Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I Wouldn’t Mind Santa Bringing Me

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, featuring a different topic for a top 10 list each week. This week’s topic is:

Top Ten Book I Wouldn’t Mind Santa Bringing Me

Before jumping in, let me preface this post by saying that I’m using “Santa” in the metaphorical sense. I have never received nor do I anticipate ever receiving a visit from Santa. It’s not that I’m naughty (at least not on a daily basis) — I just don’t swing that way, religion-wise.

So onward to the top 10 books I wouldn’t mind receiving this holiday season. Bear in mind that my loved ones usually shy away from buying me books, since chances are either a) it’s something I want to read and I already own it; b) I’ve already read it but thanks anyway; or c) it’s sooooo not my taste — don’t you know me at all? As a result, just about all of the books currently on my shelves are books that I’ve bought myself, and everything else that I’ve read has come from the library. I’m difficult, I admit it.

Therefore, my top 10 list consists of books that I’d LOVE to receive as gifts but either haven’t bought for myself (because I haven’t gotten around to it yet or they’re just not available), OR they’re books that seem wonderful but would feel like too much of an indulgence to buy for myself.

1 & 2) Two pop-culture celebrations top my most-wanted list: Firefly: A Celebration is what appears to be a lovingly produced tribute to Joss Whedon’s Firefly series, filled with photos, scripts, behind-the scenes looks, and more. Buffy: The Making of a Slayer is a hardcover, slipcased edition that is, according to Amazon, “the first authorized, fully illustrated retrospective” of the hit series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Both are priced at about $30, which puts them into my luxury book items category. Unless there’s a huge price drop at some point, I probably wouldn’t get these for myself — but if any family members happen to be reading this, consider this a huge hint droppage.

3) I find myself rather intrigued by Building Stories by Chris Ware, which is a graphic novel that comes in a box and consists of 14 separate pieces that can, if I understand correctly, be read in whatever order you’d like. I’m not sure that I need to own this, but boy, would I like to open it up and play with it.

4) The Rolling Stones 50 by The Rolling Stones. 352 pages, over 1,000 illustrations! It sounds like a real treat for Stones fans, but I’m certainly not die-hard enough to spend $60 on it. I’d be perfectly happy to just look through it once or twice at a friend’s house, to be honest. Still, if it turned up as a gift, I certainly wouldn’t say no.

5) My Ideal Bookshelf by Thessaly La Force and Jane Mount. Can I just tell you that I’m in love with this book? I mean, I really love everything about it. The concept is just lovely:

The books that we choose to keep –let alone read– can say a lot about who we are and how we see ourselves. In MY IDEAL BOOKSHELF, dozens of leading cultural figures share the books that matter to them most; books that define their dreams and ambitions and in many cases helped them find their way in the world. Contributors include Malcolm Gladwell, Thomas Keller, Michael Chabon, Alice Waters, James Patterson, Maira Kalman, Judd Apatow, Chuck Klosterman, Miranda July, Alex Ross, Nancy Pearl, David Chang, Patti Smith, Jennifer Egan, and Dave Eggers, among many others. With colorful and endearingly hand-rendered images of book spines by Jane Mount, and first-person commentary from all the contributors, this is a perfect gift for avid readers, writers, and all who have known the influence of a great book.

Not only that — check out the artwork! I could spend hours staring at these paintings of book spines. And what’s more, you can buy prints of many of the shelves from the artists’ website (www.idealbookshelf.com)… and, if you’re willing to shell out some $$, you can order a custom original painting of your own ideal bookshelf. Love, love, love.

6 & 7 & 8) It’s graphic novel time! I’ve been reading a lot more graphic novels this past year, and the more I read, the more I want to read. My choices here are some graphic novels that have been out for a while. The idea of trying to catch up and read the whole series for any of these is rather daunting. Still, if my metaphorical Santa decided to gift me with one or two of these, I’d be thrilled. My top picks for extravagant graphic novel gifts are:

The Walking Dead Compendium 1 & The Walking Dead Compendium 2: These massive paperbacks each encompass eight of the Walking Dead graphic novels and are over 1,000 pages in length, with a retail price of $60 each. I’ve missed the Walking Dead phenomenon completely so far, on the page and on TV, but I’m soooo tempted to dive in.
The five hardcovers that make up the Absolute Sandman collection each run about $100. But, hey, it’s Neil Gaiman! Considering the price, I’ll probably rely on my public library when I’m ready to tackle what I’ve heard is a masterpiece. Still, if a gift were to come my way…
Bone! It’s the Bone: 20th Anniversary Full Color One Volume Edition! The Bone series by Jeff Smith is marketed as a children’s series, but I found it engaging, funny, dramatic, and wonderfully drawn. What a world! And the stupid rat creatures are, hands-down, my very favorite stupid evil carnivores. My son has the Bone collection in paperback, but this hardcover special edition looks absolutely stunning.

