This is the sequel to The 5th Wave, which I read a year and a half ago, and which blew me away for realz (see? So profesh!). Rick Yancey writes a teenage girl skillfully, and the book was right up my tree. Realistic for the most part, engaging, fun, and terrifying, all at one. I eagerly awaited the sequel.
...which apparently came out in September. I don't keep up on this stuff. I actually count on my friend Emily for YA happenings, but she was caught off guard by my announcement that the sequel had been out for 4 months. At any rate, The Infinite Sea was much shorter than The 5th Wave, but it's a good, complete novel, and enjoyable as hell. It's very psychological, much more so than the first one. I'm eagerly awaiting the third book in the trilogy and I hope I don't miss it this time.
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Book #5: The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
I've been trying to get my hands on The Day of the Triffids for years now (until I became an AbeBooks convert, at which point I promptly forgot about it) but I have tons of dystopian book lists saved on Chrome and happened to turn up The Chrysalids in my pursuit of the next book. It was really really good... and then the end happened.
It didn't ruin the book for me, but I was under the impression that Wyndham was trying to say something that he apparently was not (that indoctrination regarding a particular way of life, no matter how ostensibly superior, is dangerous); after I finished reading, I sought out information about the book, including criticism, and pretty much all reviewers finished it and thought, "LOLWUT?" He apparently just... went for it. So, I mean, whatever. Good for him. I don't want to spoil it for you, because I really do think it's worth a read, but meh. Don't be surprised if you're disappointed at the end.
It didn't ruin the book for me, but I was under the impression that Wyndham was trying to say something that he apparently was not (that indoctrination regarding a particular way of life, no matter how ostensibly superior, is dangerous); after I finished reading, I sought out information about the book, including criticism, and pretty much all reviewers finished it and thought, "LOLWUT?" He apparently just... went for it. So, I mean, whatever. Good for him. I don't want to spoil it for you, because I really do think it's worth a read, but meh. Don't be surprised if you're disappointed at the end.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Books #3 and 4: The Singer's Gun and The Lola Quartet, both by Emily St. John Mandel
If there's one thing I'm worse at than sitting down and reading, it's sitting down and writing about reading. It really is best to keep up with these as I do them, but I am a procrastinator of the first order and things tend to get away from me.
Anywho, Book #4: The Singer's Gun. I requested Mandel's other works from the library after enjoying Station Eleven so much and, while I can see why Station Eleven was her big, everyone's-year-end-list breakout, I enjoyed this novel just as much. Without giving too much away, I will say that the book is about passport fraud and is incredibly sad. Mandel writes in a way that requires some faith, and I prefer to read her books without any introduction: I don't read the dust jacket (though I read this one after and it gives away almost nothing), I don't waste my time trying to figure out what's going on, I just settle in and go along for the ride. All is revealed in Mandel's own time. I read most of this in one whack after deciding that I was giving up on this resolution. This book saved me!
Book #5, The Lola Quartet, also by Mandel, has a title that worried me. Music is a pretty big motif in all the books I've read of hers thus far and, as I feared, this was the most musical. I didn't get too hung up in it though, and it turned out to be really accessible. I know nearly nothing about music and my taste in it sucks to high heaven, so I was afraid I was going to get in over my head, but it was fine. This one had a sad ending too, which seems to be Mandel's specialty. I'm okay with that; I don't need everything to work out happily ever after. Her novels have that dose of reality, but they also have a feeling of magical realism I can't quite define. It's not like old men with wings turn up in the town or anything specifically unreal happens, there's just sort of a gauzy haze floating over the reality of her characters that seems to bump them up another level in the ranks of perception.
One thing I've learned since posting last is that if a book is sucking, ditch it. I can try again later or maybe never, but I can't let a book I'm not enjoying derail me. I did that with two Stephen King books ('Salem's Lot and The Shining) with this idea that I am a Stephen King Fan and I was going to Get Through His Whole Catalog This Year, but eh. I think I like his stuff when I find the topics interesting and I'm not into vampires or crazy hotels.
Anywho, Book #4: The Singer's Gun. I requested Mandel's other works from the library after enjoying Station Eleven so much and, while I can see why Station Eleven was her big, everyone's-year-end-list breakout, I enjoyed this novel just as much. Without giving too much away, I will say that the book is about passport fraud and is incredibly sad. Mandel writes in a way that requires some faith, and I prefer to read her books without any introduction: I don't read the dust jacket (though I read this one after and it gives away almost nothing), I don't waste my time trying to figure out what's going on, I just settle in and go along for the ride. All is revealed in Mandel's own time. I read most of this in one whack after deciding that I was giving up on this resolution. This book saved me!
