Q&A with the kiddo: A kid’s-eye view of Here Be Monsters! by Alan Snow

Book Review: Here Be Monsters! by Alan Snow

From Goodreads:

Welcome to Ratbridge. But beware — for there is skulduggery afoot. Young Arthur has fallen foul of the appalling outlaw, Snatcher, and is trapped alone in the town with every way home sealed. Meanwhile Snatcher and his men are working tirelessly in secret on a fiendish and dastardly plan to take over — and destroy — the entire town. With the help of Willbury Nibble, QC; some friendly boxtrolls and cabbageheads; Marjorie the frustrated inventor; and the rats and pirates from the Ratbridge Nautical Laundry, can Arthur thwart Snatcher’s evil plans — and find his way home?

Proudly presenting Q&A with the kiddo, courtesy of my 10-year-old son, in which I ask my kiddo to describe a book he’s enjoyed recently and he gives his opinions, more or less unfiltered by mom.

Without further ado:

Q: What book do you want to talk about?

A: Here Be Monsters!

Q: What was it about?

A: [Mom’s note: This is apparently a dumb question, answered only by an eye-roll.]

Q: Who are the main characters?

A: Arthur, Willbury, Fish, Egg, Titus, Tom, Kipper, Grandfather, and Herbert. Arthur is this kid that lives underground and has to come up to steal food every night for him and his grandfather. At the beginning, Arthur comes out of his tunnel to steal food but he gets caught by Snatcher. Willbury helps Arthur.

Q: Wait, who’s Snatcher?

A: Snatcher is an evil guy who wants to take over Ratbridge and then the world

Q: Okay, so what’s Ratbridge?

A: It’s the city where the story takes place. It’s a normal town but with lots of fashion and inventions and evil people and monsters.

Q: What kind of monsters are there?

A: Boxtrolls (trolls that are in boxes) that fix stuff. There are cabbageheads — who have cabbages on their heads. There are trotting badgers that are really vicious. Fresh-water seacows. Also, rabbit women who are really human women who live in rabbit tunnels and knit a lot. There are running cheeses who live in the woods who look like giant marshmallows with legs. There’s also a giant rat.

Q: What else can you tell me about the book?

A: This is an adventure and action story. I liked the whole thing. It was suspenseful and there were tons of cliffhangers. The pictures of the monsters and Ratbridge were really cool.

Q: Who do you think would like the book?

A: I recommend the book for anybody who likes monsters, funny stuff, action, and adventure.

Q: Final words of advice?

A: It is really funny. Good for all ages.

Mom’s two cents: Here Be Monsters! was another successful read-aloud. The kiddo and I both found it funny and hard to put down. I’d say that it was perhaps a tad confusing at the beginning, as the story just jumps right in with a kid with mechanical wings, a bizarrely run-down town with mean townsfolk, and a group of mysterious men on pretend horses hunting wild cheeses in the woods. Before long, though, we were hooked. The story is a bit weird and verges on steampunk in some ways, with a strong focus on scientific inventions and contraptions. In the world of Here Be Monsters!, some of the biggest “monsters” are people (such as the evil members of the Cheese Guild), and talking rats — who are also pirates — who also run a “nautical laundry” — can be heroes. This books is illustrated throughout with amazingly detailed — and often very funny — black-and-white drawings, which add to the fun and were definitely a big draw for my kiddo. All in all, we both give Here Be Monsters! a big thunbs up and recommend it for kids and parents alike. A sense of humor is required, and a willingness to believe in trolls who wear cardboard boxes definitely helps.

Final word of note: Right when we got to the 75% finished mark, I happened to read that a movie version of this book — working title The Boxtrolls — is being planned. From what I’ve read, the movie makes some key alterations to the plot, but I hope the film will retain the book’s quirky humor and smarts. It’ll be interesting to see how this complicated adventure translates to the big screen. You can read more about the movie here.

So there you have it. We’ll be back with more book opinions from my kiddo, whenever I can get him to talk books again.

16Feb2013

Book Review: Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: Y: The Last Man (graphic novel series) by Brian K. Vaughan

You may debate whether a series of graphic novels should be counted as “books”, but there’s no question that Y: The Last Man is a gripping, inventive, character-rich story, with layers of intrigue, masterful plotting, unexpected laughs and sorrows, and plenty of thought-provoking propositions.

Originally issued as a comic book series beginning in 2002, Y: The Last Man is also available as a series of ten trade paperback collections or as five hardcover “deluxe” editions. In whatever format you choose to read these, read them you should. I read the ten TPB volumes over the course of the past week, and it was very difficult to stop for little annoyances like sleeping and eating.

Y: The Last Man begins in the year 2002, when a mass “gendercide” occurs. For no apparent reason, all male mammals on the planet die suddenly and bloodily one afternoon in July. All, that is, except for 22-year-old unemployed English major Yorick Brown and his pet capuchin monkey Ampersand. Why has Yorick survived? And what does it really mean to be the last man on earth? While any answers to the “why” are long in coming, Yorick realizes very quickly that being the sole male is not everything an adolescent’s fantasy might imagine it to be.

For starters, the world as we know it comes crashing to a halt. The majority of airplane pilots, factory workers, nuclear power plant engineers, and politicians are all male, as are most of the farmers, truckers, and others who keep the world fed and powered. Highways are impassible, due to all the crashed vehicles from the time of the big wipe-out. In Washington DC, the small minority of female Congresswomen are left holding the reins of government, but opposition is brewing — and armed. While most armies of the world are now defunct, the Israeli army, with its trained female soldiers, is not taking this sudden change in the world power structure lying down.

