, and although I realize that saying all this makes me sound a bit cruel, I feel obligated to tell you the truth. This book did more than just disappoint me. It insulted my intelligence. I'd like to spare others a similar fate.

Sharp Objects

Gillian Flynn

2006, 272 pages

weekly book review: delicate edible birds, by lauren groff

As you may or may not recall, I had fairly mixed emotions about Lauren Groff's first novel, The Monsters of Templeton. In a nutshell, I could tell that she was capable of writing some beautiful stuff, but several elements of the book grated on my nerves and very nearly ruined the experience for me. So, although Groff wasn't really an author I felt too terribly excited about, I'm a sucker for short stories, birds, and impossibly pretty book covers, so I thought I'd give her another chance to wow me. And you know what? This time, I think she did.

The nine stories in this collection are set in wildly different times and locations, but are linked together by motifs of love, sex, violence, crime and, yes - birds. The dichotomy of men and women features heavily, and the female protagonists - many of whom are victimized by the men in their lives - are also strong, accomplished women. In fact, it's the characters Groff creates that makes this such a strong collection. It's a common criticism that short stories are too narrow a space to truly develop a character, but Groff's women are so well formed she makes it look easy, and the stories she builds around them are engrossing, moving, and written with an elegant hand.

In "Lucky Chow Fun" an idyllic small town is rocked with the discovery that its lone Chinese restaurant is actually a front for a brothel operating with young, enslaved Chinese girls. "L.DeBard and Aliette" is the ill-fated love story of Aliette, a girl recovering from polio, and L. DeBard, a former Olympic swimmer turned personal trainer, who fall in love against the background of a devastating flu epidemic raging through the early 20th Century. "Blythe" is a haunting story of two friends, art, and madness, and in the title story, five reporters traveling through France during WWII unwittingly seek shelter in a Nazi home. And although these four stood out as my favorites among the nine, each of the stories delivered.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this book is more than just a pretty face and that Groff really is a truly talented writer. I may have traded my copy of The Monsters of Templeton away, but Delicate Edible Birds is a keeper. (And not just because it looks gorgeous on my bedside table.)

Delicate Edible Birds and Other Stories

Lauren Groff

2009, 306 pages

monday book review: water for elephants, by sara gruen

The New York Times bestselling Water for Elephants is one of those sorts of books that finds me conflicted from the outset. On one hand, the subject matter is such that it's hard to imagine me not liking it. Since childhood, elephants have always been one of my favorite animals, and thanks to Carnivale (a television series that I loved more than most) I'm now a sucker for Depression-era circus stories. Based on those two points alone, this book appeared to have Mrs. White written all over it.  But on the other hand, Water for Elephants has become one of those "book club" reads, the vast majority of which are so often at odds with my personal tastes. (See, for example, my feelings regarding Jodi Picoult.) But winning the admiration of legions of middle-aged suburban housewives really shouldn't be reason enough to immediately dismiss something out of hand, so I gave it a shot in the hopes that the word "gritty" on the front cover was an apt descriptor.

And so was it? Well...sort of.

Jacob Jankowski, on the cusp of earning his Ivy League degree in veterinary medicine, suddenly abandons it all and joins the circus after the sudden, violent death of both of his parents.  But the fact that he never completed his degree is of little concern to The Benzini Brothers' Most Spectacular Show on Earth, as he quickly lands himself a job as the official vet of the circus menagerie.  But despite the glitter and the glamour, it doesn't take long for the dark underbelly of the circus to reveal itself to Jankowski, and the pinnacle of this darkness takes the form of August - the troupe's paranoid schizophrenic head animal trainer.   Predictably, August is married to a beautiful, animal-loving woman, for whom Jacob is immediately smitten.  And since August is violently unhinged, this forbidden romance proves to be a very Bad Thing.

I'd like to start by saying that had it ended as well as it began, then this review would have been a rave one.  Sure, Gruen's prose isn't anything to write home about, but I was so engrossed by the story she was weaving that, though I noticed it,  it never particularly bothered me.  But while I devoured the first one hundred or so pages, about mid-way through things took a bit of a turn.  Suddenly the gritty circus drama I had so been enjoying turned into a romance novel - pure and simple, and that's when I began to lose interest.  See, it's not that I mind romance novels exactly, but it wasn't what I was expecting, and I suppose I would have been willing to go along with it had  I been able to buy into the chemistry between Marlena and Jacob.  Though Jacob was fully-formed, Marlena's character felt flat to me, and I found myself not really caring whether or not those two crazy kids would ever get together.  Instead, I just really wanted more scenes involving Rosie the Elephant.  