And to wrap it all up, how about a couple more books about books?

9 & 10) My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop (published by Black Dog & Leventhal) and One For The Books by Joe Queenan. I spend a good portion of each day either thinking about, writing about, or talking about books. These books about other people’s favorite books sound like perfect reading for a bookworm like me.

And there you have it, my top 10 pie-in-the-sky wishes for holiday gifts. Maybe most aren’t too realistic, but it’s awfully fun to fantasize a bit!

Here’s hoping that you find some reading goodies wrapped up in shiny paper with your name on them this year! Happy reading!

3Dec2012

Great (But Wrong) Expectations

Posted in Bookish Thoughts by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

I had the very weird experience this past week of reading a book and realizing, close to the end, that this book was not about what I thought it was about after all.

The fault is my own. While I’m an avid reader of book reviews, I do tend to shy away from reviews of books that I know I plan to read. I’m a spoiler-phobe, you see. I’ve often started reading a review, only to get a few paragraphs in and realize, “ooh, this sounds like a book for me!” and immediately stop reading the review. I just don’t want to know anything in advance, thank you very much.

And so, after inexplicably waiting a year past the publication date, I finally read Doc by Mary Doria Russell this past week – and while I loved it and thought it was fascinating (and will write a review in the next couple of days), it wasn’t the book I expected it to be.

Mary Doria Russell is the author of The Sparrow, a book I love passionately. She’s basically one of my “free pass” authors – so good, and with such a winning streak with me, that I’ll automatically read anything she writes, whether or not the subject matter is in one of my usual areas of interest.

Such was the case with Doc. A Western, for me? Written by any other author, the answer would be no. But in this case, I just had to read it.

I admit to being rather ignorant of the Western genre, and my knowledge of historical figures from the “Wild West” era is woefully shallow. So yes, I’d heard of Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, and the OK Corral, but couldn’t tell you much of anything about them. Doc Holliday – some sort of gunslinger? An outlaw, maybe? Good on a horse? I’ve never even watched “Tombstone”. Shows you how much I knew about the historical events and people in Doc before I picked up the book.

And of course, being this unprepared, I expected to read more or less a biography of Doc Holliday, culminating in the big gunfight at the OK Corral. It wasn’t until I was about 50 or 60 pages from the end that I realized, “Wait a minute! There’s no way she can fit that in! Whaaaaaaaaaat is going on?”

Silly me. Had I read reviews – or really paid attention to the opening paragraph of the book – I would have known what to expect. Here’s how the book opens:

He began to die when he was twenty-one, but tuberculosis is slow and sly and subtle. The disease took fifteen years to hollow out his lungs so completely they could no longer keep him alive. In all that time, he was allowed a single season of something like happiness.

See? She says it right there: “a single season of something like happiness”! But somehow or another, I didn’t really process this information up front, and so ended up expecting something much different than what I got.

The book was excellent, and I’m thrilled to have finally read it. But, I’m quite certain that my reading experience would have been much different if my expectations had been set properly from the start. Instead of viewing many of the incidents in the plot as prelude to a big, gun-slinging climax, I would have realized that what I was reading was, in fact, a beautiful snapshot of a year in the life of an extremely interesting man and the people around him. The incidents I viewed as preludes were really what mattered – the personal exchanges, the small and big moments that made Doc who he was. It was only when I realized where the book was going and what its scope was, and recalibrated my expectations, that I was able to do a course correction for myself. I can only imagine how frustrated I might have been otherwise, expecting an ending that was never intended to be a part of this particular story. As is, I wish I had read the entire book with this new knowledge, as I believe I would have appreciated it in a much different – and richer – way.

Has this ever happened to you? How do your expectations of a book affect your reading experience? Is it better to know nothing at all before starting a new book or to have some idea of the overall plot before you begin?

Please share your thoughts!

3Dec2012

The Monday agenda

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.

And a very happy Monday morning to one and all! So what’s cooking, reading-wise?

