The Zen Leaf

Impossible, by Nancy Werlin

Posted on January 13, 2010 by Thistle

How do I even begin to describe this book without giving anything away? Um…Lucy Scarborough is a seventeen year old girl with two wonderful, loving foster parents and a real mom who is completely crazy and who shows up randomly sometimes. Each time she comes, she sings a version of Scarborough Fair, which she’s dubbed The Elfin Knight. Through a series of events I’m not going to talk about at all, Lucy begins to pay more attention to the ballad. She needs to unravel the puzzle her mother has given her. Her life and sanity depend on it.

I read Heather’s review months ago, but I must not have remembered much from it, because the content of this book came as a total shock to me. In a good way. I sat down to read this one afternoon and couldn’t put it down until I finished near midnight. I’ve had a couple bad experiences with YA lately, books with shallow premises or flimsy plots, but this was nothing like that. The characterization was solid and thick. The plot was slow enough to let me languish over it but also wasn’t dull. I could never guess what was going to happen – in fact, I thought I had much of the puzzle figured out and turned out to be completely wrong. There’s actually one place I wish I’d been right, but I can’t talk about it for spoiler’s sake. Agh! Good thing this is my YA book club selection this month so I’ll be able to discuss it in depth soon. 🙂

I really don’t want to give anything away, but let me just say that while this has fantasy elements to it, it is grounded in reality as well. It deals with some tough subjects, particularly among teens, and does justice to them. At the same time, it delves into old folk legends and mythologies and weaves them into real life. It was beautiful.

No, it wasn’t perfect. There were a couple places that felt contrived, like Werlin was trying to stuff in some backstory and didn’t know how to do it. I felt that particularly when it came to Lucy reading her mom’s diary (the diary format really doesn’t work for me unless it’s extremely well done and believable). But other than these little snatches of forced exposition, the prose is delightful, easy to read, and a lot of fun.

What else can I say? Go read it. It’s a good one! 🙂

PS – If you know the Simon and Garfunkel version of Scarborough Fair, you’re likely to have it in your head all day after reading this. I certainly did. Good thing I like the song!

Posted in 2010, Prose, Young Adult | Tagged speculative | Leave a comment

Tales From Outer Suburbia, by Shaun Tan

Posted on January 12, 2010 by Thistle

This is a picture-book collection of 15 short stories.

So far, this is my least favorite book by Shaun Tan, and that’s really just because it’s a SS collection. Like other collections, I felt rushed and overwhelmed reading it, even though I spread it out over 4-5 days. Because I read it as a whole, I don’t think I got as much out of the stories as I would have had I read them separately. However, I own the book, which means I’m going to be able to go back and revisit stories individually over time. When I say it’s my “least favorite,” I still liked the book. I’m glad I have it. I want to go try to read a story a week or so and just languish over them. I have a feeling I’ll like the book much better after doing that.

There was only one story I didn’t really like, which was “The Amnesia Machine,” and that was only because it was on such a busy panel that I couldn’t take everything in. I don’t even know what it was about. My favorite stories were “Broken Toys,” “No Other Country,” and “Distant Rain.” “Broken Toys” is about monsters and reunions and getting to understand people better. The book’s cover art comes from it. “No Other Country” is about a family trying to settle into life in a new place and what they discover there in the midst of their sorrows. “Distant Rain” talks about what happens to the poetry we write but never let anyone see. All three were touching stories and beautifully illustrated.

Posted in 2010, Adult, Visual | Tagged collection, mini-review, speculative | Leave a comment

The Red Tree, by Shaun Tan

Posted on January 10, 2010 by Thistle

Fair warning – I want to discuss what this book means to me, which means I will talk about everything, including the end. While the book is more about the journey and less about what happens, if you don’t want spoilers, you’ll want to skip this.

The Red Tree is a tiny chidren’s picture book focusing on depression. It follows a girl as she wakes up with nothing to look forward to and is consumed by darkness, until the end of the day when she finds the red tree. I had to read the book twice to really understand my feelings and interpretation of it. I’m going to walk through what I felt while reading.

