That's Unbelievable: Reviewlettes

I wrapped 2021 up on a decidedly mediocre note, consigning one book to my DNF pile for being too unbelievable and following it up with three only slightly less unbelievable stories.

2 a.m. at the Cat's Pajamas, is the story of 9-year-old Madeline Altimari, her teacher Sarina, and, Francis Lorca, owner of a failing jazz club.  Madeline is a prickly, old-for-her-age kid who is mourning her recently passed mother and dreams only of singing jazz.  Sarina is trying to rekindle something with an old flame, and Lorca is just trying to save his club from police scrutiny when the three come together in an unlikely moment on Christmas Eve Eve.  This is kind of a bizarre story of found family, but Bertino's writing is an attractive mix of magical realism and poetic prose.  While her characters may not have quite come to life for me, the Philadelphia setting really did.  Ultimately, Cat's Pajamas serves as a heartfelt love note to a city that doesn't often find itself so well-captured in print.

In Let It Snow, YA heavyweight authors John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle come together with a trio of linked novellas.  The first features Jubilee "not a stripper, despite the name" Dougal, whose parents end up in jail on Christmas Eve.  Bound for her grandparents' house in Florida during a massive snowstorm, her train gets stranded, which ends in a bizarre Waffle House encounter and ultimately being way too trusting of strangers.  Meanwhile, friends Tobin, J.P. and The Duke (AKA Angie) mount a snowy expedition to the very same Waffle House, now populated by their friend Don-Keun and a gaggle of stranded cheerleaders, but the cheerleaders are not the stars of this story.  Finally, we have uber self-centered Addie whose infidelity (and also super self-centeredness!) has her heartbrokenly mourning the loss of her boyfriend, Jeb.  But maybe's he's not lost forever, maybe he's just stranded at (wait for it...) the Waffle House!

This trio of romances starts off promising with Johnson's offering which is quirkily amusing.  Green's effort is a bit of a skid with the "race to the Waffle House with Twister" plot line which reads a little like the bad fan fiction your cousin once wrote in high school but for the romance that does end up sweetening the story a bit.  Myracle's contribution is just perplexing.  Addie is a pretty whiny, unlovable character who undergoes a transformation, but one that makes no sense at all.  Turns out you have to want a happy ending for a character for the happy ending to be satisfying.  I probably should have given this one a pass.

Last but not least, Clock Dance by Anne Tyler is the story of Willa McIntyre who abandons her life in Arizona with her second husband, Peter, to care for the child of her son's ex when said ex is recovering from a gunshot wound.  Tyler's writing is well-done and her plot well-executed.  I really enjoyed the setup of the book as we get to know the forces that have shaped Willa into the accommodating, "needs to be needed" adult that she became.  She brings a working-class Baltimore neighborhood to life, including opinionated Denise (the ex/GSW victim) and her practical daughter, Cheryl, quite well.  Tyler tells a good story about a woman on the edge of a transformation, but I had trouble getting past the very incident that brought them all together in the first place.  Flying cross-country to care for a grandchild in an emergency is one thing, abandoning your life and flying cross-country to babysit the daughter of a stranger is a little too much of a reach for my suspension of disbelief.

Reviewlettes - The Great, the Good, and the Meh

You guys, it's already mid-December.  Can you believe it?  This year has flown by ridiculously quickly.  As ever, I'm facing the end of the year with a stack of unreviewed books cluttering up my desk.  In the interests of getting through them a little quicker, it's time for some reviewlettes.  Now, let's see if I can actually keep them short. 

