Book Musings: The Wonder Show

\ The Wonder Show

This book is The Night Circus without the magical realism or Water for Elephants without the tragedy. It's the story of a young girl, Portia, who runs away from an orphan's home to work for a freak show at a carnival. Portia has an interesting story, but what interested me more was the freak show and the history it implies. The book is set in 1939, and it shocked me for a bit that the freak show was around that late.

Part of me is immediately against the thought of people--most of whom would be considered to have disabilities today--being on display. I'm generally pretty anti-staring (see my post The Gaze) but in a way, I've done it. I've been a guinea pig for doctors. And the "freaks" in the novel joined the show by choice, unlike some of their historical counterparts. Additionally, there's a camaraderie between them that I associate with the disability groups I'm a part of. The people in the show are supporting themselves, choosing to exploit a condition they can't control. It's liberating in a way some people with disabilities don't get to experience these days--of course they also have more chances to get typical jobs.

Reading the book, I wondered if I'd be strong enough to do the same thing. (Again, I'm pretty anti-stare). You'd get to travel, though maybe not to very interesting places. I'm glad the idea of people with disabilities being display pieces is generally gone along with the Ugly Laws, but as for as historical perspectives go, The Wonder Show puts a positive spin on a potentially controversial subject. 

Book Musings: My Body Politic

My Body Politic: A Memoir

I'm a little bit obsessed with some of the observations in Simi Linton's disability studies book Claiming Disability, and was very eager to get into her memoir. Linton is a disability rights advocate who has been a wheelchair-user since she was paralyzed in the seventies. I honestly expected to have a little bit of difficulty empathizing with parts of her story, because she had a "normal" body before she was disabled. However, so many of her words resonated with me and my own journey, potentially because she became disabled in her mid-twenties, the age I am now, and faced similar issues of identity.

She claims her disability in a way I'm not sure I've learned to do yet. She disgardes the people-first language I've been trained to adapt, preferring not to shunt disability to the side. She writes of leaning to own being a "disabled woman" in a time when curb-cuts weren't standard. Some of her experiences were incredibly familiar, like when she first went into the Center for Independent Living office in the 1970s. "CIL isn't a place, it's a universe. Entering the door that summer in 1975 I discovered a disability underground." I felt the same way walking into the Boston CIL offices forty-odd years later. Like I'd found a place where I could be reminded that disability didn't make me a patient. It made me a person.


 Sometimes it's hard to remember that the disabled life can be as enriching as it is challenging--and as challenging as it is enriching--and Linton's memoir does that. It's an importnat book, I think, to remind disabled people that we're not alone and to remind able-bodied people that disabled people are complex people. The disability community is widespread, sometimes too widespread, and it's in places like the CIL, and Simi Linton's book, that I can remember how many other people are out there encountering the world in ways similar to the way I do.

Here's the trailer for the upcoming documentary based on the memoir:

Book Musings: Where She Went

Where She Went by Gayle Forman

I reviewed If I Stay back in December. I liked it. 

I read Where She Went last week. I LOVED it. It's much more character-driven than If I Stay, and I think this is where Gayle Forman shines. Adam's voice is spot-on and the way she builds tension in the scenes with Mia--by showing us his thoughts as opposed to his words-- makes the reader as desperate as he is to know what happened, to know where she went.

The flashbacks she used in If I Stay are back, and this time they fit much better into the narrative for me, possibly because they're filling in the book-to-book blanks, but also because they contrasts to the one-night structure of the book.

To me, this book was Catcher in the Rye if Holden had managed to find someone to listen to him. And, you know, with more music.  

The details of Adam's super stardom, Mia's recovery and stint at Julliard are all told very realistically. Their dialogue is great, but what truly sizzles is Adam's narration. The lyrics at the beginning and end of each chapter also give us insights into his character and their break-up, and I thought this was great. 

I listened to the audiobook as Gayle Forman recommended on her website, and I highly recommend it. The narrator's voice is great, and he really gets her words. 

A fabulous read.

