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| 0393241688
| 9780393241686
| 0393241688
| 4.11
| 18,174
| Jul 26, 2016
| Jul 26, 2016
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it was amazing
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Brilliant, heartfelt, and full of surprises. (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley.) The work of the Steiner L Brilliant, heartfelt, and full of surprises. (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley.) The work of the Steiner Lab, in simple terms, was to create more and more sophisticated versions of this kind of language-acquisition software. [...] These applications of the software, however, were only a small part of what interested David, made him stay awake feverishly into the night, designing and testing programs. There was also the art of it, the philosophical questions that this software raised. The essential inquiry was thus: If a machine can convincingly imitate humanity—can persuade a human being of its kinship—then what makes it inhuman? What, after all, is human thought but a series of electrical impulses? ### “What can I get you to eat, hon?” asked Liston, and rattled off a list of all the snacks of the 1980s that Ada was never permitted to have: canned pastas by Chef Boyardee, Fluffernutter sandwiches, fluorescent Kraft macaroni and cheese. In truth, Ada had never even heard of some of the food Liston offered her. ### I was told to ask you something, said Ada finally. I know, said ELIXIR. I’ve been waiting. ### Ada Sibelius had something of an unconventional upbringing, beginning with her very conception. At the tender age of 45, Dr. David Sibelius - "director of a computer science laboratory at the Boston Institute of Technology, called the Bit, or the Byte if he was feeling funny" - decided that he wanted a child. Ada (named after one of David's favorite entries in the Encyclopædia Britannica) was born to a surrogate one year later. This was no small thing back then: 1971, to be exact. In keeping with his eccentric nature, David decided to homeschool his daughter; or rather lab-school her. Ada accompanied David - as she called him - to work every day, where she was immersed in his world, in the language of mathematics, neurology, physics, philosophy, and computer science. In the absence of any biological relatives, David's colleagues - Charles-Robert, Hayato, Frank Halbert, and Diane Liston - became her extended family; his interests were hers. Ada learned to solve complex equations, decrypt puzzles, and present and defend theories. David filled composition books with the names of books, songs, pieces of artwork, and even wines that she should try one day; a cultured bucket list before its time. In many ways, their relationship was more like that of a teacher and his student than a father and his daughter. At the Steiner Lab, David and his colleagues studied natural language processing and developed language-acquisition software. Their crowning achievement - David's second child, if you will - was ELIXIR (mmmm, magic!). Everyone at the lab - including Ada - took turns chatting with ELIXIR, to teach it the words and rules and complexities of language. The program was meant to acquire language the way that humans do, and learn it did. Slowly but surely, ELIXIR grew alongside Ada, evolving from garbled, nonsense text to a semi-eloquent conversationalist (albeit one who reflected the habits and speech patterns of its teachers). For Ada, ELIXIR was a confidant, a non-recoverable diary; she poured her heart and soul into ELIXIR, especially when things got bad. When Ada was ten, David was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease - though he waited two years to tell his daughter, until the symptoms were too obvious to ignore. As David's condition continued to deteriorate, the authorities became involved: first the police, then the Boston Department of Children & Families, who required monthly visits and demanded that Ada be enrolled in an accredited school. Within a year, David was institutionalized and Ada, sent to live with Liston, who also took over the lab. While transferring custody of Ada to Liston, a background check revealed some inconsistencies in David's history. David's parents reported him missing at the age of seventeen; and, while he eventually resurfaced through a letter, they never saw him again. Furthermore, Caltech had no record of a David Sibelius ever attending. Nor could attorneys find any record of David's arrangement with Ada's birth mother, Birdie Auerbach. Was David a fraud? A baby-napper? A murderer? If he was going to steal someone's identity, why choose such a prominent family? And why not capitalize on the Sibelius family name? If David wasn't who he claimed to be, what became of the "real" David Sibelius? Where did Ada come from? These questions threaten to upend Ada's life in ways both practical and metaphysical. David has always been the center of Ada's life - for her, he represents everything that is moral, safe, and good in the world - so to find out that he's been lying to her all this time shakes Ada to her very core. And she cannot turn to David for answers, for his mind is failing them both. Yet Ada is not without hope: There's Miss Holmes, the kind and dedicated librarian who helps Ada troll through microfiche in search of answers. Gregory, the second-youngest Liston kid, who shares her love of science, math, and puzzles. And the mysterious floppy disc David gave her shortly before he disclosed his illness to her. An unassuming little thing, inscribed with a message: "Dear Ada, it said. A puzzle for you. With my love, your father, David Sibelius." It will be twenty-odd years before David's mystery reveals itself to her - and to us. Luckily, this story has nothing if not a patient and compassionate teller. The Unseen World is, in a word, brilliant: full of heart, empathy, history - and lots of geeky science stuff. The story starts out rather slowly: a portrait of an unusual childhood, marked by a father-daughter relationship that's both exhilarating and a little unhealthy. While Ada's intelligence and curiosity blossoms under David's unconventional tutelage, she lacks social skills (at least with kids her own age, a fact that becomes painfully apparent when she's forced into Queen of Angels Catholic school) and their relationship seems enmeshed and almost codependent at times. She readily accepts her father's likes and dislikes as her own, without forming her own opinion on anything. Or mostly: Ada craves normalcy, whereas David shuns it. Perhaps this is because the latter had it (and was found it sorely lacking), whereas the former never did (and when she does, she's rather ambivalent on the matter). Oftentimes it feels as though David expects his child to bend and adapt and mold herself into his life, rather than adjusting his own life to accommodate her. Even as later revelations offer a kinder, gentler perspective on David's more questionable decisions, this thought remained with me; in many ways, David is a neglectful father. Ada is forced to grow up before her time - well, even more than she's already done - with the onset of David's illness. The story transitions seamlessly into a coming-of-age story that's equally fascinating (see, e.g., the junk food excerpt above) and heart-wrenching. Of course the more normal growing pains are amplified by David's illness and likely death: gone is the father who wrote and directed Christmas plays at the lab, who gave Ada challenges and puzzles, who taught so many. Now David often resembles ELIXIR during its infancy, uttering non sequiturs when more complex and appropriate responses elude him. Ironically, Ada sometimes sees pieces of David - a favored phrase here, a grammatical tic there - in her talks with ELIXIR, which continue even after the rest of the lab has moved on. Then, of course, there's the mystery that forms the core of the story, which is both more devastating and yet more benign than the places my imagination invariably led me. I don't want to say more, lest I ruin the surprise, but suffice it to say that The Unseen World has something for just about everyone: mystery, historical fiction, romance, STEM fiction, coming of age, speculative fiction, and social justice. There is diversity like whoah here, woven into the very fabric of the story; diversity that doesn't quite present itself until the denouement, but was in fact hiding in plain sight the whole time. It's beautiful and heartbreaking and had me bawling my damn eyes out. Perhaps best of all, it casts a new light on Ada and David's relationship - particularly David's deception - one that adds nuance and complexity and, yes, understanding and maybe even forgiveness. And the last chapter. THE LAST CHAPTER. I don't think I've read a more perfect ending in my entire life. I honestly can't say enough good things about The Unseen World. Moore has created a story that's understated yet surprising; twisty-turny and lyrical and lovely. David, Liston, George, Ada, ELIXIR - these are characters who I won't soon forget (if ever). http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/07/29/... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 31, 2016
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Jun 04, 2016
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May 31, 2016
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Hardcover
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| 1408858444
| 9781408858448
| 1408858444
| 3.57
| 610
| Jun 07, 2016
| Jul 02, 2016
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it was amazing
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How do you say "AMAZING!!!" in bottlenose dolphin? One. Mustn’t trust humans too much. Two. I know what they can be like. Three. I was one once— ### How ca How do you say "AMAZING!!!" in bottlenose dolphin? One. Mustn’t trust humans too much. Two. I know what they can be like. Three. I was one once— ### How can they sell Phenomenautism as image and experience? How can they sell it at all? A Ressy isn’t a consumable. Phenomenautism is meant to consume you. ### Buckley always said that reading is the closest an ex-phenomenaut can get to wearing another skin. ### The year is 2050, or close enough, and while humans aren't yet locomoting via our own personal jet packs, we have developed all sorts of cool technology. Chief among them? Phenomenautism, which involves projecting one's consciousness, using a neural interface, into the bodies of other animals. At just nineteen years old, Katherine "Kit" North is the longest projecting phenomenaut in the field, with seven years under her belt. She was recruited to join ShenCorp - whose founder, Professor Shen, all but invented phenomenautism - when she was a kid. Kit's Mum was a zoologist and her father, a wildlife photographer, so an affinity for our nonhuman kin runs in the blood. Kit works in the Research division, inhabiting the bodies of nonhuman animals to aid outside companies and nonprofits with their research; for example, as a fox Kit helped track the local population for a cub study orchestrated by the Fox Research Centre. She's been a bee, a whale, a polar bear, an elephant, a seal, a mouse, a spider, a octopus, a tiger, and a bat, not to various species of birds. Very rarely does she get to be herself - although that's not necessarily a bad thing. Nor is she quite sure what that means anymore. ShenCorp is the only company to employ children exclusively, owing to their superior brain plasticity, which aids in adapting to the new bodies ("Ressies") they inhabit during jumps. As Kit watches her friends and peers disappear, one by one - let go for poor performance - she worries for her own future. When she's hit by a car inRessy - destroying the body and ending her study prematurely - termination seems imminent. Yet instead of a pink slip, her boss offers her a promotion, of sorts: to the new Tourism division, where the "animal experience" is sold to regular folks - for a hefty sum, natch. Kit finds the idea of Consumer Phenomenautism repugnant ... yet not quite as bad as giving jumping up altogether. Kit accepts, unwittingly stumbling into a corporate conspiracy that runs far deeper that she imagined. I was so nervous about this book, y'all. On the one hand, the concept sounded incredible: seeing the world through the eyes (and nose and mouth and ears and whiskers) of other animals! I mean, how cool is that? And the potential for an animal-friendly, anti-speciesist point of view - in understanding that there are multiple ways of experiencing the world; acknowledging that all animals have unique, valuable, and worthwhile skills; in simply recognizing nonhuman sentience; and in encouraging empathy for those who are like us in all the ways that matter - is incredible. And yet, as an ethical vegan, I find animal research morally indefensible. (Not to mention often wasteful, redundant, and downright misleading.) Given that the synopsis is rather vague about these "lab-grown animals" Kit and her peers inhabit, I worried that I might not care for the particulars of phenomenautism. If it's considered acceptable to subjugate nonhuman animals - forcing them to reproduce (or stealing their DNA for cloning), keeping them in captivity, and then using their bodies without their consent - then I'm afraid that phenomenautism's ultimate goal of "understanding animals" would be so much bullshit. How could we possibly exploit whales or grizzlies or dolphins when we know that to do so causes them suffering? That our own research tells us so? Unless we're simply monsters - a sentiment with which Kit might very well agree. As it turns out, I hemmed and hawed and wrung my hands over reading The Many Selves of Katherine North for no reason: Geen is surprisingly sensitive to the welfare of animals, though the book isn't without a few flaws in this regard. It's a little misleading to say that the Ressies are lab grown; rather, they are lab printed, by a futuristic 3D printer that (re)creates organic matter. After they're done, the Ressies are kept in stasis in the BioLab until ready for use (and they are reused over multiple jumps, until the body is irreparably damaged). The Ressies have "no CNS, nothing higher than a thalamus, all in keeping with the ICPO standards," though they are outfitted with "inbuilt movement package[s]" to help phenomenauts adapt more quickly. As far as I can tell, the Ressies are closer to empty shells than sentient animals: hardware just waiting for the software to be downloaded (or projected, as it were). Of course, it probably took a shit ton of animal research to get to this point, but the Ressies in and of themselves don't seem to involve animal suffering. What Kit does - and her specialization is in studying endangered animals, which is awesome - is more akin to observational (and possibly experiential) research than anything else: tracking cubs in a population study; counting the number of octopi near an oil rig; figuring out the mechanics of weaving a web, in order to help spiders negatively impacted by a certain pesticide. This does come with its own set of problems, as the researcher's actions - or even her very presence - can alter the behavior of her subjects. We see this with Tomoko, the fox cub Kit was forced to leave behind when her body was killed, hit by a car, inRessy. Tomoko had been relying on Kit to protect, feed, house, and teach her; Kit's absence was a huge blow. Had she not entered Tomoko's life at all, she might have found a more stable adult to lean on. Or maybe not. We'll never know. Of course, the Ressies do require regular, species-appropriate maintenance to stay operational. For carnivorous animals, this includes the consumption of meat. (Is it morally acceptable to kill some animals to feed a "tool" that helps other animals?) In Kit's case, this necessity introduces some trippy, identity- and empathy- bending conundrums. While testing a polar bear Ressy, Kit recognizes that the body is hungry, and she must feed it to keep it working. Seals are a popular polar bear snack, and yet ... Kit was once a seal, too! "The chase sags from my shoulders. A taunt of its scent lingers on the breeze. Even here, even as a polar bear, I can remember the sensation of water over sleek skin. How can what I once was become my food? My guts growl in disappointment. Of course, I knew that seals are the staple polar bear diet, but I hadn’t fully faced what it would mean to eat one." From prey to predator, what's a girl to do? (A: Leave it to the next phenomenaut to feed the Ressy. Moral conflict, avoided.) Following this logic, Kit's disgust at Body Tourism isn't on behalf of the Ressies so much as the areas in which they operate: the lives and homes of living, breathing, thinking, feeling animals. Kit and her peers have received years of training, and for them, phenomenautism isn't a fun experience to be bought and sold. It's a way of life, a career, a passion. Phenomenauts is what they are, not what they do. Just as the field holds great potential for improving the lives of animals - both individuals and species - so too can it wreak great destruction when used carelessly or callously (as we see below). On the other end of the animal philosophy spectrum, Geen introduces "pro-lifers" who want to "liberate" the Ressies. Whether they're animal rights "nuts" or religious fanatics who dislike it when scientists play God, we'll never know, since the plot is so sub that it's only brought up twice, maybe three times. If it's the former, I really resent being lumped in with anti-choice extremists through the use of such terminology; while anti-choice vegans do exist, to me infringing on a person's bodily autonomy is incompatible with an ethical vegan philosophy. Plus, if the Ressies are really just non-sentient shells, what's the problem? Make us seem irrationally knee-jerk in our response, why dontcha? [Updated to add: The author saw my review and offered this clarification on twitter, which is pretty rad.
