Book Review: Unthinkable by Nancy Werlin

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: Unthinkable by Nancy Werlin

In this young adult novel, faerie curses have a huge impact on the lives of a human family. But will human love triumph over faerie tricks?

Unthinkable takes place in the same world as Nancy Werlin’s previous novels Impossible and Extraordinary. Given how much I loved those two books, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to have enjoyed Unthinkable as much as I did.

In Impossible, we meet Lucy, the latest in a long line of women in the Scarborough family, doomed by a faerie curse that’s been passed down over the generations for four hundred years. The Scarborough curse binds each daughter of the family to a cruel faerie lord, Padraig, and each generation repeats the cycle of bearing a daughter, abandoning the daughter in the human world as she is condemned to Faerie, and then witnessing the enslavement of that daughter 18 years later. The curse can be broken only by the completion of three impossible tasks. Is Lucy the one who finally stands a chance at ending her family’s curse?

In Unthinkable, the focus of the story shifts to Fenella, the first of the Scarborough women to be ensnared by the faerie curse. We learn of the curse’s origins, and how the Scarborough women first fell under Padraig’s power. Now, Fenella has yet another challenge in front of her, and in order to succeed and finally eliminate Padraig’s influence for good, she may have to destroy what she values most: her own family.

Fenella is a strong but vulnerable main character. Having lived in Faerie for 400 years, she is human but sensitive to magic, and fated to live in limbo, neither fully a part of the human world nor able to die a normal, mortal death. As Fenella finds her way back to her family, she has to decide what she is willing to do in order to accomplish her goals, and just how much of a sacrifice she’s willing to make. She’s a fascinating character: The author doesn’t portray her as perfect, and we see her struggles with fear, selfishness and doubt battling with her growing urge to protect her family and shield them from pain. The more she experiences life among her human family, the more she realizes that the bargain that she’s made may have been her biggest mistake yet.

Meanwhile, Fenella’s story intersects with Lucy and the other characters we met in Impossible. I’m trying to avoid spoilers for all three books, so I won’t say much about the how or why of Fenella’s involvement with Lucy and her family. Suffice it to say, Fenella has choices to make, and her choices may impact Lucy and the rest of her family — forever.

Short version of a review? I loved Impossible and Extraordinary (which is only obliquely related, but does influence parts of this story), and I definitely was not disappointed by Unthinkable. The plot is emotionally involving and fast-moving, and I was kept guessing throughout as Fenella faces a series of obstacles and tasks to complete. Overall, I’d say Unthinkable is a terrific addition to this loosely-connected series, as well as just a really great young adult book that’s sure to appeal to readers who like a bit of magic and other-worldliness in their family dramas and love stories.

Do you need to read Impossible and Extraordinary before reading Unthinkable? This is one of those rare occasions where I think you could jump right into the most recent book and still have it make sense… but why would you want to? Impossible always makes my lists of most recommended YA fiction, and I’m happy to say that Extraordinary and Unthinkable belong on that list too. For a haunting, compelling, and magical read, don’t miss any of these three books by Nancy Werlin.

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The details:

Title: Unthinkable
Author: Nancy Werlin
Publisher: Dial
Publication date: 2013
Genre: Young adult
Source: Purchased

14Nov2013

Flashback Friday: Alive in Necropolis

Posted in Flashback Friday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Flashback Friday is my own little weekly tradition, in which I pick a book from my reading past to highlight — and you’re invited to join in!

Here are the Flashback Friday book selection guidelines:

Has to be something you’ve read yourself
Has to still be available, preferably still in print
Must have been originally published 5 or more years ago

Other than that, the sky’s the limit! Join me, please, and let us all know: what are the books you’ve read that you always rave about? What books from your past do you wish EVERYONE would read? Pick something from five years ago, or go all the way back to the Canterbury Tales if you want. It’s Flashback Friday time!

My pick for this week’s Flashback Friday:

Alive in Necropolis
by Doug Dorst
(published 2008)

Synopsis (Goodreads):

A fresh, imaginative debut novel about a young police officer in northern California struggling to keep the peace – and maintain a grip on reality – in a town where the dead outnumber the living.