Book Musings: Paper Towns

Paper Towns by John Geeen

Since I became a Nerdfighter it's been on my to-do list to read the only John Green book I hadn't yet read. I picked it up at the Harvard Coop the other day and read it that night. I loved it. 

There's so much I admire about Green's writing. His willingness and ability to show smart, self-aware characters. His use of 19th century poetry within the novel. The themes that are SO TRUE about the way we see others and ourselves. 

It made me feel better about my own writing, my quirky characters, and also gives me so much to strive for. The book made me laugh out loud in a "did that seriously just happen?!" way, and also turn pages dying to know what happens but also amazingly wary. The end--and almost everything in between--was perfect for the novel emotionally, thematically and circularity... (this last word does not fit).

Except. 

In two places the characters use the r-word (retarded). I am willing to concede all the ways in which it works with the story. There is a scene where Q, the main character, protests against the use of the word "faggot", so his (or his friends') casual use of the r-word shows the way we may protest something in one arena but ignore it in another, we are fallible and changeable. It was also used in the way teenagers use it. Added validity. It wasn't a gratuitous joke the way I've protested it in other books.

But I still don't think it was necessary. I hate censorship, will defend an author's right to use profanity until the Great White Wall of Cow (Paper Towns joke) comes home. But I wonder if there were other readers with disabilities who let out a little sigh of disappointment--in the way I did--while Green's LBGTQ and racially diverse readers cheered on other parts of the novel. 

Still, I loved Paper Towns and plan on rereading it. It's going on my shelf of favorite YA (re:on top of my printer).

Also, found this in my copy and it made me supremely happy:

Book Musings: The Splendor Falls

The Splendor Falls by Rosemary Clement-Moore

A friend gave this to me for my birthday back in February, and it was on my to-read pile for ages thanks to the Notre Dame de Paris re-read and the other three paperbacks I'd bought the week before my birthday. But I finally picked it up this week, and I'm so happy I did!

I'm not a huge fantasy fan, but the ghost-story, fantasy in this book reminded me in a vague way of the Betty Ren Wright books I read as a young teen, where the real story is the main character's life changes, and the ghosts are part of it. The story was woven very well, and took place on an old Alabama estate, which made this Southern transplant very happy. Cousin Paula--by the way--reminded me of both my mom (whose name is Paula) and her friend Miss Paula (or Big Mama)--not because they share the cousin's somewhat busybody attitude--but because at least Big Mama has the Higher the Hair the Closer to God down pat. 

There's a lot to love about this book. Sylvie, the MC, is a ballerina who can't dance. She broke her leg at her debut as the youngest soloist at Lincoln Center. My friend gave me the book for this reason. One of my MCs is a gymnast who has a similar accident. Sylvie's voice is spot on, and you really feel her pain. As much as I subscribe to the "don't cure the disability" school, I wanted her to be able to dance again as much as she did! 

The love interest is a Welshman, which sold me on him, and incredibly debonair and intelligent. All the characters are smart, and unabashedly so, which I loved. I've read reviews that want the first fifty pages or so consolidated, but I disagree. I love the careful way everything is developed, and how Sylvie gradually comes to terms with the changes in her life.

A must read if any of its many intriguing elements interests you!

Book Musings: Pink by Lili Wilkinson

Happy March everyone!

Starting off with a fabulous book!

Pink

I'm sure I heard about Pink through KTLiterary's blog, but I can't remember when. It has been on my too-read list essentially forever and then went on my to-read pile for a longer forever while I was line editing and couldn't focus on other people's books. I read it yesterday and it was worth the wait! 

Ava (yes like Ava Gardner) is a goth who wants to be a pink-wearing girl. As someone who straddles the line between both, I completely understand. And that's what this book does so well. It shows how everyone straddles the line, how you can feel out of place even among the misfits (Oh how well I know....) and how easy it is to manipulate the way you seem. Ava feels guilty not just for partying with the Pastels, but also for hanging out with a nerdy level of misfit her erudite girlfriend might not approve of. Poor girl isn't even sure if she likes girls, or boys, or both. And that's okay. Wilkinson's point is that it's all okay.