First, I picked up the book on a day that I felt awful. I hadn’t slept, I was carrying huge depressing loads inside me, and the day started with one of my kids having a stomach virus. Not fun. I had a headache all day and needed to sleep. I took the book back with me to read before I tried (and failed) to take a nap. By that point, I was already on the verge of tears. I flipped the book to the back cover and read the words, “sometimes the day begins with nothing to look forward to”. And I cried. Immediately.

I took this book to read in particular because Chris had told me several times that this was his go-to book when he’s depressed or upset, and I thought – that’s exactly what I need. Something that will help me here in this mood. So I began to read. The book starts with the same opening line and only gets worse. Each new page is a new look at the way depression feels. It was miserable and heartbreaking, but strangely comforting in the sense that I could relate to it at that moment. I went along this journey with the unnamed little girl.

But then came the last two panels, which say, “but suddenly there it is / right in front of you / bright and vivid / quietly waiting // just as you imagined it would be”. On the first panel, the girl finds a bright red leaf (in contrast to the black dead leaves floating down over her when she woke up), and in the second, that leaf has grown into a glowing, beautiful red tree that she smiles up at.

I admit, those panels were really jarring after the dark, melancholy ones before. I didn’t quite understand. My first thoughts were that the panels were dishonest, because when you’re depressed, there is no magical solution to come along and just fix things. Only I wasn’t sure, because twice in my life now, in the spring of ’99 and the fall of ’07, a magical solution did come to me unexpectedly and lifted years worth of burden. And sometimes that happens. It’s unpredictable and uncommon, but it happens. So I was conflicted about the end.

Then I saw Jason and Chris discussing their thoughts about the book on Twitter. Jason felt the end implied that people who were depressed were being told they ought to just find something happy and “get over it.” He really hated the ending, though he loved the rest. Chris felt more like it was saying there were good things all over and this was taking time to look at them. (Sorry guys, I’m paraphrasing you, hopefully not misrepresenting you!) Their thoughts made me think, because I was right in the middle of them. An idea kept spinning in my head and then I made a decision. I needed to go back and reread.

I reread it that afternoon, slowly, and on each page I looked. On each page, there was a red leaf. Sometimes partially obscured, sometimes in plain sight. But always there, even though the little girl didn’t see it. And in seeing this, the end was no longer so jarring. I realized how I interpreted that tree:

There are beautiful things around us that we usually cannot see when we are so consumed with depression. Every once in awhile, though, we will catch sight of one, and when we do, it will not seem like a little thing. That red leaf, that tiny beautiful thing, will feel so much more, like a Red Tree, in contrast to all the other misery in our lives. And that happy thing that feels so wonderful – what happens to it overnight? Well, sometimes it dies, and the leaves turn black and rain down on us by the time we wake up. That is the fleeting nature of happiness when we suffer from depression. But still, there is a happy spot to grasp at in every place in our lives, if we can manage to see it. We usually won’t, but when we do, it is a beautiful thing.

I love the ending now. I understand it so much more, and I feel such a connection to this book. This is one I want to keep with me forever. I’m really happy I was able to sort through my thoughts and make the book my own.

Posted in 2010, Children's, Visual | Tagged favorite, memorable, multi-read, psychology | Leave a comment

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by JK Rowling (+ Philosopher’s Stone)

Posted on January 8, 2010 by Thistle

I reread the Harry Potter series at least once per year, and have since I first read it in the summer of 2005, after the sixth book came out. For the first couple years after that first read, I actually read the series a lot. Over and over again. When we were in the process of moving, they were the only books I had available to read, so I read them on a loop. End result? I’ve now read the first 6 books about 25 times each, and the 7th about 10 times since it came out.

I joined the Harry Potter Reading Challenge not to give me an excuse to reread the books, but because I’d realized last spring that the hardback and paperback editions of books 5 and 6 were different. When corrections to the text were made between initial printing and paperback printing, those corrections were only reflected in the paperback version. So I decided to use this challenge to cross-compare all the books. I have each one in HB and PB. I’ve always read the first 5 in PB, the last 2 in HB, simply because that’s what I ended up buying. This round, I’m reading the first 5 in HB, the last two in PB, and making notes on the differences.