And so in sum, Water for Elephants is a quick, easy, and fairly engaging story that had the potential for being a great book, but instead settled for merely being good; however, if you're a fan of the circus, historical fiction and romance novels, then it comes highly recommended.

Water for Elephants
Sara Gruen
2006, 335 pages

monday book review: the answer is always yes, by monica ferrell

In this, her first novel, poetess Monica Ferrell gives us the story of Matt Acciaccatura, a sad, lonely and much bullied kid from Teaneck, New Jersey who is desperate to be cool. Seeing college as his chance to reinvent himself and start anew, Matt spends the summer before his tenure at NYC conducting meticulous research on the fashion, conversation and mannerisms of coolness in an effort to adopt that persona. Once he arrives at NYC he discovers that most of his efforts have been in vain; nonetheless, despite the fact that he cannot seem to break into the elite world he covets, Matt does make two true friendships, and for a time - perhaps for the first time - Matt finds acceptance and a semblance of happiness.

Matt Acciaccatura's New York is that of the mid-90's - the heyday of club kids, raves and Ecstasy. Despite seeming the unlikeliest of candidates for such a position, Matt is scouted and offered a position as a club promoter at one of the hottest nightclubs in NYC: Cinema. Matt has a natural knack for his job and fast becomes "Magic Matt", one of the brightest stars of the New York club scene. But his new found success comes at a cost, as Matt's acceptance into this gilded world puts a predictable strain on his real friendships, tests his personal ethics, and ultimately leads to his downfall.

Matt's fictitious tale is told by two narrators: Ferrell, the primary storyteller; and Dr. Hans Mannheim, a German sociologist who was studying Matt before his arrest, and who marks up Ferrell's manuscript with footnotes, personal asides, and addenda. And it's here where the novel fell apart for me. Had The Answer is Always Yes been narrated by Ferrell alone, I may have considered it a success. Although it dragged in sections, Ferrell's prose is skillful, her story engaging and her characters fully formed. However, the decision to add Mannheim as a second narrator revealed her limitations as a writer in that I found his contributions to be annoyingly interruptive, painfully overwritten and largely unnecessary.

As a person who counts The Great Gatsby as one of her all-time favorite novels, I really wanted to like The Answer is Always Yes. From early on Ferrell succeeded in earning my sympathy for poor Matt Acciaccatura, who, like Jay Gatsby, mistakes celebrity and money for happiness, is frustratingly insecure, obsessed with frivolity, but who is still deserving of our affection and of our pity. Unfortunately, Ferrell's attempts at innovation ultimately ruined the experience for me in that I just couldn't forgive the poorly executed gimmick that was Dr. Hans Mannheim.

In short, Ferrell is a good writer who certainly shows potential as a novelist, however her first attempt was far from a home run. Would I consider reading future efforts? Sure. Would I recommend this, her debut? Eh...Probably not.

The Answer is Always Yes

Monica Ferrell

382 pages, 2008

monday book review: a thousand splendid suns, by khaled hosseini

Truth be told, I wasn't particularly looking forward to reading A Thousand Splendid Suns.  It's not that the novel's premise didn't interest me - it did - however, I was largely underwhelmed by The Kite Runner and wasn't really interested in hearing more from this particular author. But as it so often does, my curiosity won out in the end, and I decided to give Hosseini a second chance to wow me.  And expectations are a funny thing. I had such high hopes for The Kite Runner that it couldn't help but disappoint, so I then approached A Thousand Splendid Suns with such low expectations that it had a relatively easy time pleasing me.  So, I guess that's the life lesson here: if you want to be happy, it's probably best to keep your expectations low. 

First, I feel it necessary to point out that the same things that bugged me about The Kite Runner ultimately bothered me in A Thousand Splendid Suns.  In my experience, reading a Hosseini novel feels a bit like watching a Lifetime Original Movie: it can be a very entertaining way to spend one's time, however with foreshadowing that clunky, a plot that annoyingly predicable and a resolution that neat, it's really sort of impossible to take the whole thing too seriously, regardless of how timely or unique the subject matter.  

