"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. :)

"Eleanor & Park" by Rainbow Rowell

Though I've mostly given up YA novels, Eleanor & Park made "best of" lists so often that I gave in. And, truthfully, I'm not sure whether I should have, because although Eleanor & Park is sweet and touching with genuine teenage emotions, it is also so heartbreaking and bittersweet that I'm still wiping away tears.

On the outside, Eleanor & Park is your typical misfit-meet-misfit romance. Park is half-Asian, and though he's not actively bullied, he mostly tries to stay under the radar. Eleanor is big with loud clothes and hair and a terrible family situation--living in poverty with her four siblings and mother under an abusive step-father. Park and Eleanor bond reluctantly over shared bus rides and comic books, but their relationship soon blossoms with an intensity neither 16-year-old has felt before.

It can be difficult to capture the intensity of first teenage love without making the romance come across as hokey, insincere, or cliche. But Rowell successfully navigates not only the strong emotions, but also the insecurities and doubts that everyone remembers. And she's especially adept as capturing just how magnified every moment, word, and touch is at that age. How electrifying it is when you first touch another person--and are touched back--even if such touch is not sexual. Heck, I still vividly remember seeing a movie on a date at 16 and being so distracted by the fact that my elbow was grazing his on the armrest that I couldn't pay attention to the film's plot.

Rowell's novel also reflects the difficult dichotomy of any relationship. On the one hand, it's an intensely personal and private bond between two people. On the other hand, any relationship that lasts has to exist in the wider world--the world of families, friends, and outside obligations. We like to believe that if our personal bond is strong enough, nothing else matters, but that's simply not the case.

I'll give that Park may be a little too perfect--a bit too much of a fantasy realized for a real 16-year-old boy--but Eleanor is so perfectly messy that her characterization makes up for it. The book may cross certain adults' lines in terms of its language (even though it's nothing that teenagers haven't heard already), but I think its authenticity and belief in goodness will win most over.

"Hyperbole and a Half" by Allie Brosh

Like most people, I discovered Brosh through her immensely popular--despite being mostly dormant for the last few years--blog. Her combination of crudely done graphic art with personal stories of childhood and adult failures rang true for me and many others. Brosh disappeared for a long period, disabled by depression, but her book recently emerged and includes a number of references to that time.

First of all, not all the material in Hyperbole and a Half is new. A number of stories are reprints from the blog. They're still funny the second time around, but it's something, I think, to be aware of before shelling out money for purchase.

Then there's the new material, which is a little inconsistent. Some of it is absolutely fabulous. I laughed so hard at "Warning Signs," where Brosh addresses younger versions of her self, that my husband demanded I hand over the book so he could be "in" on the joke. And Brosh is usually spot-on with her stories about her childhood and troubles with her idiot and uncontrollable dogs. These stories typically reflect Brosh's inflated sense of ability ("Yes, I can go to my friend's birthday party after heavy dental sedation"; "Yes, I can be the one to 'fix' this terrible dog"), which also comes across as admirable--though wayward--determination.

The personal stories about her struggles with depression and sense of identity are somewhat less effective. One the one hand, "Depression Part One" is a moving and understated approach to what depression feels like to the person suffering. It also effectively shows how misplaced most attempts to help are. On the other hand, later chapters about her sense of identity seem repetitive and overblown. Similar points are hammered over and over, and Brosh's insistence on her failures (like imagining herself as a better person than she really is--something I think we all can relate to) eventually come across as inflated and less sincere.

If you enjoy Brosh's work on her blog, the book is definitely worth a read--after all, I haven't laughed out loud so hard at a book in a long time--but be aware that not all of it is equally strong.

"Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" by Ben Fountain

I resisted reading Billy Lynn for a long time because I just couldn't see myself interested in a "war" book, despite the many accolades Fountain's novel was achieving. Of course, Billy Lynn's a "war book" in the same way that Slaughterhouse-Five and Catch-22 are (though without the absurdism and dark humor). Instead, like its predecessors, it works to expose the fractured and paradoxical mindset of a person who has experienced war, with Fountain's novel also covering the similar mindset of those back home who passionately "defend our troops."

The book's protagonist is Billy Lynn, a young solider home for brief leave with other members of his Bravo squad after video of one of their fights in Iraq makes them famous heroes. Billy and his fellow squad members are lauded and praised wherever they go, but at the same time they have to live the reality that they're returning to Iraq in days to finish their tour.

Most of the novel is Billy's inner monologue as he struggles presenting the facade the American public expects while being bombarded by the basic insincerity of those gushing around him. And it isn't that his "fans" are purposefully insincere, but rather that they're ultimately ignorant, with a simplistic view of what it means for our country to be at war.

Billy Lynn highlights many other truths of war: the incredible youth of many of our soldiers; the camaraderie formed in such circumstances; the fact that parades and award ceremonies aren't always the best way to support the troops.