And actually, there is no difference between versions of the first book. As far as I can tell – and I fairly well have the books memorized by this point – the two versions were exactly the same. It’s possible I missed something, but probably not anything big. Because that left this post completely empty of anything to talk about, I decided to do an additional comparison. I read the British version of the book!

This was my first time through Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, and it was quite fun to read. There were all the differences that you’d expect: single instead of double quotes, word differences like chips, crisps, and jumpers instead of fries, chips, and sweaters. Those things I expected. There were a few places that threw me off.

“the baker’s opposite” instead of “the bakery”
baby-Dudley learning the word “Shan’t” instead of “Won’t” which cracked me up. “Shall” is such a snobbish word in the US, so imagining a baby yelling “Shan’t” is hilarious.
Sherbert Lemons instead of lemon drops – I wonder if this is the same sort of candy?
the fact that anytime something is taped, it has to be “sellotaped.”
Hagrid writes to Dumbledore as “Mr. Dumbledore” instead of Professor Dumbledore once. It’s only that way one time in the whole book, which makes me wonder if it was a mistake that was corrected in the American edition.
A couple places had the word order changed around, or dialog broken into 2 lines instead of four.
Dean Thomas is not sorted in the British version. He’s skipped altogether, and as that’s when the text tells you he’s black, it doesn’t surprise me that those outside the US didn’t realize he was black. That includes the people making the movie, who were really surprised to find that out. Him not being sorted, however, makes sense of the error in the American text, though, which says there were only 3 people left to be sorted and then goes on to sort Dean Thomas, Lisa Turpin, Ron Weasley, and Blaise Zabini.
Does the UK still do measurements not in the metric system? I thought all the references to feet and such would have been different, but they weren’t. The Quidditch goal posts, for instance, were still 50 feet high.
“Revising” means “studying” in the UK – I’d never heard that before. It felt really weird to read that over and over, I kept thinking they were making edits to their homework…

There wasn’t too much different other than British-isms changed to American-isms. Just Dean being left out of the sorting and a couple paragraphs switched around (like where Dean is yelling Red Card at Madame Hooch in the first Quidditch game). Oh, and the back-of-book description is just a bit weird. There’s also an illustration and I can’t figure out who it’s supposed to be. Anyone care to fill me in?

Overall, it was fun to read the original.

***
– November 2014 throwback review

Posted in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, Children's, Prose | Tagged Harry Potter, humor, memorable, multi-read, reread, speculative | Leave a comment

Protected: Maus (vol 1), by Art Spiegelman

Posted on January 7, 2010 by Thistle

Posted in 2010, Adult, Visual | Tagged nonfiction | Enter your password to view comments.

Summer, by Edith Wharton

Posted on January 3, 2010 by Thistle

Spoilers.

Charity Royall is the child of “mountain people” adopted by a lawyer in the nearby small, poor town of North Dormer. One summer, she has an affair with Lucius Harney, an educated visitor to the town. Bad stuff follows.

This is, I believe, the third book by Edith Wharton I’ve read after Ethan Frome (in high school) and The House of Mirth. While it is the best of the three I’ve read, I honestly don’t think Wharton is my type of writer. I keep trying to give her more chances, but I think this is the end for me.

That’s not to say Summer was bad. It actually wasn’t a terrible book. Charity was an interesting character, a combination of uneducated but aware of her own existence. She knew enough about the world to understand why things would never work out between her and Harney, even if he wanted to make them work. She was aware of her feelings and her passions, and about her situation in life. This is actually the first book by Wharton I’ve read where I felt she had an investment in the characters. They felt real, whereas in the other books I’ve read, they’ve felt like soulless caricatures to me. The other characters were less real (particularly Charity’s adoptive father), but Charity was round.

On the other hand, Wharton’s prose is nearly as flowery and too-descriptive in this novella as it is in her novels, and that gets really tedious to me. My mind always wanders as she spends pages describing architecture or design or nature. But as this was a shorter work, there was proportionately less description. Thankfully.