Meanwhile, Yorick begins a pilgrimage to reunite with his girlfriend Beth — in the Australian outback at the time of the disaster — and to help find a way for human beings to avoid extinction. Along with way, he is joined by secret agent 355 and super-scientist Dr. Allison Mann, and between these three, they just might be able to figure out what happened and what they can do about it. But not if the bad guys (yes, there are always bad guys, even if they’re no longer “guys”) get to them first.

Social commentary is threaded throughout the series. For those who think a world without men would be all peace, love, and kumbaya, think again. Arrow-wielding feminists calling themselves “Daughters of the Amazon” believe the gendercide is Mother Earth’s way of shaking off infection, and in their zeal to cleanse the world, make it their mission to incinerate all sperm banks to ensure that males never come into being again. A group of Arizona militia women cut off all trade through their state and, armed to the teeth, shoot anything that might threaten their autonomy. The religious are sure that the rapture has arrived — and left them behind. A new sex trade arises, as women desperate for a man’s touch seek out the next best thing in the arms of women who don fake facial hair and lower vocal registers. And radicals around the world sit up and take notice when rumors of a surviving male start to circulate.

The adventure is non-stop, and the action spans the globe with a large, varied cast of characters. The tension is high, but Yorick is a funny guy, even in this most awful of situations, and so Y: The Last Man crackles with snappy dialogue and moments of humor and joy, along with heaping doses of anger, sorrow and pain.

An explanation for the catastrophe is ultimately provided, although I’m not sure that all readers will find the answers convincing or satisfying enough. Still, the “why” isn’t necessarily what matters. It’s what happens next — to Yorick, to his friends, and to the rest of the world — that drives this story forward. Y: The Last Man is excellent entertainment and an incredibly compelling tale. As far as end-of-the-world scenarios go, this one is fresh, provocative, and full of endless possibilities. Final verdict? Check it out. I’m definitely glad that I did.

9Feb2013

Book Review: Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger

Steampunk authoress extraordinaire Gail Carriger, who made the reading world a better place by introducing us to the wonderful world of The Parasol Protectorate, now steams ahead with a new young adult series, The Finishing School.

“Book The First” in the new series is Etiquette & Espionage, in which we meet 14-year-old Sophronia Timminnick, the somewhat unruly and definitely unfinished daughter of a large country-dwelling family. Sophronia is prone to mischief and misadventure, largely due to an unbridled curiosity and an unwillingness to let fashion and manners dictate her every move. Within the first chapter, Sophronia is recruited into Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality, which takes a very select few girls for “finishing”.

And what a finishing school it is! Housed in a huge dirigible which floats over the moors, Mademoiselle Geraldine’s teaches girls not only how to curtsy and flutter eyelashes, but the finer points of misdirection, covert operations, knife and poison skills, and all the other necessary knowledge of a first-rate intelligencer.

There’s action galore amidst the comedy of manners, as well as an array of mechanical wonders including clockwork maids and butlers that run on tracks and a rather adorable little dachshund-like mechanical dog (a “mechanimal”) named Bumbersnoot. Much of the plot revolves around Sophronia chasing around after a secret prototype that’s drawn the attention of a variety of baddies out to steal it, in between which Sophronia explores the out-of-bounds areas of the school, makes unlikely friends, and learns to appreciate the finer nuances of appropriate dress and accessories.

It’s all quite clever and tongue-in-cheek, with much the same spirit as the Parasol Protectorate books. The Finishing School series is set in the same world as The Parasol Protectorate — a steampunk-ish version of England, in which vampires and werewolves are a part of society and the pursuit of scientific knowledge is often cause for nefarious crimes and plots. The Finishing School takes place about 25 years before the events in The Parasol Protectorate, but still, a nice variety of familiar faces pop up in Etiquette & Espionage, and I’m hoping that a certain burly, ill-tempered werewolf will make an appearance in one of the future volumes.

Gail Carriger shows her usual flair with character names, which in this book include Mrs. Barnaclegoose, Dimity Ann Plumleigh-Teignmott, Agatha Woosmoss, and the roguish Lord Dingleproops.

Overall, while cute and entertaining, I wasn’t enthralled by Etiquette & Espionage, which disappoints me as I’d had this one on preorder for months, based on loving Soulless and the rest of the Parasol Protectorate books so very much. The tone of E&E struck me as a bit juvenile, more middle grade than young adult. The opening chapter’s set piece is Sophronia’s misadventure in a dumbwaiter, ending badly with a trifle flying through the air and landing on an indignant woman’s hat. From there, the book continues with a great number of adventures and mischief, but I never felt that there was much at stake, despite what are intended to be a few menacing sorts trying to cause trouble.

While The Finishing School is marketed as a young adult series, Sophronia, at age 14, seems a big young and green to anchor a series whose intended audience is teens. I’m assuming that Sophronia will grow up during the ensuing volumes of the series (perhaps à la Harry Potter and his seven years at Hogwarts). I’m hoping that as Sophronia ages during the remaining three books in The Finishing School, the maturity level of the storyline will age with her.

That said, I’m sure Etiquette & Espionage will be a big hit with Gail Carriger’s goggle-and-top-hat-wearing fans. I’ll be curious to see how it fares with the young adult audience, who most likely are not familiar with the quirky delights of the world featured in the adult Parasol Protectorate books. Etiquette & Espionage is a promising beginning, but to hold my attention, I’d like to see the next book take on a little more depth and move beyond E&E‘s flavor of madcap adventure into something with a bit more substance.