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo - Li Lan comes from a family that used to be wealthy but has crumbled in the aftermath of her mother's death.  When finances get tight, her father brings up the possibility of her becoming a ghost bride for a wealthy family who has recently lost a son.  Being a ghost bride would ensure a life of luxury for Li Lan in the Lim mansion, but spending her life married to and placating a haunting ghost of the family's spoiled son is not what Li Lan hopes for her future.  When Li Lan herself comes too close to death for comfort, what ensues is a tale populated with conniving vengeful ghosts, shadow worlds that imperfectly mirror reality, and a mysterious figure who could be the only one who can help Li Lan's spirit return to her body before its too late.  Choo's book offers a compellingly drawn window into Chinese culture and views of the afterlife.  It smacks of a modern day folk tale.  There are parts of the story that really shine, but I also found it overlong and draggy in places.  In fact, it took more than half of the book for me to become truly invested in Li Lan's story and wandered dangerously close to my "did not finish" book pile before sucking me back into Li Lan's vaguely terrifying sojourn through the Plains of the Dead.  Not a bad book, just requires a little extra patience. 

The Cider House Rules by John Irving - This year will go down in history as the year that I finally read a book by John Irving, despite having had a number of his titles on my shelves for a good many years.  The Cider House Rules is the tale of Dr. Wilbur Larch, his orphanage that also serves as an underground abortion clinic, and Homer Wells, the orphan that failed to find a home.  I loved Dr. Larch's character, equally committed to housing and finding good homes for orphans as he is to offering mothers a safe place to go for the less legal alternative.  He's a little rough around the edges but with a heart of gold.  The orphanage at St. Cloud's is populated by a totally rich cast of characters from the nurses that assist the doctor to the orphans themselves to (Spoiler alert?) the couple that comes seeking an abortion that is the family that will finally "adopt" Homer (Questionable spoilers averted!).  This book, to me, read a little like Dickens, with numerous well-drawn characters fanning out in all directions.  As in my experience with Dickens, The Cider House Rules gets a little slow in the middle while Irving is lining up his characters just right for the final denouement, but as with Dickens, the payoff is perfectly executed and beautifully satisfying.  I'm looking forward to reading more of Irving's work in the years to come.

I Shall Be Near to You by Erin Lindsay McCabe - I feel dreadful about this one, just dreadful.  Almost a year ago now (!!) it was like incredible historical fiction reading month for yours truly.  I Shall Be Near to You was one of the highlights.  It's the story of a girl who joins up with the Union Army during the American Civil War to stay with her husband, disputing the "fact" that her place is at home waiting for news, believing that her true place is at her husband's side even if that might put her in mortal danger.   McCabe brings the Civil War to life in all its confusion and horror.  Rosetta is a great character, determined, strong, and sympathetic; and she's as good a soldier as any.  Ironically, during her time posing as a man, her character makes an impressive transformation from an impulsive girl to a strong, thoughtful woman.  This is a great book that had me just about in tears while reading it in public.  Even though my review is pathetically belated, I highly recommend this book which was one of my favorites from last year.

(Disclaimer:  I received The Ghost Bride from the publisher for review consideration, won a free galley of I Shall Be Near To You from the publisher, and The Cider House Rules is mine all mine.)

The "I Finally Read It!" Reviewlettes

Greetings all, we interrupt the shameless over-buying of cheap books for...some reading!  No, wait.  *analyzes several teetering piles of books looming over just the desk*  Surely that can't be right.  We interrupt the continuous browsing of the Kindle deals page for...some vacationing!  Wait, no, the vacationing appears to over.  I believe this place might be my home...  Okay, one more time, we interrupt the continuous cataloging of new bookly acquisitions for...some blogging!  Ah ha!  Yes, some blogging.  I do that once or twice a month, and considering that the looming pile of books begging for bloggish attention is threatening to topple onto and destroy my computer thus severing my connection from the book blogosphere forever for a couple minutes, it's probably time to re-assume my secret book blogger identity and write about them before they rebel.

It seems that much of this year that I haven't dedicated to reading brand-spanking new books, I've been reading all the books that it seems like nary a soul has failed to read except for me.  What with how I am among the last few people on the earth to enjoy these three selections, I figured a few reviewlettes are in order, if only so I can remember the books I'm reading.  Frankly, it's surprised me how quickly being a barely there blogger has plunged me into complete inability keep the books that I'm reading in my head for more than a few minutes.  I'm all like, "Wait, what did I just read last month?"  Whoa, that's bad news.  So anyway, without further digression, reviewlettes of some books you probably have already read!