Book #5, The Lola Quartet, also by Mandel, has a title that worried me. Music is a pretty big motif in all the books I've read of hers thus far and, as I feared, this was the most musical. I didn't get too hung up in it though, and it turned out to be really accessible. I know nearly nothing about music and my taste in it sucks to high heaven, so I was afraid I was going to get in over my head, but it was fine. This one had a sad ending too, which seems to be Mandel's specialty. I'm okay with that; I don't need everything to work out happily ever after. Her novels have that dose of reality, but they also have a feeling of magical realism I can't quite define. It's not like old men with wings turn up in the town or anything specifically unreal happens, there's just sort of a gauzy haze floating over the reality of her characters that seems to bump them up another level in the ranks of perception.
One thing I've learned since posting last is that if a book is sucking, ditch it. I can try again later or maybe never, but I can't let a book I'm not enjoying derail me. I did that with two Stephen King books ('Salem's Lot and The Shining) with this idea that I am a Stephen King Fan and I was going to Get Through His Whole Catalog This Year, but eh. I think I like his stuff when I find the topics interesting and I'm not into vampires or crazy hotels.
Sunday, January 4, 2015
Book #2: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
When I hate a book, everyone knows it. When I love one, everyone knows that, too. I'm like a book evangelist, singing it praises wherever I go, trying my best to get everyone to read it. When I finished Station Eleven, I texted three people (one of whom I knew had already downloaded the ebook) and bossed them to read it.
One of the reasons for this project is that, after spending three years in grad school, I had fallen out of the habit of reading for pleasure. I was at a point where I had to force myself to read for a half-hour each evening before falling asleep which, if you know me, is pretty out of character. Force-reading books leaves (even good ones) on a deadline leaves little time for fun reading, and it really is easy to break the habit. In the last two years or so, there have been only two books that I loved. Like, straight-up finished then turned the book over and started it again immediately: The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker and 11/22/63 by Stephen King. In the time between semesters that I had available to me, I often reread these two favorites, partly because I enjoyed them and partly because I knew I wasn't squandering my limited time on something disappointing.
Station Eleven hasn't reached The Age of Miracles status yet, but there's hope for it. I think I will want to read it again soon, though I'll resist until 2016. I struggle with this project, with wanting to get the books in - just about two per week! - and wanting to really relax and enjoy the books that are good. This one both forced me to slow down and enjoy and went by incredibly quickly because I was always wanting to read - when I was trapped in the theater during Into the Woods, I was wishing I had brought Station Eleven along in my purse so I could sit in the lobby and read. It took three days to read because it really was that readable.
Mandel does something I envy, a skill I admire in every writer who does it because the thought of structuring a novel in such a way makes me hyperventilate a little: she tells her story out of chronological order, right up until the end, and it is flawless. There is no connection left unexplained, no mystery left unraveled. I had no idea that a book about the apocalypse, which spans about 60 years, could be so intriguing. Typically these books follow a formula - the world ended, this is our life now, these are our struggles, this is our big conflict, check for the resolution in the sequel. Mandel upends the traditional structure in favor of something more beautiful, something more meaningful. There is room for a sequel - I both hope she does write one and dread it, hating the ubiquitous agent-and-publisher-forced second parts that seem to creep up behind every well-written book anymore - but it's not necessary. If the last word of Station Eleven is the last word I ever read about Kristen Raymonde then I am content.
She uses sentence fragments well - if my 9th graders read this they would grouse to me and I would tell them what an art teacher once told my skeptical 6th-grade class about Piet Mondrian and his black lines and blue squares: only when an artist understands the rules may he break them. I blew the teacher off then, but I get it now after reading Faulkner and Joyce and Woolf. I don't think Mandel's at that level yet, but she gets it, and maybe one day honors seniors will be reading her in English class. I hope it's soon.
Friday, January 2, 2015
Book #1: No Kidding: Women Writers on Bypassing Parenthood edited by Henriette Mantel
I read about this book on Brain Pickings and it sounded interesting. I'm the worst for bookmarking webpages then never checking them out again, but I've gone through them again in service of this project, so here we go. First book of 2015.