I need to hear that at twenty-two, let alone at seventeen. Other perks include Doctor Who references, theatre kids-- we even had a ginger stagehand in my theatre days whose name started with an "S"-- a character who's not afraid to be intelligent. All things I love in a book, and which reassure me that one day my quirky books might make it, too. 

A few nitpicks. I wasn't okay with the complete parental absence for a while, but it did get redeemed. And Ava's girlfriend... well, I'm not sure we saw enough of her "not a bitch" side, though we did see a great rendering of the way Ava morphed herself to fit into Chloe's world. And the description of her was perfect. 

Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous book says this pink loving misfit!

Book Musings: A Northern Light

A Northern Light

It's no secret that I worship at the alter of Jennifer Donnelly. I devoured the Tea Rose books this summer, stalked the Harvard Coop to get Revolution, and @reply her like a freako, but rereading A Northern Light for class made me realize WHY I do that. She's incredible. Under different hands, to be honest, Mattie's story might not be that interesting. She's a girl who wants to go to college, whoopdeedoo, and it's 1906, which fine complicates matters. But Mattie's voice is so strong, and Donnelly's description so vivid, that the reader is as invested in Mattie's seemingly-hopeless goal as she is. 

Now, I have to admit that while I love the tie to An American Tragedy, I think it could have been played down. It's sort of a calling card of Donnelly's YA, this second voice to give the protagonist a what-if, but I'm always more interested in the other story. I do understand that Grace's letters gave Mattie the realization of how bad things could be for women, and why she had to get out and find her way, but the way they were interwoven with her history made this decision seem more abrupt than it might have been were it chronological. 

I absolutely loved the integration of the plight of female authors. A Room of One's Own before its time, in a way, Mattie contemplates why many female authors never married, how they wouldn't have had time nor energy to write if they had. The book does an amazing job of depicting how much women worked for no recognition, and how desperate their situations could be.

I do wish there'd been a little more of the other side. The positives of motherhood and domesticity. Mattie's mother shows some of it, but she also dies of cancer before the story starts. The book is better than many feminist books at showing layers, but I wish more would emphasize that CHOICE is the important thing, and what you do with that choice is up to you. 

Still, I adore this book to pieces, and bought a new copy because I loaned mine out ages ago. It's one of those books I needed to have a physical copy of, which is quite the compliment. 

Book Musings: Follow my Leader

Follow my Leader

All right, we all know how anti-issues book I am. But here's the thing: I have a theory that issue books are necessary at times. They're the groundbreakers. The topics become acceptable so other authors can take them and run. And sometimes it's good to have a book that presents the facts of an issue in a way kids can understand.

Follow My Leader was one of those books I just discovered on the shelves as a kid. I wasn't looking for it in particular. I read it dozens of times. Yes, the character (Jimmy Carter!)'s biggest obstacle is that he becomes blind. The book deals with learning to walk with a cane, how he gets his guide dog etc. But it also deals with him learning to become one of the guys again, getting the best of bullies and going on to live his life like everyone else.

The author was blind for over half his life, and I think the veracity adds to the text. For me, as someone with low vision for whom blindness is a very real fear, it was a little comforting. I use some of the tricks Jimmy is taught when I don't have my glasses.

The book is a work of its time, first published in 1958 I'd call it groundbreaking. Jimmy remains mainstreamed after all, once he has gone through rehabilitation to learn to move through the world. It also fits the bill of four questions for disability-related books. The disability isn't cured, Jimmy does have other traits (he's a boy scout!), other struggles and I don't have many nitpick except for the dialogue and that's only because it's VERY 1958.

Definitely deserves a place on the disability bookshelf.