The Fault In Our Stars by John Green - I know, right?  Not only had I not gotten around to reading this until this summer,  this is also the first book I've read by John Green.  Oh, the multitude of reading sins being atoned for with just this one book!  Anyhow, if you've been living in a nuclear fallout bunker or something for the last year, I should probably mention that this is the book about the teenagers with the cancer, and I loved it as much as all the people who love it loved it.  Green's terminal teens, Hazel and Gus, are almost unrealistically precocious in a way that I just ate up.  The Fault In Our Stars is full of lovable characters, romance, intelligent unpreachy contemplations of mortality, an exploration of how there is plenty of truth to be gleaned from fiction, and also, sadness.  Of course, sadness.  I had to practically speed read the last third of the book on a Monday night so that I wouldn't be caught weeping at my cafeteria table at work on Tuesday afternoon.  Rather, I wept embarrassingly much from the safety of my own home.  I laughed, I cried, I loved it.  I've already recommended it to a few real life friends who are also behind the times, and I recommend it also to you, last person on the earth to read The Fault In Our Stars!

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson  - Can I just say that I think the problem with my reading last year is that for some infernal and unexplainable reason I pretty much just abandoned YA fiction?  Truly, I swear, my love for YA grows with every year I grow to be less of a, well, young adult.  There is something about charging through a good piece of YA that is totally refreshing to my readerly soul, and it's not because I have a craving for something simple because YA these days is smart, just in a different way than "grown-up" fiction is smart.  Anywhoodle, The Adoration of Jenna Fox.  I didn't love this like I loved The Fault In Our Stars, but I'm glad I finally got around to reading it just the same.  Again, in case you yourself are just emerging from a coma that might have prevented you from reading this book before me, this one's about a girl who wakes up from a coma in a decidedly more technologically advanced future, and as she tries to recall who she was before a tragic accident, begins to discover that she's not quite all of the person she used to be.   Jenna Fox's world is interesting because it seems like just a mildly tweaked version of the world today wherein bio-ethically questionable technological advances have led us into both the miraculous and the catastrophic.  As Jenna unravels the secrets behind her post-accident life, Pearson gets to present a lot of very interesting bio-ethical quandaries involving life and death and where the true essence of a person lies.  The Adoration of Jenna Fox is an excellently paced and compelling story of how much you would do to save someone you love.


The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey - Last but not least, a book which has an intended audience of...adults!  I grabbed a copy of this at BEA the last time I was there, and I was sure I would love it.  Then all the bloggers started saying fantastic things about it, and I was doubly sure I would love it.  After all, I'm sad to report that despite pretty much every review I've read of this book being unrelentingly positive, I was disappointed.  The problem here, and the reason I've waited so long to say anything about The Snow Child is that I can't quite pinpoint why I was disappointed.  Okay, if you're returning from a lengthy undersea holiday, this book is about an older couple who decide to try their hand homesteading in the wilds of Alaska.  Mabel is unable to have a child and is crushed by the loneliness of long winters in the wilderness.  Jack is crumbling under the crushing demands of carving a farm out of a very challenging landscape.  On the night of the first snow, the two find unexpected joy in building a child out of snow.  The next day the snow child is missing, but a real child has appeared in her place. 

Honestly, I'd like a do-over on this one.  I read it over Christmas-time when things were hectic and I was busy trying to save kittens from dying and a lot of stuff was going on, and I couldn't give myself to this book like I might normally.  It's got all good ingredients - excellent characters, incredible descriptions of the dangerously beautiful Alaska wilderness, the sort of magical realism I'd normally just go bananas for, but it somehow it didn't all quite come together for me.  Faina, the snow child, always seemed more magical than real to me, and her not being quite "real enough" in my mind made it difficult for me to get emotionally involved with the latter half of the book.  I'd still happily recommend it, especially to readers who like a good dose of magical realism, but I can't say I loved it, at least, not upon my first (admittedly flawed) read.

And that's three books off my teetering pile, not to mention my overburdened shelves! 