Well, it was an inauspicious start. The book...sucked. I'd say half of the essays were engaging and relatable, at least to me, as a 36-year-old child-free lady. The other were, well, defensive. Way more defensive than I probably should have anticipated. On one hand, I get it. I've heard all the ignorant things people say and, yeah, I'm tired of it too. But on the other hand, the women who are child-free by choice should be proud and positive about it, at least I think. Maybe I'm a little Pollyanna about the whole topic. I chose around 19 not to have kids and everyone in my close circle is 100% OK with it; it's acquaintances (mostly older ones) who take issue. I guess I don't really care that they do; all sorts of people have opinions about my life, and that's fine with me.
An odd thing I noticed throughout the book was the anti-abortion undercurrent. There were a few women who owned up to the procedure in their essays, some apologetically, some daring me to judge. But the more bitter among the writers seemed to have an attitude about women who have had abortions. I read more than once that this was about a women's right to choose, and I DON'T mean abortion. Like, chill out, sister. It's likely that people reading this book are pretty chill on the topic. You don't need to sneer.
The worst part of the book, though, was the lousy copy editing. One writer has an "exiting" life. One wrote of "loosing" her virginity. Sometimes books have typos, yes, but I've never before had an urge to write to a publisher and deliver the same news I do to my 9th-graders every time they turn in essays: "Spellcheck doesn't catch everything." When done well, copy editing is invisible. When done poorly, it's unbearably distracting, and it took me out of the book every single time. I even tried to convince myself that no, that woman's life really is exiting; I must be reading the sentence wrong. No, I wasn't. This woman wasn't exiting shit but a life tethered to offspring. I also had a momentary fantasy of loosing my virginity upon the world, allowing it to wreak havoc upon Tokyo. The concept seemed empowering but unlikely.
I dog-eared the authors I liked (oh, the horror, I know, dog-earing a library book; I cop to it) and sought out other work by them. None of them have had books published, at least none that are in my local library. The book wasn't impressive enough for me to spend actual money on Amazon, so I didn't check there. Maybe there are other empowering anti-breeding treatises out there, but this book left me exiting the genre and loosing its hold on me.
Well, it was an inauspicious start. The book...sucked. I'd say half of the essays were engaging and relatable, at least to me, as a 36-year-old child-free lady. The other were, well, defensive. Way more defensive than I probably should have anticipated. On one hand, I get it. I've heard all the ignorant things people say and, yeah, I'm tired of it too. But on the other hand, the women who are child-free by choice should be proud and positive about it, at least I think. Maybe I'm a little Pollyanna about the whole topic. I chose around 19 not to have kids and everyone in my close circle is 100% OK with it; it's acquaintances (mostly older ones) who take issue. I guess I don't really care that they do; all sorts of people have opinions about my life, and that's fine with me.
An odd thing I noticed throughout the book was the anti-abortion undercurrent. There were a few women who owned up to the procedure in their essays, some apologetically, some daring me to judge. But the more bitter among the writers seemed to have an attitude about women who have had abortions. I read more than once that this was about a women's right to choose, and I DON'T mean abortion. Like, chill out, sister. It's likely that people reading this book are pretty chill on the topic. You don't need to sneer.
The worst part of the book, though, was the lousy copy editing. One writer has an "exiting" life. One wrote of "loosing" her virginity. Sometimes books have typos, yes, but I've never before had an urge to write to a publisher and deliver the same news I do to my 9th-graders every time they turn in essays: "Spellcheck doesn't catch everything." When done well, copy editing is invisible. When done poorly, it's unbearably distracting, and it took me out of the book every single time. I even tried to convince myself that no, that woman's life really is exiting; I must be reading the sentence wrong. No, I wasn't. This woman wasn't exiting shit but a life tethered to offspring. I also had a momentary fantasy of loosing my virginity upon the world, allowing it to wreak havoc upon Tokyo. The concept seemed empowering but unlikely.
I dog-eared the authors I liked (oh, the horror, I know, dog-earing a library book; I cop to it) and sought out other work by them. None of them have had books published, at least none that are in my local library. The book wasn't impressive enough for me to spend actual money on Amazon, so I didn't check there. Maybe there are other empowering anti-breeding treatises out there, but this book left me exiting the genre and loosing its hold on me.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Resolution!
One of my (many) resolutions for 2015 is to read 100 books. This is where I'm going to be keeping track and writing short reviews of each book. No frills, nothing fancy, no delusions of blogging grandeur, just a place for me to muse about this undertaking.
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