But that's not to say that there aren't things worth praising, and to prove that I'm not just being contrary for contrariness's sake here are three things I loved about A Thousand Splendid Suns:

#1: The Female Element

I don't know about you, but it drives me crazy when male authors say they don't write females because they don't understand them.  Like we're so incredibly complex, so wildly different, so...alien that we can't possibly be rendered realistically by a male author.  Good fiction writing demands an empathetic imagination, and writing what you know is easy.  Ignoring 50% of the world's population simply because you aren't in that particular group is lazy and lame.  I love that Hosseini took a chance here by centering his novel around two fully formed, realistic and highly sympathetic female characters.  I'm sure it wasn't easy, but he took the risk and I think he did a great job.

#2: The Message of Female Unity and Empowerment

Hosseini didn't just create two female protagonists; he created two badass female protagonists. Timid Mariam comes from a childhood of abuse, extreme poverty and rejection, while outspoken Laila was born into a relatively modern, well-educated and loving family. These two very different women are brought together when separate tragedies force them to wed the same man, a man who submits them both to unspeakable abuse. Although their relationship is understandably rocky at first, they develop a incredibly tight bond that sustains them through their darkest moments.  In a society that is brutal and dehumanizing to women, Mariam and Laila become each other's saviors and refuse to stop fighting for themselves and for each other.  No man is coming to save them, so instead they save themselves.

#3: America Isn't the Goal

I hope I'm not giving too much away, but no, the war-weary characters don't find refuge in America. While it's wonderful that many refugees can and do escape the countries that oppress them, I think it's dangerously myopic to keep perpetuating this ethnocentric idea that 1) America (or any other Western country) is the ultimate solution the the Third World's problems, and 2) that all Third Worlders dream of escape. In the end, the characters in Hosseini's story elect to remain in Afghanistan. Despite all the havoc left in the Taliban's wake, they still love their country and they feel a certain sort of responsibility to stay behind and rebuild it.  There's plenty to admire about America, but there's plenty to admire about other countries and cultures as well, even those countries that may be a bit worse for the wear.

So in sum, maybe Khaled Hosseini hasn't bowled me over with his literary skills, but there's plenty to praise in A Thousand Splendid Suns.  It ain't perfect, but it's pretty good, and for what it's worth I think it's better than The Kite Runner.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Khaled Hosseini

2007, 367 pages

monday book review: the invention of everything else, by samantha hunt

"God said, 'Let Tesla be,' and all was light."

- B. A. Behrend

Nikola Tesla is arguably one of the most important inventors to have ever lived, yet one of the most unsung. To him, we can credit the efficient alternating electrical current system, the remote control, and the radio (although Marconi stole the patent for that last one). He harnessed Niagara Falls' energy potential, is credited with giving birth to robotics, and his "Tesla Coil" gave us neon and fluorescent lighting and x-ray photography. Wildly imaginative, Tesla was also rumored to have experimented with wireless energy transmission, extraterrestrial communication, invisibility, antigravity, time travel, and a "Death Beam" which, as a life-long pacifist, he hoped would make war impossible due to its fearful capability of mass destruction. But thanks to a far better sense of imagination than a head for business, Tesla died penniless, living alone but for his pigeons in the Hotel New Yorker, his legacy largely obscured.

Needless to say, Samantha Hunt - who spent four years researching the life and work of Nikola Tesla, weaving this meticulous research into her sophomore novel - already had some fascinating source material at her disposal.

The Invention of Everything Else blends fact with fiction so well that it often becomes difficult to discern between the two. Taking a non-linear approach to storytelling, Hunt bounces around through Tesla's biography, revealing his life through stories of his childhood up to the story of his death; however, the bulk of the novel focuses on Tesla's final days in the Hotel New Yorker and his brief encounters with the fictional Louisa, a curious chambermaid who - fascinated by the myriad curiosities she uncovers in his hotel room and encouraged by a shared affinity for pigeons - is determined to befriend the reclusive scientist. Hunt's novel is a history lesson wrapped in a pretty story, and the extent to which you are interested in Tesla, science, and history is probably the extent to which you will enjoy The Invention of Everything Else. Seeing how I am fascinated with all of these things, I firmly loved it.

