To: The Society of Totally Awesome Books

Subject: For your consideration – Jaclyn Moriarty’s books

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Dear Society of Totally Awesome Books,

It is with the utmost delight that I write to you today. I have found a new-to-me author and I would like to bring Jaclyn Moriarty’s Ashbury/Brookfield books before this esteemed society to ask that these books are officially granted “Totally Awesome Books” status. Below I give a SPOILER FREE overview of the series and try to explain why I think these books should be granted the aforementioned status.

But first, a bit of background: Jaclyn Moriarty is an Australian writer of (mostly) YA novels. The books I am submitting for your consideration are known as the “Ashbury/Brookfield” series that consists of four standalone novels but which are linked by setting, narrative and a few recurring characters. The series revolve around students who attend two schools: the private, exclusive Ashbury High and the comprehensive, public Brookfield High. All fours novels are epistolary novels , i.e. written in the form of or carried on by letters, emails, journal entries and other types of writing (including essays for school).

The Ashbury/Brookfield series of novels are, in order of publication (please note the different titles and covers depending on where the novels have been published):

1- Feeling Sorry For Celia
2- Finding Cassie Crazy (AUS/UK title) or The Year of Secret Assignments (US title)
3- The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie (AUS title) or Becoming Bindy Mackenzie (UK title), or The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie (US title)
4- Dreaming of Amelia (AUS/UK title) or The Ghosts of Ashbury High (US title)

I have come to this series very late (the first book was published a good ten years ago!) and started with the latest book, Dreaming of Amelia / The Ghosts of Ashbury High :

I will have to admit that the book took me completely by surprise, and I loved it so completely, it is now one of my top 3 reads of 2010. I have written a review which I submit along with this correspondence as Attachment #1.

I LOVE epistolary novels, dear Society of Totally Awesome Books and it is a fact that one of the reasons why I loved that book so much is Jaclyn Moriarty’s complete mastery of the narrative form. When I learnt that all of her novels were in that format I went on a binge, bought all three previous novels and read them straight away and loved them all.

Take for example, Feeling Sorry for Celia:

which is a book from this girl’s, Elizabeth Clarry, perspective. Elizabeth attends Ashbury High and her new English teacher (a recurrent character throughout the series) decides that students of Ashbury and students of Brookfield must start a pen pal project, a twofold mission to rekindle the “joy of the envelope” as well as an attempt to cease hostility between the two neighbouring schools. Elizabeth’s pen pal is a girl named Christina and it is via their exchanges that we learn about both girls: how Christina’s best friends are her dog Lochie and her friend since childhood Celia, someone who keeps pulling disappearing act (the latest: she has joined a circus) and whose well-being is always at the back of Elizabeth’s mind. We also learn that Elizabeth is responsible, sporty (she loves to run), as well as being self-conscious and troubled by the fact that she might not be a typical teenager. Her narrative is interspersed by (obviously her own unconscious) communications from for example the Association of Teenagers or the Cold Hard Truth Association. We also learn that Christina is having problems with her boyfriend after they decide to have sex and that Elizabeth and her mother communicate solely by notes stuck on the refrigerator.

Feeling Sorry for Celia can be seen as a coming of age story as Elizabeth considers her relationships, the old ones with her family and her friend Celia and the new ones with Christina and a potential suitor and little by little gains self-confidence until the last letter she exchanges with the Association of Teenagers which made me jump up and down.

Hereby I present Evidence #1 for granting this series a “TAB” status:

Dear Society of Totally Awesome Books, it is a fact of life that a book that makes you literally jump and down is a totally awesome book.

But that is not all. The second book in the series is Finding Cassie Crazy or The Year of Secret Assingments (don’t you prefer the original title? I know I do….) :

Which is a book that depicts the second year of the pen pal “experiment” and it is from the perspective of three girls, best friends since forever: Emily, Lydia and Cassie (all three from Ashbury) and their correspondence with three guys from Brookfield, Charlie, Seb and Mathew.

This is a book where Moriarty explores not only the difference between the two schools but also the stereotypes that surround both. I loved how all the first letters to each other, the kids are exploring, teasing, trying to establish limits at the same time that they try to go beyond them. The girls especially are awesome at calling the guys out on their sexism and on the stereotyping but above all the girls are awesome, period. They are extremely loyal to one another and that loyalty comes into play when Cassie’s correspondence with Charlie goes awry (they don’t even know if he exists, at first) and their dedication to one another is incredible to behold and how Emily and Lydia (by the way, Emily and Lydia are two of the main protagonists of Ghosts of Ashbury High) want to protect Cassie and how Cassie is broken for several reasons. The book is also very romantic, probably the most romantic of the bunch (but without being extra-sugary).

And then there are the secret assignments, the fight for privacy rights, the fact that the girls are strong yet vulnerable and how it all warmed my heart so much, I hugged the book.

Thus, I present Evidence #2 for granting this series a “TAB” status:

Dear Society of Totally Awesome Books, when a book warms your heart so much you have to HUG it, then you know that you are reading something special and totally awesome.

And just when I thought Jaclyn Moriarty could not possibly be any more good, she gave me Bindy Mackenzie……

The third book in the series and the last one I read is: The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie, AKA Becoming Bindy Mackenzie in the UK, AKA The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie in the US (are you confused yet? Can we please agree that there is NO REASON whatsoever for three different titles for the same book?) :

Society of Totally Awesome Books, you have no IDEA how much I love Bindy Mackenzie, the character. And do you know what is the best thing about it? That Bindy Mackenzie is very possibly, the least likeable of Moriarty’s characters. The book opens as Bindy learns what some of her fellow students – from a new class called: Friendship And Development – really think about her and the opinions are not really that positive.

Cue to Bindy’s dismay. Because she truly thinks she is the best person around, the most positive, the most helpful student that ever walked Ashbury High’s corridors but through her own narrative we see that she is as a matter of fact: arrogant, judgemental, stuck up. She does honestly believe she is being kind when she is being condescending. Her next step is to stop being nice to her colleagues and to tell the truth of what she thinks about them. THEN, to realise that maybe they do have a point and THEN to start a process of deconstruction and eventual reconstruction of her own personality.

Bindy is an extremely intelligent girl, with best grades at everything, very precocious too and perhaps even a bit of a child prodigy: she wrote at the age of ten: “I’ve been struggling a bit with Ulysses by James Joyce”. She thinks that she is NOT a teenager because she can’t be bothered with regular teenage stuff. She also had a role to play in the Cassie-Charlie mystery in the previous novel and in here we see it from her point of view.

The fact that I came to care to deeply for Bindy is a testament to this writer’s insane writing skills. That this is transmitted via stuff like BOXES to keep words like REVERIE from expanding or stationary headings like: “The Philosophical Musings of Bindy Mackenzie”, “Night Time Musings of Bindy Mackenzie” that once you learn why exactly these even exist half way through the book, I guarantee heartbreak ensue. And then dears sirs, Moriarty writes the most heartbreaking scene of them all when Bindy has a talk with her mother and I think I need a new copy of my book because this one has been irreparably lost to tears.

In this manner, I present Evidence #3 for granting this series a “TAB” status:

Dear Society of Totally Awesome Books, when a book breaks your heart into tiny million pieces and you find yourself sobbing so much for a character that you didn’t even think you would like, that you nearly drowns in your own tears, only to then have the heart put back together by the incredible author then you know that you are reading a totally awesome book.

I hope I have made my case with the examples above but just to reiterate why I love these books so much:

We are taking about a series that have the most excellent female characters as its protagonists: female characters that are strong (without being kick-ass), diverse (although perhaps, one criticism I have is that they might not be as diverse as they could have been in terms of race or sexuality) and extremely complex. They are all flawed yet sympathetic in different ways, when they make serious mistakes they work to fix them; they are not afraid to say they are sorry nor are they afraid to fight when they know they are right. These girls are intelligent (although not necessarily book-smart) , they have friends whom they are loyal to and hobbies they love. When there is a romantic interest they do not become shadows of themselves. The romance works become it is part of their lives, adding to it, not by making them separate.

There is no character major or minor that is not described with great empathy by the author.

In terms of narrative, I already said how much I adore epistolary novels and how much the author is great at it. This is also because she is a master of the random that is not really random; each book has different types of correspondence and it never becomes old or repetitive because there is variety.

Epistolary novels are about perspective as well as the possibility of unreliable narrators and it needs to be taken into consideration that these characters are building letters, and depending on who is writing and whom they are addressed to, and who is going to read it, there might be not a lot of truth there. For example: an essay is going to be read by a teacher. How much truth can a student actually write when a figure of authority is going to read what they are writing? It requires a rapport from the reader and the need to read between the lines.

The books are also about revealing stereotypes and prejudice and getting past them.

These are all a bit of mystery novels too: in book 1 there is a secret about a father and a secret admirer; in book 2, is Cassie really crazy? book 3: is someone trying to kill Bindy? In book 4, are there ghosts in Ashbury High?

The books are often funny:

“I’m only writing it because of Mr Botherit. He’s our new English teacher and he seems really upset that the Art of Letter Writing is lost to the Internet generation, so he’s going to rekindle the joy of the ENVELOPE. Next he’s going to bring in a club and a sabre tooth tiger and rekindle the joy of the STONE AGE.

But also sad, with subtle ways of conveying hurt:

“The last few days I’ve been feeling like I can hear people crying everywhere. Behind the shower water I could hear a sound like someone just sobbing and sobbing.”

A series where small, random things have huge significance: like the reason for painting one’s bedroom wall, for breaking a mirror, for putting your hand in the air, for stationary paper, for words inside boxes to prevent their expansion; when one has an asthma attack; how name calling and choosing one’s name can change things, double meanings and the excessive use of exclamation points!

You will remember that the last time I contacted you was back in 2009 to forward Megan Whalen Turner’s Queen Thief’s series for “TAB” consideration and I am very grateful for your reply letting me know that they had already been granted “Totally Awesome” status ages ago. Therefore, I do appreciate the fact that I might be, once again, way late on the uptake and that you might have already granted these books “TAB” status. Quite honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised. In which case please do disregard this missive. I shall proceed now to forward a copy to your sister organisations: the Society of Author Crushes, The Society of Lovers of Epistolary Novels as well as the Association for the Appreciation of Awesome Female Characters.

You will hopefully hear from me again in the future, and I remain as always, your loyal member.

With my best regards,

Ana

Title: WE

Author: John Dickinson

Genre: Science Fiction, “Young Adult”

Publisher: David Fickling Books (UK)
Publication Date: January 2010
Paperback: 288 pages

Paul Munro must leave Earth. He is sent to a station at the edge of the solar system, that is manned by just four people. There he must find out why certain signals are not reaching Earth.

Before he begins his journey, they remove his World Ear – a tiny communications device that integrates the internet with the brain. And when he reaches his destination, body wasted by low gravity, exiled for life and cut off from all the other humans with whom he shared his thoughts, his companions ask: “Did you consent?”

He cannot answer.

How did I get this book: Bought (via Waterstones UK and downloaded to my B&N Nook. Gotta love the international appeal of the ebook!)

Why did I read this book: I’ll be honest – the first thing to catch my eye with this book was the cover. And then, when I read the synopsis, I was hooked. SO hooked, in fact, that I had to buy the book immediately from the UK (as it isn’t available in the US).