This book seemed to be primarily about women and the choices they have to make, plus their constraints when it came to their sexuality in contrast to the lack of constraints on men. Let me just say I’m happy I don’t live back then. I’m allowed to think and make decisions for myself. I’m not pressured by what people are going to think about me. Living back then would have been awful.

But while that is the primary focus of the book, that’s not really what I took from it. The one thing that I really got out of this book was the comparison of three different classes of people, and not in the way Wharton intended. There was Lucius Harney, who represented the educated classes. Then there were all the people in North Dormer, the uneducated but at least “civilized” town. And then there were the mountain people, who lived by very animalistic tendencies (according to Wharton’s descriptions of them anyway), in filth and rags, disregarding the law altogether. I don’t know how accurate this portrayal of these people is, but what it really made me feel was this:

No matter how much I try, I cannot understand everyone. I try really hard to learn about various cultures, groups, ethnicities, backgrounds, socioeconomic situations, etc. But reading this book made me realize that I simply cannot know everything. And if I can’t really experience something, I can’t really understand it. It made me feel hopeless and tired, and like I should just give up trying. And I don’t like that it made me feel like that. Rarely do I feel like I should just give up everything that I’m working toward, and that my efforts are pointless. It’s probably for that reason (well, and the messed up ending where Charity marries her adoptive father?? Ew! Creepy!) that I really turned against the book.

So I’m just going to leave Ms. Wharton here. The two of us, we apparently don’t get along. I don’t regret reading Summer, but I look forward to leaving it behind.

Posted in 2010, Adult, Prose | Tagged classics, gender studies | Leave a comment

Matchless, by Gregory Maguire

Posted on January 2, 2010 by Thistle

This was my first book of 2010. I bought it for Jason, who loves “The Little Match Girl,” and read it before I’d read the fairy tale. It’s a retelling and an expansion of “The Little Match Girl,” split into four parts. Part 2 is almost a direct translation of the fairy tale, the other three parts are built around it.

Matchless was an interesting experience, so I’m just going to walk through how I felt as I read. At first, I wasn’t sure. The story seemed choppy and like Maguire was leaving a lot out. It jumped around a lot, and felt far too short. I wasn’t sure I liked the style. When I got to part 2, the retelling of “The Little Match Girl” felt the same way – choppy and thinned out. At the time, I didn’t know it was nearly a direct translation. I only found that out while reading the notes at the end of Matchless, and after reading the fairy tale itself.

Parts 3 and 4, however, came together for me. While they retained the same short, choppy style, the story dove deeper and I began to care about the characters. I got immediate chills and tears came to my eyes at one specific place in Part 4. I hadn’t been expecting the book to end so beautifully, but it did. Just like the fairy tale itself, there was beauty and sadness all mixed together, though probably a bit more happiness than in the original. It’s bittersweet.

Immediately afterwards, I pulled out our copy of Anderson’s Fairy Tales, and read “The Little Match Girl.” I was surprised to see how short, choppy, and thinned out the fairy tale felt. And then, I understood – Maguire was using the same writing style as the original tale. That made Matchless even better for me. I’m not familiar with original fairy tales, so the writing style is new to me. Maybe someone who knows more and who has read more would disagree, but I thought Maguire did an excellent job of recapturing that same feel. I loved this story and will likely read it again. Perhaps at Christmas. Maybe it’ll become a tradition.

Posted in 2010, Children's, Prose | Tagged revisiting | Leave a comment

2009 in Books

Posted on December 31, 2009 by Thistle

It’s been a good year for books. I read far more than I’ve ever read in a single year – before 2009, I thought 100 books in a year was nearly impossible – and a great deal of them were really good. I did get a little tired out reading at that pace, and I worry I won’t remember some of my books, so I’m making it a goal for 2010 to read at about half that rate. I’d like to still hit 100 books, but not much more than 100.

Also, before I move on to the wrap-up, I suppose I should mention I do have some reading goals for 2010.