5Feb2013

Book Review: Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist by David Levithan & Rachel Cohn

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

I love being proved wrong about a book, and Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist is a good example of a happy surprise for me.

It’s possible that I just picked the wrong time of day to start this book. Perhaps I was simply too tired to give it a chance. I read about 50 pages and jotted down some quick notes before heading off to bed. My notes included phrases such as “no point of entry”, “exclusionary feel”, “impenetrable”, and “can’t relate”. Not a very auspicious beginning, to say the least.

And yet… when I continued the next day, I found my attitude toward this book completely turned around. So how and why did that happen?

For starters, a brief synopsis:

Nick is the 18-year-old bass player in a teen “queercore” punk band, who feels music — and life — deeply and passionately. Nick has been dumped recently by his girlfriend, and when she shows up at his gig, he impulsively asks the flannel-wearing girl at the bar to be his fake girlfriend for five minutes. The flannel-clad girl is Norah, who has just turned down Brown University in order to follow her on-again, off-again boyfriend to a “kibbutz” in South Africa for a year, and who is starting to realize that everything in her life may be a big mistake. Nick and Norah fake-kiss… but boy, it feels good, and thus starts a night of music, clubs, city streets, drunken friends, cab rides, Oreos, and dancing in the rain.

The book is written in alternating chapters, switching between Nick’s narration (written by David Levithan) and Norah’s (written by Rachel Cohn). The pace is quick and sharp, with dialogue that is witty, vulgar, and in-your-face. Nick and Norah are a couple of angst-ridden, deeply introspective teens, who think deeply about life, love, music, friendship, and finding meaning in the world. The beauty of this book is in the inner workings of Nick and Norah’s minds and in seeing the interplay from one chapter to the next, as Nick and Norah reinterpret each other’s actions and words, and we see the chasms of misunderstanding that must be bridged over the course of one night.

I’m always fascinated by the single-night story — they meet, they share an intense moment… but will they part forever when the sun comes up? Of course, the best example, in my mind, is Before Sunrise, a movie I could watch again and again. Nick & Norah ends up fitting nicely into this mode, showing how a chance encounter blossoms into an unexpectedly delicious and slightly dangerous, extremely intense connection. The rising sun feels like a deadline, and the only question is whether to say good-bye or face a new day together. I won’t say which happens here; in Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, it’s the journey that matters.

So why the about-face for me regarding this book? Again, perhaps it was just a matter of starting the book at the wrong time, but I found the early chapters somewhat off-putting due to their setting in the Lower Manhattan punk-rock scene. The club, the people, and the musicians — all seemed to be flashing the words “not for you” at me in big neon letters. I read a lot of young adult fiction. I am definitely not a young adult myself. But as I’ve said many times, the best YA fiction is just good fiction, period. You shouldn’t need to be a teen or twenty-something to read a book about people in that demographic, so long as it’s a good book with well-drawn characters. At the beginning of Nick & Norah, I felt that age would be a barrier to my enjoyment. As the story progressed, however, I began to really enjoy Nick and Norah’s explorations not just of each other but of their own fears and hopes. The more deeply the characters journeyed, the more I came to appreciate the passion and emotion expressed by the gorgeous, full-frontal, no-holds-barred writing.

I was originally drawn to this book after having read the authors’ two other collaborative efforts, Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares and Naomi & Ely’s No Kiss List. Both were lovely, and both featured the pattern of alternating voices that work so well in Nick & Norah. As an added attraction, all three books read as love letters to New York, and it’s great fun to revel in this glorified, gritty version of the city, its people, and its hidden treasures.

A note: I have not seen the movie version of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, and I’m not sure that I’d want to. For me, the glory of the book is in getting inside the characters’ heads, and I can’t imagine that translating well to the big screen. Plus, from the movie stills I’ve seen, the casting does not at all match the pictures in my head, and I don’t want to replace “my” Nick and Norah with the Hollywood version. (But if you’ve read the book and seen the movie, please do share your thoughts! How do they compare?)

All in all, I’m very glad that I stuck with this book long enough to get past my initial turned-off phase, as I ended up enjoying it very much. This is a short, quick, intense read, but one which really held my interest and touched my emotions as well.

3Feb2013

Book Review: Garden of Stones by Sophie Littlefield

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: Garden of Stones by Sophie Littlefield

In December 1941, 14-year-old Lucy Takeda is the cherished daughter of a well-to-do Japanese-American couple living in Los Angeles. Lucy’s father is a successful businessman. Her mother is an enigmatic beauty who turns heads whenever she walks down the street. Lucy lives a happy life with close friends, a good school, and a bright future, until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor spells the end of life as she once knew it.

Before long, Lucy’s father is dead of a heart attack, and she and her mother, as well as all of their friends and neighbors, are forced from their homes as a result of President Roosevelt’s executive order of 1942, which designated the entire Pacific coast as an exclusion zone and forced thousands of Japanese-Americans into internment camps. Lucy and her mother Miyako are sent to Manzanar, the roughly built camp in the Sierra foothills of California, where they are assigned a flimsy wooden barrack in which to live and where their world becomes restricted to one square mile crammed full of their fellow internees.