Incidentally, not THAT James Garfield. Also not THAT Jimmy Carter

Book Musings: Girl, Stolen

Girl, Stolen by April Henry

I wanted to love this book. The main character, Cheyenne is blind, but that's not her big problem. She's been kidnapped by a guy who just wanted her stepmother's car. Now THAT'S a problem. She is creative, and tries to solve her own problem, which is impressive because her problem is huge. All very, very good things for a book with a disabled protagonist. 

Unfortunately, I found two snags: one disability related, and one not. Henry falls into the trap a lot of authors fall into when dealing in disability. Preachiness. There's a paragraph explanation of Braille, and the unnecessary "every blind person had their own way of folding money to tell it apart". Does it matter? Can't we just know that Cheyenne does it?

Secondly, the tone of the book felt off. I think it had a middle-grade tone in a YA book. Cheyenne seems incredibly innocent and doesn't have many traits except blindness. Her exclamation that the narrator of the Harry Potter books "uses a different voice for each book!" seemed so childish to me. Maybe she's just sheltered, but I didn't like her innocence being associated with her disability.

The tone, and even the cover of the book, felt too light for the direness of her situation. Kidnapping, murder, child abuse, they all feel so out of place, but they're in the novel. A few twists were just too big for the stage that had been set.

Also some facts felt off to me, though I'm sure the author researched. Cheyenne had gone to rehabilitation when she became blind, which made sense, but when she talked about her guide-dog there was no mention of guide-dog training. That's an intense program, and since it says she couldn't get a dog until she was sixteen I wondered when she'd had the few months to go through it.

I didn't like that she wasn't blind from birth. It seemed unnecessary when it let in the "woe is me, I feel so different now" thoughts. Yes, she grows considerably and takes independent steps and maybe feels that way less. But there were other ways to have growth. Blindness was another layer to the kidnapping plot, fine, but giving a blind-from-birth heroine would give another demographic of teen someone to look up to, as well as educating non-disabled teens. The book seemed too focused on the latter.

But I would recommend it. The adventure is fun, and Cheyenne kicks butt. It just wasn't all I hoped for.

Book Musings: before i fall

before i fall

The trailer I thought I made up for If I Stay?

It was actually for this book. I've embedded it at the bottom of the post.

I loved this book. The voice was strong, and Sam, the narrator, really pulled me in. I think in some cases there were gratuitous details, but I also understand why they were there: to create a life for this girl. A life like any other life.

What I learned from it wasn't as much about craft as it was about me. Reviewers on GoodReads said they believed at the beginning of the boom Sam "deserved to die". Her actions, or the actions of her peers that she went along with, made it okay. They had no sympathy for her at the beginning.

But I did.

I was never, ever a popular girl. I was on the outskirts, not made fun of but not a part of it. I heard about the parties after they happened. But I knew what it was like to go along with a joke without analysing it. I attached myself to friends with strong personalities, went along with what they said without thinking. At some point, we've all found ourselves in a position to do something Sam did. Do we deserve to die for that? No. Does any seventeen-year-old? Not in my view.

Other thoughts, The Groundhog Day-esque repetition of Sam's DeathDay could have been mind-numbing, but it wasn't. Some times I wanted to see more thought behind her motives. The day she steals her mom's credit card, for instance, I understood her motives but would have liked them to be addressed a little more.

The best part of the book, for me, was that it showed how very, very different each day can be with a few tweaks. A few other choices, and a little more knowledge. Pay attention, it seems to say, to the point where Sam's mission matters less, and the message matters more.

Which is good, because in the end, someone has to die.

Book Musings: The Bermudez Triangle

The Bermudez Triangle

I read this nearly a month ago, but it stuck with me. Maybe because I wasn't a huge fan of 13 Little Blue Envelopes and it made me figure out why Maureen Johnson is such a big deal. But I think it's more because it did things I've had trouble with, masterfully.

Third-person, three main characters whose stories work like a double helix, separating and coming back together to keep the story moving. The three protagonists were individuals with whom I could connect to, even though presenting characters like that in third-person, and with three of them, can be very difficult.