Colma, California, is the only incorporated city in America where the dead outnumber the living. The longtime cemetery for San Francisco, it is the resting place of the likes of Joe DiMaggio, Wyatt Earp, and aviation pioneer Lincoln Beachey. It is also the home of Michael Mercer, a rookie cop trying to go by the book as he struggles to navigate a new realm of grownup relationships including a shaky romance with an older woman; a growing alliance with his cocky, charismatic partner, Nick Toronto; fading college friendships; and an aching sense of responsibility for a local rich kid who Mercer rescues from a dangerous prank in the cemetery.

But instead of settling comfortably into adult life, Mercer becomes obsessed with the mysterious fate of his predecessor in the police unit, Sergeant Featherstone, who seems to have become confused about whether he was policing the living or the dead. And as Mercer delves deeper into Featherstone’s story, it appears that Mercer’s own sanity is beginning to slip — either that, or Colma’s more famous residents are not resting in peace as they should be.

With all the playful sensitivity of Haruki Murakami and the haunted atmosphere of Paul Auster, but with a voice all his own, Doug Dorst has crafted an irresistible, compelling debut.

Last week, having received a lovely giftcard, I treated myself to S., the new book collaboration between J. J. Abrams and Doug Dorst. I haven’t read it yet, but I’ve definitely been enjoying handling the book, looking at all the odds and ends tucked inside, and wondering how on earth to actually go about reading it.

Meanwhile, looking at S. and reading a bit about how the project came about reminded me of how much I enjoyed reading Doug Dorst’s first novel, Alive in Necropolis. Funny and spooky, this book portrays its ghostly characters with as much “life” as its actual flesh-and-blood characters. The police force and their patrols of the cemetery are quite entertaining, and I loved the writing and the inventiveness in this wonderful novel.

Plus, as a San Francisco resident, Alive in Necropolis gave me a fresh view and a whole new appreciation for the vast cemeteries of Colma!

Happy Friday, and enjoy your flashbacks!

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Do you host a book blog meme? Do you participate in a meme that you really, really love? I’m building a Book Blog Meme Directory, and need your help! If you know of a great meme to include — or if you host one yourself — please drop me a note on my Contact page and I’ll be sure to add your info!

13Nov2013

Book Review: Just One Year by Gayle Forman

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: Just One Year by Gayle Forman

Just One Year (Just One Day, #2) In this romantic and introspective young adult novel, we take another look at the events portrayed in the author’s previous novel Just One Day — only this time, we get the other side of the story.

In order to talk about Just One Year, I won’t be able to avoid discussing events from Just One Day (which I reviewed here in January), so consider this your spoiler alert! Look away now! Or better yet — run right out and pick up a copy of Just One Day, read it cover to cover, and then check back here to continue reading this review.

Are you back yet? Ready to go? Okay…

In Just One Day, main character Allyson takes us through the first time in her life when she went off-script — a day when she throws caution to the wind and jumps on a train to Paris with a cute boy to finally experience a day of spontaneous adventure. The cute boy is Willem, a carefree, go-where-the-wind-blows actor (who seems to have girls waiting for him across all of Europe), and he and Allyson (whom he calls Lulu) enjoy one perfect day… until the next morning, when Allyson wakes up alone and abandoned, devastated, and has to find a way to put herself back together. We then spend the rest of Just One Day witnessing Allyson’s journey toward discovering herself, what she stands for, and who she wants to be.

Key to the plot is the fact that Allyson/Lulu and Willem, so caught up in their romantic adventure, never got around to exchanging email addresses, phone numbers, last names… or even real names. Willem only knows Allyson as Lulu. Problem, right?

Allyson’s quest toward self-discovery takes up the last 2/3 of Just One Day, and as part of her process, she finally takes control of her own life and sets out to find Willem. But by the end of the book, we only know Allyson’s story, what she’s been through, and where her journey has taken her.