Review:

In a not-so-distant future, mankind has changed. The majority of the human population is interlinked by the World Ear, an implant that allows its user to instantaneously connect with anyone else who is implanted, communicating in a mixture of images, sounds, and even transmitted sensations like touch, scent, or taste. The World Ear has allowed humanity to supersede the individual; it has allowed humanity to be connected in one massive consciousness, with information received and dispersed at the speed of thought.

There is no need for speech.

There is no need for strong emotion.

The World Ear has taken humanity to its next evolutionary stage.

WE is the story of Paul Munro, one man selected by the collective consciousness of the World Ear as a telemetry specialist on an important outpost at the furthest reach of the solar system, dedicated to analyze the gas planet, its moon, and search for any sign of intelligent life. But because of the unique problems posed by the planet and moon, none of the station’s inhabitants can be connected to the World Ear. Our first introduction to Paul is immediately after he awakens from the procedure that has disconnected him from the network – and his abject terror at being utterly alone, mute and almost completely incapable of communication. After his eight year journey (in stasis) to the outpost at the edge of the solar system, Paul gradually adjusts to new life with the three other humans that will likely be his only companions for the rest of his life – May (exuberant doctor), Lewis (imposing commander), and Vandamme (partner to the lost telemetrist and a self-contained astro-geologist) – learning to speak, emote, and interact. As Paul becomes more articulate and self-conscious, he suspects that there is something amiss in his mission to uncover the source of the interference with transmissions to Earth. With his suspicions mounting, Paul is determined to discover the truth at any cost.

This is the first book I have read by John Dickinson, and what a fabulous introduction it turned out to be. WE is one hell of a novel. This is cerebral science fiction at its best, posing ambitious questions and demanding its characters and readers to confront what it truly means to be human. It is one of those books that gets better the longer one thinks about it; processing, digesting, and interpreting the data in every possible way (much like Paul’s “hunter” program). Ever since discovering Stephen Baxter last year, I have been on the lookout for hard science fiction titles that manage to blend human character appeal with the cold, cruelty of space – and WE manages to do just that.

Reminiscent of Baxter’s Titan and of M.T. Anderson’s dystopian SF masterpiece, Feed, WE examines the meaning of humanity, the definition of intelligent life, and the value of the individual in relation to the whole. It is in these quiet questions, asked both explicitly by the characters, and implicitly of the readers, that WE shines. Is emancipation from “the We” (as the characters aboard the station call Earth and the World Ear) a good thing? At what level of connection does the individual begin to become irrelevant? The We is utilitarianism in the extreme, with a new overall consciousness comprised of ALL its interlinked consciousnesses – akin to a giant brain, with each human acting as a neuron, firing signals and interacting with others to produce the desired result. Instead of painting a dystopian future where consumerism runs amok (as in Anderson’s Feed), WE’s future is more quietly menacing – our cult of personality and fixation on the individual falls to the greater good, which sounds fine, doesn’t it? Except in such a society, there is no individual autonomy – just as protagonist Paul is asked by Lewis, “Did you consent?” he is unable to answer.

On a less-nebulous/more-concrete level, the reason why WE is able to provoke such intriguing questions is because the science, the setting, and the characters are impeccably written. From the technical aspects to the science (the space elevator, the limitations of the World Ear, the physiological changes to those in deep space, the temperature and atmosphere readings) Mr. Dickinson appears to have done his homework, working within the parameters of our current understanding of physics and our own solar system (see additional thoughts below for more on that). The images of a distant gas giant and its icy moon are richly – if coldly – detailed, providing a harsh, unforgiving, and evocative backdrop for the novel. On the character level, WE is told through Paul’s observations – effective, since Paul’s communication skills are underdeveloped to say the least, especially in his exchanges with his fellow crew members. In such an unrelenting, isolated environment, these character are a microcosm of humanity – Van, who turns to religion; May and Lewis, who cling to a different hope for the future; Paul, obstinate and determined to uncover the truth. As these characters say in the book, they are the last four humans in existence, differentiated from their siblings on Earth because of their disconnection from the We, their ability to feel acute emotion, and even physically with their low-gravity distorted bodies. It’s a scary and effective picture, with these fragile creatures struggling for life in the most inhospitable of locations. These characters are flawed, genuine creatures that make questionable decisions – and that is part of the beauty of WE. Ultimately, regardless of whether or not Paul and the crew made the right choices, they are able to make a choice, and that is the important thing.

From a plotting perspective, I am loathe to say too much for fear of spoilers – suffice to say that WE is a psychological thriller, with a mystery and a powerful revelation. Though this is more of a quieter, slowly simmering plot, heavy on dialogue and internal reflection and lighter on action, WE may not appeal to everyone (this is no military science fiction novel, so if you are looking for nonstop battle scenes, look elsewhere). That isn’t to say the plotting is poor or the book cumbersome – because it’s not. I devoured WE in a single sitting.

What else can I say? I loved this book. On a final note concerning the genre – WE is a young adult novel as much as, say, The Handmaiden’s Tale or 1984 or The Martian Chronicles (all books that are frequently shelved in the YA section, as well as the mainstream SF or Literature sections). Which is to say, WE doesn’t really fit into the typical, current mold of romance-featuring, adventure filled coming-of-age sort of novel that one might normally associate with YA F/SF (in fact, author John Dickinson has blogged about the mis-categorization of this book). That isn’t to say that WE shouldn’t be read by young adults – rather, it is a book that can transcend age barriers. Yes, neither the protagonist nor any other character in this book is a young adult, but need that be a defining quality for the genre?

How about I put it like this: WE is a mainstream Science Fiction novel that I encourage anyone – of any age – to read. Rife with imposing, challenging questions, WE resonates as one of the best new science fiction titles I have had the pleasure of reading this year.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

He had asked to be alone when he woke. After all, he had reasoned, from now on he would always be alone.

They had told him there would be no pain from the operation. He had looked up the techniques they would use, checked the possible complications and had understood why they had said that. Nevertheless, something in him was surprised to discover that they had been right. There was none. There was only emptiness.

He blinked, automatically holding his eyelids closed for just that fraction of a second that would summon his displays. But no voice spoke in his head. No images appeared, no lists, nothing.

There were no weather reports, news pictures, financial statements, alerts concerning the state of his house or vehicle or the transmission systems that he was supposed to maintain. There were no demands from his supervisors. And there were no personal messages. Like everyone else he always went to those first. But there were none – no loving images, no jokes or pictures, no one wishing him luck or promising to remember him. There was nothing more from Her. There never would be.

You can read a full extract online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: Though he never specifically mentions the name of the planet and moon, this all takes place on Neptune (a gaseous planet, furthest in our solar system) and its moon, Triton (I’m pointing this out because I’ve seen a few reviews call the planet Jupiter, probably because of the reference to a Great Dark Spot – which also happens to appear on Neptune) Since I am kind of an amateur astronomy dork (emphasis on amateur), here are a few cool things about Neptune, and its largest moon.

Like Uranus (though smaller) Neptune is a gaseous planet, composed primarily of hydrogen and helium, but as the most distant planet in our solar system and the coldest, it also has an abundance of ice – water, ammonia, and methane. Neptune has thirteen moons, the largest of which is Triton (the moon on which WE’s space station is built). Now the COOL thing about Triton is that it is one of the few moons in our solar system (and the only large moon) that has a retrograde orbit – that is, it orbits Neptune in the opposite direction of the planet’s rotation. And, like our moon, Triton has a synchronous rotation with Neptune – one side faces Neptune at all times. The other cool thing about Triton is that because it has a weirdo tilt, both of its poles take turns facing the Sun – which in turn means, Triton is geologically active (i.e. the moon has volcanic activity and active nitrogen geysers, caused by heating from the Sun). Triton also is one of the coldest objects in our solar system, with surface temperature readings of -235°C (-391°F). (Intriguingly, Neptune itself is frigidly cold, but at its liquid mantle core reaches 5000 Kelvin) The observations we have of Neptune and Triton are from Voyager 2, the only spacecraft to fly by the planet and its moon in 1989.

You can read more about Neptune and its moons on NASA’s Solar System Exploration page HERE.

Rating: 9 – Damn Near Perfection, and one of my favorite novels of 2010 so far.

Reading Next: Plain Kate by Erin Bow

Title: The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian

Author: Sherman Alexie / Art by Ellen Forney

Genre: YA/ Contemporary

Publisher: Little, Brown (US)/Andersen Press (UK)
Publication Date: Re-print April 2009 (US)/ June 2008 (UK)
Paperback: 288 pages

Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author’s own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings that reflect the character’s art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he thought he was destined to live.

Stand alone or series: Stand alone

How did I get this book: Bought.

Why did I read this book: It has been recommended to me by many people. All the rave reviews. All the awards it won. Neil Gaiman.

Review: I know I am reading a good book when it simultaneously breaks my heart into tiny million pieces and makes me laugh as the pieces are put together – over and over again. The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian is one such book. I heard only good, awesome things about it, about the many awards it won and the Neil Gaiman quote on the cover only helped me picking it up. But I was not prepared for what I found and I don’t think anyone could ever be prepared for it. The book was first published in the US back in 2007 and is a first person, semi-autobiographical account of Arnold Spirit, Jr’s life as a Spokane Indian living in the Reservation with his family, and his ultimate decision of going to an all-white school just outside the rez in search for a chance to have a future. It is filled with hope to its brim even as hope is something that Indians are not supposed to have.

The heartbreaking starts on page 1 as Junior starts telling his story about being born with “water in his brain” and the resulting physical damage: ranging from over-sized head, hands and feet, bad eyesight to seizures, stuttering and lisping. Being a child with all the aforementioned is bad enough but you can just about get away with being “cute” but being a 14 year old teenage boy is unbearable. Especially when you are bullied, constantly beaten up (careful with the head!) and called a “retard”.

Junior also has forty-two teeth – ten more than normal, and if I thought my heart was breaking on page 1, it was on page 2 that I truly learnt the meaning of a heart shattered with RAGE:

I went to the Indian Health Service to get some teeth pulled so I could eat normally, not like some slobbering vulture. But the Indian Health Service funded major dental work only once a year, so I had to have all ten extra teeth pulled in one day. And what’s more, our white dentist believed that Indians only felt half as much pain as white people did, so he only gave me half the Novocain.

And it continues. Junior is dirty poor, his father is an alcoholic, as are most Indians in the reservation; no one looks into the future, his sister has been living in their basement for years. He is constantly threatened with physical damage by bullies (some of them, ADULTS) . His best friend is his dog Oscar who has to be put down by his father because they can’t afford to take him to the vet when he gets sick. It is not all sadness though, he does have a best non-canine friend in Rowdy, another teen whom he has been friends with since childhood, his grandmother and his drawings. You see, Junior loves to read and draw comics and wants to be a cartoonist one day:

I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats.

His cartoons are inserted throughout the narrative and complement it perfectly sometimes being the much needed funny break to what is being described.

What is most impressive about the narrative: that all of the horrible, tragic, things that happen to Junior don’t ever come across as being there merely for shock value or drama. The worst (or the best part?) is how it comes across as natural, as normal, as you know, things that happen. Shrug, shrug move on. The style is as though you are deep in conversation with your best friend who might as well be telling you how he went to the grocery store to buy a bottle of milk. That is in itself genius: not only because the reading flows but also because the narrative itself is part of the story. As though Junior, in narrating the story in such an easy way has assimilated the one idea that might bring him down and has brought down his family and ancestors. That Indians are good for nothing and deserve what they have. Over and over again, Junior will say something that will show how ingrained the self-loathing is, only to try and get pass that. This, as much as facing racial problems, poverty is perhaps Junior’s most important challenge. I get a sense of purpose in the storytelling.