I want to make sure that 20-25% of my books are either written by GLBT authors or are GLBT-themed.
I want at least 50% of my books to come from my shelves. They have to be on my shelves as of today in order to count for this. New acquisitions don’t count. The ones I’ve already ordered but haven’t come to me yet do count.
I want to read two books per month off my Fill in the Gaps list.

But that’s all. I’m trying to take things real easy in 2010. Now, to move on to the summary for the year. Here is my wrap-up:

Total books: 184

Subcategories (on finished reads only):

First-time reads: 167
Rereads: 17

Novels/Novellas: 161
–Speculative: 86
–Realistic: 75
Nonfiction: 17
Collections: 4
Drama: 1
Poetry: 2

Graphic Novels: 23

Classics: 38

YA: 74
Children’s: 30

GLBT: 15

In translation: 23 (from 11 different languages, French being the most common by far)
Chunksters (500+ pages): 15

New to me authors: 109
By men: 72
By women: 111
Anonymous author: 1

Biggest reading month: June – 21
Smallest reading month: November – 8

Best reading month: February, with 9 books that I liked (several making my top reads of the year), 6 neutrals, and only 1 I disliked

Worst reading month: June, with 6 books I disliked, only 5 (of 21) that I liked, and 10 I was neutral about.

Challenges participated in: 25
Completed: 18
Failed/Quit: 2
Ongoing/Perpetual: 5

Best Book-Related Discoveries:

First – graphic novels. I’d never read any graphic novels before this year and when I began, I wasn’t sure I was going to like them. I read a couple I was lukewarm about before I got to the ones I loved. I’m still not sure I really understand them entirely (and I’m terrible at reviewing them), but I definitely want to read more and I’m glad this world was opened up to me.

Second – YA. I hated the YA that existed when I was a teen. Babysitter’s Club. RL Stine. Sweet Valley High. Ugh. It was because of those books that I decided I didn’t like books for a long time. Last year, I began reading some award-winning middle grade fiction (I’d previously only read classic lit), and then in December I read Airman by Eoin Colfer. It was my first modern YA book and I loved it. I’ve read so many this year – it’s completely dominated my reading list. I’ve read enough to know which types of YA that I dislike and which I like, and to differentiate between various genres within. No, YA is NOT a genre!! It is an age group, with multiple subgenres within it, just like adult or children’s fiction. So many of my favorite authors have been found here, including Scott Westerfeld and Deb Caletti. I adore both of them and have been soaking up everything they write.

Now, I present the best and worst books of 2009:

I’ll start with the worst, and get that out of the way. Before I begin, please allow this disclaimer: This is only my opinion. I’m in no way saying that these book are bad – I just didn’t like them. I know some of these books are on other peoples’ favorites lists, and I’m sorry. They just didn’t work for me.

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, here are my top 5 Worst Reads of 2009. These will not include abandoned books (otherwise Tobacco Road would be near the top of the list). Though I’m only presenting the top 5 worst books of the year, I will first mention several runner-ups: Dreaming Anastasia by Joy Preble, The Three Incestuous Sisters by Audrey Niffenegger, Kampung Boy by Lat, Wings by Aprilynne Pike, Atonement by Ian McEwan, and In a Perfect World by Laura Kasischke.

Of the top 5, these are in approximately descending order, with the least bad on top and the worst at the bottom.

Tithe by Holly Black – Vapid and badly written, plus it rubbed on a bunch of my pet peeves and had horrible role-model characters.
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks – A complete groaner. This was my first – and last – Sparks novel. The last line of the book clenched that.
New Moon by Stephenie Meyer – I didn’t mind Twilight, but I hated New Moon. Everything about it either sickened me or made me roll my eyes.
Austenland by Shannon Hale – When this one wasn’t just vapid chick-lit, it turned into offensive stereotyping. Ugh.
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger – This is hands down the worst book I’ve read this year, possibly the worst book I’ve ever read in my life. I know, I know – I’m going to get pummeled under the collective weight of Book Bloggers crying “heresy!” but I really, really hated this book. I tried so hard to love it. I even gave it a kind review, trying to see the positive. I’m sorry, but I don’t see any romance or love in this book at all. I see lots of gratuitous p*rn, about 250 pages of unnecessary description of things like food and clothing details, gratuitous alcoholism, gratuitous drug use, gratuitous vomiting, gratuitous repetition of the same things over and over again (like this clause), pedophilia, wooden characters that weren’t at all realistic, stilted writing, unbelievable dialog, and unpunished criminal violence. To me, there was nothing redeeming about the plot, the characters, or the writing. I’m sorry. I know it’s heresy, but I just hate this book with a passion and as time passes, I keep hating it worse. Every year I seem to have one book that I loathe and that grates on my memory until something worse takes its place. This is my 2009 Worst Book. I wish it wasn’t, but it is.