The subject matter of the book could have made it preachy. Sexuality in teenagers often leads to books all about how it is OKAY to be DIFFERENT and this is SHINY and HAPPY. In the Bermudez triangle, it's not. There are complications, but also side-stories. Life goes on, even though the characters are discovering who they are sexually as well as in general.

Johnson also created a believable world for her characters to live in. Their families were fleshed out, and locations described well. The thing was, while the secondary characters were amusing, sometimes they didn't seem to have a purpose. I'm of two minds about this, because while Nina's roommate in her summer program was funny, for instance, she didn't add to the plot. I think if characteristics of these people had been in the more major characters the novel might have been richer. But other details like the ones pertaining to the Irish-themed restaurant Mel and Avery work at were dead-on relatable. Maybe I'm just picky about character!

The wholeness of this book is what resonated with me, I think. The interwoven plots and themes. I learned a lot from the way Johnson managed the time span, and the multiple interesting characters.

Book Musings: If I Stay by Gayle Forman

If I Stay

If I Stay has gotten some press recently, since the sequel Where She Went comes out in April. I've seen the book rec'ed a few places because of that. Also, I saw a book trailer that I now think I must have dreamed, because I can't find it anywhere, and it's not one of the two trailers on the book's website.

But that's neither here nor there. Book Musings are about learning about craft from the book, not me hallucinating book trailers. So: the book is a Lovely Bones-esque look at the day after Mia's family is killed in a car accident. She is unconscious, and also watching her body from outside, trying to decided whether or not to stay. Unique, definitely.

One of the reviews on Goodreads points out that Forman uses speech verbs such as "volleyed". I noticed that, in the beginning, but since I sometimes wonder if we do words a disservice by eliminating dialogue tags from our repertoires I disagree. Sparingly, maybe it is okay to remind us that these words exist somewhere other than the bowels of the OED.

Onward: I liked Mia, and was heartbroken for her. Her romance with Adam was sweet, and credible. Her family was caring, and one really got what she was losing with their deaths. But... well... to me the beginning of the story wasn't as jarring until after I had the backstory. After I understood her family, I cared about their deaths. And I started to care about Mia later in the book. I almost think the novel could have started further back, and dealt with the aftermath as well. I'm excited about the sequel for that reason. I want to see what Mia's life is like without her family, not just what it might be like.

I didn't feel as touched by the book as perhaps I should. It's short-- my library eBook was only 118 pages-- and I've read books sort of like it. The Lovely Bones and Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevon spring to mind. The concept isn't what kept me going, it's the characters. The rock 'n' roll parents, Mia with her cello. I think it could have been a wonderful character driven story, but I also liked that these characters existed within a high concept plot.

The tense shifts interested me as well, and they were done well. I did think it could have been more fluid if ghost-Mia was drawn into the flashbacks somehow, for some reason or to learn some lesson. We're never quite sure why she gets to sit by her body like that, and I'd like to know. Perhaps it's a thread that was cut to make the book more streamline-unnecessary in my opinion.

A reviewer also commented that Forman didn't get the voices of teenagers, and I totally disagree there. Teens are all different, and I loved Mia's voice. I loved the way music was integrated with the story, and it gives me confidence for my own music-saturated WIP.

I learned the importance of fleshed-out secondary characters from this, and the ways in which a few rules of structure can be broken to fashion a very unique piece. I'd definitely recommend the book.

Book Musings: Anna and the French Kiss

Anna and the French Kiss

You guys. I've had it on my too-read list for at least six months, since KT Literary is Stephanie Perkins's agent, and she talked about it over the summer. Then I started following Stephanie on Twitter, read her website and knew I would totally love her book.

I tracked it down in NYC, and read it yesterday. I was almost afraid to, because I have such a friends crush on the author, and what if I didn't like the book! But how could that be when it has such a pretty cover? And is about France! And has a British-American love interest.

Well obviously it couldn't. I LOVED the book. They talked about the "Jingle bells, Batman smells", song for the love of Mike. But this blog is about learning about craft from books. So I'mma try and do that.