In Just One Year, we hear about the same events and the same time period, but this time it’s Willem’s experiences that count. We start with Willem waking up in a hospital, realizing that he’s forgotten something or someone… and soon piecing together that he was supposed to be with Lulu, but circumstances prevented him from getting to her before she disappeared from his life.

We soon get a much different picture of Willem than we had from the previous book. In Just One Day, Willem seems like a perfect golden boy, easy-natured, free-spirited, a total chick magnet, a guy who lives by his own rules. That’s not the Willem we get to know in Just One Year. Here, we discover that Willem has been wandering from place to place for three years, ever since his father died unexpectedly. Estranged from his mother and feeling rootless, Willem runs from connection and commitment, keeping everything in his life loose and at arm’s length, and it’s not until he meets Lulu that he starts to reexamine what he wants and how he wants to live his own life.

Willem’s journey takes him from Paris to Amsterdam, from Mexico to India, and back again to Amsterdam, before he manages to finally pull himself together and starts taking steps toward creating his own path. But all along his journey, he can’t shake thoughts of Lulu, the girl he lost before he could fully realize how important she might be. From reading Just One Day, we know more or less the “what” of what will happen at the end of this book. But it’s the “why” and the “how” that matter here, and finding the answers to these questions is what makes Just One Year so compelling.

I really enjoyed the mirrored storytelling here. Willem shows us key events that we only saw from Allyson’s point of view in Just One Day, and we start to realize just how narrow any one person’s perception can be. There’s so much that Allyson could not have known, but seeing events through Willem’s eyes, we finally get to see how intertwined their stories are, and how many near misses (and near collisions) they had over the course of their year apart.

I loved how skillfully the author weaves in elements from Just One Day, so that notes written in one book turn up in another; misunderstood conversations finally make sense; even a dismal family vacation takes on significance in all sorts of ways in Just One Year. It becomes clear as well how easily one person’s certainty can be wrong; something that Allyson believes she sees isn’t as it appears at all — and just may be the pivotal event that determines whether Allyson and Willem will ever manage to reconnect, no matter how close they’ve come.

It’s funny reading a book where you know the ending already. Just One Year follows the same timeline as Just One Day, so we know what the final scene must be. And still, I was on the edge of my seat on and off throughout Just One Year, wanting to stop Willem from giving up or making big mistakes, wanting to push him back a certain way or nudge him toward a different location. How many authors can keep you in suspense when you already know what’s going to happen? Now that really takes a great storyteller, and I’m happy to say that Gayle Forman succeeds.

Of course, I have a couple of minor quibbles. Certain sections of the narrative drag a bit. Willem spends a LOT of time in India, really just killing time, and maybe it’s a necessary part of his journey, but it felt long. Likewise for his Mexican quest that turns into a fiasco: I felt that these chapters just went on and on. Yes, the events ultimately move the story forward, but they could have been tightened up a bit.

On the other hand, I did love the emphasis on self-discovery. Mirroring Allyson’s year, Willem also spends the year learning more about himself and his family, figuring out what he wants, and finding out that he has much more in his life than he might have suspected. In both Allyson and Willem’s stories, the quest for the lost connection between the two is important, but isn’t the only driving factor. For both of them, there comes a realization that they may not succeed in finding the other person. One thing that I really appreciate in both of these stories is that they’re not romantic tragedies. The love story is important, but more as an impetus for growth and change than as a be-all and end-all for these characters. Yes, it will be sad if they don’t reconnect — but it won’t be the end of their lives, and they will go on, one way or the other.

All in all, Just One Year kept me glued and kept me emotionally invested. I wanted so badly for everyone to find happiness! Gayle Forman has created a deeply affecting and ultimately uplifting duo of books, doing a remarkable job of weaving together two parallel stories into one cohesive whole. I hated for it to end… so please, Gayle Forman, how about one more book? Allyson and Willem’s stories each end at the same point… and what I want to know is, what happens next? Even if they do find their HEA, I want to know more!