So. Interesting pattern. Two are fantasy-fluff YA books (plus two more in the runner-ups) and three are modern adult fiction (plus three more in the runner-ups). In fact, of the 5 worst and 6 runner-ups, only one book didn’t fit into one of those two categories, and five of six of those modern adult fiction books are American. Yeah. That’s not surprising, is it?

Anyway, I hope no one hates me now…

On a happier note, here are the top 20 books that I read in 2009. Except for the first three, these are in no particular order. The first three are the best of the best.

Between Mom and Jo by Julie Anne Peters – It was a tough choice, but I’m naming Between Mom and Jo as my top book of 2009. You guys have heard me rave about this one enough, so I won’t go on about it.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – Is this any surprise? No? I didn’t think so. Any book that I can read three times in 4 months, crying each time, deserves to be up this high on the list. For the better part of the year, I didn’t think anything would beat this book into my top slot.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier – This is also no surprise. This book was surprisingly wonderful. I can’t believe it took me so long to get to it. The richness of the prose and beauty of atmosphere are perfect.
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa – I’m all about the richness, I guess. The prose was so beautiful in this book, even in translation. I loved the characters and the way math turned into poetry.
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn – I didn’t expect this quirky dystopia to stick with me the way it has, but the longer I’m away from it, the more I want to reread it. It’s excellently done. The author had some real talent, and though at first glance, the book may seem shallow, it has a deep current that runs underneath. I loved the message.
Harry, a History by Melissa Anelli – It’s not usual for a nonfiction book to end up in my favorite reads for a year, but this one was so much fun to read for a huge Potter fan like me.
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck – Once more, beautiful, rich prose, perfect atmosphere, well developed characters – this gets me every time.
The Nature of Jade by Deb Caletti – This was a surprise, because I wasn’t sure I even liked the book for the first half. It blossomed into something I loved, and less than a year later, I’ve already reread it. When I thought of making a top books list, this one automatically came to mind.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro – Another surprise. I was really neutral about it when I read it. In fact, the review still rates it as 3 stars. However, this book has stuck in my mind more than almost any other, and it has really grown into something I loved. It’s the sort of book whose impact wasn’t immediately felt, but definitely built a web in me. I really want to reread it now.
After by Amy Efaw – This book is so marvelously written and researched, and Efaw made a monster of a narrator completely sympathetic. That took incredible talent.
Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin – This was one of the best feel-good books I read this year. It was all about very heavy subjects (primarily, the genocide in Rwanda) without being descriptive in a way that I can’t stomach. I really appreciated that, and I loved the narrator, Angel, to death.
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld – It was really hard to choose which Westerfeld books to pick for this list, since I really loved a lot of them – I could really fill up this list with Westerfeld. Leviathan was particularly good, despite my original trepidation. I wasn’t sure I was going to like it – it’s not my normal type of book – but I really enjoyed it.
The Arrival by Shaun Tan – Oh so beautiful. Beautiful art, beautiful story, exquisite atmosphere. I had no idea someone could say so much without a word. Must get more Shaun Tan.
Crossed Wires by Rosy Thornton – This is another of my favorite feel-good books of the year. The story is nothing special – it’s just a romance – but it’s so realistic and the characters were so human! Plus, their long-distance relationship held a special place in my heart, as that’s how Jason and I got to know each other, too.
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel – This book was so different from anything I’ve ever read and I really enjoyed it. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this one to everyone, plus it was just so much fun reading and reviewing it with Jason.
Wild Roses by Deb Caletti – This one affected me so strongly that I blocked most of it out afterwards. It earned its place here because at the time I was shaking and crazy for a couple days, and considered it the best book I’d read in years. I need to go back and reread it to regain a feel for it.
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins – This was my first taste of Collins and it was fabulous! Such a well put together mystery.
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton – This was a beautifully written book about South Africa that opened up a whole world of culture and history to me.
The Trial by Franz Kafka (illustrated classics, Montellier and Mairowitz) – While The Trial itself was not one of my favorite classics this year, the GN version was brilliant. Somehow the people who adapted this managed to cut out all the clutter from Kafka’s unfinished novella and really bring out the surreal, Kafkaesque tone in the art.
the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld, which includes Uglies, Pretties, Specials, and Extras – Okay, that’s sort of cheating, but I couldn’t pick just one! I think it’s because the books feel like one cohesive piece for me and it’s difficult for me to separate them. How can I say which is better? So I’m honoring the whole series here.