From last week:

Doc by Mary Doria Russell: Just finished last night. I’ll probably need a day or two to digest a bit before writing a review. The short version is: LOVED it. I’m really looking forward to our book group discussion of Doc at the end of this week.

And that’s it! I didn’t have nearly as much time for reading this week as I would have liked (isn’t that always the case?). Here’s hoping the coming week contains extra minutes each day, by some magical stretch of the time-space continuum.

In ongoing reading, my son and I continued with Magic By The Lake by Edward Eager, and may even be ready for something new before this week is done..

Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon (group re-read): Back on track!

And this week’s new agenda:

Whew! I just finished Doc, and it’s hard to think about moving on to a different world and a different book. Maybe I should just spend the week watching DVDs of Tombstone and Wyatt Earp?

No? Okay, I’ll admit that it’s impossible that I won’t start a new book today.

I’ve still got a big stack of library books to get through before the library starts sending collection agents after me. I’ll probably start with Because It Is My Blood by Gabrielle Zevin and then move on to The Evolution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin or Ashen Winter by Mike Mullin.

Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon: Chapters 68 and 69 this week. Another couple of weeks and we’ll be done.

So many book, so little time…

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

2Dec2012

News for bookslovers: Oddities and goodies

Posted in Bookish Thoughts, Pop Culture by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

All sorts of good book news came our way this past week. In case you were snoozing and missed something, consider this your friend public service announcement from the land of book obsessives:

In book-to-TV news:

The BBC announced that it will be producing a TV adaptation of Susannah Clark’s wonderful Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. So far, it sounds like this will be a six-episode mini-series airing in the UK sometime in 2013… let’s hope it crosses the pond to the US soon thereafter. You can read more about this delightful news here.
Coming next summer on CBS: Stephen King’s Under The Dome! This was one of my favorite books read in 2011 — big, creepy, and scary in an all-too-human sort of way. I can’t wait to see how this translates to TV. Read about it here.

In sheer insanity news:

Because apparently it’s not enough to have read and loved the Harry Potter series… Amazon is selling a $1,000 gift set about the Harry Potter movies. Sure, why not milk this cow for all it’s worth? If you’re thinking, “So worth it! Where do I get one?”, click here to read more. As of today, Amazon is offering this item at a 40% discount… so for just $600, all this can be yours:

hp set

Author updates:

Herman Wouk has published a new novel — at age 97! The Lawgiver, an epistolary novel about screenwriters working on a movie about Moses, is Wouk’s 18th book, and, he says, not his last. According to this article in the New York Times, he’s already begun his next writing project.
In early November, Philip Roth announced his retirement from writing. His last book, Nemesis, was published in 2010.

And in other bookish news:

British author Nick Hornby will be writing the screenplay for the movie adaption of Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild. I haven’t read the book yet, and I always enjoy Nick Hornby, so… wait for the movie version?
Remember the Janie series from your distant or not-too-distant teen days? Starting with The Face On The Milk Carton, published 20 years ago, Caroline B. Cooney’s engrossingly addictive series focuses on a teen girl named Janie, leading a happy suburban life, who accidentally discovers that she may in fact have been kidnapped as a child. If you walked away from the final book in the series wishing for more, your wishes are about to come true! Janie Face To Face will be published in January, and promises to reveal (according to the Amazon blurb) “if Janie and Reeve’s love has endured, and whether or not the person who brought Janie and her family so much emotional pain and suffering is brought to justice.”
Did y’all see this awesome creation from EpicReads? It’s a YA fiction map to the US, with a book for each of the fifty states. Pretty amazing — check it out. You may even want to hang up a copy, or use it as a checklist, or — just thinking here — put it up on the wall and throw darts at it in order to pick your next book. I’ve read 10 out of 50, and can definitely see a bunch more that I’d like to add to my TBR list. Fun!
And finally, on a hopeful note, NPR Books reports that this is looking to be a good holiday season for independent bookstores. Which reminds me, I have more shopping to do…

Cheers, all! If you have any other interesting tidbits from the world of books, please share in the comments!

30Nov2012

Flashback Friday: Sunshine by Robin McKinley

Posted in Flashback Friday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

It’s time, once again, for Flashback Friday…

Flashback Friday is a chance to dig deep in the darkest nooks of our bookshelves and pull out the good stuff from way back. As a reader, a blogger, and a consumer, I tend to focus on new, new, new… but what about the old favorites, the hidden gems? On Flashback Fridays, I want to hit the pause button for a moment and concentrate on older books that are deserving of attention.