Thank you, Emma!] Also, Kit's mom was a zoologist who loved animals. And she loved going to the zoo ... where animals are confined to cages just a fraction of the size of their natural habitats; forced to breed and then separated from their families; treated like exhibits instead of individuals; develop stereotypic behaviors and even psychosis (so common it has a name, zoochosis); and sold and/or killed when they no longer attract eyeballs. Zoos are awful places, both to animals and those who care for them. (Actually, it's kind of interesting that Geen raises the specter of zoos, if only in passing, in light of Buckley's defense of Body Tourism: namely, that the experience of wearing another's skin will lead to an increase in empathy towards animals. This is one of many arguments given in defense of zoos, yet studies - not to mention casual observation; how many times have you witnessed visitors taunting the captives? - suggest that this isn't necessarily so.) In summary: The Many Selves of Katherine North is what I'd call animal-friendly fiction. Not explicitly animal rights, but something ethical vegans could maybe get behind. Certainly less objectionable than 99% of the fiction out there. "Pleasantly surprised" doesn't even begin to cover it; The Many Selves of Katherine North is right up there with Rachel Vincent's Menagerie with books that knocked me for a vegan loop. As for the rest of the book - plot, pacing, characters, world-building, potential for real-world moral implications - it's just spectacular. Let me put it this way: the ARC I read was littered throughout with random +1s and -0s, yet I was so engrossed in the story that they quickly faded from view. Geen held my attention and did. not. let. go. The "thriller" aspect of the story is, paradoxically, low-key as far as thrillers go (Bourne this isn't!), and yet surprisingly rich and layered. Kit's efforts to infiltrate ShenCorp mostly involve hiding in the bushes outside the Center and stealing sammies from Buckley's cubicle rather than orchestrating an Oceans 11-type heist. Yet ShenCorp's new Tourism project - as awful as it promises to be - is just the tip of the iceberg. ** Caution: spoilers ahead! ** ShenCorp hopes to introduce home phenomenautism kits within the next decade - letting tourists loose in other animals' habitats without a professional phenomenaut to mitigate the damage. Which is pretty extensive: in Kit's guided tours, one blogger, dressed as a tiger, slowly throttled a boar to death - just for funsies (he didn't consume the body, nor did he eat the other boar Kit had killed in anticipation of his arrival). Later on, a tourist named Britta, inhabiting the body of a very aroused male elephant, invaded a herd of females, losing her footing and falling on and killing a calf in the process. But she offered to pay for the damage, so it's okay! (Not.) Already in production: human Ressies, including a (very convenient) doppelgänger of Kit herself, made without her knowledge or consent. When she granted ShenCorp the legal right to use her likeness, she didn't count on exact copy. The fourth layer in this ethical clusterfuck cake? A decades-long coverup of the deleterious effects of projection on children. It seems the asking kids to become other animals during a critical time in the development of their own self-identity? Not such a hot idea after all! ** end of spoilers ** Set in a not-so-distant future that's not too different from our own, The Many Selves of Katherine North introduces some rather exciting - and scary - what-ifs that make for compelling thought experiments. How can a human explain the subjective experience of another animal when our language, which evolved around our bodies, lacks the right words? Does the ownership of your identity extend to Ressies (Clones? Robots?) that wear your face? What is our ethical responsibility, if any, to the Ressies we inhabit - and the spaces they invade? Can phenomenauts fully hold onto their humanity after inhabiting the bodies of nonhuman animals ... and, if not, is this necessarily a bad thing? There is such fertile ground here! The characters are equally complex and richly layered - particularly the phenomenauts, as their careers affect them, transform them, leave an indelible mark on their very selves. Many of the phenomenauts comes across as socially awkward, yet this phrase hardly begins to describe it. After weeks, months, sometimes even years living as other animals, many phenomenauts adopt a very non-human way of approaching the human world: engaging in threat displays when challenged, sleeping in dens, relying on senses other than sight (and then becoming frustrated by the many glaring deficiencies of the human body). It's fascinating to watch, and makes Kit's tenuous relationship with Buckley, an ex-phenomenaut and her neuroengineer, that much more compelling. Geen's world-building, at least as it relates to the tech (the rest of the world is more or less recognizable as our own), is sensational. I loved learning about the "science" behind phenomenautism, the terms and phrases and slang, not to mention the many ways it can affect/be affected by the kids actually doing the jumping. Geen challenges her readers to imagine the world as it's perceived by other animals; these "stranger in a strange land" moments are among my favorites in the book. Honestly, it's just fabulous. I could go on all day (and I think I already have!). Read it if: you like a) animals; b) mind-bending speculative fiction; c) philosophical questions; d) Daiya cheese and Beast Burgers. http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/07/08/... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 16, 2016
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May 22, 2016
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May 16, 2016
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Paperback
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| 1441765980
| 9781441765987
| 1441765980
| 3.89
| 12,284
| Aug 03, 2010
| Aug 03, 2010
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it was amazing
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So this might be the darkest, most beautifully written zombie apocalypse story I've ever read ... but fuck that fucking ending, man. 4.5 stars So this might be the darkest, most beautifully written zombie apocalypse story I've ever read ... but fuck that fucking ending, man. 4.5 stars ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 11, 2016
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May 18, 2016
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May 11, 2016
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Audio CD
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| 0316335991
| 9780316335997
| 0316335991
| 3.64
| 11,507
| May 17, 2016
| May 17, 2016
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really liked it
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Hope Arden is one character you won't soon forget. (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley. Trigger warning for Hope Arden is one character you won't soon forget. (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley. Trigger warning for suicide, rape, and general violence.) And at Edinburgh Waverley, I bought a notebook from the stationery shop, and a bag of pens, and as the engine blared its victory over inertia and the train began to crawl south, back to England, back to the warm, back to Derby and my sister who waited, I began to write. I wrote of the past. Of the things that had brought me here. Of being forgotten, and being remembered. Of diamonds in Dubai, fires in Istanbul. Of walks through Tokyo, the mountains of Korea, the islands of the southern seas. Of America and the greyhound bus, of Filipa and Parker, Gauguin and Byron14. I wrote, to make my memory true. The past, living. Now. Here, in these words. I wrote to make myself real. -- 4.5 stars -- When she was sixteen years old, Hope Arden began to disappear - from peoples' memories. It started small: teachers would forget to pester Hope for her homework; friends stopped saving her a seat in the cafeteria. One day, she came home only to find her mother clearing out her room, bagging up her belongings to donate to a charity shop; for a second, she forgot that Hope still lived with them. Eventually people ceased to remember Hope altogether: a minute or two after turning away, she'd slip from their minds like a shadow. Details of their seconds-old interaction with her would linger, but the girl at the center of the memory was nowhere to be found. Hope's parents held out the longest, but one day even they forget their oldest daughter. You could say that Hope ran away from home that day, but is it still home if you're a perpetual stranger? Being unmemorable is more challenging than you might think. Reliable health care, housing, gainful employment, continuing education - all of it was beyond Hope's reach. And so she did the only thing she could with this new ability-slash-curse: become the best damn thief she could. Like her anonymity, Hope's career as a criminal started small: shoplifting led to pick pocketing led to elaborate jewel heists that required months of planning. If she wasn't always a consummate professional, at least she could fall back on her forgettable-ness. The few times she was arrested, all Hope had to do was wait for someone to leave her in a room, alone...and forget all about her. Maybe what Hope was doing couldn't be called living, but she was surviving, at least. That is, until Dubai. There to steal the Chrysalis diamond from the Saudi royal family, Hope made friends - of a sort - with her target's cousin, Reina bint Badr al Mustakfi. After just a few meetings, Reina killed herself. Because she was depressed. Because she needed help. Because what she got instead was Perfection. Perfection: a life coach in digital form. For a small monthly fee, the app will tell you what to eat, where to shop, when to work out. It gives you points for following its advice - say, granting it access to your bank accounts so that it can better "perfect" your life - and subtracts points when you fail to live up to its standards. The highest rollers are members of the elite 106 Club: all living in the same luxury condo, attending the same swanky parties (where they make business and political deals that earn them - what else - more points!), and getting the same plastic surgery and mind-altering treatments. But Hope isn't privy to all these details quite yet. All she knows is that Reina - a lovely, caring, compassionate person - killed herself because she thought she wasn't good enough. Perfection - and the larger society that birthed it - told her as much. And so a heist of professional pride becomes one of personal spite, pulling Hope into the world of Prometheus and Perfection, Dr. Filipa Pereyra-Conroy and her brother Rafe, and the terrorist known as Byron14 and her pursuer, mugurski71. Along the way she'll meet - or rather reacquaint herself with - another forgettable like herself; be kidnapped and nearly burned alive; bring Prometheus to its knees; and witness a literal feeding frenzy of perfect people. The Sudden Appearance of Hope is, for lack of a better word, bonkers. A roller-coaster ride, it has a little bit of just about everything: science fiction, dystopia, horror, suspense, mystery, romance, conspiracy theories, corporate espionage, philosophy, literary fiction. Sometimes it almost feels like a poetry slam, as Hope's narration slips into a stream-of-consciousness-type jam. (The writing might not be for everyone, but I loved it.) In less talented hands, Hope's disappearing act could have easily devolve into a wacky plot device; but North uses it to explore some pretty heavy issues: the nature of self-identity; the malleability of memory; ethics in the absence of consequences; self-esteem and -worth and how these influence (and are influenced by) attention, approval, and relationships. Who is Hope, really, if no one remembers her? If nothing she does is of consequence? If she has no friends, no family, no lovers; no one to remember her? What can you be if you're only able to live in the Now? The Sudden Appearance of Hope boasts a dizzying number of subplots and plot twists, even for a nearly 500-page book. It does feel a little long - once or twice, I found myself impatiently checking my progress on the Kindle - but, for the most part, the story managed to hold my attention. Actually, that doesn't quite do it justice: for most of the read I white-knuckled it, staying up to finish "just one more chapter" until I could barely keep my eyes open. Also dizzying: the diversity, in the best way possible. This story is seriously international in scope, with our biracial heroine traveling all over the globe: Dubai, Oman, Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Milan, Venice, New York City, San Francisco, São Paulo. With her dark skin and dark hair ("twisted into long ropes down my back"), Hope stands out in many of the places she visits: but only for so long. Hope's mother, of the Nuer people, walked across the desert of Sudan and Egypt, until she reached Istanbul and, eventually, the UK. Hope often conjures Nyaring Ayun-Arden, imagining her journey as her own, finding strength and presence of self in her mum's trek. She carries something - many things - of her mother's even if she is no longer remembered as her mother's daughter. This is among some of the loveliest imagery in the book. http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/05/25/... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 26, 2016
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May 2016
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Apr 26, 2016
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Hardcover
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| 0062412698
| 9780062412690
| 0062412698
| 3.92
| 9,196
| May 10, 2016
| May 10, 2016
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it was amazing
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This book gave me a serious case of Sad Eyes. (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through Edelweiss. Trigger warning for viol This book gave me a serious case of Sad Eyes. (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through Edelweiss. Trigger warning for violence, including animal abuse.) This is how it is with werewolves. Even when they lie, it’s the truth. And now I knew the truth about myself. I was a murder weapon. I was revenge. I was a burden my aunt and uncle had been carrying around for ten years already, out of obligation to my mom. I was maybe a wolf, maybe not. “Being a werewolf isn’t just teeth and claws,” she said, her lips brushing my ear she was so close, so quiet, “it’s inside. It’s how you look at the world. It’s how the world looks back at you.” “You’re not going to believe this,” the villager’s uncle says back to the villager’s aunt, his smile as wide as the villager’s ever seen. “One of them’s got a pitchfork.” Arkansas. Texas. Florida. New Mexico. Georgia. Alabama. Mississippi. South Carolina.: “Riding the yo-yo,” Darren called it. The unnamed narrator of Mongrels has spent much of his young life traversing the southern U.S., hopping from state to state, running as far as the family's current junker would take them. Trying to stay ahead of the snow - and the law. Living on the outskirts of town, in rundown rentals and dilapidated trailers, taking low-wage (yet honest) work where they could find it, but always falling back on theft to round out their diets. Strawberry wine coolers. Cases of steak. Wild deers and the occasional calf. The boy - sometimes a villager, other times a reporter, always a wolf-in-waiting - never knew his parents. As a topic of conversation, dad is off-limits; and his mother, Jessica, died in childbirth. Just like her mother before her. It's more than a family curse: it's a species curse. Human women cannot safely give birth to werewolves. Unlike her littermates, Libby and Darren, Jessica didn't inherit her father's wolf blood. In the wake of his mother's death, the boy was raised by wolves - Grandpa, Aunt Libby, Uncle Darren - but still isn't sure whether he is one. Werewolves don't turn until adolescence, you see. We first meet the narrator at age seven, as his grandfather regales him with impossible stories of impossible creatures. Stories that are truer than the narrator realizes; stories that are really admissions and apologies in disguise. After the grandfather's early death (werewolves age like dogs, you know), the trio beats a hasty retreat from Arkansas. There was a fire, you see. The first of many. From there, we meet Darren's secret admirer, a wildlife biologist with a penchant for scat; we learn of Grandfather's role in defeating the Nazis ("the Amazing Adventures of the Black Wolf, Secret Weapon of World War II"); we witness the narrator's first (star-crossed) romance, with a girl who wants to be a werewolf; and