"The World We Make" by N.K. Jemisin

In my review of The City We Became, the first book in this duology, I noted my mixed feelings about Jemisin centering her newest series as a "love letter to New York." And I use that phrase with all the cliched baggage it carries with it. After all, New York City is special, and the people there know it, but for all the rest of us... it can get a little much. 

Jemisin's unwavering adulation of New York leads to similar problems in The City We Become, where the main villain is trying to destroy NYC by drumming up outside hatred for the city. This makes the conflict explicitly NYC vs. everyone else, where NYC is a beautiful mix of confident, take-no-crap cultures, ethnicities, and races and "everyone else" is ignorant racists. Don't get me wrong--white suburbanites especially deserve most of the criticism they get, but in this novel the dichotomy seems overly straightforward, and even blind to the many cultures and beliefs that exist outside NYC. 

Jemisin noted that this series was originally intended to be a trilogy that she condensed into a duology, and I think that truncated nature shows, particularly in the book's resolution. Though I finished the book just a couple weeks ago, I have entirely forgot the ending, but I'm pretty sure New York won. (just kidding, I know it did)

Still, like with her previous book, Jemisin always writes fun and engaging prose, even though almost everything the characters said annoyed me. The relationship between Manhattan and Neek (the avatar of NYC as a whole) was more sweet than I expected.

"The Dangers of Smoking in Bed" by Mariana Enriquez

It's easy to remember many of the classic campfire scary stories told in my youth: the woman driving alone on a rainy night, unaware of the killer in her backseat; the babysitter who calls caller ID after receiving crank calls, only to learn the calls were coming from inside the house! Last summer, I kept a group of kids enthralled as I recounted the "tale of the bloody finger" over a crackling fire. We love scary stories, ghost stories, stories that end unsettled, as if the lack of equilibrium in the world could catch us too. But there's also a sense that these are stories for children. Adult scares come in the form of medical tragedies, unexpected expenses, or the inevitable ennui of middle age.

It's a surprise, then, to read The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, which I'd call--with no criticism intended--a collection of scary stories. Sure, they're literary scary stories, but they're campfire tales all the same, full of ghosts and possessions and creepy children. Shortened and simplified for an oral audience, the stories--particularly ones like "The Lookout," about a vengeful ghost--would be ideal for a group gathered around the fire on a dark fall night.

Because the stories have so much in common with traditional ghost stories--a normal world, slowly going askew; characters succumbing to the terror that lurks--it was almost hard for me to read them as literature. Traditional ghost stories often have a vaguely moralistic lesson (don't ignore the man at the gas station because he looks creepy! he's warning you about the murderer in the backseat!), but Enriquez has no such didactic purposes. Her characters are rarely at fault themselves. Instead, they're victims of family history and choices or the society in which they live. Few stories are overtly political, though the final one, "Back When We Talked to the Dead," where a teenage girl suffers because she's the only one in a group not to personally know someone who's been "disappeared" (presumably by the government), suggests there's plenty of evil that comes from non-supernatural causes.

Perhaps part of the stories' appeal, at least for an American reader, is the Argentinian setting, itself similar but just slightly "askew" from America. Smoking, as in the title, is present in many stories, an ashy haze that seems appropriate for the subject matter. But because smoking is far more common in Argentina (as it also is in Europe) than in America, this too feels slightly off, another element that situates the stories of the precipice of unreal. 

Several stories include variations of vicious female masturbation, done for obsessiveness or other macabre ends, but never for pleasure. This appears most grotesquely in "Where Are You, Dear Heart?" about a woman with a heartbeat fetish--or maybe in "Meat," about teenage girls who consume their rock star idol. In fact, so many stories revolve around teenage girls or female sexuality that we're reminded how easily these two things can be turned to horror in our society, something to be feared.

Ultimately, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed is literary ghost stories for adults. And that's not a bad thing.

"The City We Became" by N.K. Jemisin

At this point, I've read--and adored--quite a few of Jemisin's novels. The City We Became stands out from her other entries by being the first to take place in our world, rather than a fantasy environment. Sure, there's still magic and bizarre creatures and people with powers, but it takes place in New York City! Our New York City!

It's easy to understand such a shift. After all, if there's an American city that's been endlessly mythologized, it's NYC. Heck, there's a whole genre of "love letter to New York" movies, TV shows, and books. Whether you're a born-and-raised city dweller or a farmer in Montana, NYC means something to you. Jemisin plays with that mythology and meaning by taking it literally: in The City We Became, NYC and its boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island) are embodied by human avatars who are endowed with powers drawn from their boroughs' characteristics.

However, by setting her novel in the real New York, Jemisin creates a relationship with the reader that is different from her other works. In the Broken Earth trilogy, for example, readers are on equal footing in their confusion over orogenes' powers, but The City We Became relies on readers' knowledge of--and adoration for--New York to work.

This is where I hit my first stumbling block. There are people for whom New York is everything: the apex of America, the place where it happens. And plenty of those people aren't New Yorkers (and perhaps have never even been to New York). Then there are those for whom cities have little appeal. Though I've been to New York a handful of times and I get that it's a big city and has a lot of cool stuff... meh? Don't get me wrong, the suburb in which I live is dull and lifeless, but I still don't feel the pull of the city. Or know much about it (I'll admit those could be related).

I think that buy-in is key to really loving The City We Became, which relies on the insane and joyful jumble and mismatch of people and ideas that is New York to craft its characters and conflicts. For those of us who don't love it, the New York adulation can become a bit eye-rolling.

