Choose Your Own Comment Adventure! (5)

Well, this year turned into a blogging/reading funk of epic proportions.  I've read fewer books this year than I have in a long time.  My enthusiasm for buying books hasn't waned, but I've been unsettled for months now in my life on the whole and when I'm feeling unsettled and restless, booking and blogging both turn into a struggle.

As always, however, I miss the creative outlet and keeping up with the latest and greatest of books, so I woke up yesterday thinking I should rejuvenate the best thing that happened to this blog in 2016 before 2016 got away - a Choose Your Own Comment Adventure.  Instead I sat down and unexpectedly churned out two decent quality book reviews and then wandered off to stream Mighty Ducks movies.  Thankfully, 2016 still has a few hours ago, and a few hours is more than enough for me to visit some blogs and share my adventure!  I'll keep those reviews in reserve for next year with the hope that they will help spur this blog on to activity and me into continued reading.

Anyhow, enough talk, it's adventure time!  Today, I'm starting with Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea because hers was the blog awaiting at the top of my feed when I had the idea to do this.  Also because I find Diane's taste in books is almost always a good match for mine.  Really, if she posted that the Greater Philadelphia phonebook was the best read of the year, I'd probably dash off to find a copy.  Lucky for me, her most recent post contains her top 10 favorite reads of the year.  I am duly gleeful that some of them are already on my (physical) TBR pile since the time of year where I put  my wallet on lockdown after the holidays is nigh upon us.  Can't wait to read Under the Influence by Joyce Maynard and All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood - and so many more!

(OK, this could take a while if I keep pausing to add a million books to my wishlist)

Next up it's a December Monthly Round-Up with Sarah's Book Shelves.  Sarah's post is full of links to her 2016 favorites and links to interesting posts from other bloggers that I'll certainly have to come back.  For now though, I spot a 2017 debut that Sarah loved that I'll undoubtedly have to get my hands on We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter.  I'll definitely be stopping back at Sarah's to help my wish list get even more out of control.

And on the third link of my adventure, I've found a blog that's new to me and from the looks of it, a blog that I want to be reading on a more regular basis.  "Toady" at B.B. Toady's most recent post is a review of the January release Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, which sounds sooo good.  The titular character is an octogenarian taking a walk around mid 1980s Manhattan, and this sounds like just the sort of reflective book that I have the potential to love. 

Off I glacier to my next destination after pausing to peruse and add yet more books to my wishlist.  Next up is another new to me blog - Novel Visits.  I admit, I may have slinked (slunk) around a bit collecting more Best of 2016s for my wish list before settling in to read Susie's most recent post a review of Leave Me by Gayle Forman.  Susie had some mixed feelings about this story where a mother leaves her family after having unexpected open heart surgery but ultimately enjoyed it.  Another book for my wish list?  Don't mind if I do. 

Sue at Crushing Cinders is taking part in Sheila's First Read of the Year event by planning to read Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff.  It sounds like she's anticipating and dreading it in equal measure.  Anticipating because of all the hype and dreading because what if it doesn't live up to the lofty expectations?  There's a problem I'm sure we all recognize!   

Two on a theme - would you believe that the next stop on my journey is a review of Illuminae at Rebel Mommy Book Blog?  Grace thinks she may be the last to read Illumine, but turns out Sue and I have rescued her from this certainly dubious honor.  ;-)  Anyhow, this book sounds like it's filled with futuristic apocalyptic goodness that I ought to enjoy in hard copy and now it's doubly on my radar. 

Next stop is at Greg's Book Haven where Greg is taking part Kimba's Sunday Post.  I shake off my confusion about what the heck day it is in time to peruse the miscellany of Greg's post and take in the preview for movie incarnation of The Lost City of Z which looks worth a watch.

Onward and forward to A Magical World of Words where Amy has modified The Perpetual Page Turner's end of year reading survey to accommodate her movie watching, too.  This reminds me that I always wish I had tracked my movie watching at the end of the year.  Maybe 2017 will be the year I track my watching alongside my reading!