If you’d like 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:

Sunshine by Robin McKinley

(published 2003)

Robin McKinley is perhaps best known for her fairy tale retellings (such as Beauty, Rose Daughter, and Spindle’s End) and her heroic adventures (such as The Blue Sword and the Newbery winner The Hero and the Crown), all geared toward young adult readers. I’ve read and loved all of these, but my two favorite Robin McKinley books happen to be her two books written for adults, Deerskin and Sunshine. It’s actually hard to decide which of these to focus on — and I’ll probably come back to Deerskin in the near future for another Flashback Friday pick — but for this week, let me tell you about Sunshine and why it’s such a phenomenal piece of fiction.

From the author’s website:

Rae, nicknamed Sunshine by her stepfather, is the baker at her family’s coffeehouse. She’s happy getting up at 4 am to make cinnamon rolls for the breakfast rush, and dealing with people and food all day. But one evening she needed somewhere she could be alone for a little while, and there hadn’t been any trouble out at the lake for years.

She never thought of vampires.

Until they found her.

Yes, it’s a vampire book. No, it’s not like Twilight or any other vampire book you’ve read. Rae is a strong lead character with a mind — and powers — of her own, who must call upon her inherited magic to save herself and the imprisoned, starving vampire Constantine from a deadly trap. Constantine is not the romantic, angst-ridden, broody vampire of today’s pop culture. Dynamic and entrancing, yes, but also clearly dangerous, inhuman, disturbing, and deadly. Definitely not boyfriend material.

Robin McKinley’s website is nice enough to treat us to a quote from Neil Gaiman regarding Sunshine, and if you need any convincing to give this mesmerizing book a try, this should do it:

I woke up too early, so started reading Robin McKinley’s forthcoming novel Sunshine, in the bath. It’s an astonishing piece of work. A gripping, funny, page-turning pretty much perfect work of magical literature that exists more or less at the unlikely crossroads of Chocolat, Interview With a Vampire, Misery and the tale of Beauty and the Beast. It’s not quite SF, and it’s not really horror, and only kind of a love story, and it’s all three while still being solidly Fantastique. It also does that nice thing where the author assumes the readers are smart, and she treats us like we’re smart, and we purr and get smarter and work harder for all that. It’ll be nominated for awards, and win them; in the meantime I really hope it finds its audience, which is, potentially, huge. — Neil Gaiman

The initial set-piece of the book involves heroine Rae chained up in an abandoned mansion next to (and within reach of) a vampire who’s also been chained up and forced into starvation. This section of the book is so suspenseful and chilling that I was immediately hooked, and from there the book just swept me up into its spell and didn’t let go until the end. In Sunshine, Robin McKinley has created an entire world in which ordinary bakers and other regular people live side by side with supernatural beings, both of the extremely dangerous and the neighborly variety, and where courage and devotion count as much as magical powers and superhuman strength. The plot is fantastic, the writing entrancing, and the characters unforgettable.

The more I write about Sunshine, the more I realize that this one belongs on my must-reread-as-soon-as-I-can pile. It’s that good. Give it a try! And if you’ve read Sunshine, please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

So, what’s your favorite blast from the past? Leave a tip for your fellow booklovers, and share the wealth. It’s time to dust off our old favorites and get them back into circulation!

Note from your friendly Bookshelf Fantasies host: To join in the Flashback Friday bloghop, post about a book you love on your blog, and share your link below. Don’t have a blog post to share? Then share your favorite oldie-but-goodie in the comments section. Jump in!

27Nov2012

Wishlist Wednesday

Posted in Wishlist Wednesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

And now, for this week’s Wishlist Wednesday…

The concept is to post about one book from our wish lists that we can’t wait to read. Want to play? Here’s how:

Follow Pen to Paper as host of the meme.
Please consider adding the blog hop button to your blog somewhere, so others can find it easily and join in too! Help spread the word! The code will be at the bottom of the post under the linky.
Pick a book from your wishlist that you are dying to get to put on your shelves.
Do a post telling your readers about the book and why it’s on your wishlist.
Add your blog to the linky at the bottom of the post at Pen to Paper.
Put a link back to pen to paper (http://vogue-pentopaper.blogspot.com) somewhere in your post.
Visit the other blogs and enjoy!