we watch as Darren lands in jail for grave robbing ("It was one crime we’d never committed, not in all the years since Arkansas.") and is shanghaied by a greedy exterminator in Florida. Oh, and there is werewolf lore up the wazoo. Mongrels doesn't follow a linear structure, but rather jumps back and forth in time and perspective. Consequently, the book often feels like a collection of short stories - each eminently enjoyable on its own, but all the more stunning when considered alongside the others. This approach does engender a feeling of confusion and chaos, but in the best way possible; in a way that seems to mirror the narrator's own state of mind, as he learns more and more about his heritage and family history. This is a book that's full of heart. And also blood and guts and assorted viscera. It's brutal and gory and terribly, achingly beautiful. Whether it's thinking of the sorry excuse for a funeral afforded the world's oldest werewolf - he who saved his brethren by hand-pressing counterfeit silver bullets - or reflecting on the narrator's own tragic origin story, Mongrels is like a knife to the heart (silver, natch). Or a dew claw to the birth canal, if you'd rather. One thing I love/hate about the Kindle is how easy the technology makes it to take notes. So I end up highlighting a ridiculous amount. And I think I broke a record here, despite my attempts to be judicious. Jones's writing is just so lovely and heart-rending! Lest it be all doom and gloom and buckets full of tears, Mongrels also has an unexpected, darkly funny and twisted sense of humor. Often from man-child Darren (my favorite is when he goes Bigfoot hunting with a group of pitchfork-wielding villagers; the unicorn poop is a close second), but not exclusively. This is a story about growing up, yes; but it's bigger than the narrator, even. I found many of the characters interesting, but Libby especially held my attention. Whereas Darren loves being a werewolf - and, seeing his enthusiasm, the narrator is pretty gun-ho about it too - Libby's feelings are more ambivalent. She wants her nephew to have a normal life: the "town" life that eluded her dead sister. She wants to protect him, the way she couldn't do for Jess. Yet she's had to bury her own wants and desires, perhaps her very self, to do it. Remember, Jess died when she was just fourteen. When they were all just fourteen. With Jess's demise, Libby became both a teen mom - and a young girl mourning her identical triplet. It makes you wonder how Libby feels about her cross-species status, especially in light of the ending. She's a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in slab of raw steak. (Never frozen, because what if you get the midnight munchies?) Honestly, I just cannot say enough good things about this book - so, in the interest of spoilers, I'll stop trying. Mongrels isn't for the faint of heart or stomach; in addition to rabbits, birds, calves, deers, and dogs killed and torn apart for sustenance, there's also a neighborhood full of dogs kidnapped and slain for the healing properties of their blood, and a captive bear made rabid and framed for the crimes of grave-robbing werewolves. Yet if you can power through the carnage, it's the sort of story - or stories, plural - that will tear your soul apart and then stitch it back together again. Unique and bewitching and unlike any other werewolf story I've read - both in terms of lore and sheer depth of emotion. Read it for the monsters, or for the teenage angst. It's all the same bag of bones. http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/05/11/... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 28, 2016
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Mar 30, 2016
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Mar 29, 2016
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 081299860X
| 9780812998603
| 081299860X
| 3.50
| 226,247
| Jun 14, 2016
| Jun 14, 2016
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it was amazing
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A book so shrewd and insightful, it's sometimes painful to read. (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley. Trigg A book so shrewd and insightful, it's sometimes painful to read. (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley. Trigger warning for rape.) "When I’d first tried to tell Dan, on the night of a brownout in Venice that summoned a candlelit, apocalyptic intimacy, he had burst out laughing. Mistaking the hush in my voice for the drop of hilarity. Even after I convinced Dan I was telling the truth, he talked about the ranch with that same parodic goof. Like a horror movie with bad special effects, the boom microphone dipping into the frame and tinting the butchery into comedy. And it was a relief to exaggerate my distance, neatening my involvement into the orderly package of anecdote. "It helped that I wasn’t mentioned in most of the books. Not the paperbacks with the title bloody and oozing, the glossed pages of crime scene photographs. Not the less popular but more accurate tome written by the lead prosecutor, gross with specifics, down to the undigested spaghetti they found in the little boy’s stomach. The couple of lines that did mention me were buried in an out-of-print book by a former poet, and he’d gotten my name wrong and hadn’t made any connection to my grandmother. The same poet also claimed that the CIA was producing porn films starring a drugged Marilyn Monroe, films sold to politicians and foreign heads of state." In my teens and early twenties, I was what you'd call a true crime buff. I downed scintillating mass market paperbacks by the dozen: Deep Cover, Serpico, Wiseguy, The Stranger Beside Me, Chasing the Devil, The Devil in the White City, Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Under the Banner of Heaven - you name it. For a time I fantasized about studying forensic psychology. My favorite stories were those that centered on cults: the indoctrination into bizarre religious beliefs, the charismatic (yet obviously slimy and possibly sociopathic) leader, the epically tragic ending. Naturally, my copy of Vincent Bugliosi's Helter Skelter was well-loved; and, in college, I was lucky enough to write a paper on Jonestown for a sociology course. My point being: Emma Cline's The Girls was an instant must-read for me. A novel based on the Manson Family? Give it to me now! Evie Boyd is fourteen and terribly lonely in the summer of 1969. Her parents have recently divorced; her best and only friend, Connie, unceremoniously dumped her after Evie ruined her (so-called) chances with Henry, her older brother's friend; and said brother Pete ran away with his (rumored to be pregnant) girlfriend - after he and Evie kinda-sorta made out in his bed. Evie is desperate for attention, any attention; and Russell (the Charles Manson figure in this story) preys on girls just like her. When Evie first spots the girls in the park, she is captivated. Awestruck. "These long-haired girls seemed to glide above all that was happening around them, tragic and separate. Like royalty in exile." With their thrift store clothes, unfettered hair, and unshaven armpits, they seem to be carefree, uncomplicated, somehow above it all. Evie wants this for herself - but, more importantly, she wants to belong. To the group, yes, but especially to the girls' leader Suzanne, with whom Evie is instantly and hopelessly infatuated. (In some ways, this crush makes her a unreliable narrator, at least as it pertains to Suzanne. Even Evie has trouble separating Suzanne's true motives from what she wishes them to be.) Before long, Evie is staying at their decrepit old ranch for days at a time, stealing money from her mother for the good of the group, and even bringing in new recruits herself (or trying to, anyway). As summer stretches into August, the mood at the compound gradually sours - thus hurtling the "family" toward the inevitable, bloody climax. Yet Evie doesn't see it (or chooses not to), for she only has eyes for Suzanne. The Girls is a searing, shrewd study of girlhood and adolescence (and also adulthood). In fourteen-year-old Evie, women of all ages can find a piece of themselves: the desire to been seen, noticed, understood, appreciated. Loved. Searching for this - always searching - even in the most unlikely of places. Boys with questionable agendas and cliques of fickle peers. Yearning for the comfort of your mother's or father's embrace, even as you recoil from it; finally having realized that your parents are as flawed and fallible - as tragically human - as you yourself are. Not quite knowing who are you, yet being certain that it isn't enough. While I was reading The Girls, I sometimes thought of When We Were Animals and Daredevils - two other coming-of-age stories that highlight the authors' uncanny grasp of The Female Experience. Of course, these were all the more notable for having been written by men: Joshua Gaylord and Shawn Vestal, respectively. When We Were Animals came out soon after a kerfuffle in which some bigshot male author complained how hard it was to write women, and I pointed to it as exhibit A that this simply isn't true. Women aren't alien creatures, impossibly foreign and unknowable. We're people too, yo! Cline not only captures teenage Evie in all her complex, complicated, flawed glory - but also looks forward, to the middle-aged woman that Evie will become. A woman whose life is colored by regret, disappointment, and unrealized dreams - "And now I was older, and the wishful props of future selves had lost their comforts." "But even the surprise of harmless others in the house disturbed me. I didn’t want my inner rot on display, even accidentally. Living alone was frightening in that way. No one to police the spill of yourself, the ways you betrayed your primitive desires. Like a cocoon built around you, made of your own naked proclivities and never tidied into the patterns of actual human life." - but also love, friendship, and that one fateful night: when Suzanne rejected her and saved her from a life of repentance. Or not, depending on your POV. Additionally, The Girls answers that one question that always niggled me when reading my skeezy true crime/crazy cult ed. books: how could anyone get sucked up in such nonsense? (Hindsight is 20/20, but still. Pocket-sized, wild-haired Charles Manson - really?) Like any other predator, Russell targets vulnerable girls and women: those from "broken" homes, with absent, neglectful, or abusive parents (it still boggles the mind that Evie could disappear for days and her mom never said boo about it); those without friends or acquaintances to anchor them to the outside world; those with low self-esteem or mental health issues. "At that age, I was, first and foremost, a thing to be judged, and that shifted the power in every interaction onto the other person." "Poor Sasha. Poor girls. The world fattens them on the promise of love. How badly they need it, and how little most of them will ever get." But also those with resources and connections that can be pilfered and plundered. For the women, this resource is often their bodies, their sexuality. The grooming starts immediately, with Russell testing the new recruits' personal boundaries, breaching them in ways small and then large to see what he can get away with. Starved for affection, conditioned to conflate lust with love, Russell sadly finds no shortage of potential victims. Russell also traffics in the bodies of his female followers, trading them to men like Mitchell in exchange for food, drugs, and record deals. (FYI: the book contains several rape scenes - not only is the consent questionable at best, but seeing as Evie is only fourteen and the men are well into their thirties, it at least qualifies as statutory rape - but they're relatively brief and not overtly graphic.) For me, The Girls is equal parts a coming of age story and a dissection of the inner workings of cults (or, more generally, predators and pedophiles as a whole). It's no secret that Cline found inspiration in the infamous Manson Family murders; in fact, news reports about the bidding war over The Girls refer to it as the "Charles Manson Family Novel." So I was more than a little disappointed to see names changed and events altered (although, in retrospect, the former is obviously necessary from a legal standpoint). If you're familiar with the case, no you'll see many of the people and events reflected on the pages. However, some of the changes blunt the overall impact for me. (Just a bit, but still.) For example, the murders are whittled down to a quadruple homicide that takes place on one property (a mansion and the caretaker's house) over the course of a single night - versus eight murders spread out over two weeks. Here, the crime is more of a personal vendetta than part of an orchestrated attempt to terrorize the general public. In this vein, many of Manson's outrageous political beliefs are absent in his doppleganger, Russell. There isn't any Beatles-inspired graffiti on the crime scene walls or armed patrols guarding the compound. Russell's cult is still repulsive and abusive - a trash heap, in Pete's words - but the undercurrent on the ranch doesn't feel quite as intense as you'd imagine it in the source material. And while the group evades arrest for some time, the lack of a crime spree seems less likely to inspire the mass hysteria of the Manson case. These minor complaints aside, The Girls is simply breathtaking. Cline's prose sparkles with both skill, and the sheen of truth. The true crime/cult angle is an obvious draw, but you should also read it if you like coming-of-age books written by and for women. 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 where necessary. http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/06/13/... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 18, 2016
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Mar 21, 2016
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Mar 18, 2016
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0062387979
| 9780062387974
| B013PKDSE6
| 3.19
| 1,714
| May 03, 2016
| May 03, 2016
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it was amazing
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Nine Kinds of Awesome (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through Edelweiss.) Public School Kids Always Ask How do you meet gu Nine Kinds of Awesome (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through Edelweiss.) Public School Kids Always Ask How do you meet guys if you go to an all-girls school? Immaculate Heart Academy is named for the pure love of God that flows through Mary’s heart. But here’s the real reason why our logo is a hunk of dripping muscle: five hundred girls in red plaid skirts. Even if we brushed with garlic toothpaste we couldn’t keep the vampires away. ### Mary’s Parents Sure, they tried their best not to treat her any different. What choice did they have? After all, she was still their daughter, and they had promised God to love her no matter what crazy shit her body could do. ### The summer before her junior year of high school, Addie becomes pregnant and decides to have an abortion. In a refreshing twist, her parents and boyfriend are wholly supportive of Addie, and her decision: Nick accompanies her to the appointment, and mom and dad sign off on it without argument (Addie lives in Minnesota, a state that requires parental consent). She isn't conflicted about her choice, but Addie does slip into a bit of a depression or malaise after the fact. Worried about disappointing everyone yet again, she mostly keeps "Hurricane Addie" to herself. She withdraws from Nick and loses interest in classwork. She quits the cross-country team - which was supposed to fund her college education - and starts spending her afternoons at Java Joes, so her parents are none the wiser. There she runs into Juliana, another former track star from Immaculate Heart Academy, who is dealing with her own capital-s Shit. And then, slowly, Addie finds her way back to normal: her new normal. As much as I believe that abortion needs greater representation in popular culture, stories dealing with the procedure make me nervous: will they be too preachy? Anti-choice? Slut-shaming? Misogynist? But the synopsis for Ask Me How I Got Here looked fairly reassuring, and Book Riot's glowing review sealed the deal for me. As it turns out, Ask Me How I Got Here is pretty effing great. Although Addie does withdraw after her having an abortion, she never second-guesses herself; she knows, 1000%, that it was the right choice for her. Yet there's no escaping society's conflicting views on abortion - especially when you attend a Catholic school. In lessons on compassion, Addie's forced to listen to her classmates' ideas of how women who have had abortions should react: with shame, guilt, and remorse. Addie feels none of this, though her peers' conservative leanings do force her to keep it a secret: she doesn't even tell her best friend and teammate Claire, which only adds to her feelings of isolation. It isn't difficult to imagine that Addie's experience might have been more positive - or at least neutral - if everyone around her was as accepting as her parents. Ask Me How I Got Here is a novel written in verse, which I know some readers find gimmicky; but I enjoy the change of pace, and I think it works quite well here. Many of the poems are works of art - sly feminist masterpieces - on their own, and they all come together to create a lovely story worthy of multiple readings. You can fly through the book rather quickly, but why would you want to? These verses are meant to be savored. Addie's poems are even tied to the story's ending, which made my heart swell. Also, there's a really great #WNDB twist that I won't mention because spoilers, but you'll know it when you see it. http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/05/06/... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 16, 2016