And how does Junior start breaking the vicious circle though? It starts this one day at school when he is given a new book except the book is not new -it belonged to his own mother. Filled with sense of foreboding, Junior throws the book and it hits his teacher. In the aftermath, the same teacher impresses upon Junior the need for him to GET AWAY. He enrols at the all-white school and he is the only Indian attending it, if you don’t count their mascot. Surprisingly, he has a harder time with his fellow Indians back at the Rez for making this decision than he has with the white kids. He soon makes friends, joins the basketball team and even gets a white girlfriend. But these things don’t come easy, there is guilt, violence, heartbreak as Rowdy won’t have anything to do with him anymore and a reality that keeps dragging him down but Junior? Junior will not give up.

This is a story about identity too: Junior is at once part of his tribe and not a part of his tribe and the way that struggle is handled is superb. I thought that the fact that the ideas are never shorthanded to Indians = Good (the poor Victims) and Whites=Bad (Ultimate Evil). In fact, I think one of my favourite quotes in the book is and the one I shall use to close the review:

“I used to think the world was broken down by tribes,” I said. “By black and white. By Indian and white. But I know that isn’t true. The world is only broken into two tribes: The people who are assholes and the people who are not”.

Notable Quotes/Parts: I love this quote with all my heart because it is filled with TRUTH:

But we reservation Indians don’t get to realise our dreams. We don’t get those chances. Or choices. We’re just poor. That’s all we are.

It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that somehow one deserves to be poor. You start believing that you’re stupid and ugly because you’re Indian. And because you’re Indian you start believing you’re destined to be poor. It’s an ugly circle and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.

Additional Thoughts: This video is part Sherman Alexie reading from the book, a part that is HILARIOUS in which Junior and his geeky white friend talk about how books and reading give them boners. Then, he answers questions and talk about YA authors are welcoming and made of awesome.

Verdict: The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian is unique, raw, funny as hell. A triumph in storytelling, filled with heartbreak but also so much warmth and I can’t recommend it enough.

Rating: 9 Damn Near Perfection

Reading Next:The Ghosts of Ashbury High by Jaclyn Moriarty

Title: The Passage

Author: Justin Cronin

Genre: Horror, (Post-)Apocalyptic, Fiction, Speculative Fiction

Publisher: Ballatine (US) / Orion (UK)
Publication Date: June 2010 (US & UK)
Hardcover: 784 Pages

“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.”

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.

As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.

With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterful prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.

Stand alone or series: Book 1 in a planned trilogy

How did I get this book: ARC from the Publisher

Why did I read this book: You don’t have to search hard to find some sort of promotional material for Justin Cronin’s The Passage – down the street from my apartment, there’s an honest to goodness billboard with an advertisement for the book. At BookExpo America, banners were strewn willy-nilly across the Javits Center, and even press/attendee badges bore advertisements for the book. The Passage has come so highly rated by literary types and genre fiction types alike (hi-yo, Stephen King endorsement!), and given the synopsis of the book (a world overrun by a deadly vampire-like plague, a struggling group of humans fighting for survival in a ravaged post-apocalyptic America, and a girl-that-is-not-a-girl who could save them all)…well, this is has my name all over it. Thea-crack.

Review:

When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defac’d
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-raz’d,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away.

~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 68

So begins the The Passage – with a fittingly eerie, portent ode to the end of the world. The book begins with the story of a teenage mother, Jeanette, and her beloved daughter whom she names Amy Harper – for Harper Lee, the author of Jeanette’s favorite book. Though Jeanette loves her daughter more than anything else in the world, she finds herself in an impossible situation, and is forced to give young, solemn Amy up, leaving her with a convent of nuns. Sister Lacey immediately feels a connection to Amy, understanding that there is something different, something important, about the six-year old girl, and takes her in, deflecting the questions of the other nuns in the convent. Meanwhile, Doctor Jonas Lear continues his top secret medical research, borne of a dream to find a miraculous cure for mankind’s ailments, under the jurisdiction and protection of the U.S. Army. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is sent to procure the subjects of Dr. Lear’s human trials, twelve deathrow inmates whom Wolgast persuades to sign their lives away. But Wolgast’s final mission has his conscience ill at ease as he and his partner are sent to pick up one final test subject; a six year old girl, abandoned by her prostitute mother. A girl named Amy.

Lear’s research, the twelve variations of the Project NOAH virus, are unleashed on the world in a single night as security is breached and each of the inexplicable, ravenous test subjects escape. Infecting and multiplying, the Virals sweep the North American continent from coast to coast in a wave of blood, horror and death, their only vulnerability exposure to daylight. The survivors – what few survivors remain – band together in isolated fortresses, armed with weapons and shielding their settlements with bright lights from dusk till dawn. But many decades later, when the power stutters and batteries begin to fail in First Colony, its only a matter of time before the lights go out and all is lost. But when a strange young girl with the ability to keep the Virals at bay arrives at the Colony walls, the fate of those precious few human survivors holds a glimmer of hope in a world of endless death.

As I mentioned above, The Passage is one of the most hyped new releases (if not THE most hyped new release) of 2010. And, having been burned by hype this year countless times, it was with a high level of anxiety that I began The Passage.

Well, folks, it is with exuberant, unfaltering joy that I can say, this book is every bit as epic, as horrifying, as magnificent as promised.

From a world-building perspective, the tropes are instantly recognizable, familiar to the genre fiction fan. There’s nothing new about the premise of the book – an apocalypse, born of good intentions gone awry; a pandemic that converts the planet’s population into monsters, the remaining humans defenseless lambs to the slaughter. Justin Cronin’s take on the vampires myth is also somewhat familiar, his mutated “smokes” reminiscent of the recent film version of I Am Legend (not to be confused with Richard Matheson’s original envisioning), and Guillermo del Toror & Chuck Hogan’s more recent The Strain. To those skeptically reading this review, thinking to themselves that this is just another vampire book in a market oversaturated with supposedly “new” takes on vampire lore, what with their Bill Comptons, Edward Cullens, or even Kurt Barlows (for the horror afficionado), rest assured that The Passage is not just another vampire book. Rather (as remarked on Twitter earlier this week), The Passage is “just” another vampire book so much as The Road is “just” another post-apocalypse novel and Dawn of the Dead is “just” another zombie movie.

The Passage is the real deal. It is a book that not only lives up to the gargantuan hype, the impressive scale of its marketing machine, the carrot of its Ridley Scott movie deal – it surpasses expectation because it is just that damn good a story.

While on the one hand these genre tropes are safe and familiar, on the other it’s incredibly smart on author Justin Cronin’s part – these are classic premises for a reason, and Mr. Cronin embellishes his own mythology in just the right places. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, Mr. Cronin blends the familiar, imbued with his own particular take on apocalypse-by-monster. There are secrets and revelations enough to satisfy the scrutinizing apocalyptic aficionado (believe me, I’m one of the most discriminating of the bunch), but more than just worldbuilding or setting, the most impressive thing about The Passage is how effortless the storytelling is. Yes, it’s a doorstopper at 800 pages long – but it’s the best kind of doorstopper. Have you ever read a book that you didn’t want to end? A book that makes you feel the pang of regret, even as you race to the next page? Such is The Passage. The book is very much like Stephen King in its heft, but with one rather sizeable difference – in King’s books, there is a lot of, shall I say, excess. In The Passage, each page, each side-plot, each character history plays a vital, invaluable role in the book.

And I’ve yet to say anything of the characters! The cast of The Passage is large and varied, covering not only an array of human and infected, but across almost 100 years, as well. And for all that, each character is impeccably detailed; from the tragic Jeanette Bellafonte to the faithful Sister Lacey, the hardened Agent Wolgast to the heartbroken Dr. Lear, the self-doubting Peter, always in the shadow of his brother Theo, to the fiery Alicia. Each has their own distinct voice, their intricate and genuine histories, and I found myself profoundly caring for all of them – even the Virals themselves. Because, with the “monsters” and thematically, I think Mr. Cronin does with The Passage what so many dystopian and apocalyptic authors forget matters the most – he keeps hope alive in his story. Instead of villifying and labeling the vampires in his book as monotonously evil, bent only on blood and death, he shows them in a different light (which I won’t spoil for you, dear readers).

Finally, I do think that “the hype” must be formally addressed – especially for a book which has been pushed so much as The Passage. This is undeniably a genre fiction novel, brought to a mainstream audience – and I cannot express how overjoyed am I that an honest-to-goodness horror/post-apocalyptic mashup garnered such a huge marketing campaign and budget. Not to mention the movie option – seriously, throughout the book, I kept wondering, who is Russell Crowe gonna play? Heh. (I’m thinking Agent Wolgast, or a certain Army Major. Heck, why not Babcock? But therein lie spoilers, and I promise not to go there.) With the hype, however, comes the fear – I am a little nervous because this is not an easy blockbuster read such as, say, The DaVinci Code. I can see where reader opinion may vary and why the book’s intimidating length and large-scale approach to time and characters might lose readers – especially casual readers in our instant gratification era of teh internets – but I’m here to tell you that those naysayers? They miss the point. The Passage is a magnificent gift of a novel about the journey, not the answers (bear in mind, this is the first book of a trilogy). Beautifully written on an epic scale, it is a book that transcends genre.

The Passage is undoubtably the best book I have read in 2010. Absolutely recommended for anyone not scared to take on a book that shatters the mold of mass produced, predictable tripe that looks and reads like every other book on the market; for anyone that enjoys a truly Great read; for anyone that wants wants to be swept away in a torrent of flawless storytelling.

The Passage awaits.

Notable Quotes/Parts: Using Random House’s “insight” widget, you can read the first 80 pages of The Passage below.

Additional Thoughts: As I mentioned above, the marketing campaign for this book is nothing short of impressive. For extras and downloads – everything from iPhone Apps to Twitter avatars and screensavers – check out the official book website HERE.

Once you’ve had your fun there, make sure to check out spinoff website Find Subject Zero (a tie-in blog) and enjoy the goodies, including videos, blog posts, tweets, and more. (I’m a huge sucker for these things, so I highly recommend you visit if you’re similarly inclined). For more content, check out Amazon’s Omnivoracious Page, where you can catch Justin Cronin’s podcasts about the book.

Rating: 9 – Damn Near Perfection; and I wait with bated breath for the next book in the trilogy.

Reading Next: The Magician’s Apprentice by Trudi Canavan

Title: The Demon’s Covenant

Author: Sarah Rees Brennan

Genre: YA/UF

Mae Crawford always thought she was in control. Now she’s learned that her little brother Jamie is a magician and Nick, the boy she’d set her heart on, has an even darker secret. Mae’s whole world has spun out of control, and it’s only going to get worse. When she realises that Jamie has been meeting secretly with the new leader of the Obsidian Circle and that Gerald wants him to join the magicians, she’s not sure how to stop Jamie doing just that. Calling in Nick and Alan as reinforcements only leads to a more desperate conflict because Gerald has a plan to bring Nick down – by using Alan to spring a deadly trap. With those around her torn between divided loyalties and Mae herself torn between her feelings for two very different boys, she sees a chance to save them all – but it means approaching the mysterious and dangerous Goblin Market alone…

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry (US)/ Simon & Schuster Children’s (UK)
Publication Date: May 18 2010/ May 27 2010
Hardcover: 448 pages/ Paperback: 448 pages

Stand alone or series: Second in a trilogy, which started with The Demon’s Lexicon

Why did I read this book: The Demon’s Lexicon was on my top 10 last year and this sequel was one of my most anticipated reads of 2010.