My Wishlist Wednesday book is:

The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman

From Amazon:

After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.

Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.

Why do I want to read this?

I’ve been waiting for The Light Between Oceans to become available at my local library for months now, and I’m finally getting closer! The reviews and synopses of this book make it sound so sad and chilling, and I really can’t wait to give it a try. Plus, I do have a fondness for Australian fiction. All in all, based on friends’ input and word of mouth, I’d say this book sounds like it’ll be right up my alley. Now, if only I could get my hands on a copy…

Have you read it? What did you think?

Quick note to Wishlist Wednesday bloggers: Come on back to Bookshelf Fantasies for Flashback Friday! Join me in celebrating the older gems hidden away on our bookshelves. See the introductory post for more details, and come back this Friday to add your flashback favorites!

26Nov2012

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Most Anticipated Books For 2013

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. I just happened to stumble across this weekly event for book lovers, featuring a different topic for a top 10 list each week. So… here I go, jumping in!

Top 10 Tuesday new This week’s theme:

Top Ten Most Anticipated Books For 2013

More or less in order of how badly I want to read them, here are my top 10 can’t-wait-for books of 2013:

MOBY discovery

1) Written In My Own Heart’s Blood by Diana Gabaldon: It may be a bit of a cheat to include this book, but this is the one I’m most looking forward to. Book #8 in the Outlander series will have fans in a swoon, I’m sure. The author has mentioned fall of 2013 as the likely publication date, and while I haven’t seen anything more specific than that, I’m putting it on my list and keeping my fingers crossed.

2) All Souls’ Trilogy, #3 by Deborah Harkness: Another one that’s not a sure bet, but boy, would I like it to be. According to the author’s website, this book has neither a title nor a release date, but count me in as one of the devoted fans of the series with fingers crossed hoping for a summer 2013 release.

3) Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger: Book 1 in Gail Carriger’s new Finishing School series, due out in February. I adored Ms. Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series, and will absolutely read anything and everything she writes.

4) Tempest Reborn by Nicole Peeler: The sixth and final book in the Jane True series, due out in May.

5) Frost Burned by Patricia Briggs. The next installment in Briggs’s fantastic Mercy Thompson series, starring a shape-shifting auto mechanic and the werewolves and vampires of her acquaintance. Due March.

Tale for the Time Being

6) Fables, Volume 18: Cubs in Toyland by Bill Willingham: I got hooked, big-time, on this amazing series of graphic novels. Literary, smart, funny, and engrossing, Fables has it all. I’m counting the days until I can get my hands on the newest volume, due in January.

7) The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman: Neil Gaiman falls into the category of “must read whatever he writes”, and I’ll be sure to read this new book when it’s released in June.

8) A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki: The new novel by the author of My Year of Meats, one of my all-time favorites. I don’t know what it’s about, but I have no doubt it’ll be weird and wonderful. Due March.

9) Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris: I’m kind of over the whole Sookie Stackhouse series, but I’ll still read this final book to see how the author wraps it all up. Due May.

10) NOS4A2 by Joe Hill: Joe Hill writes creepy, scary, excellent fiction. I’m looking forward to sleepless nights when this one is released in April.

Of course, that’s not counting the paperback releases I’ve been waiting for, or all the books already on my shelves that I hope to read in 2013.

Looks like we’re in for a very happy new year! Happy reading, all!

26Nov2012

The Monday agenda

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

What do you mean it’s Monday? Already? These long holiday weekends make it so hard to return to reality. Although, when your reality centers around reading, I suppose any day of the week is a good one.

Onward! What’s on the agenda this week?

From last week:

Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead: Done! My review is here.

Dare Me by Megan Abbott: Just finished this one over the weekend. See my thoughts here.

My son and I are enjoying Magic By The Lake by Edward Eager, although based on the first few chapters, it’s not quite as captivating as Half Magic.

Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon (group re-read): No chapters this week — the group took time off from the re-read to focus on family time and Thanksgiving celebrations. No, not for shopping (although I’m sure a bit of that happened too).

And this week’s new agenda:

Last week I swore that I’d start reading Doc by Mary Doria Russell by the end of Thanksgiving weekend, and I made it in under the wire! Doc will be my focus all week — it’s a finely detailed, meticulously researched piece of historical fiction, with a huge cast of characters. I think this one will take a lot of concentration, but seeing as it’s written by one of my very favorite authors, I’m sure it’ll be well worth the time and effort.