The one issue I had at first was understanding that the romance was the plot of this book. I'm not used to that. Obviously, books have romance, but I had to internalize the fact that Anna's journey WAS her relationship with Etienne, and other things were side-plot, including her adjustment to her French boarding school.

I literally opened this book, read two pages, and decided to rewrite my WIP in the first person. Something about Anna's voice, the way we get into her head immediately, made me see that that would work best for my characters too. She's very different from them, but I think they'd get along, actually. Strong opinions, strong voice, and a disdain for Nicholas-Sparksesque people? My MC would LOVE that. Along with Anna's love of Paris, in the end. Right.... side track.

I truly felt for her when she left school for Christmas. That feeling of alienation when things have changed, your little brother has sort-of forgotten you, your family explodes....? I've been there. The whole period was very raw, and I liked the way Anna realized her love for Etienne through it.

The plot definitely kept me turning pages, and most of the characters had depth. There were people I would have lied to have seen fleshed-out, and obvious nod to the coming-up companion novel, but in general it was fabulous! The setting has been gushed about in blogs from here to everywhere, so I won't go into that. I will go into how real it all felt. It's dialogue driven, but in a good way.

Good, good, good, good.


I'm sure I learned more, but I can't concentrate on that. Too busy trying to figure out how best to get to Paris in the near future.

Book Musings: Going Bovine

Going Bovine

My first Book Musing on a book I read for class. It's cheating a little, because I wasn't reading it for craft, but I was so aware with every page, and so desperate to share my thoughts that you guys are the lucky recipients.

In the book SPOILERS teenage Cameron is dying of Mad Cow Disease. In a hospital bed, he is also on a quest to save the world. Little elements from his life pre-MCD appear in his delusions, creating a powerful story about what it means to live.

I think that at any other time in my life I would not have liked this book. There are parts where it is in INCREDIBLY cracky, and it ends as a dream-- of sorts-- both things I hate. But maybe it's my current resolve to embrace my nerdiness, dude guys she invented a version of Star Wars to allude to. The social satire is so biting and well imagined. I'm a sucker for sense in the random, and the little details connect so well in this book. Cameron's fantasy world works with what we see of his real world.

Reviews on Goodreads say Cameron is unlikeable. That this is a case of making us empathise with a difficult character. It wasn't for me. I liked Cameron. Hell, I dated a Cameron for a hot second in 2005. I get the sarcastic, overlooked kid who doesn't like Don Quixote. His opinions are presented with every thought, but you can also see his vulnerability. In the beginning, when he comes over to speak to his sister's group of popular friends, there's a tiny bit of longing in the conversation, an attempt to belong that he hides even from himself. Who hasn't been there?

The fact that his fantasy is a fantasy didn't make me hate the book, because the reader can tell. Cameron's floating in and out of his hospital bed, and while he thinks that that is the dream, the reader can know otherwise. Then they can lie to themselves, as he's doing. You root for him, even though you know mad cow is fatal. With each page turn I hoped Libba Bray had found a cure that medical science hadn't to give this smart-ass kid a chance to live outside of his own head.

There are unanswered questions. Did any of Cameron's "living" have basis in fact? Did Gonzo even exist? If he did, was he aware that in some way he was Cam's best and last friend? No knowing. That should kill me. I hate loose ends, guys. But in Going Bovine there aren't answers. There's only an incentive to live, because it could be over for you at any turn, even if you're a kid living in the shadows.

Book Musing: Five Flavors of Dumb (disability)

Five Flavors of Dumb

For the first few chapters I though this book was going to be yet another one that spends too much time talking about the MC's disability. Not only is she Deaf, but her name is Piper, and her little sister Grace has just received a Cohclear implant which her parents paid for out of her college fund. The college of choice is Gallaudet, the all-Deaf college on the east coast. Essentially, it was let's play the how many-deaf-issues-we-can-put-in-one-book-game. She becomes the manager of a local band, in a way that is somewhat contrived, and her father doesn't understand her. I found the language to be unbelievable and overly-sophisticated.