Review:

Warning: this review contains spoilers for the FIRST BOOK because I can’t review the second without spoiling the first one. The spoiler completely ruins the experience of reading the first book and if you haven’t yet but still plan to read The Demon’s Lexicon I urge you to avert your eyes NOW. You have been warned!

It was only a few days ago that I talked about how 2010 has been a great reading year for me. The Demon’s Covenant is another addition to an already incredible line up. It feels like it was only yesterday that I discovered The Demon’s Lexicon a book that inconspicuously crept into my top 10 last year after its world and its characters became so alive to me, I was able to remember the smallest details after months of reading it. The Demon’s Covenant has been on my Most Wanted list since then and I was both anxious and terrified of reading it. Would it, could it, be as great as its predecessor? The answer is a resounding YES, a million times YES, and not only that: I find that it is even better.

I hereby declare Sarah Rees Brennan to be a freaking genius. For writing characters that become so alive that I feel like I know them, that make me care so much for their future as though they are real people, for making it possible to establish such an emotional connection with fictional people, I hereby declare that this writer has just joined the list of Ana’s Great Ones. Her name is now set in stone which means, I will read anything she ever writes because we (her writing and I) have crazy chemistry. It is possible that I am behaving like a fan-girl. It is possible that I am not in total control of my thoughts and actions because they have turned to mush after finishing this book. It is possible that I am wearing my heart in my sleeve. It is possible that you think I am exaggerating and it is very possible that I am. But this is what Good Books do to me and I wouldn’t trade this feeling, this experience, for anything in this world. I want to nurture it and above all I want to be able to spread it. So here it goes.

The Demon’s Covenant is very much a second book in a trilogy – by expanding on the first book’s storylines and setting the stage for the final act. It picks up a few weeks after the events at the end of The Demon’s Lexicon and the characters are still suffering the aftermath of what happened then. They are still struggling with the discovery that Jamie is a magician (and if you remember, most Magicians in this world are not Good) , with Mae’s feelings after she has killed someone to protect her brother and with the Twisterific revelation that Nick is in fact, a demon (and if you remember, the one thing that could be worse than being a magician, is definitely being a demon).

The story opens with Mae trying to go back to a normal life when she discovers that her brother is meeting with one of the magicians from Obsidian Circle, Gerald. Terrified that she might lose him, she contacts the brothers Nick and Alan to ask for their help once more and then all attempts at normalcy go down the drain; she is dragged back into the midst of a fight between Circles, a fight between brothers, and into the magical world of the Goblin Market – a world she would do anything to forget but which she is reluctantly fascinated by and attracted to.

The first thing of note in The Demon’s Covenant is the change in narrator . Nick is no longer the voice or the eyes from which this story is narrated making the sequel completely different from its predecessor and yet still fundamentally similar. The difference comes from of course, the narrative voice as instead of Nick’s cold, detached point of view, we get Mae’s deeply emotional one. I thought the choice of picking Mae as the narrator (as opposed to say, Nick again, or Alan) was extremely interesting and at first I wondered why. Then it hit me, even though they are miles apart in terms of humanity (or lack of) , Nick and Alan actually share something. They are both outsiders looking in. Nick, as the non-human, puzzled by emotional conundrums which he doesn’t have and Mae as the only one who does not possess magic, or fighting skills. Her narrative is poignant because of considerations such as what can she possibly offer to the group?

As Nick’s observations of others spoke loudly of how they felt, the same can be said about Mae. Her eyes observe everything and relate to the reader: the strange tension between the brothers, Jamie’s loneliness, the allure of the Goblin Market. Sometimes her observations are not as keen as she would like to believe but that might as well come from being deceived by others but also because of self-denial. She battles with her own heart for most of the book, trying to find normalcy she can’t possibly have after all that has happened and love in the arms of people which she doesn’t truly love. If you read the first book, you know that Alan has a crush on Mae and that Mae has a crush on Nick. At one point in the book, Nick tells her that she would be crazy not to pick Alan but the heart wants what the heart wants, folks. In some sense, Mae is as an unreliable narrator as Nick was but for completely different reasons. That to me, was awesome. As awesome was her strength, her resilience and her gift for action and plotting and above all, her capacity for understanding and connecting. Her understanding of Seb, a guy who could be scorned off as a bully but who is embraced by her or her friendship with another fantastic secondary female character, Sin of the Goblin Market (who is to be the narrator of the final book) . And even though, she is understanding and accommodating that does not make her feeble. I absolutely LOVED how her reactions to discoveries she made about people (I am being cryptic on purpose!) throughout the book were very firm and yet still well-balanced.

As fascinating as the narrative voice was, and how the world-building is incredibly compelling with added dynamics and politics within the Goblin Market and across the Magicians Circles nothing surpasses characterisation. What strikes me the most though in the world created by the author, is the complexity and the greyness of her characters. These are complex human beings making morally questionable decisions all the time. They all know for example, that Magicians are bad and kill humans to use their body to bring demons into the world in order to control their powers and yet, both Mae and Jamie are attracted to the use of magic.

Alan, who is my favourite character by far, is someone who would do anything, and I mean, anything for his brother Nick. He kills, maims lies, manipulates, and goes behind people’s backs to get what he wants. He unleashed a demon in the world. Yes, it is all for love and devotion but…does that make it right though? Probably not, but reading his father’s diary and how Alan has loved and cared for Nick from day one, just about broke my heart. Everything he does is for Nick but he also seems to have an unlimited amount of love to give to anybody who would accept. His actions in the end of the book (another twist, although not as mind blowing as the first one, but still, a good one) shows us that. I found myself consumed with love for Alan and the ONE thing I want the most is for someone to truly, deeply LOVE him.

Breaking my heart is something that I need to get used to though when it comes to this series. With every single scene of sibling affection between Nick and Alan or Mae and Jamie; with the ardent need that both Mae and Alan have for Nick to show some sign of humanity; with Nick’s obvious urgency for trying so hard to appease Alan even though it goes against his own nature and for his vulnerability; for Jamie’s hopeless crush; and so on and so forth, I got continuous heart twinges.

What is it that makes us human, I asked myself reading this book over and again. It is the emotions we feel? The capacity for connection? To make mistakes and err and fall and get back on our feet again? Nick might not feel the right emotions – but he is devoted, protective of the ones we considers “his”, does that not make him slightly human? Alan is human and is so clearly emotional and yet he can be as cool and detached as Nick if necessary – does that make him less human?

I don’t know the answers; I am terrified that the answers to those questions will come in the final book and it will break my heart into tiny little pieces. All I know is that I want the best for these characters . The Demon’s Covenant is definitely not a book about plot – in fact, when push comes to shove, little happens in the way of moving the story forward and all that was necessary to set the third act, is contained in the last few chapters. The majority of The Demon’s Covenant is about the characters’ and their motivations, and about love. Loving who you shouldn’t love, people being worthy of being loved even when they don’t think they are or the seemly endless capacity for sibling love that both Mae and Alan have. As such it is a feast for the readers who like me, are inclined towards character-driven stories.

I was a huge, giant MESS when the book ended and still I could have begged for more. I am consumed with love for these characters, flaws and all (or even because of that), terrified for their future because their world is bleak and the prospect of happiness is not that great, and yet, still hopeful for all of them, but above all for Alan. On Ana’s corner of the Smuggliverse there is one thing that I say to the books I love and cherish above all and which I consider to be the greatest compliment I could ever give: THIS IS WHY I READ. This book goes straight into my top 10, without a shadow of a doubt.

Notable Quotes/Parts: Angie, in her AWESOME review, quoted a scene that I too, loved so I am copying it here, because it shows that the book is not only dark and bleak but also oh, so funny in parts:

Mae grabbed Nick’s arm and he whirled on her, then caught himself and stood looking down at her with his pulse thudding against her palm and the knife still in his hand.

She lifted her chin. “Oh, put that away.”

Nick put it away. “Just making a point.”

“Yes, I took your point,” Jamie muttered. “Right up against my throat.”

Mae looked away from Nick and walked quickly toward the wall, scrambling over it and trying so hard to make the climb look easy that she skinned her elbow as she did so. She pretended it didn’t sting.

Nick did not try to help Alan over the wall this time around. He stood with his hands clenched into fists in his pockets as they all waited for Alan to get over on his own.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” he told Jamie suddenly.

Mae reached out and touched Nick’s shoulder. Her hand brushed muscle, braced and tense under her palm, for a moment. Then he shied away from her and glared.

She smiled as if this reaction was perfectly normal. “Sometimes when you pull knives on people, they get this impression that you’re going to hurt them, and then they’re completely terrified. Crazy, I know!”

“Okay,” said Nick. He turned to Jamie and popped his left wrist sheath again. “Look.”

Jamie backed up. “Which part of ‘completely terrified’ did you translate as ’show us your knives, Nick’? Don’t show me your knives, Nick. I have no interest in your knives.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “This is a quillon dagger. That’s a knife with a sword handle. I like it because it has a good grip for stabbing.”

“Why do you say these things?” Jamie inquired piteously. “Is it to make me sad?”

“I didn’t have you cornered,” Nick went on. “You could’ve run. And this dagger doesn’t have an even weight distribution; it’s absolute rubbish for throwing. If I had any intention of hurting you, I’d have used a knife I could throw.”

Jamie blinked. “I will remember those words always. I may try to forget them, but I sense that I won’t be able to.”

Verdict: The Demon’s Covenant is an amazing sequel to The Demon’s Lexicon, everything I could have hoped for, with characters that feel alive and real, catapulting this series and its author to the top of my favourites’ list. Definitely on my top 10 of 2010.

Rating: 9 Damn Near Perfection

Reading next: Ten Things I Love About You by Julia Quinn

Title: Irredeemable vol.#2

Author: Mark Waid/ Artist: Peter Krause

Genre: Graphic Novels/ Comics

Publisher: Boom! Studios
Publishing Date: March, 2010
Paperback: 128 pages

Stand Alone or series: This volume collects issues 5-8 of the ongoing series.

What if the world’s greatest hero decided to become the world’s greatest villain? The Plutonian’s deadly rampage continues. His former comrades-turned-victims are beaten, tired, and searching for hope. A “twilight of the superheroes”-style story that examines super-villains from Mark Waid, the writer of KINGDOM COME and EMPIRE!

Why did I read the book: I read and reviewed the first volume a few months ago and absolutely loved it.

How did I get the book: Bought

Review

Whoa. WHOA. A few months ago, I read, reviewed and LOVED Irredeemable volume 1, which collects issues #1-4 of this ongoing comic series. In that review I said I wished I had better words to convey how awesome this series is. I am still looking for them because things just got better – I honestly am head over heels in love with this series.

To recap: Irredeemable is about how the world’s greatest, most powerful superhero snaps overnight (or so it seems) and becomes the world’s greatest villain. In the first volume we see The Plutonian, committing despicable acts which include killing former allies and destroying entire cities such as Sky City, the one he was sworn to protect. The volume ends with The Plotunian sinking Singapore, effectively causing the death of millions. The story basically follows his former teammates trying to piece together the puzzle that is the Plutonian’s breakdown whilst trying to remain alive and out of his way until they can figure out how to stop him. Their last and only hope is to find The Plutonian’s nemesis, a super villain called Modeus who has disappeared from the face of the earth.