In depicting the real New York, Jemisin also gets to play with another real issue: racism (also sexism, homophobia, and ageism, though racism is the more dominant theme). Her books always feature characters of color and address issues of discrimination, but here she gets to address American racism explicitly. There's some good and bad there. On the one hand, some of the discussions have a feel of "Racism 101," lacking much nuance or depth. Because the Big Bad uses white racists to attack, the racism can feel heavy-handed and obvious (Aislyn's father feels especially caricatured), which can obscure the less obvious--but more pervasive--racism today. Still, it's rare to see racism discussed in fantasy settings, so Jemisin's focus feels relevant and warranted.

I also thought the characterization if Aislyn (Staten Island) was especially good. She's a racist xenophobe, but you can understand why she's that way and how her experiences have confirmed her prejudice--and just how challenging it is to undo. The Woman in White (the Big Bad) is especially good at manipulating that prejudice. The focus on "niceness"--Aislyn assumes that because the Woman in White is "nice" and looks like her, she can't be bad--was an especially effective point.

Ultimately, though, The City We Became is a fantasy action novel. And here's the thing. I was annoyed by the book. Rolled my eyes at all the mentions of just how awesome New York is. Thought the characters were cheesy, over played. Yet I kept returning to it whenever I had a minute. Flew through its 500 pages. And even though I knew it would end with a hand-holding mantra of "We are New York!", I still welled up.

Miscellaneous:

• I realized just how rarely we see older heroes in fantasy settings. Though we're frequently reminded that Bronca (the Bronx) is in her 60's (maybe even 70's), I wanted to miscast her as a younger woman. Even Brooklyn is older (50's?) than your typical heroes.
• The boroughs rely on "constructs"--essential New York things--to get their powers (e.g. the first time Manhattan gets his power it's through a credit card). In the final fight, Manhattan turns into King Kong. I was so tickled.
• There's a lot going on with multiple universes/layers of existence, all of which speaks to the Woman in White's motivation. It works to add layers (the Woman in White isn't inherently evil), but it's also confusing and perhaps works against some of the metaphors and symbolism Jemisin's crafted to challenge racism.
• Addendum: There's some interesting stuff suggesting that gentrification (worldwide) is a result of the Woman in White's attempts to weaken and infiltrate the cities to be born. Need to think more on it
• Manhattan's roommate-to-be, Bel, plays an important role in the early chapters and is then completely forgotten. I wonder if he'll return in a more significant way.

"Slade House" by David Mitchell

By my quick count, this is my fifth David Mitchell book. It's a bit surprising I've read this many since I'm often not especially attached to particular authors. But Mitchell's always combined strong storytelling with unusual structure and character voice, which is right up my alley, so it's easy to return to his novels.

Slade House is perhaps one of his weaker offerings, though that doesn't mean the novel was not enjoyable. I didn't realize going in (and perhaps that was intentional) that the book is a sort-of companion book for Bone Clocks, which I read last year. At first I just though Mitchell was just making sly "aren't you an observant reader?" kind of references to his earlier work until a major character from Bone Clocks reappears for the last chapter.

Slade House is a somewhat typical haunted house story, with the only real twist being the reappearance of the Bone Clocks character. That it treads somewhat familiar ground isn't inherently a fault, however, as Mitchell still makes the evil villains and their entrapment menacing. Like with other books, Mitchell relies on changing narrators over a period of years, including a young autistic boy, an arrogant police detective, and a smitten college girl. Though the characters are distinct, the chapters don't feel especially different (unlike, say, in Cloud Atlas), mostly because the characters similarly fall for the villains' trap each time.

However, it was a quick and fun enough read for David Mitchell fans.

"Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne

Any avid Harry Potter fan has a difficult decision to make with the newest entry in the Harry Potter Universe: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a play that follows Harry’s son Albus and is based on a story idea by J.K. Rowling but written by another man.

On the one hand, those fans--myself certainly included--love Harry Potter and are eager to re-enter the universe through whatever means are available. On the other hand, there’s something a little wrong in doing so via another person’s creative talent and in a means so divergent from the original seven-book series.

A Facebook friend described the book as “good fan fiction,” and while I think the description is pretty apt, I don’t think it’s the writing itself that’s problematic. More distracting is the play format and the incredibly short and jarring scene structure.

The play is divided into over 50 scenes, each act having nearly twenty scenes. That means that just as you adjust to the setting and the characters’ style and tone, you’re thrown out of that scene and into a completely new scene with a new setting and new characters. These shifts would probably be less an issue if you saw the play live, since visual cues of setting and characters would make it easy to follow. But as a reading experience it’s incredibly frustrating. Just as you feel at home with good ol’ adult Harry, Ron, and Hermione, you’re tossed to Albus or a flashback.

Part of what made reading the Harry Potter series great was getting into the “zone,” fully immersing yourself in the magical world of Hogwarts, forgetting to eat lunch because you’re too entranced in Harry’s world. It’s unlikely anyone would have the same experience reading Cursed Child. You’re painfully aware of your presence in the play’s text at every moment, so the world never becomes real.

And though this may be an meaningless quibble, I was also bothered by the writers’ decision to completely ignore traditional play structure. Most plays have a few acts, a few scenes, and a few straightforward settings. In crafting the play instead like a fast-paced short movie, the writers have ensured that most theaters could never perform it (the breakneck speed and special effects would require an enormous budget and technical staff), and they’ve ignored what often makes plays so enjoyable. We can see movies any time, but we choose to see theater because it offers a more intimate glimpse into human emotion and experience. While there are plenty of heart-warming moments in Cursed Child, the intimacy of theater feels lacking.

Those significant issues aside, there are some joys in this newest Harry Potter story. Scorpio, Draco’s son, has the most memorable journey and the most memorable lines. He’s fully his own character, and his growth is more interesting than that of Albus. Harry and Albus’ relationship, though the focus of the play, is a little less interesting, particularly because Harry’s flip-flop between over-reacting dad and sympathetic dad comes too quickly.