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Mar 16, 2016
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Mar 16, 2016
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Kindle Edition
| ||||||||||||||
| 1250085470
| 9781250085474
| 1250085470
| 3.57
| 27,665
| Apr 26, 2016
| Apr 26, 2016
|
it was amazing
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Oh my stars! (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley.) Staring at the sky in Bharata was like exchanging a secre Oh my stars! (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley.) Staring at the sky in Bharata was like exchanging a secret. It felt private, like I had peered through the veil of a hundred worlds. When I looked up, I could imagine—for a moment—what the sky hid from everyone else. I could see where the winds yawned with silver lips and curled themselves to sleep. I could glimpse the moon folding herself into crescents and half-smiles. When I looked up, I could imagine an existence as vast as the sky. Just as infinite. Just as unknown. ### “I want your perspective and honesty,” he said, before adding in a softer voice, “I want to be humbled by you.” Heat flared in my cheeks. I paused, the stick in my hand falling a fraction. Perspective and honesty? Humbled by me? Rajas never asked for anything other than sons from their consorts. “My kingdom needs a queen,” he said. “It needs someone with fury in her heart and shadows in her smile. It needs someone restless and clever. It needs you.” “You know nothing about me.” “I know your soul. Everything else is an ornament.” ### In the kingdom of Bharata, seventeen-year-old Mayavati is known as "the one with the horoscope" - cursed by cold, distant stars that promise a marriage of Death and Destruction. Maya is something of an outcast; though her father the Raj doesn't place any credence in such superstitions, the Raj's harem and the larger realm believe that one's horoscope speaks the truth, if only we mortals deign to listen. And so Maya is scorned, treated like an outcast and a pariah, and blamed for the realm's misfortunes, large and small. Yet her morbid horoscope also promises Maya a life of (relative) freedom: unlike her many half-sisters, Maya is not expected to marry. Instead, she delves into academia, burying her nose in the kingdom's dusty archives and delighting in chasing away a series of stuffy old tutors. She looks forward to becoming a "scholarly old maid" - better than being sold into a marriage of political convenience, just one of many wives left to beg scraps of attention from a near-stranger, no? But Bharata is a kingdom in the midst of a protracted war, and Maya is currently the only unwed daughter of marriageable age. The Raj does the unthinkable: invites the leaders of the rebel groups to Bharata to court his daughter. But things quickly go from bad to worse as the Raj reveals the real reason for the surprise swayamvara: it's simply a trap, meant to gather the Raj's enemies in one place so that he can slay them. But not before Maya commits suicide by poison, thus nullifying the temporary treaty. With the help of a mesmerizing stranger named Amar, Maya manages to escape - just barely. Her new husband whisks her away to his kingdom, Akaran, a magical place that sits in the space between the Otherworld and the human realm. Maya is understandably enchanted - and suspicious: especially since Amar is prohibited from telling Maya anything of her new kingdom until the moon passes through a cycle. In a palace decorated with mirror portals to other worlds and iron-clad doors that jump from place to place, little is as it seems: least of all the Raj, and Maya's role in his grand plan. The Star-Touched Queen is simply amazing. First of all, the writing! THE WRITING. In a word, Chokshi's prose is sumptuous: like a moist, decadent, double-decker chocolate fudge cake smothered in vanilla almond buttercream frosting. Luxurious, richly textured, with layers upon layers of flavors and the occasional unexpected choice of ingredient. So tasty I could almost eat it up (and lick the plate clean). Though it's highly entertaining and speeds by rather quickly, The Star-Touched Queen isn't the sort of book you should read while tired or distracted; it's lovely and just challenging enough that it deserves your full attention. And while it's true that I needed to whip out ye ole dictionary once or twice (or maybe a dozen times), Chokshi doesn't beat you about the head and body with her superior wordiness. It's challenging, yes, but also accessible. I don't know if "literary fantasy" is widely accepted as a genre, but this is it. Also, the plot is wholly unexpected and full of twists and turns and "omg, that escalated quickly!" moments. There's an especially exciting twist around the 60% mark that cleaves the book in two - much like the life-altering tapestry in Akaran's throne room. The Star-Touched Queen almost feels like two stories, brought together in an omnibus edition. It's really rather breathtaking, particularly in the timing: just as you wonder how much longer Chokshi will draw out Maya's self-discovery, she turns heel and changes tack like that (*snapping fingers*). And the characters! Oh, the characters! Maya and Amar are lovely and fierce and tragically flawed - but not irredeemably so. Their love had me swooning, and as a general rule, I am not the swoony type. It was breathtaking watching them find each other, lose each other, and find each other again. Maya's younger half-sister Gauri is adorable ... and then fierce in her own right. I adore what Chokshi did with the character, as well as Maya's reaction to said development. You can see more than a little of Maya in grown-up Gauri, and Maya treats her accordingly, with the respect and admiration she so clearly deserves. With the respect and admiration Maya herself should have received while living in Bharata. And Kamala? She's a snarky, sarcastic, soul-eating demon horse. Need I say more? I could gush about The Star-Touched Queen for days, but better if you discover all its shiny bits on your own. http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/04/22/... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 13, 2016
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Mar 15, 2016
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Mar 13, 2016
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0062356046
| 9780062356048
| 0062356046
| 3.46
| 1,439
| Apr 26, 2016
| Apr 26, 2016
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it was amazing
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“May all your wishes come true, or at least just this one!” (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through Edelweiss. Trigger wa “May all your wishes come true, or at least just this one!” (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through Edelweiss. Trigger warning for sexual assault.) “Lennie, you do know what your uncles and I do for a living, right?” I laugh more out of nervousness than anything else. “You sell moonshine and it’s illegal. And I know it was bad to take it to the party.” Uncle Jet looks angry now, but thankfully his stare isn’t directed at me. He’s pointing a finger at Uncle Dune. “I thought you talked to her. What was it . . . three or four years ago? You drew the short straw and then a few days later said you and Lennie had a good talk.” “I was gonna!” Uncle Dune roars. “But then you had to stick your nose in and tell her first!” “I sure as shit didn’t!” Uncle Jet shoots back. “Who told ya I did?” “Well, Lennie ...” Uncle Dune’s voice trails off and once again the focus is on me. Worse, Uncle Dune is looking at me with a look reminiscent of Bambi after his mother got shot. “Lennie ... you lied to me?” I gulp. “A little lie. I thought you were trying to give me the sex talk.” ### Michaela leaps, like her insane love for Todd is some kind of superpower, and lands with her body spread over Todd. Protecting him. Absorbing Zinkowski’s fall. Making sure that Zinkowski’s fingertips do not connect with Todd. That they find her instead. Michaela shimmers and glows orange. That lasts only for an instant, and then all three of them disappear in a sudden and explosive burst of orange cheese. Smith and I instinctively fall back, pulling our shirts up to cover our mouths and noses from the noxious smell. I wish I was making that up. I wish I was making all of this up. ### Tired of always playing it safe, Lennie Cash is determined to kick off her senior year with a bang. Armed with a case of her uncle's infamous moonshine ("Hinkton Family Moonshine: Brewing It in Bathtubs and Selling It Out of the Living Room Since 1923"), Lennie plans to bribe her way into Michaela Gordon's annual Labor Day party - and not only avoid an unceremonious bounce, but own that bad girl. It's what her best friend Dylan would have wanted. Dyl, who loved her no matter what everyone else said about her criminal father, her sketchy uncles, or her low social standing. Dyl, who seized life by the balls and refused to let go. Dyl, who - just like Lennie - yearned for escape. Dyl, whose dismembered remains were found stuffed in a suitcase last April. Dylan with the hot twin, who now blames Lennie for his sister's death. What Lennie doesn't realize is that the Hinkton family moonshine isn't just special - it's downright magical. Her uncles Jet, Rod, and Dune have the power to grant wishes, and that's what they're really selling to the people who crowd their living room couch. As Lennie plays bartender for her classmates, making a show of repeating her uncles' ritual, she unwittingly grants a whole slew of ill-conceived wishes, all of which will come true by sunup the next morning: Class predator W2 gets balls of steel. Little Seanie O'Hara is a little bit taller (and a baller), while emo Devon Stringer wakes up with a shiny new pair of bat wings. And (my personal favorite) stoner Zinkowski wishes for the Midas touch - but with Cheetos instead of gold. (CHEETOS ARE PEOPLE!) Worst of all, someone wishes for the party to never end, so all these newborn freaks are trapped together in the chaos of Michaela's mansion until Lennie can find a way to undo the chaos she caused. All while being pursued by her sociopath of a father - and stuck, hand-in-hand, with Dylan's grieving brother Smith. Spoiler alert: Kate Karyus Quinn made all my wishes come true with this book. I read Another Little Piece last year and really dug it. I was stoked when I saw the synopsis for Down With the Shine, and it's everything I hoped for and more. I can officially call myself a Kate Karyus Quinn fangirl now. Quinn has a wicked, dark sense of humor that's on full display here. The marriage of morbid comedy and creeptastic horror is reminiscent of Another Little Piece, but Down With the Shine feels much lighter and more playful (in spite of the fact that it begins with a murder). I very rarely laugh when reading - the most you'll get out of me is a grunt or snort - but Down With the Shine is legit laugh out loud funny. It's been a long time since I've had so much fun reading a book; the time flew right by. (Every time I checked my progress on ye ole Kindle, I was shocked to see how much ground I'd covered. I didn't want the story to end!) The story is weird and twisty and brimming with surreal scenes of comedy and angst. I tried to explain the plot to my husband last night - a mac & cheese commercial came on and reminded me of all dem Cheetos - and he just looked at me like I must be high. It's that kind of book (in the best way possible). Other things I love about Down With the Shine: * Potty mouths like whoah (and there's a pretty great reason for it, too!). * Playing into the bad boy trope - while also interrogating it, ever so gently. * The Easter Egg that ties Down With the Shine to Another Little Piece (or at least places both stories in the same 'verse; search for the word "obsessions," plural, and then skip ahead two sentences, and BOOM! there it is!). * Love potions suck. * Lennie's uncles, who are doing the best they can to raise a teenage girl, dammit! ("Three men and a genie.") * Zombies! On the downside, I kind of wish Quinn had done away with W2 early in the story. Basically the guy - a well-known creep among their classmates - gropes an unconscious Lennie after she gets booted from Michaela's party. (Pro tip: this is sexual assault.) He then becomes an odd member of the Scooby Gang the next morning, as Lennie and Smith race around town trying to fix all the damage they caused. While Lennie doesn't forgive him, his presence (and their necessary acceptance of him) squicked me out just the same. W2 is even allowed to play the hero, once or twice. Yuck. Also yucky is the implied incestuous relationship between Smith and his mom Teena. This is especially weird since the thread is mostly dropped - even though Quinn makes up some pretty rad backstories and linkages between seemingly random events. (See, e.g., the swear jar and things dropping off trucks.) It doesn't really seem her style to just leave us hanging like that. I really want to know wtf was going on there! (And might there be a connection between the Cheetos touch and Lennie having been abandoned in a Chuck E. Cheese ball pit when she was six? Other than that Quinn just harbors a non-platonic love for cheese? File this one under "things that make you go hmmmm...") In summary: this is one of the weirdest books you'll ever read, but also one of the most fun. It especially makes a nice pick-me-up between tearjerkers. Sequel, please? Or maybe just another story set in the same universe? Boy who absorbs bullets, perhaps? A very strong 4.5 stars (but just on account of W2), gladly rounded up to 5 where necessary. http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/04/27/... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 06, 2016
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Mar 08, 2016
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Mar 07, 2016
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| B013C5M08O
| 3.91
| 61,453
| May 17, 2016
| May 17, 2016
|
it was amazing