Compounding the difficulty for Lucy is her mother’s instability. While in today’s world, Miyako might have been treated and medicated, at Manzanar in those times, Miyako was simply viewed as difficult or unlikeable, rather than having her bipolar disorder recognized or accommodated. Miyako’s beauty, however, does not go unnoticed, and she is soon the recipient of unwelcome but unavoidable attention from the powerful men who run the camp. Events soon spiral out of control, and despite their efforts to protect one another, Lucy and Miyako’s time at Manzanar can only end in tragedy for both.

Garden of Stones is a story within a story, framed by events in 1978 in which Lucy’s daughter Patty seeks answers when Lucy’s long-secret past resurfaces unexpectedly. As Patty starts to dig through clues and finally gets her mother to open up, we see the events from the 1940s from Lucy’s perspective, providing an interesting contrast between Lucy’s outlook as a teen and as a middle-aged adult. Lucy’s life has not been easy, and although she has raised Patty to the best of her ability, by keeping her past a secret she has kept her daughter from ever truly knowing who she is and what she’s experienced.

I found myself quite moved by the tragedy of Lucy’s story, in which we witness a life shattered by war and prejudice, a young girl who had everything she cherished ripped away from her, and yet who somehow manages to survive into adulthood and provide a safe and loving home for her child. Garden of Stones presents two very different mother-daughter relationships, and poses some interesting questions: What does it mean for a mother to protect her daughter? Are extreme measures justifiable if taken out of love? Is pain inflicted out of love preferable to pain inflicted through cruelty? How does one survive after enduring loss after loss?

Author Sophie Littlefield explores this shameful chapter from America’s past with an unflinching eye. We see the devastation from Lucy’s perspective, as a child born and raised in the United States, who speaks not a word of Japanese, is suddenly branded as “other”. We witness the terror of the Japanese-American community in the days following Pearl Harbor, as families frantically burn any Japanese goods or relics in their homes so as not to be seen as sympathizers — or worse, as spies or conspirators. We see friends and neighbors close their doors, turn their backs, and otherwise abandon the people they’d lived alongside, as the Japanese-Americans are forced to sell off their belongings for a pittance before being exiled to the internment camps.

But the larger, historical context is not the only source of sorrow and terror in Lucy’s life, and it is her more personal story that truly gives Garden of Stones its emotional richness. Despite the hardships and privations at Manzanar, Lucy seeks out happiness and friendship, but the circumstances of camp life and her mother’s role in Manzanar serve again and again to bring Lucy pain and suffering.

While some of the more dramatic events of the story are fairly well signaled ahead of time, there are several very surprising turns of events that made me go back through the book and reread certain passages with a fresh eye. I found the Manzanar timeline much more compelling than the 1970s storyline, and yet Patty’s exploration of the past served as a very effective means of slowing unearthing the secrets of Lucy’s life and understanding how these secrets continue having an impact even into the next generation.

Sophie Littlefield has crafted a well-written, emotionally intense tale, full of rich detail and with several well-placed, shocking plot twists. Garden of Stones is a moving story of love between mothers and daughters, of the search for meaning despite the cruelties inflicted during a hard life, and of the many different roads toward hope and survival.

Review copy courtesy of Harlequin via Netgalley

2Feb2013

Book Review: The Round House by Louise Erdrich

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: The Round House by Louise Erdrich

Main character Joe is 13 years old the summer that his life changes forever. Joe is the devoted, mostly well-behaved son of two loving parents, growing up on an Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota. His father is a judge in the tribal legal system; his mother works in the all-important tribal registry office, handling the complex web of rights and obligations that are tied into a person’s genealogy and ancestry.

At the start of that fateful summer in 1988, Joe’s mother is brutally attacked and raped. Joe’s secure home and safe world is turned upside down, as the hunt for the rapist and the quest for justice consume the family. Ultimately, however, it is the tangled mess of legalities stemming from early tribal treaties and the creation of the reservations that determines the outcome of the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrator. Different laws apply to different jurisdictions, and the case ends up resting on the question of where the attack took place. Was it reservation land? State land? Federal land? Unless the jurisdiction can be determined, there can be no legal process, and so even though the identity and whereabouts of the rapist are pretty quickly determined, it is not at all clear that the man can or will be tried for the crime.

Those are the bare bones of the plot. At a deeper level, The Round House is a meditation on so much more. Some of the most compelling aspects of this book include:

– The sense of family and community present among the people living on the reservation. Joe’s immediate family is small, but his extended family is huge. Everyone is a cousin or an in-law; everyone plays a role in the lives of others. The support and connection is palpable. There is no hiding here — wherever Joe goes, he is known and welcome.

– The depth of the friendships among the boys in this story. Joe’s friends are his brothers. They have adventures, they get up to mischief together — but they have each others’ backs and their bond is one of love and dedication. The relationships among these boys are quite lovely to read about.

– The outrage over the crime that was committed. I think we are all too used to the awful stigma that still attaches itself to rape survivors in our society, but that sense of shame is completely absent here. Joe’s mother suffers deeply, but her suffering is from fear of her attacker and what he may yet do, to her and to others. What is clear here is that Geraldine was the victim of a violent crime, and she is supported by her community without question and without stinting. The house overflows with casseroles; Joe is looked after by not just his aunt and uncle but by everyone. No one hesitates to ask Joe how his mother is or to offers words of kindness. It’s a refreshing attitude that condemns the attacker without in any way blaming or belittling the woman who was attacked.

– The linking of traditional beliefs to the modern occurences. The elders in the family are respected and honored. Joe’s centenarian grandfather tells tales of buffalo women and evil spirits, but these are not just ancient myths — various facets of the stories come into play in the search for justice for Geraldine.