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny are happily all recognizable as their younger selves (maybe even too much so?), though the jokes about each other’s behavior perhaps seem a bit more stale when made by middle-aged adults.

In the end, Cursed Child is fairly un-memorable. Though I read it just a few weeks ago, I could probably only give you the barest plot outline. But, if I had the opportunity to see the stage version, I’d jump on the opportunity.

"The Rest of Us Just Live Here" by Patrick Ness

First caveat: I love (love love love) Ness' Chaos Walking trilogy. It is my favorite YA series of all time. I would love to reread it, but I'd cry too much.

See my reviews:
- The Knife of Never Letting Go
- The Ask and the Answer
- Monsters of Men

Moving on...

Some friends, my husband, and I recently finished watching the entire run of the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's a series I really enjoyed as a teenager, and it was even more fun to re-watch it. Occasionally, while Buffy and the "Scooby gang" were still in high school, we wondered about what parent would enroll their child at Sunnydale High School. I mean, students were dying constantly. And the school was almost always under attack by some demon or another. And where were the police in all this? Did they just completely ignore it so a 16-year-old with a stake could take care of it?

Clearly Ness wondered the same, and thus The Rest of Us Just Live Here was born. The Rest is about the peripheral students in all those YA fantasy series--what happens to them while the Chosen One is battling the Big Evil?

It's a fun idea, but one that doesn't quite work out. Though The Rest is set up as a satire of the YA fantasy genre, the satire is so gentle (even when it appears, which isn't often), that the cliches of the genre are hardly criticized. Sure, there's a side comment about the "Chosen Ones" never using the Internet or observations about how the police never believe the students' stories about strange things happening (even though vampires destroyed the town, like, a month ago!)... But, otherwise, Ness is more interested in his own characters' stories. Which is fine, but it means the whole premise feels somewhat insignificant.

What Ness is interesting in exploring is his protagonist Mikey and his three best friends: his sister Mel, his friend Jared, and his unrequited crush Henna. But unlike in Ness' other books, these characters felt cliche (ironic, considering the "satire" of the novel). Mikey is OCD and too afraid to tell Henna his feelings; his dad's an alcoholic; his state senator-mom is too self-involved to notice him. Mel is a recovering anorexic. Jared is gay but not really out. Henna is constrained but her strict parents. All of these can be real teenage issues, but they felt excessively heaped on. Even Mikey's "I'm cool with my BFF being gay" attitude--something I'm completely thrilled to see--just felt like a repeat (but perhaps that's because I read and loved Grasshopper Jungle, which had a similar relationship). There's some nice commentary about the nature of friendships, and I felt Ness did an especially good job of capturing the mindset of someone with severe anxiety, but otherwise it was too neat and too expected. The kids were too good to each other; everything worked out too well in the end.

It was a quick read, but it probably won't read as fresh to people who've read a good deal of YA fantasy.

[A side note--everyone refers to the "kids who are always involved in the strange stuff happening" as "indie kids," (they all have uber-hipster names like Finn and Satchel), but the term always felt wrong to me, so it became distracting.]

"The Magician's Land" by Lev Grossman

My husband and I are at odds about Grossman's The Magicians trilogy. I love the subversive fantasy because it's an unexpected take on a genre I love. My husband hates it because it's dark and refuses to create heroes, villains, and traditional victories. Well, he might just complain it's bone-crushingly depressing, and that's true too--at least for the first two books.

So maybe my husband would find he actually likes The Magician's Land, whereas, for me, the final book in the trilogy is the least interesting. The story feels more traditional, and the satire of the worlds of Harry Potter and Narnia, which made the first two books so fresh, feels more stale this time. And there's finally that happy ending, though I won't complain about that--the characters deserve that much.

The Magician's Land focuses on a much older Quentin. Gone is the whiny college student of the first novel. This Quentin is in his 30s and exiled from his beloved Fillory. He grew and became a better man in the last book, but his sacrifices haven't made his life better. Instead, he's getting involved in a shady magical heist. And this is where I first began to lose interest. The heist set-up is out of Ocean's Eleven (okay, a less cool Ocean's Eleven), but it just didn't grab my interest. Maybe that's because because there is no real stake in it for Quentin. He wants the money payout, but his reasons seem nebulous.

And that nebulous-ness continues throughout the book. Quentin's father dies, and the death affects him significantly, but he never really had a relationship with his father to begin with. And then--out of nowhere to me--he becomes devoted to finding Alice, his girlfriend from the first book who died and became a niffin (a kind of rage demon). Redeeming Alice eventually becomes his singular purpose, but I felt like reference to Alice had been almost wholly missing from book two. [Tangent: Maybe I'm wrong here. My memories of the plots of the first two books are very hazy. I tried to find complete summaries online, but I could only find teaser synopses. You definitely need a good understanding of the established characters to follow The Magician's Land appropriately.]

The book also follows Janet and Josh, who are currently ruling Fillory, and their quest to save Fillory--which is dying, of course--feels more like the previous two books.

Though I've complained about much of The Magician's Land, I can understand that a change from the other two books is necessary in order to reflect the change in Quentin. Much of the book focuses on his maturity, and while he (and the book) still acknowledge that the world sucks, there's no longer a sense of hopelessness. Even still, there was a lack of "realness" to the book and an over-abundance of exposition that makes it the weakest Grossman's three novels.

"Vampires in the Lemon Grove" by Karen Russell

Vampires in the Lemon Grove is just up my alley: a collection of weird, off-beat sci-fi/fantasy short stories. All are creepy because they combine our world with something other-worldly and thus ask how we would respond in such a situation.