The Invention of Everything Else
Samantha Hunt
2008, 251 pages

monday book review: the monsters of templeton, by lauren groff

Wilhelmina ("Willie") Upton - a promising graduate student at Standford University - has fled back to her small, historic hometown of Templeton, New York "steeped in disgrace." The affair with her married grad school mentor has been found out, and, now pregnant with his illegitimate child, she hopes to find solace in her mother, Vivian ("Vi") Upton - a woman whose footsteps Willie has unwittingly fallen into. Herself a child of the free-loving 1960s, Vi had always told Willie that she is the product of one of the many lovers she took while living in a San Francisco hippie commune, but when Willie returns home Vi thinks it best that she finally tell her daughter the truth about her parentage. In an attempt to take her mind off of her own unraveling life, Vi partially lets Willie in on the long-kept secret of her heritage - that she is not a result of "any one of three random hippies in a San Francisco commune," but rather the illegitimate daughter of some "random Templeton man." Thinking it best that Willie have a task to keep her occupied in her time of emotional duress, Vi refuses to reveal this man's identity, but instead insists that Willie solve the mystery for herself. The novel that follows is made up of the random snatches of genealogical research, generational family rumors and gossip, and historical documents Willie digs up to help piece together the epic story that is her family's history, and - most importantly - to discover the true identify of the father who shared her hometown but whom she never knew.

The "monsters" in The Monsters of Templeton are numerous and varied. The day of Willie's homecoming also happens to be the day when the fabled lake monster of the town's Lake Glimmerglass dies, its fifty-foot fish corpse rising to the surface to finally end the several-hundred-year-long debate over its existence. There is an actual ghost that haunts Willie's bedroom, and who occasionally emerges to help her in her quest. And, of course, there are various human monsters who are unmasked as Willie unravels the thread of her family history to reveal betrayal, murder, rape, countless affairs and loads of intrigue. As a whole, the novel is part mystery, part historical fiction, part magical realism, and only partly successful.

Obviously, when you pick up a book knowing that one of its characters is a giant lake monster, you don't really go into it expecting absolute realism, but even still one of my criticisms of the novel is that some of the twists in the plot are too easily arrived at. For instance, when Willie reaches a dead-end in her search, her mother - *tada!* - suddenly remembers owning a sealed envelop of old letters written by the very same relatives Willie is researching at that particular moment. Or, when she's not sure what path to travel down next - *tada!* - a ghost emerges and tell her. There aren't many moments like these, but when they happened I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

Next, is the language. Time and time again, Groff's sentences felt like they were trying way too hard. I wouldn't call it pretentious exactly, but with characters named Marmaduke, Cinnamon, Primus Dwyer, and Ezekiel Flecher; and with ridiculous sentences like, "He slept, openmouthed like a boy, blissfully naked, his smooth rear exposed trustfully to the sky" she is definitely risking absurdity on more than one occasion.

But despite all of this, I couldn't help but enjoy reading this book. The story - although often unbelievable - was engrossing, and the language - while often grating - was also often beautiful, allowing the terrible spots to be quickly and easily laughed away. It's been a long time since I've felt so conflicted by a story, and that alone is reason enough to make me glad to have read it.

The Monsters of Templeton
Lauren Groff
2008, 361 pages

books: 20th century ghosts, by joe hill

Ever since my first Girl Scout overnight camping trip I've been a sucker for scary stories, and Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts is one of the most original and entertaining collection of them I've read in quite some time. Some of the material here is certainly standard horror fare - "Best New Horror" is creepy and disgusting and "20th Century Ghost" is your basic ghost story, although a far better version of it - but Hill also tries his hand at science fiction, fantasy, and the surreal. Actually, several of the stories aren't scary at all - "Pop Art" is a touching story of an unlikely friendship and "Better Than Home" is a sweet father/son tale - and it's this versatility that I found to be one of the biggest strengths of the collection. Some of the most interesting moments for me were "And You Will Hear the Locust Sing" - a 21th Century version of Kafka's Metamorphosis, "Abraham's Boys" - a vampire story meets Frailty, "My Father's Mask" - the ending of which blew my mind, and Voluntary Committal - a brilliant novella that explores the old theme of Alice's rabbit hole and asks what would happen if a traveler could never return from it. After reading this collection it's easy to see how Hill was able to land a book deal so quickly, and after reading both 20th Century Ghosts and Heart-Shaped Box (his debut novel) it's clear that he's still a far better writer of short stories than novels. In any event, this is an excellent read and I'd strongly recommend it, even if horror isn't typically your thing.

