Firestarter by Stephen King
(unfinished)
I started it, but didn’t take long to decide not to continue. I’ve seen the movie, so there was nothing here for me but King’s overwriting and quaint New England phraseology. It’s written as an unfolding thriller, but there’s no thrill when you know how it ends. There’s no “this scene was in the book, but not the movie” to add value because it’s a pretty strict adaptation. And it’s antiquated–Vietnam vets and the energy crisis are so far removed from pop culture he might as well be talking about the World War I flu epidemic. I’ve decided I don’t slog though any of King’s early coke-fueled style if I don’t want to.
Mick Harte Was Here by Barbara Park
Phoebe’s brother has just died. And this book is about how she deals with it, from the morning of the accident to the months and months later. It’s not tragic like Bridge to Terabithia–death and dealing with trauma is the theme of the book and it starts from the beginning. So there’s no real heartbreak, except for watching the deceased’s younger sister deal with the aftermath.
I like this because it’s a good portrayal of dealing with grief as a young adult. Good for anyone going through the same thing–a death in the family–and is too young to truly process it. And it cuts through all the sugarcoating too. Death ain’t fun and it ain’t pretty. Or how people keep turning death into a chance to talk about themselves, how the grief never really goes away, the empty feeling of something missing. There’s always something missing. How trying to remember the good times doesn’t really help, that you just need time. And as we go on Phoebe’s journey, we gain the tools to handle that same situation ourselves.
My one qualm about the book is that you don’t really know how he died until the ending, when the build-up loses some of the impact. That’s where it gets a little preachy, even though I’m sure it’s not intended. Otherwise, this is a good book for kids and adults, like My Brother Sam Is Dead. It has a sense of humor despite the subject matter. And it teaches us all that, whether you want it to or not, life goes on.
Spell or High Water by Scott Meyer
The first one I only sort of liked because it had some whizbang milieu with hacking a “uber-file” so you can cast magic spells, like flying and fireballs.
But this one is much more boring. All the whizbang stuff has been explained so what else is there? Well, the last book was rather light on female characters, so let’s head over to Atlantis, where all the women who discovered magic are. No, they don’t live anywhere else. They’d rather stay together. And they all get along. And have two types of husbands–one for companionship and one for sex. Good times. I wonder what gender the author was.
It’s trying to be some kind of murder mystery, but that’s hard when A) everyone is immortal B) everyone’s an omnipotent magician C) you’ve got time travel too, which blasts anything suspenseful out of the plot because now all things are possible. What ends up happening is a whole bunch of dull padding that’s supposed to be budding romance. But it’s as passionate as a trackball mouse. I don’t think the author is very good at writing either female characters or interesting characters. In any case, I don’t think I’m going to read the third one.
The Serpent Gift (The Shamer’s Chronicles #3) by Lene Kaaberbøl
Much, much better than the second. Marked improvement. Gold star. There are more events, more suffering for the main characters, more fantasy elements. I was worried it was going to be like a soap opera because the main plot has to do with her dad coming back. You see, little Dina’s shaming power has been on the fritz since she blew out her shame fuses after being kidnapped. But along comes her father who wants to return to her life and teach her the ways of the snake.
It starts as an abhorrent “if they would just talk to each other” kinda story, but it gets better fast. Like the last one, the book is split into Dina and Davin’s (the older brother) narratives. Davin has much more to do this time since he’s not being a prideful twat. His adventure is just as interesting as Dina’s.
This is not a continuous story like “A Song of Ice and Fire”. These books are episodic and don’t have much to do with each other. However we seem to have forgotten why we’re all here in the first place–the exiled prince Nico and his usurping cousin who’s got a bounty on them all. Nico has more than a background role, but I would think there’d be more in this one about retaking his kingdom or escaping the usurpers. But I can’t criticize the book for what I wanted it to be. Only for what it is.
And what it is is a good fantasy/medieval novel. The author redeemed the story enough to put me back on track to reading the next in the series.
This is the Noise that Keeps Me Awake by Garbage
I’m a lifelong Garbage fan (though I’ve never been to a concert — too shy). But I have all the albums and b-sides. Pretty influential on my development as a person. First heard them in 1996–a golden year for things in my life that I never got sick of.
But really, only a Garbage fan is going to want this book. They aren’t terribly controversial or dramatic. They’re three guys from Wisconsin and one girl making music. What’s more surprising is how well they get along. No disappearances, no sleeping with band members, no drug binges (just alcohol). I never knew how isolated Shirley Manson felt in the beginning recordings living in a hotel all by herself. It certainly doesn’t come through on the track. And it traces the development of each album, how they’re all so different from each other, and why.