My favorite was "Reeling for an Empire," in which young Japanese girls are sold as factory workers, only to be given a drink which turns them into human silkworms. They are confined in a factory where they have no choice but to pull out their thread each day or die. I think this one appealed to me because of the way it reflects our fear of our bodies not being our own, something I can relate to as I'm currently pregnant. And though my pregnancy is much desired and wanted--whereas the girls' condition is not--I can still understand the frustration of not feeling in charge of your own physical self, of feeling your body as something different from "you" for the first time.

But, truthfully, all the stories were fabulous, with the last two, 'The New Veterans" and "The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis," especially affecting. "The New Veterans" takes the idea of psychosomatic pain to a new level as a massage therapist works to literally knead out a soldier's war trauma from his tattoo. The last piece makes scarecrows the most terrifying I've ever seen them.

"The Barn at the End of Our Term" is the most absurd. It takes place on a horse farm, where half the horses are embodied by former U.S. presidents. It answers a great question no one has ever asked: what would it be like to get a bunch of our former presidents together and force them to live in horses' bodies?

Vampires in the Lemon Grove is the perfect kind of new horror. It's terrifying and strange without ever going too far beyond the understandable.

"Winter's Tale" by Mark Helprin

Things to know before choosing to read Winter's Tale:
1. It's 750 pages long.
2. It's nothing like the movie trailer. It's nothing like the opposite of the movie trailer.
3. It's not fantasy--maybe magical realism, in its least attractive sense.
4. Probably not worth it.

So, my history in choosing to read and finish this book: Like most people, I'd seen the trailer for the movie version with Colin Farrel and Sybil from Downton Abbey. The movie looked terrible--another cheesy period love story. But, then, I read a post by Neil Gaiman (whom I admire) where he bemoaned the romance-focused trailer and highly praised the actual movie and the novel on which the film is based. I still didn't want to see the movie, but Gaiman said I'd like the story if I liked fantasy, so I reserved the book.

Then the book arrived. And it was enormous. And I generally avoid enormous books because I feel that life is too short not to read as widely as I can. Nonetheless, I decided to feel out the Amazon.com reviews--which were largely terrible. But, those terrible reviews seemed to all come from book club members whose club chose the book based on the trailer. Feeling all superior and high-minded, I took their criticism as assurance that I (of quality literary tastes), would love the novel.

Where to begin? Well, if you did choose Winter's Tale for the movie trailer, you'll certainly be disappointed. The "romance" between Peter Lake and Beverly Penn last perhaps fifty pages early on. Then Beverly dies and is gone. Peter Lake jumps back in at the end. And those fifty pages are pretty dull in terms of emotional romance. It's love at first sight. Beverly's a weirdo who likes the cold but is petulant like a child. She has consumption because apparently consumption is the most romantic way to die ever (and all those Lurlene McDaniel books I read as a kid thought it was cancer. Pshaw.). She says weird things about constellations and animals, but unless I missed something, her rambling is meaningless.

What else? Well, there's Hardesty with his gold plate and a supreme mission from his father--which gets lost and forgotten most of the book. He falls in love (at first sight! what a coincidence!) with Virginia. Also, there's Asbury and Christiana, who shake it up and fall in love at first hearing of voice. They all work for a big New York City newspaper.

The last third of the book takes place in present day (well, leading up to the millennium), but the setting feels indistinguishable from the first third, which takes place a hundred years earlier. For example, people don't seem to use phones or computers. Hell, a character runs for mayor and wins by talking about how awesome the winter is.

Speaking of which, the entire book is largely a love story for a) the winter and b) New York City. So if you don't think both of these are the end-all-be-all, be wary. Because apparently in this world (so I guess the book really is fantasy) when we get crazy terrible winters, everyone loves to go outside and ice skate and eat warm food and take sleigh rides (I mean, literally, a family goes and gets a horse-drawn sleigh. In NYC in 1999.).

There's also a kinda magical white horse. And an immortal (?) guy who wants to build a bridge out of light? Did I miss the section where any of this made sense?

With the possible exception of Peter Lake, there's no emotional connection to any of the characters. And the plot feels utterly random and meandering, with characters and time periods all feeling essentially the same.

That's not to say there aren't some enjoyable sections, if you can ignore all the above. Reading about Peter Lake and his fight against Pearly Soames and his gang was largely interesting. I liked the mysterious Lake of the Coheeries and its characterization. There were certainly individual pieces that could have worked.

But, overall, I hated it. Maybe I missed the meaning because I skimmed a lot, just wanting to finish. I shouldn't have been so stubborn, and I should have just given up, but I didn't, maybe just so I could write a rambling crticism.

It's true that it's far, far easier to condemn than praise. Condemning is easy. But, hell, the book was long enough that I feel sufficiently justified. :)

"Bone Season" by Samantha Shannon

Bone Season has appeared on many "most hyped lists," though, interestingly, I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually "hyping" it. So it may be all on the publisher, who perhaps did itself (and its author) a disservice by raising expectations for a book that can't possibly meet them. Bone Season isn't a terrible book, but it's also nothing special outside the generic dystopian/fantasy YA genre, and its lack of spark--when juxtaposed with high expectations--probably makes it seem worse than it really is.

The book's plot and its worldbuilding is excessively convoluted--a problem throughout--but I'll try to give the basics. Paige is a "dreamwalker" in a world in which clairvoyance is illegal and hunted. She works for an underground syndicate of clairvoyants but is arrested one evening after killing a guard with her powers. She is taken to Sheol I, a "jail" for certain clairvoyants run by a race of beings called the Rephaim. The Rephaim are from another world and are training clairvoyants to fight devastating creatures that are entering our world. Paige is taken for training by the Warden. She is determined to escape and return to her "gang" in London.