20th Century Ghosts
Joe Hill
2007, 336 pages

books: in the woods

I am right pissed off.

In the Woods is Tana French's debut novel. Lots and lots of people like it. It's 400+ pages long and has two parallel story lines - one that's interesting and one that's not. Unfortunately, 75% of the novel was dedicated to the latter.

Mind you, I wouldn't have stuck with a 400+ page novel if I truly hated it. The prologue was excellent, the cover quite pretty, most of the time I appreciated French's writing style, and as far as crime dramas go I suppose this one had a bit more eloquence, substance and style than most.

However, I didn't really care who murdered the young ballerina because I figured it out about 100 pages in. With three quarters of the novel left to go, I stuck things out for that second story line. The one that wasn't paid nearly enough attention. The one that was never resolved.

So yes, if you like reading long-ish books that end in messy disappointments then I've got one to lend. But I actually quite like you, so maybe let's not.

Oh, bother.

Up Next: The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman

books: no one belongs here more than you, stories by miranda july

Seeing as it's only July and this will be book #20 out of 24, it's become increasingly clear that my original goal of one book every two weeks will be met, thus I'm no longer counting. To be honest, I had originally toyed with tackling 52 this year but figured that goal would be ridiculous. Clearly it wasn't. Some people have hobbies. Some people have babies. Me, I have books. Yay me.

Anyway...

No one belongs here more than you is Miranda July's (You and Me and Everyone We Know) first collection of short fiction. Like the characters in her film, each story is centered around a outcast of sorts. Many of them are insufferably lonely, all of them yearn, and most are a bit odd, but there's a quirky, endearing quality about each that makes them accessible and fundamentally likeable. Although the characters are far from normal - one woman gives swimming lessons to octogenarians in her kitchen, another another falls in love with her married neighbor while she naps on his shoulder as he's suffering from an epileptic seizure - she somehow manages to create a universal humanity in them that allows the reader to relate when she might not expect to.

The stories are funny, awkward, sad, surprising and insightful - often all at the same time. And I loved them. My favorites were "Birthmark," "This Person," "Something That Needs Nothing," and "Mon Palisir," but I've read each story at least twice and anticipate going back into them in the weeks to come. I love Miranda July. I want to be her friend, bake her cookies and watch old movies with her. Take this, the last moment from "The Shared Patio," as an example of why:

Do you have doubts about your life? Are you unsure if it is worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass on the street: that is for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.

Yes.

Up Next: God is Dead, by Ron Currie, Jr.

books: 14 down, 10 to go: the raw shark texts

Life, the Universe and Everything is, in my humble opinion anyway, pretty ambitious subject matter for a novelist’s debut, but such is the focus of The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall – one of the weirdest books I’ve read in quite some time. The novel begins with a man (the Second Eric Sanderson) choking, lying on the floor and with no memory of who he is or how he got in that state. Thanks to a letter addressed to him by the First Eric Sanderson, he is led to a psychologist who informs him that he is suffering from a very rare psychological condition – a psychotropic fugue “thought to have been the result of prolonged emotional trauma stemming from the death of his girlfriend Clio Aames, who drowned in a scuba diving accident while the pair were on holiday in Greece.” While Dr. Randle proves to be only marginally helpful, it’s from her that he learns that he’s been suffering from this condition for the past two years, and in that time has had eleven recurrences, each one erasing more and more of his memories.

The puzzle of Sanderson’s condition begins to take form when he returns home and is immediately inundated with letters, strange coded messages (a video of a flickering lightbulb, for instance), and dictaphones, all addressed to him from his pre-amnesiac self. Through this odd correspondence, Sanderson comes to understand that over the past several years he’s suffered repeated attacks from a Ludovician – a highly territorial conceptual shark that feeds on memories and language. The story that follows is an odyssey, moving him back and forth through time and planes of reality, to discover how to destroy the shark and save himself.

And if all of that sounds terribly confusing and odd, than that’s because it is.

Perhaps more than anything I’ve read so far this year, this novel made me work, and I appreciate that. Reading this book was an experience that was equal parts romantic, weird, and downright confusing - maneuvering through the jargon was a chore for me at times - however after the second reading (yes, I read it twice), I found myself appreciating it and its eccentricities more and more. It’s clear to me that readers will either love or hate this book, and there’s certainly plenty to criticize - the often-times vapid dialogue, for instance - but I’m a woman who’s willing to forgive a writer many things if the story itself is a solid one. Finally, it has an ending that begs to be discussed, so Paul (and anyone else feeling so inclined) - let’s.