– The reminder that what may seem to many as an unfortunate chapter in US history is still having an impact on real people’s lives to this day. The daily frustrations of living with the outcomes of the tribal treaties is a very real part of the characters’ experiences. An incredibly powerful scene takes place about 2/3 of the way into the book, as Joe asks his father why he bothers — why does he continue trying cases in the tribal courts when nothing seems to make a difference? In response, Joe’s father pulls an old, moldy casserole from the back of the fridge where it had been forgotten, dumps it onto the table, and then begins to pile utensils and kitchen implements on top of it:

That’s it, he said.

I must have looked scared. I was scared. His behavior was that of a madman.

That’s what, Dad? I carefully said. The way you’d address a person in delirium.

He rubbed his sparse gray whiskers.

That’s Indian Law.

I nodded and looked at the edifice of knives and silverware on top of the sagging casserole.

Okay, Dad.

He pointed to the bottom of the composition and lifted his eyebrows at me.

Uh, rotten decisions?

Joe’s father goes on to explain how he and his fellow judges, in case after case, are attempting to overcome the poor foundations of their legal system by creating strong decisions on top of these, hoping to some day create a stronger framework for laws that support their people’s lives. It’s a lovely scene, showing in few words both the depths of the problems facing the tribe and the strength of the connection between Joe and his father.

The plot of The Round House swirls around the traumatic events of that particular summer, but in many ways the story is a coming-of-age tale with the universal characteristics of a boy’s emergence into manhood. Through the attack and its aftermath, Joe for the first time sees his parents as vulnerable. He starts to realize that they have inner lives, fears and hopes, apart from him, and that they can’t always protect themselves or him from the harsher realities of life. Joe and his close friends are on the cusp of their teen years, developing sexually, exploring the boundaries of freedom, reveling in their small conquests and steps toward independence. Much of the climax of the story has to do with Joe, with the assistance of his friends, taking affirmative steps on his own toward what he feels must be done. Joe has gone from the protected child of the family to a young man who wants to be the protector, and while he may stumble along the way, it is this significant summer that propels him forward into the kind of man he will grow up to be.

It’s easy to see why The Round House won the National Book Award in 2012. This beautifully written, powerful story of family and friendship, crime and justice, tradition and history is filled with memorable, well-drawn characters, dramatic plotting, and moral conundrums. There’s a lot to think over, and I’m still mulling through the events and implications of the various plot turns.

The Round House is not light reading, but it’s certainly worthwhile. I recommend it highly, and look forward to exploring more of Louise Erdrich’s work.

25Jan2013

Book Review: Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Another YA novel about “insta-love”? Haven’t we read enough of these already? Those were my thoughts when I picked up a copy of Gayle Forman’s new book, Just One Day. And I’m pleased to be able to report that my expectations about this book were quite wrong.

Main character Allyson is 18, fresh out of high school, and on a whirlwind, parent-sanctioned tour of Europe (“Teen Tours! Cultural Extravaganza” is the too-exuberant-for-words name of the program), along with her bestie Melanie. It’s all a big blur, during which the teens are shuttled from one significant destination to another, chaperoned and dosed with lessons about history and culture. Melanie hits the pubs and suffers hang-overs daily, while Allyson goes along dutifully, always the good girl, doing what’s expected of her.

On the final day of the program, as the group waits for a production of Hamlet in Stratford-upon-Avon, a free-spirited group of actors (whose troupe is called Guerilla Will) invites the gang to ditch Hamlet and come see their production of Twelfth Night instead. In a rare burst of spontaneity, no doubt helped by the fact that the lead guy is so cute, Allyson decides to take a chance, and she and Melanie head off to the canal basin to see a free-ranging, outdoor, wildly inventive and exhilarating production. A perfect end to a so-so trip, and the girls are ready to catch the train to London and fly back home to their normal lives. Except… on the train, the cute guy appears, starts chatting with good girl Allyson, and in a moment that changes everything, invites (or challenges) her to hop a train to Paris — for just one day.

Cute guy’s name is Willem (he’s Dutch and dreamy), and he christens Allyson Lulu, in honor of Louise Brooks and Allyson’s new hair style. Lulu and Willem spend one fabulous day wandering the streets and alleys of Paris, living free and large, and falling — hard — for one another. Or so Allyson thinks… until she wakes up alone the next morning. Willem has left her without a trace, and Allyson’s heart is broken. Not only that, but our young lovers never got around to exchanging email addresses, cell phone numbers, or proper names (Willem only knows our sweetie as “Lulu”), so when the guy is gone, he’s gone for good.

And here’s where things get really interesting. Up until this point, I was a bit half-hearted about yet another story of a somewhat shy girl meeting the gorgeous guy of her dreams and falling instantly and irrevocably in love. In Just One Day, it’s not so simple. Allyson does fall hard for Willem, and he does seem to fall for her too — but it’s also clear that this is a guy with a girl in every city across Europe. Dude is a player, to put it mildly. So when he abandons Allyson after their one night, is it really so surprising?

Allyson heads home full of shame and self-loathing. She knew he was a chick-magnet. She saw his little black book. What else did she expect? Unfortunately, her one day of love in Paris ruins the start of her freshman year of college, and Allyson spends months in a deep depression, barely getting by academically, distancing herself from her roommates, and realizing that her friendship with Melanie has run its course as well.