My last visit is to Laura at Beautiful Books who is reviewing her reading year.  She has failed her yearly reading challenge despite reading, er, more than double the amount of books I read this year. I huddle beneath my desk in shame for a moment before emerging to add more books to my wish list from Laura's favorites.  This is the first post I've come across where I've actually read a favorite (!!) - Like Water for Chocolate, a book I read and loved long times ago. 

That's all for today.  Hopefully I'll get back to making this a regular thing in 2017. 

Here's wishing you a safe New Year's Eve and a very Happy New Year filled with good times and great books!

Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones

What to say about Mongrels?   It was the perfect book for the Halloween season, that I happened to be reading during the Halloween season by sheer happenstance (which is to say Random.org).  Before it, I had spent more than a month plodding through a collection of short stories that I actually liked, but was so simultaneously busy and reading enfunked that I could hardly be bothered to read, even given long stretches of plane rides - though that is when I probably did the most reading of said collection.

Mongrels is many things: a werewolf story, a horror story, a coming of age story, even a story about the truth in stories.  The narrator, a kid whose mother died in childbirth tells the story of his remaining family, his grandfather who likes to terrify and enthrall him with his tales of being a werewolf, his loose cannon Uncle Darren, and his fiercely protective Aunt Libby.  The kid grows up in frightened anticipation of the wolf that may or may not lurk in his blood, always fleeing the trouble that follows when his aunt or uncle has "wolfed out."

Forced to the fringe of society, never staying in one place too long, the kid only has his family to lean on, and he is forced to both love them and fear the unpredictable life they lead as werewolves.  Alternating between past and present, Jones creates a absorbing modern mythology for werewolves that has nothing to do with a full moon.  Instead of embracing the mystery that comes with these creatures, Jones offers up a fascinating take on what it might look like to only semi-predictably change to a wolf in the midst of everyday life and what it looks like to love a wolf like family. 

The unnamed kid at the center of the story is the perfect narrator, giving an inside perspective on living with werewolves - werewolves who are also normal people who he loves. As the story goes on, he's trying to carve out an identity for himself whether werewolf is in his blood or not.  As he grows he comes to know that he can't take his grandfather's stories that he grew up on quite at face value because there's a deeper meaning to be found in them, an illumination of past tragedy wrapped up in a garden-variety fireside scary story.

I was so captivated by these characters that after I'd turned the last page, I spent the following days depressed that I couldn't read more about them when I got home from work.  Mongrels is a unique easy to read horror story that succeeds in both being a horror story and transcending the genre classification.  The boy's coming of age journey creates the perfect tension as you wait to see if he comes of age as merely a man or as a werewolf, and down to the bitter end, I couldn't decide which would be best. 

(Disclaimer: I received an advance copy of Mongrels from the publisher in exchange for review consideration.)

Don't Tell Me You're Afraid by Giuseppe Catozzella

Greetings from the occasional book reviewer!  I have been MIA for quite some time now.  My August reading (and blogging!) was pretty slumpy all around.  I blame myself and the many distractions life has to offer more than the books (or the blogs) themselves.  Nonetheless, I'm trying to shake off the cobwebs and get back down to reading (and blogging!).  I kicked off my September reading with Don't Tell Me You're Afraid by Giuseppe Catozzella, a book translated to English written by a white Italian guy from the novelized autobiographical perspective of a black, young, female would-be refugee from Somalia.  Somehow this seems both terribly diverse and also a bit wide of the mark as far as reading diversely goes.  Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book, found it simultaneously sad and enlightening, and learned a valuable lesson about not Googling the real-life subject of the book you're reading.

Samia Yusuf Omar knows she's an athlete from a young age.  Already at ten, she dreams of being the fastest and trains with a single-minded dedication on the streets of war-torn Mogadishu, Somalia despite the many dangers. In Mogadishu, a simple trip to the market can be a death sentence.  Not wearing the proper veils, stepping onto the city's beaches, or even being seen with her best friend and "coach," Ali, stand to put Samia in terrible danger. Samia finds refuge and support with her family in the relative safety of their home. Soon, Samia begins to win races, but as conditions in Mogadishu decline under the power of militant radical Islamist group, Al-Shabaab, the deadly risks of Samia and her sister Hodan's dreams strike too close to home. As tragedy strikes her family and the women of Mogadishu are forced to conform to the vigorous restrictions of Islamic law, Samia dreams not only of being the fastest but of making her family proud and being a beacon of hope for the subjugated women of her war-torn homeland.