Up Next: The Big Girls, by Susanna Moore

books: 10 down, 14 to go: heart-shaped box

Heart-Shaped Box (Joe Hill) tells the story of Jude Coyne, an aging rocker (think Ozzy Osbourne without the DTs) who buys a haunted suit off an Internet auction site. Although he doesn't initially believe the spectral claims, Coyne soon discovers that the suit is, in fact, haunted by an extraordinarily determined ghost who is hell-bent of revenge. Since I really, really hate spoilers I won't say much more plot-wise, however, do trust that twist and turns abound.

So now to the review:

Let me start by saying that I cannot imagine what it would be like to be a horror writer who is also the son of Stephen King. To write from under the shadow of that giant must be absurd, and that would undoubtedly explain why he chose to keep his family tree a secret for the first eight years of his literary career. Nonetheless, now that Hill's identity has been "outed," it seems to be impossible to not make comparisons to his famous father, which I hardly think is fair since this is only his first novel.

But you know I'm going to do it anyway.

Because I'm terribly out of the loop of the publishing world, I had no idea of Hill's true identity until I was thirty or so pages into Heart-Shaped Box, yet I sensed it immediately. King has this "nerdy guy writing about cool guys" thing that I've always noticed yet found to be endearing, and Hill's writing has that same vibe. A few chapters in, I ran to the Internet to research my suspicions, and - low and behold - I discovered that I am the literary equivalent of Sherlock Holmes. It read like a Stephen King novel since it sort of was - a "son of the Stephen King novel" if you will. And that would be my biggest criticism of the novel - Hill hasn't completely found his own, unique voice yet.

Nonetheless, Heart-Shaped Box was a great read. A tautly-written, creepy little piece that was fun to read and terrifically difficult to put down. And if you're nice, I'll even let you borrow it.

Up Next: Finn, by Jon Clinch

books: 9 down, 15 to go: the dead fathers club

The Dead Fathers Club (Matt Haig of The Guardian) is a retelling of Hamlet, where the protagonist is a 11-year-old boy named Philip Noble whose recently deceased father appears to him as a ghost, claims that Philip's Uncle Alan killed him to usurp his position of "king of the CASTLE," and demands that Philip kill his uncle so that his death is avenged, he can avoid "The Terrors," and move on to the afterlife. The novel is macabre, funny, poignant, and (to me, anyway) unputdownable. At times, it reminded me of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time as well as Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which are two other books that I also enjoyed more than a little bit. But please don't think that all the comparisons mean that Haig's writing style is unoriginal. I didn't feel that way at all. I loved this book both for its highly engaging story as well as the fact that Haig has a simple, beautiful way with words that would often give me pause. I highly recommend it, and although I suppose it's technically a young adult book I see how it really would appeal to most anyone. Unless, that is, you are a person who is terribly sensitive to correct punctuation usage since Haig, like my freshmen, simply cannot be bothered most of the time.

To conclude, here is a passage from The Dead Fathers Club that I was particularly found of. Enjoy.

I woke up and it was still dark. There was sound of a train far away and it was like the world was doing a sigh. Sometimes when you wake up you are in a different time like you have gone in a time machine and the time I was in was before Dad died.

Everything was normal and Dad was in bed with Mum in the next room sleeping with his arm flopped over her and I was thinking about going to see Derby with him on Saturday. It was going to be good and my thinking was getting faster and less sleepy and pushing me through time until I was in this morning.

Then I knew Dad wasnt in the next room and he was not taking me to the Football and when I remembered a heavy feeling came into my brain.

In the future there will probably be scales that can weigh how heavy memories are and it will be like when Mum and Renuka went to Weightwatchers. People or special doctors and Brainwatchers will say This memory is very heavy you need to lose weight in your brain.

Then they will tell you to exercise your brain in the right way to make it lighter.

My brain was so heavy this morning I didn't think I would be able to get it off the pillow without shaking out some of the pictures in my head of Dad. Like the picture of him when he flicked water on me and Mum when he was in the swimming book in Rhodes and we were dry on the sunbeds...or the heaviest picture of all which was when we went to Sconce Hills in the snow and his face was red and cold but his hands were warm in his woolly pattern gloves and I was still little enough not to be scared of holding his hand and he was dragging the sledge.