In this second volume Irredeemabl ( collecting issues #5-8) , The Plutonian’s motivations are fully explored and even sort of, revealed; further developments occur: we get to have a closer, in depth, complex look at the group of superheroes who are trying to bring him down; including a big reveal and plot twist regarding the twins Scylla (who was killed in the previous volume) and Charybdis that made me literally pump my fist in the air only to follow the action with a “Wait. Holy guacamole. That may have serious consequences yet” .

When I read the first volume, I mused about The Plutonian’s motivations. I wondered what could have possibly happened to steer such a great superhero out of his path. Part of me wished for a grandiose explanation that made sense and maybe even made him a little bit redeemable even after what he did. Part of me wished for the opposite. The latter is what happened:

The Plutonian’s motivations for going from an omnipotent superhero out to protect the whole world to being an omnipotent God of destruction are completely, utterly, supremely ….lame. And that actually makes it all better to me. Because it shows that he is only human as powerful as he might be.

Here you have a guy with absolute power and absolute responsibility. There is not a single minute of the day in which the Plutonian doesn’t hear and know everything about everybody. He is always, always connected with the people, and the slightest mistake can hurt millions. When that eventually happened because of his need for a break (a need that is completely understandable) , the consequences are dire, horrible and in the end, very personal.

But as understandable as it might be, the bottom line perhaps is this: does a superhero like that, with a power like that get to crumble under pressure? Does he get to have “personal” issues? And what about power? Does absolute power corrupt absolutely? The answer seems to point to a “yes” given what happens at the end of this volume with another character. Although one can argue that it wasn’t absolute power that corrupted The Plutonian, it was the difference between “public” and “private” and the weight of his responsibilities.

This story, this tale, is absolutely superb. The storyline is awesome: presenting great conflict both external and internal. The group of super heroes have a bunch of issues to work through before they can even think of stopping The Plutonian. And Peter Krause continues to impress me with his artwork. It suits the story perfectly:

This volume ends with another cliff-hanger and I am trying to decide: do I wait for volume 3 to come out in July or do I go in search of the individual issues RIGHT NOW?

Notable Quotes/Parts: The entire freaking volume is worthy of quote but the Twist was AWESOME. I did not see it coming. Ha.Neither did the Plutonian.

Additional Thoughts:At the end of this volume, there is the usual collection of covers (amazing) plus a preview of another upcoming story by Mark Waid, Potter’s Field.

Also, look what I found over the weekend browsing my local comic book store and devoured promptly: a stand -alone single special issue of Irredeemable:

The first year of IRREDEEMABLE came to a cataclysmic resolution, and before the jaw-dropping second year starts, Mark Waid is delivering an original stand-alone issue! Join the AMAZING SPIDER-MAN team of Mark Waid and Paul Azaceta, along with legendary comics creator Howard Chaykin, and BOOM! Favorite Emma Rios for the IRREDEEMABLE SPECIAL! Showcasing a never-before-seen glimpse into the Plutonian’s heroic beginnings and insights into his former teammates, the once-great Paradigm. Secrets will be revealed! Clues will be given! Threads will be tied up! This is a not-to-be-missed chapter in Mark Waid’s twilight of the superheroes masterpiece!

This issue has three mini-stories around three important – not spoiling – people that will be essential to stop The Plutonian. One of them is dead. One of them has a unique power and heritage and one of them used to be a villain. The latter is the guy from Incorruptible another series connected to the world of Irredeemable and points to a possible convergence of storylines!

Verdict:Irredeemable vol.2 is every bit as good as the previous volume and I would not be surprised if this series became one of my favourite ever.

Rating: 9 Damn Near Perfection

Reading Next: The King of Crags by Stephen Deas

Title: Heart of Veridon

Author: Tim Akers

Genre: Speculative Fiction, Steampunk

Publisher: Solaris
Publication Date: August 2009
Paperback: 480 pages

Jacob Burn: pilot, criminal and disgraced son of one of the founding families of the ancient city of Veridon.

When an old friend delivers to him a strange artifact, Jacob’s world crashes down around him as he runs not only from the law but also from those who were once friends. But even as the array of machines and strange creatures stalk him through the streets of Veridon, something even more sinister and dangerous makes its move against him, an entity that will make Jacob question everything he thought he knew about himself and the city.

Stand alone or series: Can be read as a stand alone novel, although is part of the “Burn cylce” and has a number of accompanying short stories

How did I get this book: Bought

Why did I read this book: While doing research for our first Steampunk Week, I saw this title pop up on numerous essentials lists. Curiosity piqued (especially by great reviews from the folks at Fantasy Book Critic and Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review), I decided to give it a go.

Review:

Meet Jacob Burn. Criminal. Former pilot. Disinherited scion to one of the prominent founding families of the city of Veridon. Ever since the disastrous crash on his inaugural flight, fresh out of the Academy as a pilot, Jacob Burn has fallen from his family’s grace and has turned to the streets, making his way as a runner for a criminal underworld boss. Riding back to Veridon after completing his latest job, Jacob’s zepliner runs afoul of serious trouble in the form of a mysterious man that kills the crew and captain. Before the zep crashes, Jacob runs into a face from his past – a man named Marcus, who, with his last breath, entrusts an intricate cog to Jacob’s possession. Soon enough, Jacob finds himself in a world of trouble, as powerful people from all angles are hot on the pursuit of Jacob and the strange piece of machinery. Someone on the Council is gunning for Jacob’s immediate death, the Badge (equivalent of the local police force) is on the hunt, somehow the Church of the Algorithm is involved, and an honest-to-gods avenging Angel is out for Jacob’s blood. With his boss, Valentine, severing ties and refusing him aid, Jacob finds himself embroiled in a deadly predicament with nowhere to turn – except to Emily, his beautiful (but not exactly trustworthy) handler.

As the mysteries and threats begin to mount to dizzying heights, all Jacob knows is that the heart of the matter lies with the mysterious cog – and he needs to find answers, very quickly. And what he discovers will change not only everything Jacob has ever known about Veridon, but about his own murky family history and fall from grace.

Wow. There’s little not to love in Heart of Veridon. This debut effort from Tim Akers is an impressive feat of storytelling, blending the noirish elements of contemporary (dare I say Urban) fantasy with the greased, clockwork-aesthetic of the modern steampunk movement. While the plotting is impeccable in its swiftness and mounting tension, the most impressive thing about this novel is Mr. Akers’ worldbuilding. Blending the vulnerability of flesh and blood with the grime of unforgiving metal gears, mechanized beetles, and cogwork hearts, Tim Akers’ Veridon is a fascinating (at times repulsive, but always wondrous) world. Not only are the characters a deliciously creepy, memorable mix of flesh and metal (reminiscent of the works of Philip K. Dick), but so too are the resonant images that Mr. Akers creates with his writing and descriptions – for example, the operatic performance of an engram-singer as her body is reshaped by her intricate machinery for The Summer Girl; the splayed-open clockwork remains of an imprisoned mythical woman in the bowels of the Church of the Algorithm; the spidery appendages of an Anansi doctor and ally named Wilson. And, as memorable as these images are, Mr. Akers also writes a city rife with complex backdoor politics, religions competing for supremacy and power, and a history of lies that ensnares an unsuspecting populace in Veridon’s unrelenting mechanical fist. It’s a city of secrets and deceptions, evocative in many ways of the titled Dark City of Alex Proyas. Yes, the world that Mr. Akers has created is no small thing – Veridon is distinctive, complex and teeming with menace.

My only concerns with Heart of Veridon lay with the characters – specifically, with protagonist Joseph Burn and the immediate lack of character development. Jacob’s voice, as the first person narrator of the book, is rather simple and direct, crude and clipped on occasion – which I loved, as it feels very genuine for this tough, supposedly uncaring outcast. But early on and for most of the book, readers don’t really know anything about Jacob other than the outline of his fall from grace, and his general persona as a pissed off criminal with a penchant for getting shot by friends and for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. That said, about 2/3 into the book, readers FINALLY get an insight to Jacob Burn, flashing back to his past. It all comes together rather nicely by the end of the book, and I loved the relationship between him and Emily, and with Jacob and his father, and with the “bug” Wilson as well. While I do wish we were given more in the way of character development earlier in the book (I especially wish we knew more about Emily and her own motivations), the awesome worldbuilding and pacing of the novel more than make up for those shortcomings.

The ending of Heart of Veridon comes abruptly, as other reviewers have pointed out before me, but that does not mean it is poorly written or badly executed. Not in the slightest. Rather, the ending, heartbreaking though it may be, just left me salivating for more.

BUT IS IT STEAMPUNK?!: Hells to the yeah, it is. Not only does Heart of Veridon fit with the Steampunk aesthetic, it also has a unique political and religious society that is actively being challenged, as an integral part of the story. This is essential steampunk reading, folks.

Notable Quotes/Parts: The performance of The Summer Girl:

The Artificers approached the girl with a jar. I leaned forward. The jar was glass, and the dark contents seemed to squirm. The girl closed her eyes and opened her mouth. I could see the furtive coiling of her machine. She had beautiful lips, full and shiny like glass, and they were quivering. I wondered if she was afraid.

The Master Artificer was a tall man with arms that moved fluidly, like they were nothing but joints. He dipped his hands into the jar and brought out something shiny. The queen foetus. He placed it on the girl’s tongue and then stepped back, along with the rest of the Guildsmen. The girl’s hands fluttered to her throat and she opened her eyes, wide and white. A second later she made a coughing, gasping sound. The boy’s mother tutted and turned her face. The rest of the audience shifted uncomfortably.

It happened suddenly. The Artificers set down the jar and tipped it over. The swarm spilled out like glittering, jeweled honey, their tiny legs clicking against the wood as they washed across the stage. They climed the girl and began to nest with her, become her, entering the secret machines that made up the engram. They were seeking their queen and her pattern, the song stitched into her shell and her memory, awaiting birth and creation. The girl shivered, and she became.

She straightened up, looking across the audience. I hadn’t seen The Summer Girl performed in some time, since my Academy days, in fact. But there she was, unmistakable. She stood in front of the audience liek she ruled it, like these people didn’t exist when she wasn’t on stage, and when she was on stage they existed only to appreciate her. The girl had that stance, her back and chin and shoulders laying claim to the Manor Tomb. The swarm fed on her, rebuilt her before our quiet eyes. Her skin leaked white, her cheekbones flattened and rose, the perfect lips became more, writhing as they changed. She stood taller, her hair shimmered and changed color, cascaded down her shoulders. She was older now, fuller, her hips and breasts those of a woman. The audience was silent, stunned.

The Summer Girl stood before us, more perfect than she had actually been on that long distant day. She raised an arm to us, nodded to the Lady Tomb in her seat of honor, and then she sang. Perfectly, beautifully, her voice was a warm hammer in my head. This tiny hall could not contain her, the very bones of the mountain around us thrummed with her song. I remember nothing of words or themes, as it always is with The Summer Girl. Just warm glory and peace remaking my heart, flowing through my bones, filling the cramped metal of my heart like slow lightning in my blood.

Additional Thoughts: Heart of Veridon is the first book in the Burn Cycle, but you can also check out some of Mr. Akers’ short stories, set in the same world.

On a different note, how about that cover? The team at Solaris puts together some truly amazing cover art (just check out their catalogue), and artist John Foster does a beautiful job with this piece.