The layer of all of this that’s really finely written and well-thought out is that Allyson is an only child, daughter of two parents who have raised her to be dutiful and good and to always aim to please. Allyson’s mother in particular seems to be reliving her own missed opportunities through Allyson. She picks her daughter’s classes, down to the exact time of day, shops for her clothes, and plans every moment of her life. Allyson is pre-med because that’s what her parents have convinced her she wants. She collects antique alarm clocks (weird, right?) because her mother decided it would be fun for her to have a collection. On and on, we see Allyson’s mother controlling her every move. But after Paris, Allyson finally starts to realize that maybe what she’s been told she wants isn’t really what makes her happy.

Over the course of her freshman year, Allyson slowly starts to find her own way, and it’s eye-opening. As she breaks out of her shell, she comes to realize that what she wants for herself may not match what her parents want — and more importantly, that she has the power to make her own decisions and find her own way. What I ended up loving about this book is the gradual, painstaking development of Allyson’s independence and self-esteem. She finally begins to emerge from her mother’s shadow and the sense of what is expected into a strong young woman who is willing and eager to take chances. By doing so, she’s ultimately able to embrace the choice she made to spend “just one day” in Paris, and many months later, to begin to consider the possibility that events may not have been exactly as she’d perceived them to be.

The book asks some interesting questions: Are fate and accidents really the same thing? Is there really only one great love in a person’s life? Is being good enough? How does a person figure out how to be? Through Allyson, we see a young woman’s journey toward individual growth and empowerment, and it’s actually quite lovely to watch her finally take the reins of her own life and start setting her own course.

The writing in Just One Day is fast-paced, a nice mix of introspection and adventure, and the plot zips along from month to month in engaging snippets and snapshots.

I have only two minor quibbles with Just One Day:

First — and perhaps it’s just that I’m not the target demographic and therefore can’t appreciate the underlying urge toward free-spiritedness — I have little to no tolerance for plot points that revolve around leaving important things to the whims of chance. Remember the movie Serendipity (didn’t like it) or even Before Sunrise (loved it), where the characters fall in love at first sight, but leave it up to fate to bring them back together, rather than — oh, I don’t know — exchanging vital information? Willem and Lulu/Allyson do the same thing in Just One Day, and it strains belief. Seriously, at some point it would have made sense to at least get each others’ last names… or phone numbers… or something. It’s the information age, people! Share your information!

Second, as part of my reading resolutions for 2013, I vowed that I would not start any new series. It was not until I was already half-way through the book that I saw the little blurb on the back announcing that “Just One Day is the first in a sweepingly romantic duet of novels.” The follow up novel, Just One Year will be released in the fall of 2013. Gah. Of course, I’ll read the next book, but I’m a little miffed about it all.

That said, Just One Day would work just fine as a stand-alone novel. It does have a very open-ended conclusion, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The book’s end leaves a lot of questions unanswered, and it’s certainly not clear what awaits Allyson. But that’s life, isn’t it? By the end, our main character has made choices, taken risks, and gained a willingness to take a chance and see how it turns out. Anything can happen when you’re open to life, and I think that’s more or less the point.

I enjoyed Just One Day very much (had a few bleary-eyed days following a few nights of staying up past midnight because I couldn’t put the book down), and I’m looking forward to reading more by Gayle Forman. The author captures the voice of her young adult characters in a way that is convincing and true, and I found myself enchanted by Allyson’s adventures and discoveries. Also — Paris!

21Jan2013

Borrowing from the kiddo: 3 graphic novels by Doug TenNapel

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Sometimes, you just have to take a break from reading “grown-up” novels and indulge in a bit of what the kid is reading. And that’s what I did last night. I raided my 10-year-old’s bookshelves and had a terrifically enjoyable time reading three graphic novels by the very talented author and illustrator Doug TenNapel.

First off, how great are these titles?

Ghostopolis
Bad Island
Cardboard

Herewith, my mini-reviews:

In Ghostopolis, a boy with a terminal illness is accidentally sent off into the spirit world a bit ahead of schedule by an over-eager ghost wrangler. Once there, Garth befriends a skeleton horse, fights off all sorts of creepy bad guys, meets up with some surprisingly familiar ghosts, and has real insights along the way. There’s plenty of action, some dark and semi-scary dudes to contend with, but also a sense of humor and unexpected rays of hope. My son read this one a few months ago, and has been after me to read it ever since.

Next up, I read Bad Island, in which a family sets out on a boating trip, much to the annoyance of their teen-age son and younger daughter. It’s clear that this is a family that doesn’t spend much time together, and the prospect of being out on the water without all the modern conveniences to distract them does not appeal to the kids at all. When a freak storm destroys their boat, the family is stranded on a mysterious island, where nothing seems exactly normal. Adventure ensues; is this island “bad”, or is there some other explanation for all the weird creatures, hidden passageways, and indecipherable markings? Naturally, in order to survive, the family has to work together, and the kids find themselves saving not only themselves but also their parents as they unravel the secrets of the island.

Finally, the glorious Cardboard! In Cardboard, a down-on-his-luck widowed father who can’t find work comes home with the only birthday present he can afford for his son: a cardboard box. But when Cam and his dad build a cardboard man out of the box, it comes to life, and soon so do all sorts of other creatures. Wrapped up in the wonder of this magical cardboard man, they forget the two rules that came with the box: Return all unused scraps, and don’t ask for any more. When the neighborhood bully catches sight of Cam’s new friend, a cardboard war is on — and gets so out of control that the world may actually come to a cardboard end, unless Cam can figure out a way to save them all.