Okay, so that's a terrible synopsis, but that's the basic storyline. There is an enormous range of clairvoyant types in the world, which can get incredibly confusing. I found the Rephaim's role in the world similarly muddled. And then there are Paige's feelings. She's incredibly devoted to her "gang" family, but I couldn't quite understand why. I see that they gave her companionship that she had lacked, but the intense devotion still felt odd. Most weirdly, about three-quarters through the book we learn about a super important super secret memory she has about her feelings for one of the members, which had never been alluded to before. It felt sudden and forced.

In general Paige felt under-developed even though the entire book focuses on her inner monologue. And many of the side characters--particularly people like Seb, Julian, and Liss, whom Paige becomes very attached to--are even less rounded.

Perhaps part of the problem is that Bone Season very much reads YA fantasy, but its protagonist is several years older. For that reason Paige's actions often felt out of step, though maybe they wouldn't have if the book read as more sophisticated.

In the end, the book was okay, the action was okay, and the obligatory "Romeo and Juliet" romance was okay, but I wouldn't have finished the novel if I'd had something else to read, and I've no intentions of reading the next. Apparently it's supposed to be the first in a seven-book series--ugh.

"The Ocean at the End of the Lane" by Neil Gaiman

Like many, I'm a Neil Gaiman fan, so it's almost a disappointment that The Ocean at the End of the Lane is such a slim book. The length doesn't diminish the novel in any way--it's the perfect length for the story it wants to tell--but I wanted the pleasure of reading for a longer period of time.

Ocean is a bit unusual because it's a book for adults with a child protagonist. What makes it really shine, though, is the relationship it posits between its adult readers and the seven-year-old narrator. For we don't read the book thinking, "Ah, yes, those silly fears of children!" Rather, we read the book and fully inhabit and understand the very real terror of being a child, a person without physical or social power to change his surroundings.

The unnamed narrator recounts his childhood and relationship with Lettie Hempstock, an usual girl at the end of the lane. Lettie tries to control a creature from another world, but a portion of the creature is left in the narrator, which brings evil into his home.

The book's main message seems to be that, to children, adults are every bit as scary and monstrous as actual monsters. After all, adults make and enforce the rules, regardless of the logic, desires, or needs of children. When the creature enters the narrator's home in the form of the wily babysitter Ursula Monkton, the narrator knows that his parents won't buy his protests that she's evil or out to harm him. The rules that say adults are smarter, that adults are civil, and that adults are rational will always prevail. As a reader, we're terrified for the protagonist as he attempts to escape because we understand this logic and his powerlessness.

Gaiman also blurs the line between the evil of Monkton and the "evil"--or at least wrong--of adults. Monkton has power over the narrator's father; he has an affair with her and he attempts to drown the narrator after he insults Monkton. But, it's never clear how much of the father's actions are a result of supernatural mind control and how much are the natural selfishness and anger of the father. The lack of clarity--and the implication that adults can be terrible without a villain forcing them--makes the story all the more chilling.

The magical Hempstock family is made perfectly normal within the novel, even though the novel exists in a solidly real world and even though the family is anything but typical. The protagonist's inherent trust in them--because they are calm and assured--also serves to reinforce the precarious nature of children, who are dependent upon the solidity of adults to shape their lives.

Ocean is certainly an adult book, with terror and subject matter inappropriate for children who share the protagonist's age. Yet it's a perfect book for adults, a modern horror fantasy with all the Gaiman details one would expect.

"The Golem and the Jinni" by Helene Wecker

Aah! Since I began this blog in January 2009, this is the first time a month has gone by without a single post! I suppose nothing lasts--at least in its same form--forever. I actually did finish The Golem and the Jinni in September, so I didn't go a month without reading...but I did go a month without posting.

I'm back at school, teaching two new classes, and that takes a huge chunk of my time. I'm teaching AP Language for the first time, and it scares me. I so desperately want my students to do well--they're good kids and they're talented--and I'm constantly worrying I'm not preparing them sufficiently. Come May I'll have a "grade" of how well I've done for the first time. I don't want to fail.

I've also taken up the position of drama coordinator at my school. I don't direct the plays, but I am at every rehearsal every day. The phrase "herding cats" has only really come true for me for the first time with high school drama. It's exhausting, even though I'm mostly an observer.

I'm still attempting to work out four times a week, something I've done the past year. I went once this past week.

C'est la vie. Time for books.

The Golem and the Jinni was a solid book for me. Entertaining plot and characters, plenty enjoyable, but without that spark of style to the writing that makes it memorable.

Wecker brings together two myths--the Jewish golem and the middle-Eastern jinni--in early 20th century New York. The blending of three cultures (Jewish, Syrian, and American) only works because golem Chava and jinni Ahmad are so similar--beings of great power constrained by the ordinariness of human life. They're connected in another important way, though it would be spoiling the novel to say in what manner. Wecker does a good job of conveying their otherness: Chava's literal inability to relax or Ahmad's perpetual claustrophobia.

The best parts of the book involve Chava and Ahmad's developing relationship, but there are great moments with their human friends, from the rabbi who takes in Chava to the tinsmith who teaches Ahmad his trade.

The book is somewhat lengthy and drags a bit in the middle before coming to a roaring conclusion. There aren't any great descriptions or lyrical prose, but it's a good, character-driven light fantasy worthy of a read.

"The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien

Though I read (and enjoyed) the Lord of the Rings trilogy back in high school, I never got around to reading The Hobbit. My husband and I rented the new movie a few weeks back, and though I wasn't especially impressed (I fell asleep, though I'll chalk that up to not being in the mood rather than the movie itself), I did want to try the book.