He was looking down at me and his words made clouds in the air and snowflakes turned into rain on his nose and his words said Come on Ill race you to the top... And then when we were at the top we both crunched onto the snow on our backs and laughed clouds up to the sky and I sat on my elbows and looked at him lying in the snow and felt the most happy ever but then I cant remember anything else because the picture is snow and melts in my brain.

Up Next: Heart-Shaped Box, by Joe Hill

books: 8 down, 16 to go: the areas of my expertise

For the unfamiliar, John Hodgman (who most would recognize if nowhere else, as PC from the Apple commercials) created a completely absurd and thoroughly silly almanac of absolutely pointless fake trivia and titled it The Areas of my Expertise. In his almanac, Hodgman includes sections named "Beard Manual," "How to Raise Rabbits for Food and Fur: The Utopian Method," and "Basics of Snow and Ice Warfare," to name a few.

Although it should not have, it seemed to take me an absurdly long amount of time to read The Areas of my Expertise. And I can't even blame it on all the time I've been spending recently grading papers, finding a cure for the common cold, and inspiring millions of poor, repressed villagers to rise up and overthrow their cruel android dictators. No, it took forever to read because nearly every single sentence in Hodgman's fake almanac is so gosh-darn funny. In fact, I fear I was terribly annoying to be around while I was reading it because I would frequently break down into hard-to-control fits of giggles, and would make anyone who was near listen while I read sections aloud. I'm sure I was tiresome, but Nathan did a very good job humoring me. For that I am thankful.

As if you even care:
-My favorite individual sections were "Secrets of the Mall of America," "Films in Which I, John Hodgman, Have Made Cameo Appearances," "Hobo Matters," and "Common Short and Long Cons."
- My favorite chapter was "What You Did Not Know about Hoboes"
- My favorite hobo names (of the 700 provided) were as follows: Colin, that Cheerful Fuck; Pantless, Sockless, Shoeless, Buster Bareass; Experimental Hobo Infiltration, Mr. Wilson Fancypants; Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick; The Unanswered Question of Timothy; Rex Spangler, the Bedazzler; Skywise the Sexual Elf; Feminine Forearms Rosengarten; Abraham, the Secret Collector of Decorative China; Socks Monster; Tom the Gentle Strangler; and Nick Nolte.
- And, although I used to think otherwise, I now contend that I would choose flight over invisibility

And were you aware that there is a website displaying artistic renderings of 800 of the 700 hoboes named in the novel? Because there is.

Up Next: The Dead Fathers Club, by Matt Haig

books: 1 down, 23 to go - a long way down

In keeping with my New Year's resolution, I have just finished reading my first book of the year which was A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby, a novel about four people who happen to meet at the top of a building with the same suicidal intentions of jumping off. It was alright, I guess. Better than How to Be Good but not as good as About a Boy, and I haven't read High Fidelity so I can't really speak of that. Leave it to Nick Hornby to write a book about four suicidal people and still manage to insert plenty of musical references and somehow make it funny too. Take, for instance, this passage. The failed suicide jumpers have formed a little group therapy gang, and JJ (the frustrated, washed-up musician) decided that it would make sense to introduce the other three to the music of Nick Drake. Frustrated that they are less than receptive to Drake's melancholy, he goes on a "music rage":

I wondered whether it would be possible to punch both of them out simultaneously, but rejected the idea on the grounds that it would all be over too quickly and there wouldn't be enough pain involved... It's music rage, which is like road rage, only more righteous. When you get road rage, a tiny part of you knows you're being a jerk, but when you get music rage, you're carrying out the will of God, and God wants these people dead.

I can relate. It's kind of like when I was sixteen-years-old and my best friend ridiculed me for liking Cracker when her favorite band was Brooks and Dunn. I even let her teach me how to line dance the "Boot-Scootin' Boogie" because I was trying to placate her like a good friend would do. I think it took incredible control on my part not to claw her eyes out when her no-taste ass called my musical taste "weird" and. Of course, neither one of us were trying to use music as a means of avoiding giving in to our suicidal tendancies, so maybe I call only relate a little.

So overall, I enjoyed it enough while I was reading it, but whenever I put it down I never really felt compelled to pick it back up again, you know? I'd give it 6.5 out of 10.

Up next: The Ruins, by Scott Smith