So the question is, should a Garbage fan pick up this book? The answer’s yes. It’s full of beautiful images, including artifacts from the road, and cocktail recipes, stories, interviews, and general history. They say it’s a coffee table book, but I disagree–that diminishes the work. Besides, you shouldn’t keep this on a coffee table where it can get spilled on. Put it on a shelf to be admired.
Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary
At least twice during school, my reading textbook contained an excerpt from this. And both times it was the part where the boy gets to go to lunch with an author. Now I finally read it.
That excerpt is nothing like the book.
Well, maybe a little. It is about a young boy who writes letters to an author. They start as “fan mail/questions”. Then it becomes personal stuff about his life–way too personal–that transforms into essentially a diary, or shouting into the wind. And it’s in epistolary format, so it’s fun to see his writing style evolve over time. I was under the impression that Mr. Henshaw never responds to the boy, but in fact he does. You just don’t see those responses. But writing is not what the book is about.
It’s about his coming to terms with his parents’ divorce and his deadbeat truck driver father. A bit cliche now, but not so much when this was written. I don’t know why, but something felt off about this book. Maybe it was my expectations that it would be about a boy becoming a writer and then being delivered a bildrungsoman. Maybe I couldn’t much relate to the boy. He’s living in a trailer and he’s constantly talking about his father–if he’s going to come visit, if he’s going to call, what he’s doing with their dog, who was that woman who answered the phone, and so on. Something’s lacking–either charm or wit or levity. It seems bleak. It seems like the moral is “adults are shits and there’s nothing you can do about it, kid”. It’s a solid idea, but lacks plot. So it comes off whiny. I imagine this is the kid who grew up to become J.D. Salinger.
The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman
This book has a writing style that I have never seen before. Not like “whoa this is going to change everything about the literature world” but it has a flavor. It flies fast. It’s terse. It has no fluff and buff. All fat is trimmed. The result is that the story feels lean but still passionate, like a summer love affair. “Show, don’t tell” in spades. And a main character that gets you right in the feels without being a perfect lady. You can feel the authentic historical accuracy. But despite the age of the protagonist, it’s not for anyone who hasn’t had “the talk” yet.
The atmosphere feels like a fantasy story, but it deals with the common people living in the outskirts. The ones far away from knights or dragons or princesses. This one’s got cheese as a delicacy, sleeping in dung for warmth, and some very satisfying revenge plots. Not to mention social issues, including but not limited to: verbal abuse, breastfeeding, swearing, transgenderism, marital infidelity, superstitious demon possession, and catching some teenagers in the farm shed doing you-know-what. If that doesn’t make for a good book, I don’t know what does.
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien
I’ve wanted to read this book for a long time, but only mildly. Just to find the stuff they didn’t include in the movie. So I never got around to it until my daughter somehow received it, I don’t know how, and I couldn’t avoid the opportunity any more.
It’s the story of a little creature in a big world that’s not in her control. A little like Stuart Little or Watership Down plot and Beatrix Potter sensibilities. The central conflict is the same–they have to move their house before the farm plows come.
What surprised me is that there is no magic in this world. I was hoping for some explanations–why Mrs. Frisby went Super-Saiyan, what the amulet was, the history of Justin and Jonathan and Jenner and so on. But no magic means no answers (and don’t look to the straight-to-video sequel).
There is a LARGE part of the text dedicated to the flashback/origin story of the rats. Maybe almost half the book. So much that you wonder why this isn’t the rats’ story. It’s like the author had the idea for two novels, but not enough story for one full novel.
It’s a nice little book, but I’ve got to say, the movie was better. I don’t think that’s any surprise. People remember The Godfather and Jaws and Die Hard as movies, not books. The movie ups all the drama, all the tension, up to eleven. While the book is a British “down-on-the-farm” story with cute little mice. Which is fine if you like that sort of thing. Just manage your expectations.
Final Girls by Riley Sager
(unfinished)
I was really looking forward to this one. Stephen King spoke highly of it. I love 80’s horror movies. I loved The Final Girls film. I liked “The Last Final Girl” but it was an indie book and didn’t take the premise as far as I would have liked IMO. And maybe this “Big Five” book would do it.
The story is about Quincy Carpenter (ugh, that name…), the survivor of a Friday the 13th-esque massacre. It’s 15 years later, and she’s living isolated, using the money from her media appearances. She’s dealing with her PTSD and survivor’s guilt. Other media has dubbed her a “final girl”, given the similarities to those horror movies, and the fact that two other women underwent similar situations years before.