As most everyone knows, The Hobbit is aimed at children, which gives it a different tone from LOTR. In fact, perhaps this is one of the reasons the movie didn't work as much for me--Peter Jackson is trying to continue the epic seriousness of the LOTR movies with a story that just doesn't match it. Instead, The Hobbit is much goofier as Bilbo and the dwarves fight imbecile trolls or Bilbo plays around with his invisibility ring. (An aside on that--in the LOTR movies, the ring is a heavy burden for Frodo; he wears it reluctantly, and it takes a huge psychological toll on him as he carries it. That doesn't seem to be the case in The Hobbit. Bilbo wears the ring frequently, for long periods of time, with no ill effect. Is that an issue of the movies changing things? [I don't remember the LOTR books well enough.] Or does the ring's power change later on with the rise of Sauron?)

Even the quest at the heart of The Hobbit has little weight. Bilbo and the dwarves aren't trying to save the world--they're trying to steal the dwarves' treasure back from the dragon Smaug. Though I suppose things in the end are for the best (no surprise, the dragon is killed, and eventually all the evil goblins are too, though that's never the original purpose), you could argue the troop's actions largely cause more harm than good (and the good that does happen isn't really because of them). And of course, there's nothing wrong with telling this kind of story--I guess it was just unexpected, given the narrative in the LOTR.

And speaking of unexpected: the dragon's death. I just didn't get it. Bilbo and the dwarves set out to recapture their treasure--and presumably slay the dragon. They arrive at the dragon's mountain, they find the treasure, and then they hole up, deciding what to do. You figure the epic battle and dragon slayage will come soon. But, then, the dragon flies out to attack a village of men and some random guy (who, literally, Tolkien introduces in parentheses with "Bard was his name.") shoots an arrow and kills Smaug. It takes maybe one paragraph. And Bilbo and the dwarves aren't even there! What? You can't just kill the big evil so easily!

I suppose, once more, the issue may be more of my expectations being subverted than an actual criticism, but I just didn't know what to do with it. The dwarves are more stupid than heroic, though in contrast, Bilbo does appear all the more stronger.

So I didn't dislike the book, but it wasn't what I expected, and I imagine it's also vastly different than the movies Jackson is putting out.

"John Dies at the End" by David Wong

There's a niche within the zombie/horror genre filled with films like Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead. And I don't think these films are just for parody or satire because they fulfill a need. Sure, many of us like to be scared and to imagine grisly monsters lurking around the corner, but we also don't want to be too depressed or despondent about the whole situation (i.e. why my husband won't watch The Walking Dead). So we take our monsters and shadows with a good dose of sarcasm, randomness, and jokes.

Though John Dies at the End isn't about zombies (more about other-worldly monsters/shadows/evil things), I still think it falls into the same category, juxtaposing humor (mostly crass, as when a character turns to go upstairs and see the basement door handle has been turned into a penis... yeah...) with downright horror. It's a combination that is largely successful, though it wears thin at times and also hides some of the more thoughtful and touching parts of the book.

The plot beyond a broad summary is convoluted at best, so I'll stick with the basics. David and his friend John are exposed to "soy sauce," a mysterious black substance that allows them contact with creatures and other beings from another world who are invading our own. Because of their ability to see these creatures, David and John get caught up in a plot to save the world from an invasion of... shadow things? We'll stick with that. Also, there's a ghost dog and a girl without a hand.

The book's structure is set as a story-within-a-story, as David narrates his tale to a reporter. The typical "big fight that saves the world" is only half-way through, which allows Wong to build in a "what happens after?" while leading up to another "big fight that saves the world." Though both parts are interesting, I did feel the book was somewhat too long (nearly 400 pages) since at some point it the plot appears to exists only so wackier and grosser things can be piled on. And the gross and horrific are truly gross and horrific, so I don't recommend the novel for anyone who doesn't like to read about feces, bodily fluids, or moth-like creatures that dig into a person's skin.

Nevertheless, the book truly is funny at times, and though the weird doesn't always make sense, at least it's surprisingly weird. David's relationship with Amy (and even John) also has some unexpected emotional depth.

Overall, the book is fairly sophomoric, but still engaging and fun.

"The Killing Moon" by N.K. Jemisin

I don't know how Jemisin writes so quickly, but it seems like every time I look into what she's working on, she's already written two new books. So, it came to some surprise to me that she'd written The Killing Moon (and its sequel) so soon after the end of her Hundred Thousand Kingdoms trilogy. But, hey, Jemisin's speed is good news to me, as it means never waiting for the next book!

In some ways I think the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms trilogy is a hard act to follow. I enjoyed the series' worldbuilding and particularly the conceit of gods being used as human slaves. Throughout the three books, Jemisin was able to explore very different characters while still keeping the focus on individual relationships. With The Killing Moon, Jemisin has to start over with her worldbuilding, which this time was a little less interesting to me. In this series, the city of Gujaareh lives in obedience to Hananja's law. The principle servants of Hananja are Gatherers, who control dreams as a way of bringing peace--and death. Ehiru, an esteemed and experienced Gatherer, and Nijiri, his devoted apprentice, are the two main characters, with the foreign Kisua ambassador Sunandi making a third.

Though the worldbuilding and religion got a bit murky for me, the character relationships, particularly between Ehiru and Nijiri, are just as strong. On the other hand, Sunandi felt a bit like the odd one out, and I'm not sure her role in the novel is as important. Regardless, the book came to an appropriate, exciting, and heartbreaking denouement.