And one last thing – a sequel has been announced* for Heart of Veridon, tentatively titled The Dead of Veridon – and here’s the blurb:

When an army of corpses animated by cogwork rises from the dark waters of the rive Reine and threatens to upset the balance of power in Veridon, Jacob Burn must discover who is behind this undead atrocity before the city comes crashing down around him. But will he succeed when he finds out that the very Council who has hired him to solve this mystery is working against him behind the scenes, and the only ally he can count on is his bitterest rival?

Cover art forthcoming. I cannot freakin’ wait!

—————
* I’ve been somewhat remiss, and only just discovered that Solaris has a blog – and an awesome one at that. I highly recommend you check it out.

Verdict: If it isn’t clear, I loved this book. I *loved* this book. Tim Akers is an original, enthralling voice in the steampunk subgenre, and in the Speculative Fiction umbrella at large. I cannot wait to discover more from this promising new author, and recommend Heart of Veridon to readers from all genres and of all backgrounds. Easily, one of my favorite reads of 2010.

Rating: 9 – Pretty Damn Awesome

Reading Next: The Affinity Bridge by George Mann

Title: A Conspiracy of Kings

Author: Megan Whalen Turner

Genre: YA/ Fantasy

Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Publication Date: March 23, 2010
Hardcover: 336 pages

Stand Alone or series: Book 4 in the Queen’s Thief series. Although in theory it can be read as stand alone but WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? hummm? This is one of the best series EVER.

Sophos, heir to Sounis, doesn’t look like much of a prince. At least, according to those in power. At least, to those who do not know him or the size of his heart and the depth of his courage, loyalty, and love. But Helen, Queen of Eddis, knows him, and so does Gen, the queen’s Thief, who is now King of Attolia. Gen and the queen believe that Sophos is dead. But they also believe in hope, especially since a body was never found. So when Sophos is discovered in Attolia, the obvious question becomes: where has he been all this time?

Why did I read the book: This is basically my MOST anticipated read of 2010 ever since I read the first three books in the series last year.

How did I get this book: I will not lie. I basically BEGGED for an arc from the publisher. They were nice enough to say yes.

Review: I discovered the Queen’s Thief series last year and fell irrevocably in love with it – suffice to say that in a scale between 1 and 10 of book awesomeness, they are certainly … 11. A Conspiracy of Kings ,the fourth book in the series was easily my most anticipated read of 2010 , one which I waited for with fervour and passion hoping for another perfectly excellent read from Megan Whalen Turner. It is with the utmost enthusiasm that I report that yes, this is another GREAT ONE. The prologue alone, made me want to cry with happiness. I read it and I said to myself: YES, This. This is what I was waiting for.

Before I go any further though, rest assured that I shan’t be spoiling this book or any other book in the series – these need to be read without the reader being spoiled for their surprises – but there will be some minor spoilers for book 1, The Thief. Overall though, this review will be more of an overlook of the book and its themes than an in-depth look at the details of plot for example (because again, this needs to remain unspoiled) .

____________

I will just start by saying: A Conspiracy of Kings is Sophos’ book. And I mean it: it is his book, his coming of age story, his story to tell. This means that Eugenides, the awesome, incredible protagonist of the other three books, is not as present as I am sure, most readers hoped for. This does not mean that he doesn’t have a central, important role, because he does. But he is a co-pilot to Sophos’ journey.

Sophos, the reluctant heir to the kingdom of Sounis first appeared in The Thief and became Gen’s friend, only to disappear during the events of The Queen of Attolia . In this instalment we learn what has happened to Sophos, how he goes from a poetry-loving boy, to slave, to King and what does exactly his journey does to him, and what being the new Sounis means to the neighbouring countries of Attolia and Eddis.

This is above all, a story about identity. Sophos could not be more different from Eugenides. He is as self-deprecating and self-doubting as Eugenides is daring and reckless. His journey to becoming a worthy King is not without hardship and heartbreak. It is about roles one has to play, about finding out who is friend and who is foe, how much you can rely on people, if you can really rely on them. Sophos has to make many difficult choices and once they are done, there is no turning back.

Once he becomes Sounis, he is in an impossible situation – his country is nearly lost and to get it back is no easy task.

When I reviewed the first three books in the series, I said that Eugenides stole several things throughout the books: a gift; a man; a woman; peace; a kingdom. This time around, Eugenides does something he’s never done before – he helps two other people to steal what they need. One character needs his country back and another needs her people’s safety and by helping them achieving that, Gen also aids them stealing each other’s hearts and finally, he aids his own side. If that is not another masterful plan, I don’t know what is.

The fact that he does all that without even being in most pages, just proves to me what an amazing writer MWT is. She could have easily written another book with Eugenides as the protagonist, at the centre of the story, to appease and satisfy fans. But instead of being comfortable, she just takes a step further, distancing herself from her main, most beloved character to tell someone else’s story. That is a ballsy move and one that pays off. Nothing tells more of the growth of a writer than the attempt at doing something new and different. Even though I did miss Eugenides, I loved this mature, wonderful book for what it was and I cannot wish for something different when what I got was this heart-warming story.

The fact that the protagonist is so different does not mean that the same quality of writing, the same amazing storytelling skills that include twists and subterfuge and all the subtle yet passionate feelings one can have for friends and loved ones are not present. They are. There are amazing romantic scenes in this book to rival those in Queen’s. It is in the narrative itself, it is in the way one friend holds the hand of another for example. And a letter that is rushed to be delivered and yet is never displayed to the reader’s eyes because it is so intimate. If you read the other books in the series you know who is Sophos’ lady and you also know what to expect from MWT when it comes to romance.

Furthermore, in this book, MWT combines the two narrative modes that she so expertly mastered in the previous books as the story is half told in first person by Sophos and half in third person by an overseeing narrator. And the way the two narratives are woven together is amazing. Oh, and then there is this one moment when the reader realises what the author is doing, and whom to and why (oh, the why, it is so important) Sophos is narrating his story, that a-ha moment, it is awesome. As per usual.

Character wise, the book is about identity but plot-wise A conspiracy of Kings is a very political book, in the vein of Queen of Attolia .The story has reached a point where the three countries must make hard choices or succumb to invasion to the Mede. It is a hard reality to appreciate and to endure especially because who these kings and queens are. But the end game is this: what exactly these three countries must do to ensure they remain Sounis, Eddis and Attolia. One of them does come out as the apparent winner and sovereign, but because I know and love that person so much, I am also sure of the reasons behind the intricate game that is played. I also know much will it cost the other two rulers to live up to what they must do.

In the end, Sophos grows up and becomes a man. Granted, a man who is still capable of making an ass of himself (and the scene where he lays it all out, about what it means to know one can be stupid is so amazing and heart-warming) but still someone who is loyal and astute and can make decisions at the time of need.

He also grew on me and I found a place in my heart for this character – that same heart that has been stolen by the Thief and remains his. The last pages of the book are of a perfection that I hardly ever see and which made me hug the book and beg for more, please.

Notable Quotes/ Parts: The difference between Gen and Sophos as described by the latter:

When we were adventuring after Hamiathes’s Gift, I had watched the magus beat Eugenides. We’d thought he was no more than a common thief named Gen from Sounis’s gutters, and had listened to him whine and complain for days. When food was missing, it was easy to blame him. The magus used a riding crop on his back, and holy sacrificial lambs, Gen had come up off the ground like he’d been catapulted. It was as if he was a different person, some stranger who’d manifested in Gen’s body. He’d dumped Pol flat onto his back–something I never thought I’d see–and gone for the magus. If Pol hadn’t been up again so quickly, the magus was ready to run and dignity be damned. Even with Pol between him and Gen, the magus had been wary.

I thought later that this was the real Gen revealed, the person who’d been hiding behind a screen of complaints and needling humor. But I spent whole days with Eugenides after our adventures, and that Eugenides was exactly the Gen I had traveled with. Maybe I don’t know which Gen is real. But I know there was nothing feigned about his emotions after he had been beaten.

Where, I wondered, was my wounded pride? Where was my outrage? My self-respect? Nowhere, it seemed. My back hurt. I lay there on my pallet, hoping it would improve soon and wondering, in a distant, unreproachful sort of way, if I was any kind of man at all and decided that I probably wasn’t.

Additional Thoughts: I love the trailer for this one:

AND, Harper Collins has made the first book of the series available for a short period of time: you can read The Thief online for free here.

Verdict: Another winner by Megan Whalen Turner and this series. I remain an unabashed fan, waiting for more.

Rating: 9 – Damn Near Perfection

Reading Next: The Poison Throne by Celine Kiernan

Title: Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron

Author: Jasper Fforde

Genre: Speculative Fiction, Dystopia

Publisher: Viking (US) / Hodder & Stoughton General (UK)
Publication Date: December 2009 (US) / January 2010 (UK)
Hardcover: 400 pages (US)

Part social satire, part romance, part revolutionary thriller, Shades of Grey tells of a battle against overwhelming odds. In a society where the ability to see the higher end of the color spectrum denotes a better social standing, Eddie Russet belongs to the low-level House of Red and can see his own color—but no other. The sky, the grass, and everything in between are all just shades of grey, and must be colorized by artificial means.

Eddie’s world wasn’t always like this. There’s evidence of a never-discussed disaster and now, many years later, technology is poor, news sporadic, the notion of change abhorrent, and nighttime is terrifying: no one can see in the dark. Everyone abides by a bizarre regime of rules and regulations, a system of merits and demerits, where punishment can result in permanent expulsion.

Eddie, who works for the Color Control Agency, might well have lived out his rose-tinted life without a hitch. But that changes when he becomes smitten with Jane, a Grey Nightseer from the dark, unlit side of the village. She shows Eddie that all is not well with the world he thinks is just and good. Together, they engage in dangerous revolutionary talk.

Stunningly imaginative, very funny, tightly plotted, and with sly satirical digs at our own society, this novel is for those who loved Thursday Next but want to be transported somewhere equally wild, only darker; a world where the black and white of moral standpoints have been reduced to shades of grey.

Stand alone or series: Book 1 of a planned trilogy

How did I get this book: Review Copy from the publisher

Why did I read this book: You already know my weakness for all things apocalyptic and dystopian. Blend that addiction with the quirky, absurdist style of Jasper Fforde, an innovative use of color, and I am a happy, happy girl.

Review:

It began with my father not wanting to see the Last Rabbit and ended up with my being eaten by a carnivorous plant. It wasn’t really what I’d planned for myself – I’d hoped to marry into the Oxbloods and join their dynastic string empire. But that was four days ago, before I met Jane, retrieved the Caravaggio and explored High Saffron. So instead of enjoying aspirations of Chromatic advancement, I was wholly immersed within the digestive soup of a yateveo tree. It was all frightfully inconvenient.

So begins the narrative of Eddie Russett; twenty-years old, son of a well-reputed Swatchman (doctor of sorts), almost engaged to the well-connected Constance Oxblood, and secretly can perceive of a shockingly high percentage of Red. Eddie’s world is a Colortocracy, with a strict hierarchy (called the Chromatic Scale) based on the colors that individuals can perceive – Purples are the highest, followed by Greens, Yellows, Blues, Oranges, Reds, and, at the very bottom of the scale, the subservient Greys (incapable of perceiving any significant amount of any color). While each class can perceive of their own color in nature, every other color appears gray – unless it’s artificially painted and enhanced (a very expensive, and seen by some as a garish, ostentatious flaunting of wealth).