I realized one-sixth of the way through that I wasn’t into it. For one thing, the plot still hadn’t started. It was still line-by-line detail of every thought going through the protagonist’s head. Cheesy quasi-poetic lines like “I feel her gaze on my cheek, as warm as the afternoon sun coming through the kitchen window. I get the uneasy sense she’s testing me somehow. That I’ll fail if I turn to meet her stare.” How can the plot get through text like that? The pacing is awful. I stopped when the first plot turn finally came–one of the final girls who’s been in reclusion for the past twenty years suddenly shows up at Quincy’s apartment and they… bake cookies.
The main character is terribly unlikable. She’s a shut-in, but she’s rich. She runs a foodie blog but doesn’t want attention. She’s a kleptomaniac which she blames on her trauma. She complains about having sex, but never says a word. She complains about her boyfriend–her boyfriend who’s kind and sensitive to her condition, but no, it’s not what she wants. He’s the disposable fiancee like in “You’ve Got Mail” and “Sleepless in Seattle”. She complains about taking Xanax. She’s always gasping. It reminded me of “The Girl on the Train“, which I also left unfinished. The most frustrating thing is that she’s doing it to herself. Sure, she’s a trauma survivor, but that can only hold so much weight. She’s always flagging “I’m a victim! I’m a victim!”, but she makes that misery happen.
I may not know what a “strong female protagonist” is, but I know a weak one when I see it. “I hate all these reporters on my back, but I sure love that they paid me.” The fact is, I wouldn’t want to spend one afternoon with Quincy. Why would I want to spend a whole book? Even her name evokes Quinn from “Daria” and the comparison’s not far off–whiny, entitled, shallow, and a bore. Is this supposed to be an “unreliable narrator” thing with the repressed memories?
Yes, a big part of the story is that she cannot remember anything about the murders she was in. It’s not that certain pieces are fuzzy, but that the whole thing is 100% blocked. She had this highly excruciating incident where all her senses were on fire, and it’s literally a convenient blank from beginning to end. In fact, if not for her “laser-guided amnesia” there would be no story. I hate it. We Were Liars did something similar thing, but way way better.
The “final girl” thing isn’t even a thing. It’s something that the “media” assigned given the nature of the massacres. In fact, there are only three women in this “club”. Their catastrophes are all spaced out over twenty years apart. And none are connected. It’s not a secret society or a title. Any relation to slasher films is thin at best. This is not a murderer copycatting Michael Myers or a crazed fan. In fact, one might almost say the author simply cribbed that idea to sell her story. There’s nothing supernatural about here. It’s just a suspense novel.
I should have been warned off by all the “Gone Girl” comparisons in the front matter blurbs. That’s a polarizing book and my feelings on it land on the side of “no thank you”. The reviews use them as praise, but they’re really warnings — if you didn’t like “Gone Girl”, you should not pick up this book. Now if you liked that book, fine. It’s meant for you. But it’s not meant for the cool chick with tattoos who likes horror movies. Watch “The Final Girls” instead for an emotionally earned climax and thank me later.
Artemis by Andy Weir
When this came out, everyone seemed to react with hate or disappointment. I don’t know why–I loved it. It’s not the same as “The Martian“. But if I wanted the same as “The Martian”, I’d read “The Martian”.
This one has less science and math. Maybe that’s what people were looking forward to. That was the “special something” that made “The Martian” stand out. But that means it’s easier to understand the plot. I expected that, without his physics to rely on, Andy Weir’s characters and plot would be flat and plodding. But that’s not the case at all. Weir proves he’s not a guy who wrote a lab paper in narrative form. He wrote a narrative using a lab paper.
So our story takes place on a city on the moon. One that’s not exactly as pristine and efficient as 2001: A Space Odyssey would have you believe. In fact, our main character is a smuggler. And she gets involved in a corporate sabotage kind of plot, but more like a heist caper. And she’s a PoC, she’s funny, she swears a lot. In fact, all the characters are dynamic and stand out. (Did Weir engineer this novel with the intention of it becoming a movie? Hm.) It’s intelligent and entertaining this side of Scalzi.
The math and science aren’t completely gone (I don’t think it would be Andy Weir if it wasn’t). It’s more about chemistry and economics, all of which result from living on the moon in a low-gravity, no oxygen environment. And welding. I hope you like welding, because there is a lot of talk about that.