As you can probably tell, I loved all three of these — probably Cardboard most of all. What’s not to love? In each, the adults are well-intentioned but fallible. The kids and adults end up saving each other and saving the day. Love triumphs, not in a gooey way, but by bringing out the characters’ inner toughness and giving them reason to fight for one another. Even a kid who might not think of himself as brave can end up being a hero. And when things get weird, creativity and a willingness to embrace the weirdness just might be enough to get out of a truly tight spot.

The illustrations are glorious — occasionally dark, always inventive, with grotesque creepy-crawlies, truly funny bad guys, and some lovely images of the different shapes and looks of families.

My son, the ever-reluctant reader, is actually willing to read these books without poking, prodding, or being threatened with the loss of TV/computer/video game access. And if that’s not success, what is? I’d recommend these books for middle grade readers, probably in the 4th – 7th grade range… and for adults who enjoy a good adventure with heart as well.

20Jan2013

Book Review: Mrs. Queen Takes The Train by William Kuhn

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: Mrs. Queen Takes The Train by William Kuhn

In this terrific, warm-hearted novel, life at the palace just isn’t what it used to be, and The Queen seems to have come down with a case of the blahs. Relegated to a role that is mostly ornamental, and still heart-broken over the family disasters of the last decade or so, The Queen goes through her days doing as she ought. She was raised to always follow directions and live up to expectations, and that she does, day in and day out. But what about happiness? What about feeling useful? Mostly, The Queen feels like too much has passed her by, and as she struggles to keep up with her new acquaintances Mr. Google and Miss Twitter, the poor dear mostly winds up out of sorts and at loose ends. When, by chance, The Queen finds herself outside the palace walls, unaccompanied and cleverly (although accidentally) disguised in a borrowed hoodie, she gets an unexpected taste of freedom and makes a mad dash toward a day of adventure.

A cast of supporting characters, all rather isolated in varied ways and yet united in service to The Queen, round out the story nicely. There’s Shirley, long-tenured dresser to the Queen who harbors a lingering resentment toward the upper-class ladies who treat servants of her status with scorn; Lady Anne, hanging onto the title despite having lost all fortune and family, living off her meager allowance as The Queen’s chief lady-in-waiting; Luke, a young military officer who ably serves The Queen but is tormented by lingering traumas from his time in Iraq; William, senior butler, devoted to a life of service but hungry for love as well; Rebecca, the lonely, insecure, but beautiful caretaker of The Queen’s horses; and Rajiv, would-be poet and current shopboy, who just happens to sell The Queen’s very favorite cheddar.

As The Queen sets off on a jaunt toward Scotland to visit a place of happy memories, she encounters the men and women of her kingdom and, for the first time in her life, has conversations with ordinary people, unhindered by social protocol and formalities. As The Queen takes taxis, buses, and trains, she is in her element as her years of official socializing pay off. She meets people, she engages them in conversation, she draws them out, she makes them feel interesting. This is something she is good at! By the end, The Queen has regained a new spring in her step, and though she returns to her regular life without much fuss, it’s clear that she’s going to shaking things up a bit in the days to come.

I loved the writing in Mrs. Queen Takes The Train. Early on, this sentence gave me a good sense of the fun yet to come:

She stalked toward the computer on the other side of the room as if it were game and she meant to shoot it.

An ongoing theme throughout the book is The Queen’s yoga practice — which of course made me wonder, does the real Queen do yoga too? It certainly seems beneficial to the fictional Queen, and I was highly amused picturing her in plank or warrior pose.

I should make clear that this is by no means a silly book, although there’s certainly much warmth and humor here. Yes, it’s kind of funny to think about the Queen of England taking public transportation, running around in borrowed hoodies, and having to dig through her ubiquitous handbag for train fare. But within Mrs. Queen Takes The Train is a deeper thread of inner life. All of the characters, in their own ways, are lonely people, devoted in one way or another to their roles and positions, but missing out on meaningful human connection. The pains and sorrows of growing older, the isolation of never finding love, the ache that can arise from loss that’s kept hidden inside — all are dealt with sensitively and realistically. The characters in this book may live in a castle, but all — even The Queen herself — come across as real people with real crises, and you can’t help but love them all quite a bit by the time the book is through.

As an American reading Mrs. Queen Takes The Train, I was unfamiliar with many of the titles and idioms related to palace life and the monarchy in general. Thank goodness for the internet — I now know what an equerry is! (Do you?) I know that for many in the US, the British monarchy is viewed as an amusing old token of days gone by, not good for much more than celebrity photo shoots, mildly interesting gossip and scandal, and the occasional big hoopla of a royal wedding. Mrs. Queen Takes The Train does a wonderful job of showing how the royal family influences and is influenced by English modern society, and the role they serve in maintaining tradition and a link to living history.

I enjoyed Mrs. Queen Takes The Train very much, for its gently amusing story line, its warm and lovely characters, and its peek behind the castle walls. We can only wonder whether The Queen’s inner life, as portrayed so richly and movingly here, relates in any way to the experiences of the real Queen of England. Still, I walked away from reading this book with a renewed fondness for Her Majesty — long live The Queen!

17Jan2013

Book Review: The Cranes Dance by Meg Howrey

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: The Cranes Dance by Meg Howrey

Reading a book about ballet dancers is a bit like studying anthropology or reading fiction set in an exotic land. Ballet is a world and a culture unto itself, with its own customs, morals, standards, language, costumes, and rituals. Those at the peak of the profession form an insular little society, truly an alien species in the eyes of the non-ballet world — and even more so, the “normal” world, to the ballet elite, is foreign, slightly unpleasant, and unrelentingly ordinary.