It was not winning the "would this book be interesting if Piper was not disabled?" award. And then...

Somewhere about halfway through the book I fell in love with it. Piper became a real character instead of a mouthpiece. Her brother was endearing, her friends could have been fleshed out more, but I liked them. Sure the IM conversations between her and her friend who moved away were still needless rehashings of what has already happened, but otherwise the novel was very much improved. I loved her sweet romance with Ed, and her parents gradual understanding of her. Also she dyed her hair pink. What's not to love?

Definitely a good book. Initially disability-heavy, but after a while it holds its own

Book Musings: Jane

Jane

I loved this book. Loved it more than any book since Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly. I devoured it and was sad when it was over. But why?

Well, it is a revision of Jane Eyre, which I adore, and it does a better job with the portion of Jane Eyre I hate (her time after leaving Rochester) but there was something more to it.

The characters are incredibly compelling. Jane makes sense. Her reasons for staying in the shadows and for falling so quickly in love with Rothburn make sense-- a child who had so little attention would be thrilled by it when she got it. Maddy, the book's version of Adele, is a cute, realistic child. The secondary characters are pretty well painted.

Also the world of the rock star is well-conveyed. Of course, having read Jane Eyre, when Jane is pulled into it I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Still, I thought it was wonderfully well done. I liked that Jane stayed true to character, and was very focused on keeping the family together after she married Rothburn. This is why I was a tad disappointed in the ending. I understood while the epilogue feeling of Jane Eyre's ending was cut, but I would have liked to see Maddy again.

Do you need to have read Jane Eyre to appreciate this book? The voice is much closer to that book than to your typical YA-- and so well painted. I would have loved it before I read Jane Eyre and there must be teenagers like me out there. In a literary theory POV, you miss a layer having not read it. Still, I'd recommend the book either way.

Book Musings: 13 Little Blue Envelopes

13 Little Blue Envelopes

All I can think about when I hear this author's name is RENT. The fact that there is a (deceased) character in the book who is an artist living in New York does not help. At all.

Anyway. This is a pretty good book. The main character is sent on a quest by her late aunt to follow a series of instructions in envelopes around Europe. The idea is unique, and her adventures seemed real to me, a traveler. But the main character, Ginny, was not a character who could stand on her own. She was incredibly passive, and her voice in her (useless) letters to her best friend felt incredibly faked.

She's also a very whiny traveller, and I don't think she saw the beauty at all which infuriated me. Yes, cities begin to look a like after a while. But they're also beautifully different. This book wouldn't encourage anyone to travel, and that makes me sad. Not to mention there are a few (but applaudably not many) stereotypes: such as the lusty Italian.

Most of the secondary characters were well drawn.

What could have made it better? I think first-person. The third person was unnecessary since the book is told only through Ginny's point-of-view. Getting more into her head. Also giving her another motivation, except for following the aunt and A Boy. She has no personality, no interests. We need more about her. Plot AND character.

Book Musings: The Nature of Jade

The Nature of Jade

The back of this book asserts that it will appeal to fans of Sarah Dessen and I can't argue with that. There are many similar qualities to the book. Well-rounded protagonist, love interest, unique situations, dealing with family issues. However, I don't feel that the author is as adept as Sarah Dessen.

My problem with the book lies in one sentence: show don't tell. It's the bane of every writer's existence, and I understand being a little verbose, but it got to the point in the first hundred pages where I longed for the author to SHOW me something. Someone on Goodreads argued that in actuality the first hundred pages could be cut and woven in elsewhere, and I think I agree.

Also, there's a number of characters that serve no point. Jade's friends exist to just be Jade's friends, with little point in the narrative. They could have been consolidated to make a few really great secondary characters. Additionally, the author uses what I am coming to see as a trope in YA literature. Jade has a psychologist to whom she tells things, just as Valerie did in The Hate List. Except, with Jade it's unnecessary for the plot, because she tells the reader everything (and I mean everything) anyway. I think there are too many agendas that the author is pushing, too much that Jade observes about people said outright.