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Joe Hill strikes again! (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through Edelweiss. Trigger warning for racist/sexist language, vi Joe Hill strikes again! (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through Edelweiss. Trigger warning for racist/sexist language, violence, and sexual assault.) It was them making the light. They were all of them tattooed with loops and whorls of Dragonscale, which glowed like fluorescent paint under a black light, hallucinatory hues of cherry wine and blowtorch blue. When they opened their mouths to sing, Harper glimpsed light painting the insides of their throats, as if each of them were a kettle filled with embers. [...] Harper felt she had never seen anything so frightening or beautiful. ### “You know what the kids say.” “I have no idea what the kids say. What do they say?” “She came back from the eighties to save mankind. Martha Quinn is our only hope.” ### The hens are clucking. Harper thought it would be a toss-up, which term for women she hated more: bitch or hen. A hen was something you kept in a cage, and her sole worth was in her eggs. A bitch, at least, had teeth. ### The year is 2018-ish (if Martha Quinn's approximate age is a reliable guidepost), and the world is on fire. A fungus called Draco incendia trychophyton - Dragonscale in lay terms, 'scale for short - is making the rounds, leaving ashes and chaos in its wake. Once it finds a host, the spore spreads and propagates, infiltrating its victim's blood, tissue, and organs - including the brain, with which it forms an intimate bond. The first sign of infection is the strangely beautiful markings it leaves on its host's skin - dark tattoos that shimmer with flecks of gold. The 'scale runs hotter than the human body, and sufferers live in constant fear of going up in flames: In the hospital, the infected were divided into two groups: “symptomatic normals” and “smolderers.” Smolderers smoked on and off, always ready to ignite. Smoke curled from their hair, from their nostrils, and their eyes streamed with water. The stripes on their bodies got so hot they could melt latex gloves. They left char marks on their hospital johnnies, on their beds. They were dangerous, too. Understandably, perhaps, the smolderers were always wavering on the edge of hysteria. [...] Dragonscale is particularly attuned to the presence of the stress hormone cortisol. Extreme fear or anxiety creates a hostile environment for the 'scale - causing it to set its home ablaze and take to the winds in search of more serene pastures. Her days as a school nurse behind her (thanks apocalypse!), Harper Willowes is volunteering as a nurse at Portsmouth Hospital when the building goes up in flames. It started in the cafeteria, when one smolderer went up, thus setting off a chain reaction of fear and smoke and fire. With nothing left to do, she returns home, to her husband Jakob and an unfulfilling marriage that she dare not abandon since it's all she has left to cling to. Within a few months, Harper discovers that she's pregnant. Just one week later, she spots the first ribbon of Dragonscale kissing her leg. Jakob leaves home with the promise to return in two months. If he's sick too, they'll carry out that suicide pact they (read: he) agreed upon during the first days of the outbreak. If not, he'll be there for Harper while she kills herself. Only Harper doesn't want to die - at least, not until she has safely delivered her baby. With the help of a mysterious, aloof Brit known as the Fireman, Harper finds her way to Camp Wyndham, a sanctuary for a hundred-odd infected refugees. Led by the kindly "Father" Tom Storey, the group has managed to evade the Quarantine Patrols and Cremation Crews for months. Even more impressive, they've found a way to "make friends" with Dragonscale - by singing to it. If it reacts negatively to fear, oxytocin is downright euphoric for host and spore alike. Yet there's a dangerous undercurrent this "cure" - and the cult-like following cultivated by Carol Storey among her "flock." Oh, and Martha Quinn has her own island! Timber Wolf Island, rechristened Free Wolf Island, off the coast of Maine. They have clean beds and a pizza parlor and yes, she takes requests. All the infected are welcome - as long as they can find their own way through a hostile landscape. Or at least that's the rumor. This is my third Joe Hill book, after NOS4A2 and Horns, and he's quickly becoming one of my all-time favorite authors, not far behind Margaret Atwood and Octavia Butler. The Fireman is everything I've come to expect from Hill: smart, witty, and scary AF; with nuanced characters and a compelling, twisty-turny plot; and a welcome dose of social (justice) commentary - not to mention some really fun and unexpected pop culture references. (I mean, Martha Quinn? Did anyone see that coming?) The Fireman most reminds me of Horns, for reasons both obvious and not. If you've already read Horns, the similar imagery - fire, flames, the devil - will jump right out at you. But the structure of each novel evokes the other, with multiple acts and stories that seem to go on and on - in the best way possible, of course. Whereas in Horns Hill reimagines the Bible, casting Lucifer as a misunderstood, (somewhat) unfairly vilified anti-hero (in the way I'd hoped Supernatural would), here he sets his gaze on cults: the danger of groupthink, mass hysteria and mob mentality, the anonymity of performing violence en masse. The potential for a community to do harm as well as good. Some of the most frightening and compelling scenes take place at Camp Wyndham, after it's gone to hell. Initially, the synopsis made me more than a little nervous. There's a nasty little trend in pop culture - and our society as a whole - of treating the lives of pregnant women as more valuable and worthy of protection (and policing) than their non-pregnant counterparts. As though a woman's worth rests in her womb, and those carrying "precious cargo" (I'm with Harper: vom!) must be treated like invalids. Most recently, I rolled my eyes at this trope on The Walking Dead: when Glenn was missing and Maggie decided against going after him, on account of he wouldn't want anything to happen to their baby. I guess she's just expendable and/or an infant herself then? Yuck. So given Harper's determination to live long enough to deliver her baby - which, (and I can't believe I'm saying this, because the man is awful; THE WORST) in Jakob's defense, is just an unthinking, unfeeling clump of cells when she contracts the 'scale - yeah, I was worried where the story might go. But if his previous novels are reliable indicators, Hill's a pretty solid feminist ally, and I had faith that he'd do right by Harper and all the women rooting for her. And I was not disappointed! Harper makes for a really interesting, engaging hero - stubborn and steadfast, but not without her flaws. We see her grow from an extension of Jakob into her own person; the no-nonsense go-getter that, up until the 'scale, she compartmentalized into Nurse Willowes. I especially loved her contentious relationship with Ben Patchett, the prim and stodgy former cop who takes a shining to her. Imagining Harper's Julie Andrews-esque character throwing the f-bomb with abandon just to get a rise out of him - never mind the why - will always bring a smile to my face. Nick and Allie, John, Renée, Tom, Don - it was a pleasure to get to know them all. Even the more insidious characters are as fascinating as they are repulsive (Jakob in particular. Fedora aside, the guy's pretty much an MRA horcrux.) The only person I couldn't quite get a handle on was Carol, though I suspect that's less to do with Hill's writing than the vast chasm that separates us. There's so much to love here, I couldn't possibly touch upon it all. (I suspect I'll be plucking new things from my subconscious for weeks to come.) But here are a few of my favorite things. (Julie Andrews FTW!) * Hill's many, varied depictions of female relationships, whether supportive or poisonous. I love how the old girlfriend is cool with the new. * The many Easter Eggs: the steps to a treehouse that no longer exists outside of Harper's home; when Nick calls the processing center Christmasland instead of the North Pole; the fake ballgame starring, among others, Tom Gordon. * The tiny acts of kindness that help to offset (ever so slightly) all the awfulness in this world. * All the pop culture references: Harry Potter, which probably comes in second only to Mary Poppins; J.K. Rowling, a sort of Oskar Schindler for the 'scale set, whose death is celebrated by Christian fundamentalists; Maggie Atwood, the fishing trawler that carries the survivors on the final leg of their trip (though given how that went, I'm not sure whether this should be considered a compliment so much as a homage); and of course the inestimable Martha Quinn, '80s pop star and Dragonscale maven. * Hill's myriad digs at mainstream media, from "news" reporters grossly exaggerating the number of dead in a massacre of holdouts, to CNN's initial coverage of the epidemic: "FOX said the Dragon had been set loose by ISIS, using spores that had been invented by the Russians in the 1980s. MSNBC said sources indicated the ’scale might’ve been created by engineers at Halliburton and stolen by culty Christian types fixated on the Book of Revelation. CNN reported both sides." The only part I didn't love was the ending, which is marginally less hopeful than expected. Which is to say that I expected bleakness, but c'mon! The story's already got such a crazy high body count that it seems especially unfair to drag this last casualty some four hundred miles only to kill zher. But we all know how much authors love to off their MCs - and besides, I guess the ending does have a final grim poetry to it. In any case, I wasn't upset enough to dock the book so much as a half a star; it's just so fack'n great overall. I'd say that it's unputdownable, but at 608 pages (768? why are Goodreads and Amazon giving me such wildly different counts?), you're going to have to extricate yourself some time. It will hurt, and the last and final time will hit you right in the feels, like a flaming hatchet to the heart. http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/05/16/... ...more |
Notes are private!
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Feb 12, 2016
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Feb 22, 2016
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Feb 12, 2016
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Kindle Edition
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| 4.15
| 21,562
| Mar 08, 2016
| Mar 08, 2016
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it was amazing
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You have to read this book, okay? (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley. Trigger warning for offensive langua You have to read this book, okay? (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley. Trigger warning for offensive language, child abuse, and domestic violence.) "I ain’t never seen anything like the way grief rotted that man from the inside out. Chewed him up. That’s when folks started calling him the Serpent King. They wasn’t trying to be ugly or funny. They was just trying to make some sense of it, I guess. Folks do that when they scared. Folks is afraid of grief. Think it’s catching, like a disease." "He looked up, straight into Lydia’s eyes. Her eyes were filled with … what? A new something he had never seen before in her. He couldn’t name it, but it made him strong. It swept the black-red from the margins of his eyes and turned the contemptuous crowd beneath him into a faceless blob. It made his heart beat a different rhythm." "He shone bright, as if burned clean by fire." I started The Serpent King at 4PM on a Thursday afternoon. That night, I stayed up until nearly 2AM to finish it. I didn't mean to - it just kind of happened, against my better judgment. (I was a bit of a wreck the next day, in every way possible.) Afterwards I lay awake for several hours, my nightly dose of melatonin doing little to calm my racing thoughts. Once I finally drifted off, it worked its way into my dreams. My two living girls (Rennie and Mags; they're rat terriers, yo!) were there, and it was beautiful. And upon waking, Travis and Lydia and Dill were the first thing thing to break through the haze. Their story brought tears to my eyes. Again. This is one amazing book, y'all. The story centers on three best friends who are about to start their senior year of high school. Forrestville High, located in Forrestville, Tennessee, so named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, founder of the KKK. To say that they're the high school misfits doesn't quite do it justice. Or at least, not in Dill's case. Dillard Wayne Early Jr. is the son of Pastor Early of the Church of Christ’s Disciples with Signs of Belief. His father's church is known for incorporating snake handling and the drinking of strychnine and other poisons into its services. (The speaking of tongues? That's a little more mundane 'round these parts.) Several years ago, Dill Sr. was tried and convicted of possession of child pornography - pornography that his lawyers unsuccessfully argued belonged to twelve-year-old Dill. While the jurors believed Dill's testimony that he had nothing to do with it, the stink never quite washed off. Whether people (including his own mother) believe that Dill's a pervert or just the son of one, he's a social pariah either way. Dill's secretly in love with his best friend Lydia Blankenship. He also not-so-secretly resents her because she's about to leave him behind. Lydia's more of a misfit by choice - but a misfit with long-term vision. Her fashion and pop culture blog, Dollywould (started at the tender of of thirteen), is her ticket out of Forrestville - and hopefully into NYU. It's easy to see why Dill adores Lydia so: she's whip-smart, brimming with witty rejoinders, and hip AF. Plus she cares about Dill, and pushes him to care about himself - and his future. Whereas Dill's mom Crystal would rather he drop out of school and go full-time at Floyd's grocery to help pay off "the family's" debts, Lydia won't stop hounding him about college. Of course it's easy for her to talk; the daughter of a dentist and real estate agent, Lydia doesn't have to worry about money - or the crushing blow of low expectations. (She's even got three whole bedrooms to herself: one for sleeping, one for dressing, and a third for sewing!) But Lydia sees potential in Dill, and she is a girl with a plan. Rounding out the trio is the red-headed, gentle giant (all 6'6", 250 pounds of him) Travis Bohannon. He works in his dad's lumberyard and is more or less content with his path in life. He enjoys using his hands to fix things, but Travis's real delight is in books. Specifically, fantasy. The Bloodfall series in particular. Travis's dad is pretty much the worst: a mean drunk; a sexist, racist, homophobic bully; and a verbally and physically abusive father and husband. He loathes everything about his son: his affable demeanor; the soft spot he has for his mother; his all-black wardrobe; his cheesy dragon necklace and wizard staff; his love of books (especially those about 'wizards and shit'); his friends (perverts and "dykes"); his disinterest in sports; and his lack of success with the ladies. Dill can relate, since his parents have seemingly also made crushing his spirit their number one priority. What first piqued my interest in The Serpent King was the snake handling. Ever since my freshman year course on the Anthropology of Religion, I've been fascinated by fringe religions and cults. (Dennis Covington's Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia was on the syllabus; from what I remember of it, it's a great read.) In reality, the snakes are more of a metaphor: for the potentially poisonous nature of grief and depression, especially when allowed to go untreated or even unaddressed. While Pastor Early was the first in his family to take up snake handling, his is not the first life touched by serpents. After his sister Ruth died of a snakebite, his father Dillard Wayne Early Sr., mad with grief, went on a snake-killing spree, earning him the nickname "The Serpent King." Pastor Early's obsession with creepy-crawlies clearly took a different path: whereas his father saw evil in their eyes, Pastor Early sees salvation. Dill, on the other hand? He wants nothing to do with them - or his father's scary-weird church - yet he feels fated by his family's bloodline just the same. Anyway, while religion is clearly a minor theme of the book, The Serpent King is about so much more than snake handling and speaking in tongues. It's about standing up to bullies - even those with whom you happen to share a last name. About taking and making family where you can find it. Forging your own path in life, even (especially) if it scares the hell out of you. The shackles of low expectations - and the importance of having at least one caring adult who sees you for you, and believes that you can make a difference in the world. The escapism offered by books - and, conversely, the transformative power wielded by the extra-special ones (wherein "special" is in the eye of the beholder). Knowing when to back down, and when to walk away. Zentner's writing is poetry in motion; a quiet kind of music that dances off the page and right into your heart. He has an uncanny knack for characterization; I really feel as though I know Travis, Lydia, and Dill, but would love to get to know them even better. Like, IRL friends. Lydia in particular is just the best. Though I didn't think I'd find much to relate to in a fashion blogger, some of her lines are among my favorites. To wit: “We need some clothes-trying-on-montage music—‘Let’s Hear It for the Boy’ or something. And at one point you come out of the dressing room wearing a gorilla costume or something, and I shake my head immediately.” “Oh come on, Travis. You have a beautiful body. Dill, tell Travis he has a beautiful body.” “I think Travis has Bloodfallen for this girl. See what I did there?” “Oh, and the best part is that because I’m not an awful, gross dude, the keyboard is one hundred percent semen free.” I just want to go for a ride in Al Gore and let Lydia dress me in some cute vintage clothes. Says the girl whose fashion sense is more Travis than anything else. The Serpent King is light and laughter and love...and also tears and tragedy and heartbreak. This book will tear your heart into one thousand and one pieces and then slowly and methodically stitch it back together, leaving an even stronger, shinier, fuller muscle beating in your chest cavity. My all-time favorites list is dominated by SF/F and dystopias - Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials; Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy; Kindred and the Parables duology by Octavia Butler - but The Serpent King might just be the first/only contemporary YA book to break into the top twenty. If there's an ounce of fairness in the world, it will become a classic. It's that good. Like, already-time-for-a-re-read-because-I-devoured-it-too-quickly-the-first-time good. Still-gonna-be-thinking-about-it-years-from-now good. Would-share-it-with-my-kids-if-I-had-any good. Best-kind-of-hurt-good. 10/5 stars good. So, so freaking good. In summary, I feel richer for having read it. How often can you say that? http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/03/09/... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 04, 2016