If you enjoy contemporary young adult fiction that’s smart, thoughtful, and emotionally rich — and not without moments of laughter and delight as well — check out Just One Day and Just One Year.

Oh. One last thing. It’s about the cover. In Just One Day, here’s Allyson seeing Willem for the first time:

I blink a few times. My eyes adjust, and I see that the guy is tall, maybe a full foot taller than I am, and thin. His hair is a hundred shades of blond, and his eyes so brown as to almost be black.

Hmm. Willem is blond. So who’s Allyson kissing on the cover of Just One Year???

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The details:

Title: Just One Year
Author: Gayle Forman
Publisher: Dutton
Publication date: 2013
Genre: Young adult
Source: Purchased

13Nov2013

Thursday Quotables: The Rosie Project

Posted in Thursday Quotables by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome back to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

Gene and Claudia tried for a while to assist me with the Wife Problem. Unfortunately, their approach was based on the traditional dating paradigm, which I had previously abandoned on the basis that the probability of success did not justify the effort and negative experience. I am thirty-nine years old, tall, fit, and intelligent, with a relatively high status and above-average income as an associate professor. Logically, I should be attractive to a wide range of women. In the animal kingdom, I would succeed in reproducing.

The Rosie Project

Source: The Rosie Project
Author: Graeme Simsion
Simon & Schuster, 2013

If you want to know more about The Rosie Project, you can read my review here.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate, it’s really simple:

Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
Click below (next to the cute froggy face) to link up your post! And be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables too.
Have a quote to share but not a blog post? Leave your quote in the comments.
Have fun!

12Nov2013

Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday

Posted in Wishlist Wednesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Nothing like a Wednesday for thinking about the books we want to read! My Wishing & Waiting on Wednesday post is linking up with two fabulous book memes, Wishlist Wednesday (hosted by Pen to Paper) and Waiting on Wednesday (hosted by Breaking the Spine).

This week’s pick:

Release date: April 1, 2014

Frog Music by Emma Donoghue

Synopsis via Goodreads:

Emma Donoghue’s explosive new novel, based on an unsolved murder in 1876 San Francisco.

Summer of 1876: San Francisco is in the fierce grip of a record-breaking heatwave and a smallpox epidemic. Through the window of a railroad saloon, a young woman called Jenny Bonnet is shot dead.

The survivor, her friend Blanche Beunon, is a French burlesque dancer. Over the next three days, she will risk everything to bring Jenny’s murderer to justice–if he doesn’t track her down first.

The story Blanche struggles to piece together is one of free-love bohemians, desperate paupers and arrogant millionaires; of jealous men, icy women and damaged children. It’s the secret life of Jenny herself, a notorious character who breaks the law every morning by getting dressed: a charmer as slippery as the frogs she hunts.

In thrilling, cinematic style, FROG MUSIC digs up a long-forgotten, never-solved crime. Full of songs that migrated across the world, Emma Donoghue’s lyrical tale of love and bloodshed among lowlifes captures the pulse of a boomtown like no other.

Can I just say how very excited I am for this book? It has so many ingredients that I love: San Francisco’s early, wild days; saloons and burlesque and the Wild West feel; an epidemic and a murder mystery… Wow, it sounds terrific. Plus, this is by Emma Donoghue, and while I haven’t read any of her historical fiction, I did love Room and was impressed by her imagination and talent.

What are you wishing for this Wednesday?

So what are you doing on Thursdays and Fridays? Come join me for my regular weekly features, Thursday Quotables and Flashback Friday! You can find out more here — come share the book love!