I did like the character of her little brother, and found their relationship pretty believable. The story and subplots were all pretty unique, and the ending was mostly satisfying-- if a little drawn out. I do feel that the thread of Jade's panic disorder could have made it much more interesting. Jade just telling Sebastian (the boy) about it could have been done so much better if he'd encountered her having an attack, or something. Up the stakes, as annastan tells us.

Book Musings: The Carbon Diaries

The Carbon Diaries 2015

I once picked this book up and read the first twenty-odd pages at the Barnes and Noble at home. I didn't buy it then, but when I saw it on display at the Harvard Co-Op last week when I was spending all my money on books I took a second look.

The main character Laura-- whose name I just had to look up and I finished this yesterday-- lives in London (well just outside) in 2015 when the world is destroying itself and Carbon is on rationing. She's supposedly a hard-core girl, in a punk band, just trying to get by.

I couldn't connect connect with her at all. She was very much a character "trying to be a teenager" in a cautionary tale. She's whiny, and I think we're not in her head enough, even though it's a diary. She rarely feels, making it hard to understand her. The world felt too far from ours to exist only five years (six at time of publication) hence. Her romance at the end felt too sudden, too "oops, need to give her a new boy" but what I think killed it for me the most was how absolutely absurd her parents were.

There are negligent parents all over YA. In a story dealing with the damage wrought on the present by past generations, yes there will be a little bashing of that generation. But her parents-- all the adults-- were so outlandish that I had trouble accepting the rest of the world because of them. They raised pigs, joined cults, drove fruit wagons. They were completely oblivious to both of their daughters until the very end of the novel and had pointless traits-- the mom was from New York but only to give Laura cousin there who she could write too and see how much better off they had it and explain Briticisms.

The ephemera in the novel is also printed with incredibly small text, and made the read less complete for me because I couldn't make it out. It was about two hundred pages too long too, a danger of diary books.

The idea is good, but the follow through? Not so much.

Book Musings: The Hate List

Hate List

Initially I had difficulty relating to Valerie's character, not because she was unsympathetic or unrecognisable, but because she existed in relation to her boyfriend, Nick, who had been the perpetrator of a school shooting. She was only real in relation to the crime, it seemed, and it took me a long time to be able to picture her physically or as a person. In a way, this was a deliberate choice by Brown, because Valerie doesn't know who she is initially either.

It took a long time for her to become a character independent of her plot-- this is interesting, because at the end Brown notes that Valerie came to her fully-formed. If I didn't have this knowledge, I would have imagined she wanted to tell the story of a shooting and crafted Valerie because of this, not the other way around.

The plot is structured non-chronologically, starting with Valerie's return to school and then flashing back to the time during and surrounding the shooting. I understand her reason for doing this, because it's about aftermath, not before...math. However, I think this choice should have been committed to. There's enough backstory in the text not-in-flashback that it could have stood on its own. That, or start with the shooting-- conventional, yes, but a good hook. That would, of course, change the tone of the book, so I think the first choice is the best.

This book was FILLED with secondary-characters. Some of them were unnecessary. The art teacher seemed to have very little role when Valerie was discovering art by herself. I could never picture Valerie's mother fully, though she did have an interesting character. I needed more physical markers. Her brother's defection and anger at her is never dealt with, and is jarring when he had been so supportive. In general, the cast was well-fleshed out, but could have used tightening. Characters easily could have been combined.

Nick was a great character--though perhaps Shakespeare is a cliched love for a troubled teen-- he was well-rounded and the least likely character to be well-rounded in a book about a shooting. The final scenes made me cry, with one poignant detail about a boy being shot after he had just met his baby brother in the hospital. I don't know why it triggered tears; the dark irony, maybe, but I admire this book for that moment. I was definitely invested in Valerie, but I'm not sure she could exist outside the novel. It's like a pH test. Maybe she scores a 6, but she's not perfectly balanced.