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Feb 05, 2016
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Feb 04, 2016
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Kindle Edition
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| 1101979895
| 9781101979891
| 1101979895
| 3.49
| 773
| Apr 12, 2016
| Apr 12, 2016
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it was amazing
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Could NOT. PUT. IT. DOWN. (Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through NetGalley. Trigger warning for rape and child abuse.) "She thinks Could NOT. PUT. IT. DOWN. (Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through NetGalley. Trigger warning for rape and child abuse.) "She thinks of the thick dowel that had been lodged against the sliding window in her bedroom. Dean had cut the wood to size, and climbed a ladder to her second-story window and put it there, so even on the hottest days she cannot slide it open. She thinks of the gold. A bag of gold like in a fairy tale. She thinks of taking that gold away from him, and keeping it for herself." "Loretta will never call Ruth 'Sister,' but she sees in her the way to do this: be stronger than the thing against you." "This thing Loretta thought would be impossible has turned out to be simple, just as living this life has turned out to be simple. She remembers wondering how she would hide her true self from them, and then discovering how easy it was, because no one ever asked her anything about herself." It's difficult for me to oversell this book. Daredevils is everything I'd hoped for - and more: a coming of age story, a cult escape story, a feminist fable. A portrait of the American Southwest in the far out 1970s. A story about the making - and unmaking - of our cultural heroes and icons. A road trip. A deconstruction of toxic masculinity and rape culture. A love story (but not in the way you think). At its core is a fifteen-year-old girl named Loretta who yearns to start her life in the "real," outside world. A world she tasted, all too briefly. The youngest of eight children, Loretta's birth was unexpected. She came into the world a "wordly" Mormon in Cedar City, Arizona; but at the age of eight, her father abruptly decided that he wanted to rejoin the fundamentalist Mormon community in which he was raised. And so he moved Loretta and her mother back to Sutter Creek - without their input, natch. Just that like, Loretta's world - and her future - narrowed. Constricted until it fit one person's - another person's - will and desires. Loretta is a means to an end for her father: an inroad to the "pocket of polygamists" he drifted away from so long ago. Though he cannot practice the virtue of celestial marriage himself (his standing in the community isn't enough to merit a second wife, or so I assume), Mr. Buckton can ensure that Loretta becomes a sister wife - whether she likes it or not. When he catches Loretta sneaking out to meet a guy one night, he beats Loretta, imprisons her in her room (bolting shut both the door and window), and "places" her with Dean Harder - who already has one wife and seven children, the oldest of which is only a few years younger than Loretta herself. Reading Daredevils, I was constantly reminded of Joshua Gaylord's When We Were Animals: not because of any similarities in substance or style, but for the simple fact that both men give voice to teenage girls with such compassion, clarity, and nuance. Such humanity. At the time, I wrote: "Every male author who laments that women are too strange and unknowable – too alien – to write convincingly needs to read When We Were Animals. Like yesterday. This is how it’s done, people." The same goes for Daredevils. While all the characters are multifaceted, Loretta in particular shines. It would be all too easy to make her into a victim. And while she is indeed victimized - by her birth father; by her new "Father," husband/rapist Dean; and by the equally dangerous Bradshaw - she's also a survivor. Loretta suffers the abuse because she must, but she also finds ways to transcend it: through plotting and scheming; taking control of her body when she can (e.g., she douches with vinegar and ammonia to prevent pregnancy); and holding her secrets, pieces of her, close. Loretta is manipulative and sly, and I love her for it. Loretta's unusual upbringing also makes it all too easy to relate to her. Hers is in many ways a classic fish out of water tale: She wasn't raised into this lifestyle, but rather thrust into it as a child; and at an old enough age to remember a different way. A better way - for girls and women and expendable adolescent boys. While the first half of the story primarily focuses on Loretta and Jason and their converging paths, once the trio hits the road, we're treated to brief passages from the other characters' POVs. This is pure genius on Vestal's part; these sections promise to either cement or challenge the reader's existing perceptions. This is especially true in Ruth's case: where she alternately comes off as a bully or a victim, the glimpse into her past (she was eleven when she was separated from her parents during the Short Creek raid - a real event that's described as "the largest mass arrest of polygamists in American history") really helps to add depth and nuance to the character. She is both: Ruth beats her children, and Dean took Loretta as a second wife against Ruth's wishes - even though the Law of Sarah grants wives the right to refuse sister wives. Sometimes Ruth despises her religion, even as she clings to it. She knows that she's smarter and has better judgment than her husband - she lacks Dean's greed and vanity - yet God's will demands that she submit to him nonetheless. She is, in a sense, her own jailer. And yet the Short Creek raid - and the sense of persecution it imparted - perversely helped cement those bars in place. Yet Ruth, like Loretta, finds her own small, sly acts of rebellion. After Loretta runs off with Jason and Boyd, Ruth can't help but get a little dig in at Dean's expense: a godly "I told you so." Not content with his agreement, she insists that Dean lay out all the ways in which he erred. In great detail. It's just a happy coincidence that that which pleases God also pleases her, you know? I also loved the juxtaposition of Bradshaw and Dean: two sides of the same woman-hating coin. Whereas Dean justifies his rape of Loretta with scripture, Bradshaw leans on the same rape apologism we're all familiar with. Yet when it comes right down to it, they're more alike than different: a couple of entitled misogynists. Watching the burgeoning friendship between the chosen and the gentile was terribly satisfying. They kind of belong together, those two. It's a little simplistic or naive to call Bradshaw Loretta's "boyfriend" - really he's just one possible avenue of escape that she's cultivating. Yet as she becomes familiar with Dean, she questions which man - which path - is really the lesser evil. In the end, she chooses neither: Loretta is the architect of her own future. For a time, Jason fancies himself Loretta's knight in shining armor: "She needs saving, and it has been arranged for him to save her, but how? It must be what she wants, too, though this thought is buried so deep in Jason’s assumptions that he doesn’t actually think it. It is simply what occurs, it is simply what men do: rescue women." But as their escape unfolds, Jason is dismayed to find that he's not the one behind the wheel. He's not Spider-Man, and Loretta is no Mary Jane. She's planned her prison break from the start and doesn't need anything from Jason - except his pea green LeBaron, that is. Likewise, once he (and Boyd) get to know Loretta, they find that she's nothing like the image they conjured in their heads. She's brash, aggressive, and sexual - nothing like the demure, oppressed sister-wife they expected. (That noise? It's the sound of your pedestal cracking.) There's so much to cherish and celebrate here, I could go on for days. The writing is captivating; the setting, lovely; and the characters, stunning and complicated and oh so human. I seriously had trouble pulling myself away, even as my heart quailed at what might come next. My only quibble is with the ending, which isn't unsatisfying or disappointing, exactly ... it's just not quite what I expected. I don't know what I expected. Something grander? More profound? A twist to make me gasp or that would leave me in tears? I wanted Loretta to walk away with all of the fool's gold, anyway. Don't get me wrong; the ending is good. I just think it could have been awesome. 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 where necessary. http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/04/11/... ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jan 22, 2016
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Jan 23, 2016
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Jan 22, 2016
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Hardcover
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| 0553499114
| 9780553499117
| 0553499114
| 4.24
| 154,976
| Oct 20, 2015
| Oct 20, 2015
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it was amazing
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Can't Stop the Signal CitB: stay on task, grasshopper. we let the Alexander burn us out of the sky, your red hot love will be subsumed by a bigger, hot Can't Stop the Signal CitB: stay on task, grasshopper. we let the Alexander burn us out of the sky, your red hot love will be subsumed by a bigger, hotter flame ByteMe: how do you even function in society? CitB: it's a struggle ### Before this moment, I have never wished to be something other than what I am. ### Normally I try not to let myself get swept up in all the excitement over the Next Big Book; I've been burned one (or fifteen) times too many. But Illuminae? Deserves all the hype and then some. It's a twisty-turny, roller coaster ride with a little something for everyone: action, adventure, romance, suspense, science fiction, horror. Zombies, spaceships, and an insane artificial intelligence. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The story starts with a bang - literally. The year is 2075, and the planet Kerenza is under attack. An illegal mining colony located far from the core, Kerenza is the site of a power struggle between two mega-corps: Wallace Ulyanov Consortium (WUC), which operates Kerenza, and its competitor, BeiTech Industries. Rather than report Kerenza's illicit activities to the United Terran Authority (UTA) and bury the WUC in fines, BeiTech chooses a more lucrative and diabolical route: kill everyone on Kerenza and steal the planet for itself. Since it's an illegal settlement, chances are that the WUC will write off the loss rather than report it to the UTA. That's BeiTech's gamble, anyway, and it's a safe one. Only they didn't wager on there being any survivors. Enter seventeen-year-old Kady Grant and her boyfriend Ezra Mason. Errr, make that ex-boyfriend: the two broke up just before the attack. Along with 6,000 other survivors, and despite their lovesick squabbling, Kady and Ezra make it to the escape shuttles and off Kerenza. Kady winds up aboard the science vessel Hypatia, while Eza lands on the UTA warship Alexander - the only military ship to respond to Kerenza's distress signal (likely blocked by BeiTech). Also traveling with the fleet is the heavy freighter Copernicus. Their mission, whether or not they choose to accept it: make it to the Heimdall waypoint some 6.5 to 7 months away, with limited supplies and a damaged warship, before BeiTech's last remaining dreadnought, the Lincoln, catches up to them and nukes the only remaining witnesses to mass murder. As if this isn't complicated enough, Kaufman and Kristoff layer on the danger and intrigue with a military conspiracy; a virus variously called Phobos or the Shakes that turns the afflicted into deranged, violent, semi-zombies (think: the Reavers in Serenity); and a duplicitous AI named AIDAN who's increasingly going off-script - for everyone's good, natch. There's so much to love here, starting with the format. Normally I'm a huge proponent of e-books (three words: space, weight, lighting!), but Illuminae is a book that deserves to be savored in hard copy format. Told through a mix of chat logs, emails, memorandums, video footage, ship schematics, maps, and other hard data, Illuminae is a friggin' work of art. Seriously, it's lovely. Crafty books can sometimes feel a little gimmicky, but not so here. Oftentimes the graphics complement the story, driving home certain points or themes (especially in the case of AIDAN's memories) and further immersing the reader in the story. Plus it's so darn creative! (Although, as a side note, the strikethrough on the edited reports is a little heavy. Maybe make it a little thinner next time, design team?) Originally I requested (and received) an ARC of Illuminae through NetGalley (thank you Random House!), but it wasn't available for download on my Kindle. I hate reading e-books on my iPad (too reflective!), but I gave it the old college try anyway. (I really, rilly wanted to read this book!) The documents in particular proved difficult to read (the text was quite pixelated), and the ship schematics and Wikipedia entry were downright impossible (too small). That's when I jumped ship and decided to wait for the book's release. I ended up buying a hardcover and am so glad I did. This isn't to suggest that the finished e-book will definitely have the same issues; I really don't know. But trust me when I say you should opt for a print copy anyway. Also awesome are the characters and plot. Kady and Ezra are just adorable together; I can't remember the last time I rooted so hard for a pair of crazy kids (Lyra and Will excepted). At first I feared that their bickering would get real old, real fast - but the cooling-off period necessitated by their physical separation restarts their relationship in a fresh, welcome way. By the time Kady and Ezra finally reunite - in cyberpace, that is, through email and illicit chats - they're different people. Whereas Ezra has been conscripted into the military and now flies Cyclones, Kady and her mentor are elbow-deep in AIDAN's data stream, trying to uncover the truth behind...well, everything: the bombing of the Copernicus, the threat posed by the Lincoln, the nature of the Phobos virus. Ostensibly, the two play for opposing teams: the establishment and the outsiders. Yet both desperately wish to survive - if only for the sake of the other. AIDAN also makes for a compelling villain/savior; his expanding self-awareness, coupled with his evolving feelings towards Kady, had me at the edge of my seat. I can't wait to see what he/she/it becomes in book number two. The plot, as I've already said (but cannot stress enough), is riddled with twists and turns and reveals and take-backsies. Unreliable and downright dishonest narrators further complicate matters, while the book's seemingly objective nature (it's presented as a report) provide a handy curtain to hide behind. In both plot and tone, Illuminae evokes some of my favorite shows and movies - most obviously Firefly and Battlestar Galactica, but also a certain 1981 flick that I won't name because spoilers (!), but gave me mad nightmares as a kid. In summary, I am already doing my got-to-pee dance over and making grabby hands at the sequel. This? This right here is why I usually choose to binge read series, people. COUNTDOWN TO THE LOSS OF MY PATIENCE: 0 HOURS 7 MINUTES. http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/02/10/... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 14, 2016
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Jan 18, 2016
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Jan 14, 2016
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Hardcover
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| 3.90
| 22,680
| Jun 23, 2015
| Jun 23, 2015
|
it was amazing
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The ending felt a little too tidily wrapped up - but the rest of the book was so amazing, I kind of don't care.