So, in the end, it turns out 7 YA titles made my list (counting the Uglies series as 1), 4 classics, 1 nonfiction book, 2 graphic novels, and 6 modern adult novels. The large number of modern adult books is actually a huge surprise for me…but I guess 5 of them are non-US books, which is less surprising. Three of my top books are in translation, 1 is a GLBT book, 7 are by/about POC, and 10 are by non-US authors. Eight of the books on my mid-year top 10 list made it to the top 20 now. I read 10 of these books in the first half of the year, and 10 in the second half.

For the most part, it was a wonderful year of books this year. Here’s to a great 2010!

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged end of year | Leave a comment

Wake, by Lisa McMann

Posted on December 30, 2009 by Thistle

Short summary: Ever since she was young, Janie has suffered from a condition that forces her to experience other peoples’ dreams. When she moves from observer to participant, however, her life spins drastically out of control.

I’m in two minds about this one. First and foremost, it sucked me in. It took me only a few hours to read. It captivated me and I found it fascinating. I even went and read the short story about Janie’s love interest, Cabel, online afterwards. However, it is not so terribly well-written. It feels like the NaNoWriMo version of a good book, the quickly tossed out bones of a wonderful story that had such a good premise that it got published before it was ready. There is some terrible writing in it, but the story is so fascinating that I loved it anyway.

Honestly, I hate when that happens. When I love a book, I want to love it wholly. I don’t want there to be that “I loved it but…” clause. Because really, with some work, this could be a fabulous book instead of just a good one. As it is, I had a lot of fun with it, and probably won’t remember it in a few months. It definitely made for a fun afternoon, though.

Posted in 2009, Prose, Young Adult | Tagged mini-review, speculative | 2 Comments

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll

Posted on December 29, 2009 by Thistle

There’s no need to tell you the plot to this. First, it’s famous enough. Second, there isn’t really a plot. In fact, that’s one of the things that bothered me so much. I don’t understand this book at all. Maybe I’d have liked it had I read it as a kid, but I even doubt that (I hated the movie as a kid). I don’t like books where people and animals talk to each other, where absurd things happen for no identifiable reason, and/or where there is no internal logic. I can read Kafka – it’s absurd and surreal, but it has its own internal logic. This? Nothing. I just don’t get it. I know people love this book, but it didn’t work for me.

I would have abandoned it early on, except that it’s my book club selection in January and I have to moderate a meeting about it. Most of our group is going to also read Through the Looking Glass, but that was optional and I am not going to subject myself to another 100 pages of Carroll. Funny thing is, I’m the one who chose this book. I figured it’d be a short, easy read over Christmas, and get us all geared up for the new movie coming out (which I hope I like far better than the book or the old movie).

Anyway, that’s all for that. Sorry it didn’t work for me. Hopefully I’ll understand it better when I do some research before my book club.

Posted in 2009, Children's, Prose | Tagged classics, mini-review, speculative | Leave a comment