I was trying to decide why I've been such a fan of Jemisin's fantasy, and in the "extra" self-interview included at the end of the novel, I think I discovered why. Jemisin is one of few fantasy writers who includes no inspiration from medieval Europe. No castles, knights, or jousting. She said this book was loosely inspired by Egyptian history, and it's clear that drawing from a different originating point makes her books feel different and new. Her fantasy feels fresh in a way that A Game of Thrones, for example, doesn't, regardless of its characters or plot..

I'm sure I'll read The Shadowed Sun (the sequel to The Killing Moon) soon enough--just in time to discover the newest four books Jemisin's written.

"One of Our Thursdays Is Missing" by Jasper Fforde

It's hard to believe One of Our Thursdays is now the fifth book in the Thursday Next series. It's a series that I felt had started to become a bit stale, though I'm happy to say this most recent addition picked up for me. Perhaps that's because of the (mostly) new protagonist, the written Thursday Next. As this novel begins, the real Thursday Next is missing, and the written Thursday, the current star of Next's books, finds herself on the kind of convoluted quest the real Thursday would normally undertake.

The written Thursday is a lot different than her real life inspiration. Written Thursday is insecure and sheltered; she's trying to keep readership in a series with waning popularity while being true to the real Thursday's wishes. On her journey, written Thursday is joined by Sprockett, an adorable and loyal robot butler, and is chased by the nefarious Men in Plaid.

Significant time has been spent in the BookWorld in the previous books in the series, so it's nice to finally get the point of view of a written character. I loved written Thursday's point of view on the real world and her exasperation at its lack of narrative and purposefulness.

Like all the books in the series, One of Our Thursdays Is Missing is largely fluff and fairly forgettable, but it's a fun read and a neat way to think about the act of reading and the reader/book relationship.

"Bitterblue" by Kristin Cashore

There's something about Cashore's writing and the worlds she creates that sucks you in so that it doesn't matter what she's writing about, you want to know more. So even though--unlike Graceling and Fire--Bitterblue has an ordinary human protagonist and takes places almost entirely inside a castle, it's still compelling.

Bitterblue follows Queen Bitterblue as she attempts to rule the kingdom of Monsea eight years after the death of her tyrannical father King Leck, who is killed at the end of Graceling. Though Bitterblue desires to be a good and just leader, the secrets left behind from Leck's reign continue to plague her people.

When the novel begins, Bitterblue is in a haze; though she's queen, she seems to have little control over or knowledge about her kingdom. As a reader, I also felt this haze, which is perhaps appropriate, but somewhat served to distance me from the book. About a hundred pages in I really felt like I needed to start the whole book over again (though I decided not to).

Bitterblue's own journey is jumpstarted by her decision to sneak out of the castle disguised as a commoner (ala Jasmine in Aladdin, making it seem somewhat trite). In the town, she meets two thieves, Teddy and Saf, whom she abruptly becomes friends with. Though those relationships are essential for Bitterblue's discovery that much of the truth about her kingdom has been hidden, I didn't believe the ease and suddenness of their friendships, and Bitterblue's later romance with Saf was far too obvious from the beginning.

Nonetheless, somewhere along the way I fell in love with the story. Perhaps the return of Kasta and Po (protagonists of Graceling) helped, as did the solid assurance of Lord Giddon. Maybe my desire to know the truth of what's happening it the castle and Leck's lasting effects kept me going. Regardless, even though relatively little happens, I started to read eagerly.

That truth, by the way, is far more horrible than can be imagined, and I almost wonder if the horror of it is treated a little too lightly. That level of atrocity, murder, and suicide somehow just didn't fit the book's style.

The romance between Bitterblue and Saf didn't do a lot for me and lacked the power of Katsa and Po's love (or even Fire and Brigan's). Nonetheless, I once again commend Cashore for having a unmarried young adult couple have safe and consensual sex, something I'd like to see more of.

It isn't necessary to have read Graceling or Fire to understand Bitterblue, though characters and events from both previous novels make significant appearances, and I rather wished I remember more from those books while reading. Nonetheless, despite my quibbles, I believe Cashore is one of the best young adult fantasy writers today, and I'll read anything else she writes immediately.

"The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton" by Edith Wharton

I don't know that I've ever read a ghost story before--watching Are You Afraid of the Dark? on Nickelodeon during my childhood was probably as close as I got--so reading a collection of ghost stories by Wharton is rather out of my normal tastes.  I feared they would be so terribly old-fashioned that I wouldn't be able to enjoy them. After all, even Wharton herself notes in the preface, "But since I first dabbled in the creating of ghost stories, I have made the depressing discovery that the faculty required for their enjoyment has become almost atrophied in modern man" (1). There's a sense that the modern era, with its electricity and phones and television, is not a place that ghosts can haunt. I was surprised, then, to still find the stories delightfully creepy and ominous. They're not "jump in your seat" scary, but Wharton does an excellent job of creating just the right atmosphere ideal for enjoying these tales.

Wharton was writing in a semi-modern area (e.g. the characters use electricity and drive cars), as the stories were originally published between 1910 and 1937, but she does have use of an important requirement for most ghost stories: the creepy, slightly decrepit, house. Unlike most homes today, houses in that era--especially the grand homes of Wharton's pieces--have history and personality, which are essential to creating the ghostly atmosphere. When this setting is combined with unusual servants, as it is in "Mr. Jones," the effect is perfect. In that story, a woman comes to inhabit an old home in the family, but is confronted with constant demands from the aged caretaker, Mr. Jones, who never appears.

Another of Wharton's skills is her ability to take the reader inside the mind of each protagonist as he or she slowly must come to terms with the unearthliness around him or her, as Charlotte must when her husband continues to receive troubling letters addressed to him in "Pomegranate Seed." In fact, women living alone or losing their husbands was a common theme, as it appears also in "Afterward" and "All Souls'."