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11Nov2013

Top Ten & a Teaser for Tuesday

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Switching things up a bit this week…

Usually, I participate in Top Ten Tuesday hosted by The Broke and The Bookish… but for this week’s topic, I mostly drew a blank. So, I thought I’d do a two-fer post: Two memes for the price of one! (Hey, don’t worry! There’s no cover charge on Tuesdays… )

First up, for Top Ten Tuesday: The topic is Top Ten Covers I Wish I Could Redesign. I couldn’t come up with more than five, so here’s my abbreviated list:

1) Joyland by Stephen King: As I said in my review, this cover really bears almost no relation to the content or the tone of Joyland, which is — for me, anyway — a nostalgic look book at a special summer, in which the main character unravels a murder mystery but more importantly does some serious growing up. Here’s the real cover, on the left:

Joyland And on the right, here is my not-terribly-artistic attempt at something that better captures the mood of the book. (Pretend someone with actual design skills made this, and use heaping doses of imagination):

2 & 3 & 4) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: I love the Harry Potter series so very much… but seriously, the cover art on the first three books makes Harry look so dorky!

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)

From Goblet of Fire onward, Harry looks much cuter and cooler. I mean, I love him no matter what — but I was much happier with the cover art for books 4 – 7!

5) The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones:

The Uninvited Guests

When I checked this book out of the library, I expected — based on the cover and the synopsis — something a bit Downton Abbey-ish.

But no. The book is a weird muddle of a comedy of manners and a ghost story, and perhaps it’s just because my expectations were so far off, but it didn’t work for me at all (Read my review, here, if you want to know more!) Give this book a spooky or sinister image on the cover, and maybe it would have worked out. Truth in advertising, people!

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And for my second Tuesday book meme, it’s Teaser Tuesday!

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading, and here’s how it works:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share a few “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• Link up over at Should Be Reading!

My teaser this Tuesday are from Just One Day by Gayle Forman:

On the ride back to Utrecht, I call Agnethe the Dane to see if Lulu sent her any photographs, if there had been any correspondence. but she hardly remembers who I am. It’s depressing. This day, so seared in my memory, is just another day to everyone else. And in any case, it was just one day, and it’s over now.

Do you have a top 10 list or a teaser to share this Tuesday? Leave your link in the comments and I’ll be sure to come check out your blog! Thanks for visiting Bookshelf Fantasies… and have a great Tuesday!

11Nov2013

Book Review: The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

The Rosie Project This charming, funny novel was exactly what I needed after a couple of weeks filled with horror, wartime secrets, and violent crime. And you should hear about the books I’ve read! (Kidding, kidding…)

The Rosie Project is a first novel by Australian writer Graeme Simsion, which he originally wrote as a screenplay and then adapted into a novel. And now apparently a movie is expected as well! I can absolutely see this sweet, romantic story working fabulously on the big screen.

The Rosie Project is narrated in the first person by Don Tillman, a professor of genetics who is more than a bit lacking in the social graces department. As it quickly becomes clear, Don most likely falls somewhere on the autism spectrum, although a possible diagnosis has never occurred to him, despite being an incredibly intelligent scientist whose best (and only) friends are psychologists and despite being a guest lecturer on the subject of Asperger’s syndrome. Don’s days are dictated by his schedule, with every moment accounted for and planned for maximum efficiency. He has a seven-day food schedule (Tuesdays are for lobster), so he never has to waste precious brain resources deciding what to eat. His life is fixed and defined — but he’s 39 years old and feeling the need for a life partner.

To solve his problem, Don devises The Wife Project, a 16-page questionnaire scientifically designed to select only the most compatible women for Don to meet and potentially marry. But when Rosie wanders into his office, she throws Don’s careful plans into a tizzy. She’s clearly unsuitable mate material — but why does he enjoy her company quite so much?

The writing zips along quickly, as we hear — from Don’s perspective — all about his adventures in dating and his everyday challenges in dealing with other humans. The Jacket Incident is but one example, featuring a fancy restaurant, an ambiguously worded dress code, and Don’s aikido skills. And then there’s his approach to a medical student who touts “creation theory” as a viable alternative to “evolution theory”. Let’s just say there’s a dead fish involved and leave it at that.

Don has an eidectic memory, which he uses to his advantage not just in academics, but also in a delightful scene in which he becomes a cocktail expert. He also successfully memorizes an entire manual full of sex positions, but doesn’t quite get why it’s not so appealing to the ladies to show them a book and basically instruct them to pick a page. (Note: he strikes out.)