The world saw Samia's potential at the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics where she represented her country in the 200m sprint.  While she may have lost the race, she won the support of an international audience.  Unfortunately, conditions are even more dangerous for her in the wake of her Olympic competition.  Being a picture of possibility for Muslim women makes her a target in her hometown. It's virtually impossible for her to train, and she cannot gain strength with the meager food her family can provide.  When her sister Hodan successfully makes the Journey, being smuggled across the Sahara and over the sea into Europe, Samia is heartbroken, but as conditions decline, Samia has to admit that the Journey is the only way she will ever realize her dream of being a champion.

Don't Tell Me You're Afraid is a compelling novelization of the true story of Samia Yusuf Omar's childhood, rise to running excellence, and eventual desperate journey to escape the war and poverty afflicting Somalia.  Told in an extremely readable first person, the novel immerses readers in the life of a young girl who dreams of being the fastest and dreams of being a symbol of what her country had been and could be.  I was, at the start of the book, very ignorant of the conflict in Somalia.  While I had been aware of the growing amount of refugees, this novel puts a human face on the horrible conditions facing those whose desperation to escape would have them put their lives in the hands of deplorable smugglers who transport refugees in the worst possible circumstances and use every opportunity to extort every last resource from the desperate. 

With Samia as the narrator, the ongoing tragedy of refugees is set in even more stark relief, knowing that this girl Somalia had paraded on an international stage was no better off than the least of these seeking asylum.  Don't Tell Me You're Afraid is a heartbreaking story that needs to be read.  While there are certainly some departures from the true to life sequence of events and a tendency of the author to wander into a sporadic second person narration that might bother the more discerning reader, Catozzella and translator Anne Milano Appel do a great job of bringing the heart of Samia's story to the page and making a hard to read account of  hardship and hope virtually unputdownable.

Thanks to Penguin Press for providing a copy for review. 

The Eighty-Dollar Champion by Elizabeth Letts

This July, not unlike last July, was a bit of a weird reading streak for me.  I don't read a whole lot of short stories, and I don't read a whole lot of non-fiction, but this July featured a little of both.  The randomizer (Because who makes decisions when computers can do it for you? Er, please contact me for use of that unique tag line when you're coming out with your next "robots take over the world" comedy) helpfully chose for me a book that, if I chose my own books, would probably not have made it off the shelf anytime soon but was well worth reading.

 

The Eighty-Dollar Champion is one of those horse stories that should unquestionably become a Disney movie.  When Dutch immigrant Harry de Leyer arrives at a horse auction in Amish Country Pennsylvania on a cold February day, the best horses have already been sold to the highest bidders and the bidding is over.  No horses are around except for the ones that didn't sell that are being loaded up and sent away to be killed.  Not wanting to return to Long Island, where he teaches schoolgirls to ride at The Knox School, empty handed, Harry spots a plow horse with a certain look in his eye that he's sure will make a good teaching horse.  Eighty dollars later he's bound for home with a worse for the wear horse that is about to become a part of his growing family. 

Snowman turned out to be just the calm, patient mount Harry had hoped for, quietly teaching new riders the skill.  But when Harry tries to sell him to a local farmer to free up room in his stable during the off season, Snowman proves himself to be much more.  Little did de Leyer know that his affable plow horse had a penchant for jumping and the heart of a champion that would lead the pair to fame and fortune in the dangerous sport of show jumping.  