Many of the stories were enjoyable. The poor Anne and her dead dogs in "Kerfol" were quite ghastly. I also quite liked the only one that didn't really involve the supernatural in any way, 'The Looking Glass," which depicts a middle-aged woman struggling to accept her loss of beauty.

I went in to the collection quite skeptical, planning to read only a few stories, but I picked up steam as I went along and finished the second half of the book rather quickly. I'm a fan of scary movies (but not the trash torture porn of Saw and the like), and I think Wharton's atmosphere and characterization is enough to appeal to any fan willing to savor the build up and leave tantalized with an unfinished ending.

"Froi of the Exiles" by Melina Marchetta

Though I had some concerns with the first book in this series, Finnikin of the Rock, I enjoyed the character and relationship building enough to quickly request the sequel, Froi of the Exiles, when I saw it available on NetGalley. Froi puts the reader back into the land of Lumatere; Queen Isaboe now reigns with her consort, Finnikin, and they are trying to restore the land and people of Lumatere after the ten-year curse and exile. Froi, the savage boy they picked up in the last book, has sworn himself to the service of Queen Isaboe and has been training in fighting. Froi is recruited to travel to the land of Charyn, the country that had invaded Lumatere, in order to assassinate the king. Once in Charyn, he meets the damaged and wild princess, the object of a prophecy: she is the last born child in Charyn, and the country will have no children until she produces an heir with another last born child.

The above summary only begins to cover the story lines running throughout Froi of the Exiles. Although that's fairly standard for fantasy (Game of Thrones is no less bursting with characters and secrets), I also found it rather confusing, especially in the beginning.  I had a hard time keeping track of the characters and their allegiances, and so many secrets are revealed throughout the course of the book that it was difficult to remember what the truth was.

Froi is often an unlikable character in Finnikin of the Rock, and though he's obviously more sympathetic here as our primary protagonist, I like that Marchetta has still kept some of his dark side. He has a temper and is quick with bitter words; he holds a grudge and feels love and betrayal with equal passion. He's paired well with the mad princess Quintana, a young woman who has been whored to her country in hopes of producing a child and who lives with multiple selves inside of her. Because of their pasts, their relationship can't have quite the romance that Finnikin and Isaboe had (though theirs was also touched by horror), and the two can clearly have no happy ending.

In my review of Finnikin of the Rock, I discussed the pervasive presence of rape in the novel and the way in which it is used as a tool of war. I was concerned that the book seemed to focus more on rape's effects on men (when used against their loved ones) than the women. Rape is similarly present in Froi of the Exiles, though I could see why a little clearer. In some ways, Froi presents a dystopian society, exploring what happens--to the men and to the women--when women are used as tools of tyranny and destruction. Through characters such as Beatriss, Lirah, and Quintana, the reader sees different points of view. Beatriss feels shame for feeling relief that her rape was better than the alternatives; Lirah feels anger and fury at having been used as the king's whore; and Quintana has broken into a wild animal, a cold "ice princess," and a mimicking fool in an attempt to stay together.

Despite their tragic backstories, I couldn't feel for the characters quite as strongly as I did in Finnkin, perhaps because there are more of them and because I had a hard time keeping everything straight. Nonetheless, Marchetta has created an intense fantasy world. Though the story is young adult, it's very dark and sometimes graphic, and it wouldn't be right for all readers. But, the book ends on a huge cliffhanger, and I'll certainly read the third in the series.

E-galley received by the publisher through Net Galley for my review. 

"The Song of Achilles" by Madeline Miller

"Achilles" is a name still famous after thousand of years. He's the greatest Greek hero, even though the action in the Iliad mostly has him sulking in his tent. His relationship with his friend Patroclus plays an important role in the Iliad's story, and scholars have long suggested that the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus was romantic rather than platonic. Miller takes this standpoint in her novel The Song of Achilles, which follows the boys from their initial friendship through Achilles' death on the battlefield of Troy.

This is not a reinvention of Achilles' tale but rather a fleshing out with Patroclus as the narrator and protagonist. To anyone with a basic knowledge of Greek mythology, the ending is known from the beginning, and that awareness adds a deep dramatic tension throughout that I found hard to let go of. While I was reading, I desperately wanted to reach the end (reading of their joy was too much), and yet when I stopped reading, I didn't want to pick the novel up again because I knew that pain would be coming. This isn't a criticism but a testament to Miller's ability to make the reader feel the boys' relationship.

Although the book begins with the boys as pre-teens and ends with Achilles and Patroclus in their late-twenties, they never really seem to age and their relationship doesn't seem to evolve. Patroclus is always a fuller character than Achilles, who is too perfect and powerful to feel real. Nevertheless, this characterization of the hero and the relationship seems appropriate. For one, "perfect" is the way Patroclus sees Achilles, so it fits that we see him that way too. In addition, Achilles' story is that of myth, and there's a certain stasis in myth (e.g. Odysseus and Penelope's relationship is unchanged after his twenty-year absence) that's normal and feels right here.

My favorite part of the book is the early development of the boys' romance while working with Chiron, trainer of heroes. Their uncertain grappling of their feelings for one another, finally culminating in mutual love, is sweet and innocent. The world and customs of Ancient Greece are well-drawn, and the story moves quickly and smoothly. Throughout the book, Miller utilizes her readers' familiarity with Greek myth to strengthen her story. It's great to see Odysseus' way with words so well-constructed, and when Achilles repeatedly says he doesn't intend to kill Hector ("After all, what has he ever done to me?"), we groan with our foreknowledge.

It's a little surprising that although The Song of Achilles does not really break new ground in Achilles' and Patroclus' stories, it's nonetheless engrossing and moving. I'd recommend it to anyone with interest in Greek myths.