Quirky and funny, the dialogue really enhances the narration:

“If I find a partner, which seems increasingly unlikely, I wouldn’t want a sexual relationship with anyone else. But I’m not good at understanding what other people want.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” said Rosie, for no obvious reason.

I quickly searched my mind for an interesting fact. “Ah… the testicles of drone bees and wasp spiders explode during sex.”

All in all, I found The Rosie Project sweet, funny, and romantic, if a tad implausible in parts. I had a hard time believing that Don would be capable of making some of the substantial changes in his own behavior that he enacts by the end, especially considering how quickly he brings about these changes. Still, this book works because it’s a rom-com at heart, and what’s a rom-com without a happy ending? It’s quite clear all along that the boy will get the girl; the fun part is in seeing how it all works out.

A final thought: As someone who binge-watched five seasons of The Big Bang Theory last year, I couldn’t help but hear Sheldon Cooper as the voice of Don Tillman. To me, Don IS Sheldon, although perhaps a bit more flexible and only a drop less socially awkward. If this wasn’t the portrayal that the author was going for, well, what can I say? I think the comparisons are unavoidable. It didn’t detract from my enjoyment a bit, but it certainly made the character instantly identifiable to me and maybe even a little predictable at times.

That said, I do recommend The Rosie Project most enthusiastically. It’s ultimately a happy book, and I had a great time reading it. The characters are warm and interesting and full of life, the scenario is creative and entertaining, and the book is not without emotional weight and depth. If you’re looking for a fun, engaging read that just may move you as well, check out The Rosie Project.

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The details:

Title: The Rosie Project
Author: Graeme Simsion
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: 2013
Genre: Adult fiction
Source: Library

11Nov2013

The Monday Agenda 11/11/2013

Posted in The Monday Check-In by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Not a lofty, ambitious to-be-read list consisting of 100+ book titles. Just a simple plan for the upcoming week — what I’m reading now, what I plan to read next, and what I’m hoping to squeeze in among the nooks and crannies.

How did I do with last week’s agenda?
Palace of Spies Bellman & Black: A Ghost Story The Rosie Project

Palace of Spies by Sarah Zettel: DNF. I got about 75% through this book, and came to the sad realization that I was just forcing myself. Palace of Spies seems charming, and I’m sure plenty of young adult readers will enjoy this tale of false identities, royal intrigue, schemes and blackmail, and — oh, yes — even love. It’s well-written and lively — but it just wasn’t for me.

Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield: Done! My review is here.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion. Finished late Sunday. What fun! Review to follow.

Hoot by Carl Hiaasen: My kiddo and I are about a third of the way into this book, and it’s a lot of fun so far! Our reading time has been pretty scattered this week, but we hope to make more progress this coming week.

Fresh Catch:

One new book this week:

S. by J. J. Abrams and Doug Dorst. I’m completely intrigued by this work of art, which is hard to look at as “just” a book. With marginalia and scraps of paper filling up the book within the slipcase, I’m not sure I’ll even know where to start when I’m finally ready to read it. Still, it is rather superb just to look at.

What’s on my reading agenda for the coming week?

Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, I’ve basically reached my goal of catching up on my NetGalley backlog! I swore that I wouldn’t read anything else until I’d gotten through all of my review copies for books published up through the beginning of November, and ta-da! I made it.

Okay, I did decide to omit a few that I received on the late side. Since they were already post-publication, I figured there was no rush… but overall, I’m just tickled pink to be where I wanted to be… and to finally be able to dig into the books I’ve been drooling over for the past several weeks!

My new number one goal? Get through the stack of four new YA novels that I’ve been dying to read!

My most wanted (to read) list:

Just One Year by Gayle Forman
Picture Me Gone by Meg Rosoff
Unthinkable by Nancy Werlin
Shadows by Robin McKinley

I’ll definitely be starting with Just One Year, and then will let fate (or, okay, my arbitrary whims) decide what I read next.

Yippee and hurray!

So many book, so little time…

That’s my agenda. What’s yours? Add your comments to share your bookish agenda for the week.