So it would seem, in any case, from reading The Cranes Dance, an excellent but disturbing peek into the world of a top New York City ballet company, as told by main character Kate Crane — whose perspective may not be all that reliable. Kate is in her late-ish 20s, and has been with the Company since she was a rising teen ballet student. Kate is a lovely and talented dancer, but her younger sister Gwen is a star. Gwen joins the Company a year after Kate, but is made a principal (a prima ballerina, if you will) at the same time that Kate, with more years of experience, is raised from the corps to soloist (a featured dancer, performing good roles, but definitely not the star of the show). But it’s all okay, because Kate is devoted to Gwen, and from day one sees her as someone to be nurtured and cherished, whose gift must be protected and encouraged above all else.

As The Cranes Dance opens, Kate is on her own in New York for the first time in a decade, after having called her parents in Michigan to report that Gwen has had a nervous breakdown. Gwen has been scooped up and taken away by the parents, and Kate is left to deal with her grief, her guilt, and deep down, her relief at being free for once in her life. Unfortunately, Kate has perfected the skill of not dealing. She’s made a career of keeping everyone at arm’s length, never admitting that she has needs or wants, and finds herself adrift.

Unceremoniously dumped by her boyfriend (she never let him be there for her, apparently), Kate moves into Gwen’s now empty apartment, and more or less into Gwen’s life. She lives amongst Gwen’s things, she wears Gwen’s clothes and uses Gwen’s hair products, and before long, she’s dancing roles meant for Gwen as well. Friends and colleagues tell Kate that she’s never danced better, and the company director comments that it’s been hard “to watch you diminish yourself” — implying, perhaps, that Kate’s devotion to Gwen has kept her from letting herself shine on her own.

But has Kate also taken over Gwen’s mental deterioration? Warning signs abound. After a neck injury, Kate turns to Vicodin to numb the pain — and soon, to numb everything else. Like Gwen, Kate is unable to sleep and loses weight due to lack of appetite. Kate narrates her life for the audience she imagines constantly watching her, as if being on stage is a shield against the dangers and disappointments of actual living. Inhabiting Gwen’s home, all alone, Kate is left to stare at the mysterious and disturbing tape marks and secret notes and symbols that Gwen used as talismans against fear, her secret obsessive-compulsive safety nets. Can Kate be strong where Gwen could not? Can Kate numb the pain indefinitely, or will her world come crashing down as well?

I enjoyed The Cranes Dance a great deal. According to her website, “Meg Howrey is a classically trained dancer who has performed with the Joffrey, Los Angeles Opera, and City Ballet of Los Angeles.” Clearly, this is a writer who knows the world she so keenly describes. The first-person narration gives us a front-row view of the workings of Kate’s mind, and she can be hilariously funny at times, despite the physical and emotional pain that accompany her throughout her days.

Crisp, delicious writing abounds, such as this passage in which Kate must suffer through drinks with a smile:

“Oh, but I love The Nutcracker,” began the [woman], and then launched into the familiar non-dancer girl talking to dancer girl conversation. “Do your toes bleed?” “I had a friend/cousin/neighbor who danced who was really serious about her dancing until she got too tall/hurt her knee/went to college.” “You must not be able to eat anything.” “It must take a lot of discipline, I can’t even imagine doing what you do.” “All the men are gay, right?”

The book opens with Kate describing the plot of Swan Lake, which is the headlining production in the company’s performance season. It’s much too much to quote in full, but this little snippet gives a good sense of the tone as well as Kate’s unique perspective on dance and life in general:

Act I opens in the village green of an unspecified, vaguely German realm. We’re a little hazy on the time period too. It’s Days of Yore, I guess, in the yore when everyone in pseudo Germany wandered around their village green in nearly identical outfits… Anyway A Village Green Scene is standard issue for classical ballet, and if you’ve seen one circlet of peasant-dancing hoo-ha, you’ve seen them all. There’s a garland dance and a Maypole and a lot of people standing around fake clapping or pointing out to each other that other people are dancing in the middle of the stage… So everyone just wanders around greeting each other with head nods if you’re a girl and shoulder thumping if you’re a guy, and then one person will indicate Center Stage like “Hey, did you see? There are people dancing! Isn’t that neat!” And the other person will make a gesture like “Yes! Dancing. It is happening there!”

And so on. It’s fun, it’s funny, it often terribly sad, and it’s frequently disturbing. At the same time, Kate’s voice is engaging — even when she’s being obnoxious — and you can’t help but want to shake her a bit and get her to just, you know, snap out of it! You’re a ballerina! Enjoy yourself!

Go ahead, hum a few bars. Pirouettes are allowed too.

The glimpse into the backstage life of a ballet company is deliciously exotic. The endless classes and rehearsals, the jockeying for positions and good partners, the little slips that can spell disaster, the triumphs of a perfect gesture — all these are brought to life so vividly that you can hear the toe shoes landing after a jump. I dare you to read this book and not spend the next few days humming Swan Lake as you move, oh so gracefully, down the busy streets, perhaps with visions of tutus dancing in your head.

Whether you read The Cranes Dance as a story of sisters, a narrative of mental illness, a profile of a person shut off from the world, or just for the joy of the behind-the-scenes glamour and excitement, I do believe you’ll be as entranced by the book as I was. You don’t have to be a ballet fan to enjoy The Cranes Dance — but you’ll probably want to dig out those old The Turning Point or White Nights videos by the time you’re done.