As such, Eddie, although part of the nouveaux couleur Russett family, has a carefully planned, bright future ahead of him. That is, until he and his father are sent out by the Collective from their cushy city life in Jade-Under-Lime on assignment to East Carmine, in the Outer Fringes of society – Eddie’s father is to fill in Swatchman position, while Eddie is assigned to conduct a census of all the chairs in the town (as Eddie explains, “Head Office is worried that the chair density might have dropped below the proscribed 1.8 per person.”). On the way to East Carmine, however, everything changes for the young Russett. He and his father discover a Grey masquerading as a Purple and a beautiful but prickly young Grey named Jane – whom Eddie instantly is smitten with (at their first meeting she threatens to break his. When they finally reach the Outer Fringes, Eddie discovers secret plots, cutthroat politics, and murder cover-ups – and again that strange, abrasive (but beautiful, retrousse-nosed) Jane. Eddie begins to question his entire society, and why he was sent out to East Carmine in the first place.

Shades of Grey is unquestionably one of the most deeply original books I have ever read. It’s bizarre, it’s absurd, it’s detail-laden, and, well, it’s…awesome. As quirky and smart as this book is, Mr. Fforde’s writing and his strange world never feels forced or contrived (a “trying-too-hard” pitfall I’ve unfortunately seen in other works of quirky, absurdist fiction). Rather, Shades of Grey puts me in the mind of the strange, delightful humor and world building of Terry Pratchett. Part of Mr. Fforde’s success is in those devilish details, as I adored all of the details in this novel. The ridiculous rules imposed on this Colortocratic society (“The Word of Munsell was the Rules, and the Rules were the Word of Munsell,”) range from an absolute prohibition on the production of spoons (causing a spoon shortage, making spoons one of the most valuable commodities), acronyms are outlawed, and handkerchiefs must be changed daily (and always folded). These rules are enumerated in pre-chapter epigraphs throughout the book, for example:

1.1.19.02.006: Team sports are mandatory in order to build character. Character is there to give purpose to team sports.

or

3.6.23.12.028: Ovaltine may not be drunk at any time other than before bed.

These sort of flourishes are everywhere, delighting and enhancing the reader’s picture of the world. Trains and the occasional Model-T are the primary modes of transportation (and are very limited). Familiar ancient relics are in this strange new world too – the Oz Monument (yes, for that Oz), the boardgame Risk, the strange A Christmas Story like throwback to Ovaltine.

In the midst of this rich, bizarre bouquet, the plotting falls second to the world building. Which is perfectly fine by me, as the story thread is there, and though it’s left behind at times for description, there’s enough mystery and plot to keep readers thoroughly engaged. In terms of characters, they too come short when compared to the details of the novel, but they are still undeniably compelling. The first person narrative voice of Eddie is delightful – he’s a bit of an unintentional fool, in his schoolboyish optimism, his crush on the antagonistic Jane, and his unquenchable curiosity. Jane is another stellar character too – her first lines to Eddie floor me (upon being elbow-grabbed by our intrepid hero, she responds, “Touch me again and I’ll break your fucking jaw.”). The other, assorted characters are varied and quirky, adding, if you’ll accept a lame pun, another layer of color to the story.

And then, there’s the reason I picked up this book in the first place – the dystopian and post-apocalyptic elements. And, I’m happy to report, just as with the details and world building aspects of the Shades of Grey, the dystopian angle is exquisite. One thing I absofreakinglutely love in a book is an author that doesn’t hand-hold his or her readers – unlike, say, the most recent episodes of LOST where subtext is as elusive as a hot shower. That is to say, Mr. Fforde lets these dystopian elements and the backstory of his world come out gradually, as Eddie reveals, piecemeal, little clues about the history of the Collective. What eventually becomes clear is that something has happened to Eddie’s world (referred to throughout merely as “The Something That Happened”), that changed everything – people became only able to see certain colors, chaos ensued until the great Munsell imposed order with a set of rigid, unchangeable rules. Outside of the Colortocracy’s borders there are the dreaded “Riffraff” – only alluded to as savage, uncivilized heathens. And then, there’s “The Rot” – a mysterious, fast-acting disease that infects citizens seemingly at random, and for which there is no cure. There’s a stagnation of ideas, a loss of technology (relics of which remain, silent and unused). These dystopian elements are little tidbits, revealed throughout the book (biochemical weapons, the presence of dangerous things in the Night, the intense fear and sensitivity the people in this world have to the dark)…and it’s very cool stuff.

In fact, the only place where Shades of Grey falls a little short is in extending some social commentary or analysis (as the blurb of the novel alludes to). The Color caste system is unflinching and based not necessarily on birth or wealth, but on the percentage of color seen (as taken in the one time only Ishihara exam) – an intriguing idea. But Mr. Fforde doesn’t really go into a true social critique of his color-caste world, which seems almost an automatic assumption. He could have taken this in a commentary on race, on apartheid, on classism, in a satyrical way. Reading, I found myself asking a number of questions that didn’t really get addressed – for example, are all these peoples’ skin tones the same? Even in shades of grey, a black person would look different than a white one. I even found myself questioning if these characters were even really PEOPLE at all! I felt like it could have been a lost Twilight Zone episode, in which Eddie, Jane and all those in this strange Collective are dolls or automatons. Regardless, even though Mr. Fforde never really “goes there” and doesn’t address any deeper rooted issues, this just means there’s room for exploration of these in the next two books. Plus, everything else is so wonderful in Shades of Grey, I could care less.

Overall, I loved this novel. LOVED it. I cannot wait for more, with the next two books!

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

A Morning in Vermillion

2.4.16.55.021: Males are to wear dress code #6 during inter-Collective travel. Hats are encouraged but not mandatory.

It began with my father not wanting to see the Last Rabbit and ended up with my being eaten by a carnivorous plant. It wasn’t really what I’d planned for myself— I’d hoped to marry into the Oxbloods and join their dynastic string empire. But that was four days ago, before I met Jane, retrieved the Caravaggio and explored High Saffron. So instead of enjoying aspirations of Chromatic advancement, I was wholly immersed within the digestive soup of a yateveo tree. It was all frightfully inconvenient.

But it wasn’t all bad, for the following reasons: First, I was lucky to have landed upside down. I would drown in under a minute, which was far, far preferable to being dissolved alive over the space of a few weeks. Second, and more important, I wasn’t going to die ignorant. I had discovered something that no amount of merits can buy you: the truth. Not the whole truth, but a pretty big part of it. And that was why this was all frightfully inconvenient. I wouldn’t get to do anything with it. And this truth was too big and too terrible to ignore. Still, at least I’d held it in my hands for a full hour and understood what it meant.

I didn’t set out to discover a truth. I was actually sent to the Outer Fringes to conduct a chair census and learn some humility. But the truth inevitably found me, as important truths often do, like a lost thought in need of a mind. I found Jane, too, or perhaps she found me. It doesn’t really matter. We found each other. And although she was Grey and I was Red, we shared a common thirst for justice that transcended Chromatic politics. I loved her, and what’s more, I was beginning to think that she loved me. After all, she did apologize before she pushed me into the leafless expanse below the spread of the yateveo, and she wouldn’t have done that if she’d felt nothing.

So that’s why we’re back here, four days earlier, in the town of Vermillion, the regional hub of Red Sector West. My father and I had arrived by train the day before and overnighted at the Green Dragon. We had attended Morning Chant and were now seated for breakfast, disheartened but not surprised that the early Greys had already taken the bacon, and it remained only in exquisite odor. We had a few hours before our train and had decided to squeeze in some sightseeing.

“We could always go and see the Last Rabbit,” I suggested. “I’m told it’s unmissable.”

But Dad was not to be easily swayed by the rabbit’s uniqueness. He said we’d never see the Badly Drawn Map, the Oz Memorial, the color garden and the rabbit before our train departed. He also pointed out that not only did Vermillion’s museum have the best collection of Vimto bottles anywhere in the Collective, but on Mondays and Thursdays they demonstrated a gramophone.

“A fourteen- second clip of ‘Something Got Me Started,’ ” he said, as if something vaguely Red- related would swing it.

But I wasn’t quite ready to concede my choice.

“The rabbit’s getting pretty old,” I persisted, having read the safety briefing in the “How Best to Enjoy Your Rabbit Experience” leaflet, “and petting is no longer mandatory.”

“It’s not the petting,” said Dad with a shudder, “it’s the ears. In any event,” he continued with an air of finality, “I can have a productive and fulfilling life having never seen a rabbit.”

This was true, and so could I. It was just that I’d promised my best friend, Fenton, and five others that I would log the lonely bun’s Taxa number on their behalf and thus allow them to note it as “proxy seen” in their animal- spotter books. I’d even charged them twenty- five cents each for the privilege— then blew the lot on licorice for Constance and a new pair of synthetic red shoelaces for me.

Dad and I bartered like this for a while, and he eventually agreed to visit all of the town’s attractions but in a circular manner, to save on shoe leather. The rabbit came last, after the color garden.

You can read the full excerpt online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: As I’ve mentioned before, there are two more adventures planned for Eddie and company – Painting by Numbers and The Gordini Protocols.

Understandably this review might be a little confusing – and reading Shades of Grey takes some getting used to as there’s a lot of terminology and crazy stuff going on. Luckily, Jasper Fforde has an awesome primer on his book website to help keep things straight. The website also has a ton of awesome extras, such as an interview with Jasper Fforde, downloadable content, and a series of wicked cool movies – there’s the official book trailer:

…and then check out one of these National Color ” Peril Infogandas”:

I need to read more Jasper Fforde. STAT. Suggestions, anyone?

Also, on one final note – aren’t these covers grand? Both the US and UK ones truly rock.

Verdict: Skimpy on the thematic punch, but delectably juicy in all the details, world building and characters – I loved this book. Shades of Grey is seriously smart, chock full of bizarre humor with brains and heart. This is an amazing, truly original, highly imaginative work of fiction. And it is at this point my single favorite read of 2010.

(Ok, one last note – I know these books are marketed in the “literary fiction” section of bookstores, but this is a feast for the dystopian, for the Terry Pratchett-lover, for the Douglass Adams fan. Seriously. READ IT, folks!)

Rating: 9 – Damn Near Perfection

Reading Next: Spider’s Bite by Jennifer Estep

Today, we have the proud honor of being the official Book Blog Partner on Harper Teen’s 28 Days of Winter Escapes Tour! First, we give you our joint review of our participating title, The Girl with the Mermaid Hair by Delia Ephron. Then, we bring you an exclusive Q&A with the author and a chance to win a copy of the book (and an iTouch).

Title: The Girl With The Mermaid Hair

Author: Delia Ephron

Genre: YA / Contemporary

Publisher: Harper Teen
Publication Date: January 2010
Hardcover: 320 pages

Stand alone or series: Stand Alone (although one of the secondary characters was the protagonist of the author’s previous book, Frannie in Pieces).

Click. Sukie Jamieson takes a selfie after her tennis lesson. Click. She takes one before she has to give a presentation in class. Click. She takes one to be sure there’s nothing in her teeth after eating pizza at Clementi’s. And if she can’t take a selfie, she checks her reflection in windows, spoons, car chrome—anything available, really. So when her mother gives her an exquisite full-length mirror that once belonged to her grandmother, Sukie is thrilled. So thrilled that she doesn’t listen to her mother’s warning: “This mirror will be your best friend and worst enemy.” Because mirrors, as Sukie discovers, show not only the faraway truth but the truth close up. And finding out that close-up truth changes people. Often forever.