And if, by some chance, I finish Doc this week, then I’ll resubmerge myself in the big pile of YA novels borrowed from the library. I have a mix of sequels and stand-alones waiting to be read, so I should be able to find something that strikes my fancy. Most likely, I’ll start with Because It Is My Blood by Gabrielle Zevin and then see which way the winds blow. Very unlikely that I’ll read much besides Doc this week, however.

Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon: Diving back in with chapters 66 and 67 this week.

So many book, so little time…

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

24Nov2012

Book Review: Dare Me by Megan Abbott

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: Dare Me by Megan Abbott

For some reason, after hearing this book compared to “Heathers” and “Mean Girls”, I was expecting dark comedy. Dark, I got. Comedy, not at all.

Dare Me is a very dark look at the hearts of high school girls — their secrets, desires, power plays, and manipulations. The story focuses on Addy, lieutenant to cheer squad captain Beth, happy and secure in her number two role, always right at the heart of the power. Beth is, beyond doubt, a mean girl. The snide comments designed to undermine others’ confidence, the hip-shaking strides down the school corridor, the ability to put anyone, boy or girl, back in their place — their place being always subservient to Beth — these are Beth’s tools of the trade, her natural forté. Addy, however, has known Beth since elementary school and Pee Wee cheer, and they’ve been best friends ever since. Only Addy has seen past Beth’s facade and knows some of the inner working of Beth’s tumultuous and devious heart.

Disrupting the power structure and rocking it to its core is the arrival of a new coach. Coach French pegs Beth for what she is right away, knocks her from the top of the pyramid, as it were, and sets in motion a chain of events that turns disastrous very quickly, with emotional and physical casualties piling up along the way. Beth is not one to take insult or injury lightly, and she goes to war in her own patented, insidious way, with Addy caught in the middle and at risk of being pulled apart.

Dare Me presents a rather appalling peek inside the world of cheerleading, as the girls indulge in extreme dieting, punishing workouts, and casual self-induced vomiting in order to be at their fighting and flying best. The author attempts to describe the high physical risks involved in this sport as well, the peril of flying, pushing, pulling, and lifting, with only the other girls’ arms and attention keeping one’s head from crashing onto the ground. The pressure is intense, and the risk is real, and yet these girls keep throwing themselves into it, with applause and adrenaline — and a sense of cheating death — the reward for success.

I particularly liked this passage, as Addy explains the intensity and interconnectedness of their stunts:

Being part of a pyramid, you never see the pyramid at all.
Later, watching ourselves, it never feels real… It’s nothing like it is on the floor. There, you have to bolt your gaze to the bodies in your care, the ones right above you.
Your only focus should be your girl, the one you’re responsible for the one whose leg, hip arm you’re bracing. the one who is counting on you.
Left spot, keep your focus on the left flank. Don’t look right.
Right spot, keep your focus on the right flank. Don’t look left.
Eyes on the Flyer’s eyes, shoulders, hips, vigilant for any sign of misalignment, instability, doubt.
This is how you stop falls.
This is how you keep everything from collapsing.
You never get to see the stunt at all.
Eyes on your girl.
And it’s only ever a partial vision, because that’s the only way to keep everyone up in the air.

This sense of not seeing the whole picture, of just focusing on the part you need to see in order to avoid collapse, applies to Addy and her slow discovery of the secrets and deceptions going on all around her. As manipulation piles up on top of manipulation, tragedy inevitably strikes, and Addy is left to piece it all together.

Dare Me was a quick but engrossing read, well written in a tone that conveys passion, devotion, fear and glory. It terms of the plotting and betrayals, as well as the dark undertone present in every passage, I was reminded most of The Basic Eight, but without the humor or levity to counteract the blackness. High school and friendships can be a true battlefield, and Dare Me portrays it in scary vividness, collateral damage and all.

23Nov2012

Book Review: Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead

Posted in Book Reviews by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Book Review: Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead

If you grew up in the 1980s, at some point you probably laughed your way through The Preppy Handbook by Lisa Birnbach:

I know my friends and I got countless hours of amusement from this tongue-in-cheek guide to living the preppy lifestyle… which also makes charming fun of those leisurely folks, hanging out at the club or by a picturesque beach, clad in pastel colors, Topsiders, and various and sundry items embroidered with whales or other sea creatures. It was a world we could envision, occasionally mimic, but never actually wanted to go to (and probably wouldn’t have been allowed in, anyway).