Highly recommended even if, like me, this type of story normally isn't your "thing."

"MaddAddam" by Magaret Atwood

MaddAddam is the culmination of Atwood's trilogy that began with Oryx and Crake, a book I believe I read on my way to my first job interview nearly 10 years ago. MaddAddam culminates the story by following a small group of survivors living together after Crake wiped out most of humanity in the first novel. This third book picks up characters from the previous two, especially the second book--The Year of the Flood--and it also retraces events from the earlier novels from different perspectives.

Familiarity with the other novels is somewhat a two-edged sword. Though I've read both, I have very little memory of either, particularly the second (I appreciated that both novels were briefly recapped in summaries before the beginning of this book). So when events were retold or characters reappeared, I had a sense I should have been feeling "a-ha" moments of new understanding--instead, it was just a story. On the other hand, I could see where it might be dull to read a new book that is mostly a rehash of what already happened. In fact, most of the novel takes place in flashbacks as Zeb recalls his upbringing with his brother Adam.

In the present day setting of the novel, relatively little happens. Former God's Gardener Toby is living with the other human survivors. With them is Jimmy--Crake's friend from books 1 and 2--as well as the Crakers, simple-minded and pure human-like creations of Crake (also see books 1 and 2). The group is busy building up their compound and keeping themselves safe from things like the Pigoons (vicious pig hybrids) and Painballers (humans who had survived killing matches back in the day). But mostly the book follows the day-to-day, including Toby's burgeoning relationship with Zeb.

One area that particularly bothered me (spoiler alert): The book begins with Toby and others searching for Amanda, who has been captured and raped by the Painballers. They are reunited and discover themselves among the Crakers. The Crakers mate much like animals--they're aware when a female is in heat and they pursue (and are happily accepted by the females) accordingly. So, when the Crakers come upon Amanda and the other women, they (innocently) assume the women are open for procreation and have sex with them. We learn at the end of the novel that Amanda, Ren, and Lotis Blue were impregnated from that evening with the Crakers.

Okay, so these women are raped by the Crakers. Yes, the human-like beings had no malicious intent, but does that change what happened to the women? Yet the fact or implications of such rape are never mentioned. The women seem totally cool with it--yes, Amanda's emotionally troubled, but it's made clear that solely because of what the Painballers did. The women would have been fighting and protesting--something else that seems rather hurried over since everything appears to happen in seconds, and I really don't know how that could work--and (not to be crude) the Crakers have huge penises, yet it's dismissed as a simple misunderstanding. The women seem equally and inexplicably cool with having the children as well. I'm not saying the Crakers should have been punished or anything, but for such events to be glossed over seemed problematic.

Otherwise, I thought the most interesting part of the novel was the Crakers and their growing understanding of the world they've been created in to. The book wasn't nearly as interesting as Oryx and Crake, but it concludes the trilogy appropriately.

"The Rosie Project" by Graeme Simsion

Have you see that movie about the straight-laced guy whose world gets turned upside down by an unexpected, quirky woman? You know, he's stuck in his ways--life in a rut. Has very particular ideas of where his life's headed. And then he meets her--and she's so different from him. She's wild and unrestrained (but also a little sad inside), and suddenly he's doing things he never would have done before, and, even more shockingly, he's enjoying it. You know, that movie?

Okay, so "manic pixie dream girl" is such a common trope that we have a well-known phrase for it. We see it time and again in movies, TV, and literature, but apparently it doesn't get old. Because it's the plot for The Rosie Project.

The fact that the plot of The Rosie Project has been done a thousand times before doesn't make the book bad, but it also makes it largely unremarkable and expected. For that reason, I'm surprised at the praise the novel has received, as, for me, it was a very run-of-the-mill story. I suppose the "twist" that's supposed to make Simsion's novel different is that the protagonist Don is not your average straight-lacer. Instead, he's an autistic/Asperger's-type professor. But even that seems derivative. After all, I've read plenty of novels with a similar narrator, and like those novels, Don is also of the autistic genius trope: he's great with math and science, remembers minute details, takes life literally, is a slave to routine, and is poor in social situations.

He's still a more engaging character than the "dream girl," Rosie. We're told throughout the novel about her anger towards men, presumably because of her poor relationship with her stepfather. But we get few details about that relationship, and in the end, her anger with him seems boiled down to the fact that he failed to take her to Disney World.

As a rom-com, The Rosie Project is cute and sweet with appropriate character sidekicks and relationship twists. It just isn't great reading.

Stray thoughts
- This is the second book in a row I've read that casually takes place in Australia. It's made my America-normativity abundantly clear. I just assumed both this and The Husband's Secret took place in the U.S. and was suddenly surprised when a stray fact indicated otherwise.