The ending felt a little too tidily wrapped up - but the rest of the book was so amazing, I kind of don't care.
...more
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Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 12, 2015
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Nov 14, 2015
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Nov 12, 2015
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Kindle Edition
| |||||||||||||||||
| 0061147958
| 9780061147951
| 0061147958
| 3.93
| 116,008
| Mar 01, 2009
| Mar 01, 2010
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it was amazing
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 03, 2015
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Nov 10, 2015
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Nov 03, 2015
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Hardcover
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| B00SI029LC
| 3.87
| 9,191
| Aug 18, 2015
| Aug 18, 2015
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it was amazing
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"The Birds of Azalea Street" by Nova Ren Suma - 5/5 stars "In the Forest Dark and Deep" by Carrie Ryan - 5/5 stars "Emmeline" by Cat Winters - 5/5 stars "The Birds of Azalea Street" by Nova Ren Suma - 5/5 stars "In the Forest Dark and Deep" by Carrie Ryan - 5/5 stars "Emmeline" by Cat Winters - 5/5 stars "Verse Chorus Verse" by Leigh Barduga - 4/5 stars "Hide-and-Seek" by Megan Shepherd - 4/5 stars "The Dark, Scary Parts and All" by Danielle Paige - 5/5 stars "The Flicker, the Fingers, the Beat, the Sigh" by April Genevieve Tucholke - 5/5 stars "Fat Girl With a Knife" by Jonathan Maberry - 4/5 stars "Sleepless" by Jay Kristoff - 5/5 stars "M" by Stefan Bachman - 4/5 stars "The Girl Without a Face" by Marie Lu - 3/5 stars "A Girl Who Dreamed of Snow" by McCormick Templeman - 4/5 stars "Stitches" by A. G. Howard - 5/5 stars "On the I-5" by Kendare Blake - 5/5 stars Full review coming...maybe? ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 18, 2015
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Oct 22, 2015
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Oct 18, 2015
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Kindle Edition
| ||||||||||||||||
| 1427229643
| 9781427229649
| 1427229643
| 4.24
| 432,934
| Feb 05, 2013
| Feb 05, 2013
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it was amazing
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 18, 2015
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Oct 24, 2015
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Sep 18, 2015
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Audio CD
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| 1427215006
| 9781427215000
| 1427215006
| 4.13
| 951,810
| Jan 03, 2012
| Jan 03, 2012
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it was amazing
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 28, 2015
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Sep 18, 2015
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Aug 28, 2015
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Audio CD
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| 077831605X
| 9780778316053
| 077831605X
| 4.01
| 6,140
| Sep 29, 2015
| Sep 29, 2015
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it was amazing
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"I deal in morality, not in law." (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley. Trigger warning for rape and other f "I deal in morality, not in law." (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley. Trigger warning for rape and other forms of violence.) "'She won't serve her dish cold,' the oracle mumbled, almost giddy with joy as chill bumps rose all over her skin. 'And two graves won't be near enough...'" "What was I, if I had no name, no friends, no family, no job, no home, no belongings, and no authority over my own body? What could I be?" "In a sudden surreal moment of epiphany, I realized I was incubating not a child, but a cause." "The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" - Jeremy Bentham I have a curious affinity for circus stories: tales that unfold under the Big Top, or books starring carnival performers. Thus far 2015 has been a great year to be a fan of such stories. Kirsty Logan imagines a world vastly transformed by climate change in The Gracekeepers . After her parents were mauled to death by the captive bear featured in their act, North was forced to take up their show, alone - save for the bear's cub, North's only companion. Two orphans, traveling the world with the floating circus troupe known as Excalibur. Leslie Parry's Church of Marvels follows Coney Island sideshow performer Odile Church as she travels to Manhattan in search of her sister, who fled The Church of Marvels when it burned to the ground, taking the sisters' mother - and their livelihood - with them. In The Book of Speculation , Erika Swyler weaves an imaginative tale about a librarian named Simon who comes into possession of an old book - a circus ledger dating back to the 1700s. Only by unraveling its secrets can he lift the curse that's plagued his family for generations. And then there's Anna-Marie McLemore's The Weight of Feathers - which I'm currently a quarter of the way into - a retelling of Romeo & Juliet featuring two rival families of performers, the Palomas (mermaids) and Corbeaus (tightrope walkers/tree climbers). There's also The Wanderers , by Kate Ormand, which I didn't enjoy nearly as much (I DNF'ed at 41%), but I'll get to that one in a moment. I don't think of my fascination as "curious" because it's unusual - I'm no special snowflake when it comes to loving mermaids, fire breathers, acrobats, and shapeshifters - but because it's often at odds with my beliefs. As an ethical vegan, I find animal circuses morally repugnant. Luckily, not all of these stories center on acts that exploit animals; and when they do, I try my best to compartmentalize. This is usually easier to do if the non-vegan stuff doesn't blindside me; if I can anticipate the cruelty, I can buffer myself. And more often than not, the nonhuman animals are an afterthought, supporting characters at best, part of the set dressing at worst (or best, as it helps me to better set that aspect of the story aside). In this vein, I was super-excited about Kate Ormand's The Wanderers, as it features an animal circus that's actually devoid of animals. Flo and her fellow performers are shapeshifters, hiding in plain sight. By day they travel from town to town, posing as regular people - carnies. At night they assume their animal shapes, performing for the unsuspecting crowd. I'd hoped against hope that the story might have an animal rights element to it, and it does - kind of. The circus is harassed by a group of well-meaning, PETA-like activists, protesting their (supposed) use of animals - horses, elephants, bears, and big cats - in the show. The elders deride them as busybodies, even as Flo wonders whether the activists would rally on their behalf, if only they knew the truth. (Spoiler alert: I most certainly would. Abso-fucking-lutely.) I DNF'ed at 41%, so I'm not sure where this story line went, but the lackluster way it was treated up to this point didn't inspire much confidence. (Who knows? Maybe "PETA" rallies together and saves Flo and her friends from the hunters?) This brings me to Rachel Vincent's Menagerie, which is everything I'd hoped for in The Wanderers - and worlds more. Menagerie takes place in an alternate universe that's very similar to our own - but for one ginormous difference: cryptids are real. (Yes, that is the sound of me squeeee-ing!) Mermaids, werewolves, oracles, sphinxes, minotours, giants, trolls, centaurs, yetis, succubi, sirens, thunderbirds, jinn, griffins, harpies, fae, adlets, and satyrs. Cryptids, hybrids, and shapeshifters. Creatures from folklore and mythology, made real. Flesh and bone, scales and feathers. It is glorious - and also not. In the United States, cryptids are - were - granted constitutional protection under the Sanctuary Act. Presumably, humanoid cryptids - particularly those who could communicate using human language - had many of the same rights as their h. sapiens cousins: the right to own property, marry, vote, etc. The more beast-like cryptids were allowed to roam the American wilderness, much like the fabled mustangs and bison before them. This all came to a horrific end in 1986, with an event that came to be known as "the reaping." In the span of a day, nearly one million children were massacred - murdered by their own parents, who later claimed no memories of the event. In each family, one child survived - all 300,000 of them born in March 1980. These children - "surrogates" - were changelings, secretly swapped out for the "real" children at birth, by Odin-knows-who. The surrogates were rounded up by the government, never to be heard from again. With no one group claiming responsibility for the massacre, society pinned it on the cryptid community collectively. (The general aura of fear and suspicion captured by Vincent is eerily reminiscent of Islamophobia in the wake of 9-11.) The Sanctuary Act was repealed, stripping cryptids of all their rights. Like other nonhuman animals, cryptids became property - items to be bought, sold, exploited, and discarded at will - almost overnight. Enter: Metzger's Menagerie, "The Largest Traveling Zoo in the Northern Hemisphere." Delilah Marlow - a once-aspiring crypto-vet and current bank teller in dusty Franklin, Oklahoma - is readying for a night on the town. Her well-meaning but otherwise clueless boyfriend Brandon surprises her with tickets to Metzger's Menagerie, in town just in time for her to celebrate her 25th birthday. Despite the pit in her stomach - Delilah still vividly recalls visiting the Menagerie as a kid, and the three filthy little girls locked up in a petting zoo - she reluctantly agrees. Roaming from exhibit to exhibit, Delilah finds herself both fascinated and repulsed. While delighted to finally see the objects of her study up close and in person, in all their magnificence and beauty, she's also appalled by the subhuman conditions in which they're kept. Her keen eyes spot what others are happy to ignore: circular burn marks, skin rubbed raw, missing spots of fur. Raw fear...and also an uncanny awareness. She recoils at her own sense of marvel; despite her innate compassion for these beings, Delilah herself is part of the problem, a passive participant in their exploitation and abuse. Delilah's ambivalence reaches a breaking point when she witnesses a handler torturing an emaciated, half-naked werewolf girl. Before she can say "Jeremy Bentham," Delilah undergoes a shocking transformation: veins turning black with rage, hair floating and writhing like Medusa's snakes, nails sprouting needle-thin points, which she uses to burrow into the sadistic handler's brain. Delilah's revenge continues even after she's pulled free of the man: now in a trance, Jack grabs hold of the cattle prod he once wielded against little Geneviève, and turns it on himself. For her trouble, Delilah is knocked over the head with a mallet. She wakes up in the Franklin County jail, where - her status downgraded from someone to something - she's quickly sold off: to Metzger's Menagerie, no less. The acquisition is a risky one for Metzger: an unidentified (and possibly all-new) cryptid species, Delilah could prove a big draw. Yet, having been raised as a human, she'll be especially difficult to "break," as "free range" cryptids often are. Her Big Ideas, as well as the circumstances that landed her in the menagerie, threaten to infect the other exhibits. Delilah may be the thing to save Metzger's Menagerie from bankruptcy - or destroy it altogether. Menagerie reads like a thinly veiled animal rights revenge fantasy. Needless to say, I fucking loved it. Every. Last. Bit. Love love love. Metzger's Menagerie is hell on wheels for its exhibits. When not on display, the cryptids are kept in tiny metal cages, with just a threadbare blanket to lie on. They're made to wear rags, hosed down in full view of others, and fed a bland, often nutritionally deficient diet - just enough to keep them standing, nothing more. Underfed cryptids are forced to trade sex for outside food. (Pro tip: this is rape.) Disobedience is met with physical abuse. New exhibits are "broken" in every way imaginable: physical and sexual abuse, public humiliation, starvation. Their very identities are stripped away, right down to their names; they are only what Metzger's wishes them to be. Metzger's routinely "breeds" its exhibits, only to sell off parents and children who are no longer needed or profitable. Families are split up: mothers separated from daughters, fathers from sons, husbands from wives. Even those families imprisoned in the same circus are granted precious little time together; children are sent to the "petting zoo," where they're tended to by human handlers. Geneviève occupies a cage next to her father Claudio, yet the two cannot even see each other from opposite sides of the solid metal paneling; he must rely on Delilah, located in the row of cages opposite, to perform a visual inspection of his daughter's well-being. Which is declining rapidly in captivity, resulting in a mad dash by management to sell the girl off. Crytpids not "lucky" enough to land in a traveling circus or private collection have an even worse fate in store, if you can imagine. Game reserves where they are hunted for sport; fetish brothels where johns are given full license to use and abuse them; research labs where they're guaranteed to suffer until their dying breath. Many suspect that this is what became of the surrogates, though the government isn't talking. Look. This is a rather gruesome book that's often difficult to read. The abuse of cryptids - physical, sexual, emotional, legal - is rampant: sometimes graphic, yet always horrifying. Judging from early reviews, this seems to be the main reason behind many of the 3-star ratings; some readers were simply put off by all the violence. (In one especially gruesome scene, a man is literally ripped apart, limb by limb, until bloody scraps of him litter the ground. I cheered. He was a sexual predator, okay.) And I get that. But here's the thing: everything that was done to the cryptids? We subject nonhuman animals to every single minute of every single day, whether they're exploited for food, clothing, entertainment, or research. Unsanitary and inhumane living conditions. Unnatural and deficient diets. Forced pregnancy and birth. The disruption of family ties. Complete disregard for the animals' behavioral and emotional needs. Physical punishment as a "training" method (they're called "cattle prods" for a reason, people). Valuing profitability over well-being (or ethics). Objectification and othering. Even sexual abuse has a precedent in the real world: undercover investigations have turned up multiple instances of animal agriculture workers raping animals; bestiality is legal in eleven U.S. states (and underpunished in all others, if you ask me); and crush fetishes are still a thing, though videos were outlawed in 2010. Not to mention, the entire system is predicated on the exploitation of animals' reproductive systems, whether you're making milk, eggs, or new animals to feed to the machine. In summary: if you found Menagerie tough to stomach, I suggest you take a second look at your plate, your closet, and your bathroom counter. Do I think that Vincent intended this as an animal rights treatise? I'm not naive or stupid; I realize that mine is an unpopular opinion. So, probably not. But that doesn't mean that the parallels don't exist, or in any way invalidate such a reading of the text. Delilah's inner