10Nov2013

Domestic Chores: Being the Family Book-Picker

Posted in The Reading Life by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

After this many years of marriage, the routines are pretty much set in stone.

He cooks. I do the dishes. He does the food shopping. I supervise homework. He waters the garden. I handle all tech support. He unclogs stuff. I do the online bill paying.

It all works.

Our other sharply defined division of labor?

I pick out his reading material.

Here’s the deal. My husband did not grow up in the US and is not a native English speaker, although his English is actually excellent. He’s always enjoyed reading (and if you want to know the role that reading played in our romance, you can read about it here), but he didn’t start reading books in English until well into his 20s. He also (gasp! horrors!) doesn’t think about books and reading non-stop, the way that I do.

He’s told me, for instance, “I don’t care who wrote the book, so long as it’s good.” And “I don’t keep track of authors.”

I’m not sure that he’s ever gone into a bookstore without me dragging him by the hand.

He certainly does not read book reviews. (He also does not read my blog, so HI HONEY! I can say what I want with impunity.)

BUT…

He does love to read. Granted, he usually only makes it through 5 – 10 pages at a time. He reads in bed and then falls asleep. Cute, right?

My job is to pick his books. Crazy, I know. But hey, we have a system.

A good book can last him a few months. But once he’s done, he’ll inform me, “I need a book.” It’s my job to go search the bookshelves and come up with a few choices, then hand him a stack and maybe provide a few comments on each.

It’s harder than it sounds. I read everything; he does not. A good half (or maybe even 2/3) of my books are out of the question from the outset. He won’t read science fiction*, fantasy**, horror, paranormal/supernatural, or anything approaching brick-like size.

*He did read science fiction in his teens: Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury… but has no interest now.

**He did, however, read and enjoy The Time Traveler’s Wife. Go figure.

He also refuses books with any but a straight-forward narrative style (Beloved by Toni Morrison was quickly rejected), complains when books have long descriptive passages (“gibberish”, as he puts it) or just don’t grab him for whatever stray reason. He has also read books all the way through and then quit five pages before the end, saying that he “got the point already” and was done. (The Poisonwood Bible comes to mind…)

Recent successes? Biggest hits recently have been The Thorn Birds (which he remembered fondly as a TV mini-series) and Maya’s Notebook by Isabel Allende. Lately, we’ve done well with Allende, Lisa See, and Amy Tan. He seems to enjoy books with a non-US setting, where he gets to explore new cultures and read about beliefs, traditions, and superstitions that he hasn’t encountered before.

So far, he’s steadfastly refused to read Outlander or A Game of Thrones, perhaps because they’re kinda huge, or maybe it’s just because I keep pushing them. Like, constantly.

Because hubby dearest does not keep track of titles or authors, we’ve had the somewhat hilarious experience of having him get halfway through a book before realizing that he’s read it before. In the case of A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell, by the time he got that far, he was hooked again, so this became one of the rare books that he’s read more than once.

He’s decided that I should start tracking his reading… and seeing how much I love a) Excel and b) playing with books, I’ve started a worksheet of his recent reading. I’m NOT setting him up with his own Goodreads account, because he’d use it about as often as he uses his Facebook account (i.e., never) — but if I’m supposed to just remember what he’s read, then we’re both in trouble.

Meanwhile, he tells me that I’m doing great. I feel like my choices fail at least as often as they succeed — but, hey, I haven’t run out of options yet. It really is in my best interest to keep him reading, after all — that way I get more uninterrupted reading time for myself!

It’s fun, actually. Considering how much time I spend reading books, thinking about books, talking about books, and writing about books, it’s nice to be able to share this with him. Granted, he’ll never come to a book signing with me or get all excited about the big annual library book sale… but at least he appreciates the joy of a good book and will even initiate book discussions once in a while!

Meanwhile, don’t even get me started on my “no, I don’t feel like reading!” kid. I swear he’s mine — I remember the delivery quite clearly! — but I can’t for the life of me figure out how I ended up with a kid who just has no interest in reading… much as I push and push and push.