So when I read Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead, I was immediately reminded of my youthful perusal of Fair Isle sweaters and matching headbands. While we merely observed the preppy phenomenon, the characters in this book actually live it! The clothes, the beach houses, the golf clubs, the casual approach to wealth, the unerring sense of what “our” type of people do — and what just isn’t done — it’s all here, in this amusing and occasionally touching tale of a family’s eventful wedding weekend.

The bride’s sister gives us a pretty accurate snapshot of the meaning of marriage in this slice of society:

Daphne and Greyson were perfectly suited, both for each other and for the institution of marriage. It was a match both appropriate and timely; they were two people joined by their desire to join. They were pleasant, predictable, responsible, intelligent, and practical, not full of fiery, insupportable passion or ticking time bombs of impossible expectations. What they had a was a comfortable covalence, stable and durable, their differences understood, cataloged, and compensated for. They were perpetuating their species.

And again, in describing the groom’s parents:

The Duffs went together like two shades of beige, bound by a common essence of optimism, narrow-mindedness, and self-satisfaction. Daphne and Greyson were the perfect next generation.

As father of the bride, Winn Van Meter is the family patriarch, rallying the troops at their Cape Cod island getaway for his beloved (and very pregnant) daughter’s wedding to the scion of another well-to-do family. As the various relatives and bridal party members assemble, socialize, drink heavily, eat lobsters, and generally get up to all sorts of questionable behavior, secrets are revealed, long-held beliefs are challenged, and some hard truths must be faced.

Winn himself is the central figure in the book, and is an interesting character. Grandson of a self-made man, he’s oh-so-afraid of being perceived as not fitting in. He’s got the wealth, sure, but he never quite manages to pull off the insouciant ease of the more established of his class. Consequently, Winn spends an awful lot of time worrying about appearances. He’s appalled remembering how his father sent him off to Harvard with a new gold watch, when what was really de rigeur for the boys of the ton was a shabby, “oh, this old thing?” type of timepiece. His island home is chicly disheveled, and he feels offended by a rival’s new, elaborate island home under construction, which simply shouts money and status. Winn views his rival Jack’s obvious affection for his developmentally disabled daughter as showing off, and even considers Jack’s son’s enlistment in the army to be social posturing. He remonstrates with his daughters quite a bit about what’s done and what’s not done, to the extent that when his younger daughter has an emotional breakdown at the exclusive Ophidian Club, Winn’s first reaction is horror that the event happened at the club, not horror over his daughter’s pain and distress. Winn is desperate for membership in the private golf club on the island, and can’t quite accept that he’s just not up to snuff.

The overarching WASP-iness feels stifling at times. The stiff upper lips, the endless cocktails, the lobster dinners and tennis matches — it’s all such a regimented way of life, at least as it’s presented in Seating Arrangements. Characters fall into neat categories, for the most part: The drunken, oft-married and Botoxed aunt; the flighty blonde prep school roommate who’s all giggles and cluelessness; the older brother of the groom whose decadent ways have already started revealing themselves in a too-early paunch; the younger brother who claims to embrace Buddhism while not actually espousing any Buddhist practices. Then there’s Dominique, the Egyptian-born friend of the bride, with exotic looks and an exciting career, who ends up coming across as an all-wise outsider in a way that borders on ethnic stereotype.

It’s all rather funny, as well. Two of the groom’s brothers explain their clothing — a seersucker suit and pants with whales — as being “ironic” wardrobe choices. The family goes into a tizzy over how to handle a sick lobster. Various drunk people are constantly falling down, making a mess, and blundering through the house with abandon.

Relationships come together and unravel, and quite a lot of differing approaches to marriage and what constitutes marital bliss are contemplated in Seating Arrangements. The bride, Daphne, is probably the least fleshed out of the family members. We don’t ever get to know her, other than knowing that she’s blissfully in love and delightedly pregnant, practically buoyant with joy throughout the wedding weekend.

Seating Arrangements was an enjoyable read for me, but fits into my reading category of “I liked it, but I didn’t love it”. Perhaps it’s just that these characters’ lives are so foreign to me, or that so much of what Winn obsesses about can be described as “first-world problems”. The plot of Seating Arrangements is engaging and moves along nicely, and the writing is clever, but ultimately it didn’t feel like a very substantive read to me. I’d recommend this book as a good diversion, but don’t expect a deep exploration of the meaning of life.