(Oh, and by way of disclaimer, The Snow Child is the only one of these three provided by a publisher.)

Surely, you've read at least one if not all of these, what did you think?  Or perhaps you'd like to reassure me that I was not the last person in the world to, say, read a book by John Green?  ;-) 

Reviewlettes!

I seem to be far behind on my book reviews.  Okay, not so far behind in terms of books that need reviewing so much as far behind in the chronology of my reviews.  I have lots of books I read many moons ago that are getting neglected in favor of books I read only a few moons ago.  In the interests of not letting those poor books slip into the abyss of the unreviewed, I think it's time to take a stab at some reviewlettes and get the juices flowing.

Let's start with The Chronicles of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg (and a slew of other well-known authors).  I picked up a copy of this at BEA in 2011, where I was ecstatic to get the autograph of an author/illustrator whose books shaped my childhood, as they've shaped a bunch of childhoods, I'm sure.  In The Chronicles, a collection of authors take on the pictures and captions from Van Allsburg's The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, and write their own stories for each.  Obviously, the most fun is in kids creating their own stories, but this collection is a fun way for authors to give us theirs.  The collection is, as collections often are, a little uneven, with some authors capturing the picture they've written on, while others totally miss the mark.  Jon Scieszka's quick story, "Under the Rug," about sweeping problems under the rug and Louis Sachar's "Captain Tory," about the benevolent ghost of a sea captain who "haunts" a doughnut shop and a hardware store are my favorites of the lot.  Walter Dean Myers, Lois Lowry, and Jules Feiffer also do a remarkable job of capturing the essence of "their" illustrations.  Gregory Maguire's bizarre tale missed the mark for me, and, I'm sad to say, Stephen King's selection disappointed me a bit.  All in all, though, I would recommend the book.  It's fun to see these classic illustrations fleshed out a bit, and, of course, Van Allsburg's stunning illustrations are always worth seeing. (Thanks to HMH at BEA for my copy)

It's probably safe to give Princess Academy by Shannon Hale a reviewlette, because I've already talked about it so much.  Really, I read this book for last year's fall Readathon, and it was the perfect book.  It's all about Miri who lives on Mount Eskel where all the villagers have to work quarrying valuable linder from the mountain to survive.  Her father won't let her work in the quarry, so Miri always struggles with feeling somehow less than the rest of her townspeople, despite being clever and brave.  When royals arrive from the lowlands with news that the next princess of Danland will hail from Mount Eskel, the girls of the village are taken away to be schooled, polished, and made fit for a prince.  At the academy, Miri struggles at first but then finds her chance to shine. 

I'd heard plenty of great things about Shannon Hale's books, and if Princess Academy is any indication, they're all true.  Princess Academy is tightly plotted, filled with brave, strong-willed girls for characters (most of all Miri!) who make the best of a complicated situation, and has an absolutely fantastic "knowledge is power" message that is never too heavy-handed.  If you're anything like me, you might find yourself initially put off by the notion of a book about princesses in training.  Don't be.  This book and these would-be princesses defy expectations and stereotypes alike!

Lastly, a tiny review of The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories Vol. 2.  Receiving a copy of this for review was a no-brainer after reading the first volume (Thanks, Harper It!).    I'll admit, I didn't like this one quite as much as the first one, but it's still got plenty to recommend it.  The stories are, at most, a sentence long but can make you contemplate for much longer.  Some I related to, some I laughed at, others just confused me.  The illustrations that accompany each story are whimsical, bizarre, clever, most well-suited to the story they represent.  It's a book that can easily be read in a sitting, but one that you might find yourself wanting to spend more time on.  I think, perhaps, that I didn't love this one quite as much as the first because I didn't find so many stories that I felt spoke directly to me, but I'd still recommend grabbing both volumes.  Chances are you'll find at least a little of yourself in each.  (Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for my honest review.)

Reviewlettes Again!