Oy. Well. At least one of the males in my household appreciates my book-pushing and book-picking efforts.

8Nov2013

At a Glance: Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield

Synopsis:

Caught up in a moment of boyhood competition, William Bellman recklessly aims his slingshot at a rook resting on a branch, killing the bird instantly. It is a small but cruel act, and is soon forgotten. By the time he is grown, with a wife and children of his own, William seems to have put the whole incident behind him. It was as if he never killed the thing at all. But rooks don’t forget . . . Years later, when a stranger mysteriously enters William’s life, his fortunes begin to turn—and the terrible and unforeseen consequences of his past indiscretion take root. In a desperate bid to save the only precious thing he has left, he enters into a rather strange bargain, with an even stranger partner. Together, they found a decidedly macabre business. And Bellman & Black is born.

I’m going to keep this brief (ha! that’ll be a first for me!), largely because I’m just not at all sure what to say.

At a loss for words? Without a ready opinion? This really is a first for me.

I’ve been thinking and thinking and thinking about Bellman & Black, and here are the two main points I’ve come up with so far:

1) I found this to be a quick, engrossing read. It zipped along, and I never had to force myself to continue.

2) Every time I tried to talk to my BBB (best book buddy) about B&B (Bellman & Black), all I could say was, “I’m 25%/50%/75% through this book, and I still have no idea what it’s really about.”

So what IS it all about?

It’s about a talented and beloved boy, William Bellman, who seemingly has everything, and grows up with a magical touch for business. Every endeavor he touches seems to thrive. His ideas are golden, his people skills superb. Nothing could be better. Yet after a terrible sickness sweeps through his village (scarlet fever, perhaps?) and kills most of his family, he makes a deal — which he doesn’t actually remember — with a mysterious man, and then turns his business acumen to a new enterpise: Bellman & Black, an enormous retail establishment dedicated to death. Bellman & Black specializes in funerary supplies, and succeeds beyond Bellman’s investors’ wildest dreams.

Much of the book is spent in chronicling William’s business skills and ideas. This is a busy, hard-working man. Work becomes his obsession, and he only remembers the mystery man, Black, in bits and pieces. Yet lurking behind all of William’s triumph’s is the sense of a debt to be paid, and sooner or later he knows there must be a reckoning.

Rooks — black birds similar to crows — are constantly in the background of the story, and their presence, along with random facts about rooks, pops up repeatedly.

The official title of this book is Bellman & Black: A Ghost Story. And I’m not sure why. The rooks represent death, and being haunted by memories, and all sorts of other things (I guess), but I never felt that this was an actual ghost story, other than William being haunted by his forgotten past and all that he’d lost.

It’s odd: This book definitely held my interest, and I was full of admiration for the author’s gift with words. The language is often beautiful, with unusually graceful descriptions and turns of phrase. But at the same time, I spent the entire book at a bit of a loss as far as seeing the point, and never felt like the story gelled in any real way.

Maybe it’s me. Or maybe this is a well-written novel that lacks a certain oomph. Certainly, for a ghost story, you’d expect a scare or two, or at the very least, a sense of growing dread or doom. Yes, there’s an ominous undercurrent — but that’s about it. So perhaps I missed the point in some major, glaring way. But if not, then I’d have to say that Bellman & Black, while beautifully written, doesn’t live up to its billing as a ghost story and doesn’t deliver an ending that’s as full of impact as it’s probably intended to be.

I read it. I enjoyed the reading experience. But I don’t feel touched or enlightened by this book. The books that I love stay with me after I close the covers. This one, despite its many lovely passages, isn’t one of those.

For what it’s worth, I’m probably one of the last people on the planet who hasn’t read Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale. Even though Bellman & Black wasn’t a peak reading experience for me, I admire the author’s talents enough to want to read her earlier novel, and will probably seek out her books in the future as well.

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The details:

Title: Bellman & Black
Author: Diane Setterfield
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication date: 2013
Genre: Adult fiction
Source: Review copy courtesy of Atria via NetGalley