Elizabeth Letts didn't necessarily do Snowman's story many favors.  Bulked up with unnecessary historical background (this just in, horses falling out of popular use for transportation by the 1950s) and a grating amount of repetition, likely in the name of creating some dramatic effect, fall flat.  A little dramatic tension, a little reminder here and there of the significance of Snowman's success is understandable, but Harry de Leyer and Snowman's story is so inherently heart-warming and triumphant, there's really no need for Letts to go the extra mile to point out its significance.  She goes many extra miles, however, to the point of her cumbersome sentimentality becoming downright patronizing. 

Were in not for the inherent attractiveness of the story of a horse bound for death who defeats the odds to become a great show jumper, I might have laid this book aside unfinished.  Happily, the meat of Letts' account of Harry's determination and skill as a horseman and Snowman's joy in jumping and eagerness to please the man who rescued him from an early death was enough to keep me hanging on.  There's no doubt that Snowman's story might be a little lesser known, but it is easily as inspirational as any horse story going.  By the end, I was happy to have "met" the irrepressible Snowman and the man who saw Snowman's worth long before he urged the horse to show jumping greatness. 

Tomorrow, he would hitch her up to the wagon to lug corn to the silo, and he knew the horse would plod along, as quietly as before.  But just because you are hitched to a burden does not mean that you do not sometimes want to fly.

Reader, I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre

I am on a book reviewing tear.  I know, it doesn't look like it.  Probably because I haven't exactly been on a book reading tear.  The upshot of that unfortunate fact, however, is that it makes it easier to boost my book reviewing ego when I am essentially keeping up with reviews of the books that I am reading instead of 10 books behind. 

Lately, I have made another attempt at short stories.  Short stories and I have a checkered past.  I don't really like them on the whole, but occasionally I come across one or two that I really like.  Reader, I Married Him seemed like a natural choice since I once had Jane Eyre as required reading and actually liked it (When does that happen?), so stories inspired by that famous novel seemed an obvious place to look for a short story hit.

Reader, I Married Him is a collection of short stories by female writers inspired by the famous line from Jane Eyre.  The collection brims over with works by numerous well-known authors of literary fiction including Jane Gardam, Emma Donoghue, Salley Vickers, Lionel Shriver, and a good many more authors that you've undoubtedly heard of.  Some stories share a direct and obvious connection to Jane Eyre while others simply use marriage as a jumping off point to head in a different direction.  Like many short story collections, this one is a bit uneven, but definitely worth a read for some of the highlights.

My reaction to Reader, I Married Him covered the usual bases of my reaction to short story collections.  A little, "What was the point of that?" with a side of, "I don't get it..."  Some, "This is good, but I wish it was a whole book." And, of course, even a bit of "This is really good/clever.  Why have I never heard of this author?"  Oddly enough, yet somehow par for the course (I am going to mostly unwittingly get *all* the sports analogies into this review, just you watch.), despite this collection running over with big name female authors, the stories I found myself the most taken with were by authors that were unfamiliar to me. 

In Kirsty Gunn's selection, "Dangerous Dog," a chance encounter with a few boys and a dog whose bark is much worse than his bite changes the life of a fitness trainer taking a writing class.  In it, Gunn cleverly re-imagines Mr. Rochester as a dog, and somehow manages to weave together what seem like three stories in just over ten pages.  The other story that really captured me was "The China from Buenos Aires" by Patricia Park, about a Korean girl who leaves her Buenos Aires home to go to college in New York City,  There she feels homesick and isolated until she happens upon a boy she knew from home, but is ordinary Juan enough to bind her to a place where she never felt at home?  (Both of these stories were slam dunks.  Please, somebody stop me.)

All in all, I found this to be an enjoyable collection.  While I may not have been satisfied by each story, since I often find myself unsatisfied by the medium, I was impressed with each author's ability to evoke places and characters so fully in only a few pages.  A word to the wise, many of the stories in the collection have, at best, the faintest of connections to Jane Eyre, so if you're seeking mostly obvious parallels, I would advise adjusting your expectations before picking up Reader, I Married Him.  However, if you're looking for a solid collection by some well known female authors that is admirably diverse, definitely give this one a try!

(Thanks to William Morrow Paperbacks for providing a copy in exchange for review consideration.)