Adding "lettes" to a word just makes it more fun, doesn't it? I know some of you agreed when I posted my last reviewlettes post. That said, I went to reply to your lovely commments to further rhapsodize about 'lettes, and Blogger was having its breakdown and not allowing comments, so instead I wandered off to look at shiny things as I am wont to do. The writing of the reviewlettes was relatively pain-free and actually did not leave me feeling guilty for skipping out on the longer reviews, so guess what? I'm going to try it again. Three more for you today, and all YA. Here it goes!

Kyriel's job is Hell. Seriously. Kyriel is one of the Fallen, a demon responsible for tormenting the damned for all eternity. His function is to "echo souls' regrets back at them, thus letting them feel the full burden of their shame, guilt, and sorrow." Kyriel has always been a witness, but he thinks it's high time he got to experience some of the sins he's only heard about, so he steals the body of a high school guy mere seconds from dying and embraces the human experience. Overall, A.M. Jenkins' Repossessed didn't really satisfy me. Often books that rely on recounting the minute details of the human experience from the inexperienced eyes of some other just don't work for me, and such is the case here. Kyriel's descriptions of his experiences in Shaun's body seemed a little wooden and boring. I've done these things, so unless they're described in a particularly clever way, it loses my interest. That said, there were definitely some good points to Repossessed. For example, seeing the reviled demon's desire to do some good while he's got the power to even attempt to make a change is refreshing. Also, Jenkins uses Kyriel's mostly lightheated story to explore some of our beliefs about God and the devil as well as asking some profound questions about just how much God notices what's going on His creation. Repossessed definitely offers up a clever premise, but, in my opinion, it doesn't always live up to its promise.

Firelight is the first book in a series about modern descendants of dragons, the draki. Draki have developed the power to transform themselves into human form to hide from the men who would hunt them to extinction for profit. Jacinda, our narrator, is the last fire-breather of her pride and the victim of her pride's high expectations. She is already promised in marriage to Cassian, the son of an elder, doomed to a life of breeding to produce another fire-breather until one day, after a forbidden daylight flight, everything changes. Cornered by hunters, Jacinda is sure she is moments from death, until the hunter sent to find her spares her. Soon, Jacinda is being swept away from her home by her mother and sister to a place where she is forced to deny her very nature to survive, but when the very hunter who saved her life shows up in her new life, problems aren't far behind. Firelight is a fantastic start to a new YA series. The draki's nature and way of life is cleverly fleshed out. There is, of course, a convincing forbidden love story between two characters with undeniable chemistry. Jacinda makes a great narrator, pulled in so many different directions by all the people around her, yet determined to stay true to herself and her own draki nature. There's plenty of action and suspense to keep the pages turning, but never at the expense of the characters' development. I'm looking forward to reading more about Jacinda and the rest of the draki!

Last up is Blind Faith by Ellen Wittlinger. Blind Faith tells the story of Liz Scattergood who has just lost her grandmother, Bunny. Liz's mother is taking the loss particularly hard, having been the best of friends with her mother. When she finally gets up after days on end in bed, it's to try out a spiritualist church that promises to help her communicate with the dead. Liz and her father are skeptical, but Liz attends, just to see, and finds herself wondering if communicating with the dead isn't possible after all. Unfortunately, the church, instead of offering her answers, just gives her more questions.

In the meantime, Liz gets to know the newly moved in grandchildren of her prickly next door neighbor, Mrs. Crosby. Bubbly Courtney and angry Nathan are just the diversion Liz needs from all the problems she has at he own house, that is, until she discovers that Courtney and Nathan's mother is terminally ill, and a whole new legion of questions are unleashed, about life and death and love. Despite his own prickly exterior, Liz finds herself falling for Nathan, and before she knows it, she's wrapped up in a whole other family about to endure a crippling loss. Wittlinger takes on a lot in Blind Faith, dealing with death and dying, God, faith, the afterlife, mediums, mother/daughter relationships, and love all in one shot and does it remarkably successfully. In fact, if I had one complaint about this book, it's that all of Wittlinger's strings are tied up a bit too well. It's rare that you see all these sloppy issues cleared up so tidily in less than 300 pages. Even so, Wittlinger does an admirable and graceful job of asking questions about faith, unearthing the sensitive topic of dealing with terminal illness, and exploring the the unique mix of joy and pain that lurks inside all too many mother/daughter relationships. Not my favorite Wittlinger, but still definitely worth a read!