How did we get this book: Review Copies from the publisher

Why did we read this book: When we were contacted to be part of the Winter Escapes event hosted by Harper Teen, we were allocated this book and we couldn’t have been happier – it was a perfect fit.

REVIEW:

First Impressions:

Ana: I started to read The Girl with the Mermaid Hair and my first reaction after reading the first few pages was: this is quite possibly one the weirdest books I have ever read, this girl is barking bonkers and completely unlikable and what in the world is going on. A few pages more and all of that changed – the book was still weird, but a wonderful weird, the character still crazy but with reason and I couldn’t put the book down until I was done and I ended up loving it. It is, hands down one of the best contemporaries YA I have read and a fantastic story about a girl, for girls, about what is like to be a girl.

Thea: The Girl with the Mermaid Hair is a bizarre book, and completely out of the range of YA titles that I usually read.

And I absolutely, out-of-my-mind LOVED it.

My experience with the book was very similar to Ana’s – I started it and couldn’t make heads or tails of what the frak was going on. Sukie is, for lack of a better word, deranged. At first glance, she’s narcissistic and irritatingly bland – but she’s not, really. This is a beautiful, unexpected, heartbreaking work of staggering genius (yes, I just ripped off Dave Eggers, but THAT is how good this book is – heck, better than Eggers’ narcissistic memoir, in this reader’s opinion). Against all my cynicism and predisposition against this book, The Girl with the Mermaid Hair blew me away.

On the Plot:

Ana: Sukie Jamieson is perfect: with her perfect blonde hair (like a mermaid’s), her perfect skin and her beautiful body with strong muscles built over her perfectly honed Tennis skills. Living in a perfect, beautiful house, with a perfect family composed of a loving father and a slightly crazy mother, a cute younger brother and the family dog Señor who even has a place at the dining table (first warning signal: his place it is at the head of the table). Sukie is a top student, brags about a quarterback boyfriend, she is beautiful and everybody is jealous of her and she spends hours in self-adoration and constantly takes selfies – pictures of herself with her cell phone.

One day her mother gives her an antique mirror as a present with the warning: “This mirror will be your best friend and worst enemy.”

As Sukie becomes more and more enamored with herself little cracks appear in the mirror – and ironically in her life – it becomes clear to the reader that Sukie only believes herself and her life to perfect. The truth is something else altogether.

There is very little in the way of a plot in The Girl with the Mermaid Hair , as this is really a character-driven novel at its core. Nothing really momentous happen in the novel and the story is propelled by Sukie and Sukie alone, as little by little is like the curtain is suspended and she can SEE her life for what it is and so can the reader. The result is sometimes hilarious but often sad too. Sometimes I write: this is so and so’s book but it is not every time that I am completely overcome with the strange sensation that I had when I was reading this book. This is Sukie’s book: I couldn’t tell where the writer or the narrator was, it was like neither existed and all I could see was Sukie. I was inside her head at all times and it felt like it was just me and her. That is also dude to the writing technique – extreme “showing,” no “telling” whatsoever, with the author, having the utmost faith in the reader to “get” what she saying. And I really dig that.

Thea: I have to wholeheartedly agree with Ana in saying that this indeed is Sukie’s book, and it is all the more awesome because of how committed it is. There really isn’t much plot or action, but that doesn’t mean The Girl with the Mermaid Hair is slow or dull – quite the opposite, actually. Rather, this is a wholly immersive reading experience. I have to emphasize again what Ana has said before me; reading The Girl with the Mermaid Hair is an experience unlike any other. It’s not so much a “reading a book” experience as it is a, “Holy Crap, I’m actually seeing Sukie’s mind at work” experience. (But more on that in the next section)

Also, I must say that Ms. Ephron’s writing is just…awesome. Not only is it incredibly clever (for example, one particular passage has Sukie debating what text to send – “WHEN WE KNOW EACH OTHER BETTER” – and deletes her text, letter by letter before inadvertently sending simply, “WHEN”), but it’s also memorably strange. The Girl with the Mermaid Hair is a trip – we readers are only given Sukie’s word as truth, and it becomes painfully, excruciatingly clear that Sukie’s judgement is not completely sound. She talks about her new “boyfriend” that she met at the mall (popular quarterback of the local highschool, named Bobo), but it soon becomes very apparent that Sukie’s relationship – along with so many other things in her life – is a fantasy. A delusion.

And that’s what I loved the most about this book: how it completely messes with reader perceptions. I found myself thinking, Sukie is a gag-inducing Mary Sue! No wait, she’s a narcissistic snot! I hate Sukie! No wait, she’s completely insane! No wait, I LOVE Sukie! and so on and so forth. How often does a book come along that does this to you? Not often. And, as Ana says, I can totally dig that.

On the Characters:

Ana: As a reader who loves character-driven novels, this book was a perfect fit for me. And I was not expecting it. Yes, I started the book disliking her superficiality and her weirdness but ended up loving and rooting for her once I got to know her better. When the story begins, she is too good to be true – too perfect. The image she has of herself and of her parents for example is a complete illusion and it is as though she doesn’t see those illusions because she does – it her interpretation that is all warped. Because for example this sequence about her father:

Sukie loved to watch her dad operate. That’s what he called it. Once at Cones, when he’d offered to pay for a woman’s sprinkles (a woman they’d never met before), the woman said to Sukie, “Your father makes everything more fun, doesn’t he?” As soon as they’d left the store, she reported the compliment to her dad, and he whispered (so her mom and Mikey couldn’t hear), “I’m a real operator”. Clearly this was information he could entrust only to Sukie

To her, he is a winner. To me, it is clear what he is. Eventually, yes, this is one of the things she comes to realise, one of the realities she has to face. But there is so much more to it. All the pressure she suffers from her mother to be beautiful and perfect; her mother who has a facelift and gets rid of her nose – the nose that was a trait she shared with Sukie – what does that to a girl’s psyche?

The book deals a lot with image and in several levels as well:, in mirrors, in photography; public image, self-image, the image one has in the family life or at school. Sukie is carrying her cell phone at all times and yet it never rings, her quarterback fling is not really interested in her, she is truly and really lonely and alone. She hits rock bottom and has to resurface (which is a cool image because of the mermaid hair) and re-imagine herself and I loved that it was all done alone. There was no hot boyfriend to help. No parents to help. Nothing, nada. It was all Sukie (with a little help from her friends).

When the book closes, she is much more real character than she was in the beginning.

As for the other characters, the mother was a sad example of a mother, someone I pitied more than anything. As for the father, I absolutely loathed the individual – not because he was a sleaze ball but because he used Sukie in the war against his wife. You do not do that with your child. But then again, as my parents often said: parenthood does not come with a manual.

But hands down, best secondary character was Señor, the Dog. The fact that he was the one the family turned to, to ask for advice should give you an idea of how dysfunctional they were.

One final thought: one of Sukie’s main concerns is about being original (or not). Is about striving to being unique without having a clue how to. My heart nearly broke into a million pieces several times during this book – and it may sound as though it is all very angsty and sad but it is not, really.

Thea: Well, The Girl with the Mermaid Hair *is* angsty and sad. But ultimately it’s an uplifting, triumphant book, and that’s ALL because of its protagonist Sukie.

I’m something of a plot junkie, as you may or may not have realized over the past couple of years here. But when a character-study type of book is done well, I will never complain about a shortage of action or parallel storylines or whatever, and such is the beauty of this novel from Delia Ephron. As I said before, I had no idea how to interpret and categorize Sukie as a heroine. At first glance, she’s irritating and vain, admiring herself in her grandmother’s antique mirror, mind-numbingly preoccupied with her appearance (especially with her titled hair, and with what she perceives of as an imperfect nose), constantly snapping “selfies” (that is pictures of herself on her cell phone). I shudder at the thought of this sort of vapid heroine, and found myself agreeing with Sukie’s tennis coach when he remarked that she had a marshmallow for a brain.

But…

Then Ms. Ephron works her magic. Sukie in fact isn’t a vain imbecile – she’s a very lonely, hollow young woman that perceives the world around her so differently than anyone else. She lives in her own fantasies. She takes “selfies” and is so preoccupied with her looks not because she is vain, but because she has nothing else. She throws herself into her school work and extracurricular activities, not because she enjoys any of it, but because she is trying to impress her father, to placate her mother, to be perfect for everyone else. Her perfection is not perfection at all; it is obsessive, and heartbreakingly tragic.

And HERE is what makes The Girl with the Mermaid Hair a damn near perfect book for me – in my opinion, it is a jarring look at gender roles and expectations. It is, as I told Ana in an email, the 21st century, teen female version of Catcher in the Rye. Before you tune out, let me explain – I abhor Holden Caufield with every fiber of my being. I have no patience for the embodiment of overprivileged, adolescent male malaise that Holden represented – but this is something that resonates with a lot of readers, in particular male readers. What I mean by comparing Catcher In the Rye to The Girl with the Mermaid Hair is simply this: Sukie is the female answer to Holden Caufield in the new century. Sukie is the embodiment of pressures put on young adults, especially females, in our own age. She’s the daughter of a very rich and handsome father, a beautiful mother, older sister to a loving younger brother. She’s a perfect student, amazingly smart, and breathtakingly beautiful. But she’s far from perfect. She’s friendless, she thinks she has no personality, and she’s ultimately…hollow. Sukie lives to please everyone else, to play by the rules, and to maintain her appearance. Ms. Ephron takes that beautiful, perfect reflection, and just as with the antique mirror in the novel, she distorts the image bit by bit, ultimately shattering the readers’ perception of Sukie with stark reality.

And, yeah, she shattered this reader’s heart too.

Final Thoughts, Observations & Rating:

Ana: A surprisingly moving, funny and sharp character-driven story which I absolutely adored. It is as of now, one of my favorite reads of the year.

Thea: The Girl with the Mermaid Hair is a rare gem of a book, and it completely took me by surprise. Almost against my will, I loved it. I agree once more with Ana – this is the first truly memorable new release I’ve read in 2010. In fact, it’s my favorite book published in 2010 so far. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Notable Quotes/ Parts:

I am so unoriginal. Sukie recorded the dreaded feeling in her journal that night while senor snored next to her, taking up most of the bed.”Do you agree, Senor?”

Senor twitched, indicating that he was dreaming.

Unoriginal. She hoped it wasn’t true but despaired that it was.

She collected stuffed penguins. Was that unoriginal too? Was lining them up in a row on the windowsill a conventional way to display them? They all had names. She’d started with A, Anton, and worked her way down the alphabet to M, Marshmallow, a very small bird with a yellow bow. Sometimes she thought of them as friends, sometimes as audience. Tonight they sat in judgement. Over their furry black heads the moon was bright white, so low in the sky that it might roll off a rooftop, and perfectly round. A storybook moon, she thought. A wishing moon. She wondered if that thought was especially original; probably not. Could she fake being original, or was that something you couldn’t fool anyone about? I wish I knew what everyone thought of me, really, she wrote. No, I take that back.

You can also read the first 64 pages of The Girl with the Mermaid Hair using Harper Teen’s awesome Browse Inside feature, below:

Additional Thoughts: The Girl with the Mermaid Hair is today’s stop on Harper Teen’s 28 Days of Winter Escapes! For a chance to win The Girl with the Mermaid Hair and an iTouch, make sure to go to the official page for today and answer the daily poll!

And make sure to stick around, as later today we have an exclusive Q&A with Delia Ephron!

Rating:

Ana: 8 – Excellent

Thea: 9 – Damn Near Perfection

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