Reviewlettes, Ahoy!

I have one thing to say about tiny informal reviews. I don't mind it when you write them, but I feel like I'm cheating when I write them. That said, the time frame on my review backlog is just really ridiculous, and this month is crazy busy, so I'm cheating, but I promise I'll make cutesy categories and keep it interesting for you, mmkay?



Review Pitch Fail - Once upon a time, someone sent me a pitch for a review copy of The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. I thought, "Hmm, sounds interesting" then instead of answering the e-mail, I wandered off to look at shiny things until a later date at which it would have seemed indecent to reply. Stupid me. The Art of Racing in the Rain is one of those rare books narrated by an animal that doesn't bury readers in cheese. Enzo, the furry narrator in question, is a wise old soul of a dog whose love, loyalty, and understanding illuminate the realities of a family, Enzo's family, much better than any human narrator could possibly aspire to do. Told as he looks back over his life with race car driver Denny Swift, Denny's wife Eve, and the couple's daughter Zoe, Enzo tells a terribly honest version of a life fraught with joys and hardships. Through Enzo, Stein draws out each character's most admirable qualities but without shying away from or making excuses for their weaknesses either. The Art of Racing in the Rain is funny and touching and had me in tears by the end. Enzo is the dog we all imagine and wish our own dogs could be when we look into their eyes and wonder just how much they understand.



Dystopian Delight - In Wither by Lauren DeStefano, Rhine Ellery lives in a world where a virus allows males to live only until age 25 and females only to age 20. To sustain the population and ostensibly to find a cure, girls are being forced into polygamous marriages with those young men with the means to purchase a few wives. Rhine herself is robbed from the life she is eking out with her twin brother Rowan to become one of four brides to Linden Ashby, son of a sinister doctor who will use whatever nefarious means necessary to conduct his research. Wither is a vivid and, at times, frighteningly possible tale of a world where girls are again only valued for the offspring they produce. Though the story takes place almost entirely in the Florida mansion in which Rhine and her sister wives are held captive, the setting leaps off the page, portraying just the sort of forgotten paradise that might tempt girls to forget their lives and embrace a life of virtual enslavement. Rhine and her sister wives Jenna, Cecily, and Rose are compelling characters who are well fleshed out and sympathetic. Even Linden, a sensitive architect wrapped up in a mess hardly of his own making, inspires sympathy from the reader lending credence to the difficulty of Rhine's choice whether to surrender to this luxurious life that's been forced upon her or to flee back to the life she knew. If good stories and/or dystopia are your thing, Wither is not to be missed. This is one book I'm glad is a part of a series!



Christian Non-fiction? How did you get here? - When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert is a Christian perspective on helping the poor that might well stand to benefit anyone, Christian or otherwise, who has tried to help someone they perceive to be less well-off then themselves. In today's world where the prevailing method of helping people is an impersonal rubber stamp of "I built X many houses and schools" or "I helped get food to X many children" that serves the giver more than the recipient, Corbett and Fikkert ask us to consider spending the time necessary to tailor our help to a community's needs and, even more, incorporate those being helped into the process so that they will be empowered to seek and maintain lasting change for their communities even after the outside help leaves. Corbett and Fikkert's book wisely advises its readers to always consider themselves to be just as needy in one way or another as the people they are helping thus avoiding the almost-inevitable God complex, the unwelcome guest that always comes along with our better intentions of helping people who have been rendered unable to help themselves. When Helping Hurts is a definite must-read for anyone who wants to create lasting and empowering benefit from the help they have to offer those less fortunate.

Okay, 3 reviewlettes in one day seems like plenty. Especially since they aren't that short. What did you expect? They're short for me. It was surprisingly painless, and I feel much like much less of a cheat than I expected. I could get used to this.... ;-)