monologue seems to argue against this at times, categorizing cryptids as more like human than nonhuman animals. For example, Claudio's eyes have a human-like glint of self-awareness that Delilah finds lacking in wolves. (This was before she knew he could speak, natch.) However, she alternately cites intelligence and sentience as benchmarks for moral consideration, almost as though the two are interchangeable. They're not: sentience is simply the ability to feel - the quality singled out by Jeremy Bentham in the oft-quoted line, "The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" By this measure, cryptids are equal to hens are equal gorillas are equal to humans. Likewise, Delilah is appalled by the treatment of all cryptids: not just the humanoid ones, or those who can communicate using human language, but also those who are hybrids of two nonhuman animals - those who are more "animal" than "human." This, too, suggests that her moral analysis cannot reasonably be limited to cryptid animals alone. Interestingly, the plight of cryptids in this AU is characterized as worse than that of other nonhuman animals. While it's true that we have a patchwork of laws that purport to protect animal welfare, in reality they do not prevent any of the abuses heaped upon cryptids. For example, the Animal Welfare Act - the only federal law governing the treatment of animals in research and exhibition - expressly excludes rats, mice, and birds, even though they constitute 95% of all animals used in research! Additionally, many practices that might be illegal if performed by an individual are perfectly okay if they're part of "standard industry practices." Enter: cattle prods, gestation crates, battery cages, tail and beak docking, force feeding, etc., etc., etc. At the end of the day, animals are still considered property - and property has no rights. Just ask Claudio, Nalah, Zyanya, and Lenore. Or, better yet - Rudolph Metzger, who built his livelihood on this simple yet devastating fact. While the animal rights angle (real or imagined; you be your own decider person) is what most excited me about Menagerie, it's not the only aspect I enjoyed. It's impossible for me to adequately articulate the love and appreciation I feel for this book. It caught me off guard, in the best way possible. Vincent's writing is brutal, raw, and real - but also quite lovely, and with a righteous streak of rebellion that had me all but pumping my fist in the air. It's not just a book, but an anthem, a call to arms, a reaffirmation of humanity: of the oppressed, the marginalized, the exploited. Your patron saint has a name, and it is Delilah. Though we only get to meet a fraction of the "exhibits," each individual is as unique and diverse as the species to which she belongs; each person has her own way of coping with the trauma of imprisonment and abuse. Anxiety, depression, PTSD, learned helpless - and yes, small acts of resistance in the face of tremendous odds. (Nonhuman animals also sometimes rebel against their oppressors; see, e.g., Jason Hribal's Fear of the Animal Planet: The Hidden History of Animal Resistance.) Curiously, I saw this book marketed as a romance in various places. It's not - not really. There is a love story, but it's not centered on the usual suspects; Delilah and Gallagher's relationship is more of a partnership, a joining of forces or an alliance of warriors, than anything else. But Eryx and Rommily? Now there's a love the likes of which you've never seen. Who doesn't want to root for a cunning Minotaur and a damaged yet prescient oracle, hmmmm? (Seriously though, Eryx = BEST.) I could go on and on, but ~2500 words and 3 hours is probably enough. Menagerie is an imaginative, captivating fantasy that's as magical as the creatures that populate its pages. While AR folks are likely to harbor a deeper appreciation for the book's more subversive ideas, it's also suitable for a more general audience as well (assuming you can handle the violence and gore). An easy five stars, and I absolutely cannot wait for the sequel! http://www.easyvegan.info/2015/09/28/... ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 15, 2015
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Aug 26, 2015
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Aug 16, 2015
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0062118757
| 9780062118752
| 0062118757
| 4.16
| 21,799
| Sep 15, 2015
| Sep 15, 2015
|
it was amazing
|
One of the Loveliest Books You'll Read This Year (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through Edelweiss.) When conjoined twins One of the Loveliest Books You'll Read This Year (Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through Edelweiss.) When conjoined twins are separated, it's deemed a success so long as one of them lives. For a while. And that, to me, is the saddest thing I know about how people see us. Sixteen-year-old Grace and Tippi are ischiopagus tripus conjoined twins. Fused at the lower halves of their bodies, they look perfectly "normal" - beautiful even - from the waist up (as Grace wistfully notes on at least one occasion). They have two heads, two hearts, two sets of lungs and kidneys, four arms, and a pair of fully functioning legs between them. Their intestines begin apart, and then merge; below that, they are one. Summer is coming to a close, and their parents have just announced that they'll be attending school - for the first time ever - in September. Up until now, the girls have been homeschooled at their apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey, where they live with their parents; their paternal grandmother; and their younger sister, Nicola ("Dragon"). But the donations have dried up, and the state will only offer financial assistance if they attend a private school. And so it is they come to begin their junior year in Hornbeacon High School in nearby Montclair. If you think you know where the story's headed from here, join the club. I expected One to be a story about bullying, at least at the outset. And while Grace and Tippi do encounter no small amount of fear, hostility, and tactlessness - not just from their fellow classmates, but also teachers, neighbors, shopkeepers, extended family, and even their own doctors, who flaunt them like a medical exhibit - their transition to Hornbeacon goes surprisingly well. This is thanks in no small part to Yasmeen, a fellow outcast who immediately and enthusiastically takes the twins under her wing. Yasmeen was infected with HIV as a baby, so she can relate to the twins on multiple levels: Yasmeen understands what it's like to live with a likely death sentence handed down at birth. She's also all too familiar with the distrust and fear that Grace and Tippi must contend with daily. There's also Jon, the cute boy with walnut-brown eyes and stars that dance with his hands. Attending Hornbeacon on a scholarship, he lives in a ramshackle house with his stepfather Cal. His mom ran off, but Cal agreed to stick around long enough for Jon to finish high school. Jon doesn't flinch when he looks at the twins - and he treats Grace like a bona fide person, instead of a monster or freak or one half of a broken whole. For the first time in her sixteen and a half years, Grace wonders what life might be like separate from Tippi; the possibility both excites and terrifies her. Think you know what's coming next? Wrong. It's not Jon who threatens to tear the twins apart. No girl does anything stupid for the love of a boy here, nosiree. When Grace develops cardiomyopathy, the girls face an impossible decision: if they're not separated, Tippi's heart is likely to give out as well, from the strain of pumping blood through both their bodies. But the chances of survival, for either girl (let alone them both) are painfully low. Grace and Tippi, Tippi and Grace; it's always been this way. After a lifetime of near-total togetherness, can the girls live apart? Do they even want to? Told from Grace's point of view in free verse (the book consists of 231 short poems in total), One is as unique as it is heartrending. This is only the second book written in free verse I've ever read; I thought the technique worked quite well in Holly Bodger's 5 to 1, but here it makes the story sing. And shine and sparkle and every other wonderful thing you can think of. Seriously, there aren't enough adjectives in the English language to adequately describe my love for this book. Grace and Tippi are just a pleasure to get to know. Grace's poetry crackles with insight, a wry sense of humor, and an obvious love for her twin that's occasionally tinged with annoyance and jealousy. Crossan does a masterful job of capturing the sisters' obvious bond - a bond that, no doubt, sometimes threatens to bind and choke, particularly when Grace and Tippi are at odds: over acquiescing to private school; smoking and drinking; humoring their parents; even something as simple as caffeine consumption (Tippi is yay to Grace's nay) proves a sticking point. As Grace notes, with just a hint of resentment When Tippi wants something she takes it with two hands and with a body that belongs to us both. It's difficult to imagine myself in Grace and Tippi's shoes, since their life is so unlike my own; I value my privacy, and they have so very little. Nearly every decision Grace makes affects Tippi as well, and vice versa. And while this is clearly a source of conflict for them, they wouldn't have it any other way. Also interesting are the little strategies they employ to steal a little alone time: each twin listens to music blasted on headphones while the other kvetches to her therapist. Grace frequently reads while Tippi sleeps or surfs the 'net. And it's after Tippi has retired for the night that Grace finally checks an item off her bucket list: her first kiss. While Grace and Tippi are the stars of the book, Crossan deals with a number of Very Important Issues in the supporting cast as well. Their fourteen-year-old sister Dragon is an aspiring ballet dancer; it quickly becomes obvious (to us, anyway; it takes Grace a little longer to catch on) that she's suffering from anorexia. Dad is unemployed and an alcoholic; and when mom loses her job too, the family's already tenuous finances go into a tailspin. Grammie is forced to sell her jewelry; Dragon has to work off her classes at her ballet studio. Burdened by guilt, Grace and Tippi agree to star in a documentary. Reporter Caroline Henley has been hounding them for years. In exchange for near-total access, the girls get $50,000. Yet Caroline isn't half the bloodsucking vulture she appears at first glance; when Grace and Tippi enter the hospital, Caroline leaves her camera at home. Along with Yasmeen and Jon, she ends up being a pretty honest friend in the end. There's clearly a wealth of research behind One; Crossan references both Chang and Eng Bunker (the infamous "Siamese" twins, who married sisters and fathered twenty-one children between them; They lived, loved, fought, and died together which gives me hope and makes me wonder what's stopping us from being a little Siamese ourselves.) as well as Daisy and Violet Hilton (who, like Grace and Tippi, performed for crowds - but died penniless. Also, in a chilling bit of foreshadowing, they died side-by-side of the Hong Kong flu.) In the Author's Note, Crossan reveals that she based Grace and Tippi's physiology on that of Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapova, who passed away in 2003 at the age of 53. Their mother was told that they died in birth - when in fact they were institutionalized in Russia and experimented on for over twenty years. One is easily one of the loveliest and most memorable books I've read (or will read) this year; I cannot recommend it highly enough. While the ending is unbearably sad, it's not completely devoid of hope; nonetheless, you'll find yourself clinging to the many humorous and heartfelt moments leading up to that last. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 14, 2015
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Aug 14, 2015
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Aug 14, 2015
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Hardcover
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my rating |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| 4.11
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it was amazing
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Jun 04, 2016
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May 31, 2016
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|||||
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| 3.57
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it was amazing
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May 22, 2016
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May 16, 2016
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|||||
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| 3.89
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it was amazing
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May 18, 2016
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May 11, 2016
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|||||
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| 3.64
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really liked it
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May 2016
|
Apr 26, 2016
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|||||
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| 3.92
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it was amazing
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Mar 30, 2016
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Mar 29, 2016
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|||||
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| 3.50
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it was amazing
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Mar 21, 2016
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Mar 18, 2016
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|||||
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| 3.19
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it was amazing
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Mar 16, 2016
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Mar 16, 2016
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|||||
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| 3.57
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it was amazing
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Mar 15, 2016
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Mar 13, 2016
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| 3.46
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it was amazing
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Mar 08, 2016
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Mar 07, 2016
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| 3.91
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it was amazing
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Feb 22, 2016
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Feb 12, 2016
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| 4.15
|
it was amazing
|
Feb 05, 2016
|
Feb 04, 2016
|
|||||
|
| 3.49
|
it was amazing
|
Jan 23, 2016
|
Jan 22, 2016
|
|||||
|
| 4.24
|
it was amazing
|
Jan 18, 2016
|
Jan 14, 2016
|
|||||
|
| 3.90
|
it was amazing
|
Nov 14, 2015
|
Nov 12, 2015
|
|||||
|
| 3.93
|
it was amazing
|
Nov 10, 2015
|
Nov 03, 2015
|
|||||
|
| 3.87
|
it was amazing
|
Oct 22, 2015
|
Oct 18, 2015
|
|||||
|
| 4.24
|
it was amazing
|
Oct 24, 2015
|
Sep 18, 2015
|
|||||
|
| 4.13
|
it was amazing
|
Sep 18, 2015
|
Aug 28, 2015
|
|||||
|
| 4.01
|
it was amazing
|
Aug 26, 2015
|
Aug 16, 2015
|
|||||
|
| 4.16
|
it was amazing
|
Aug 14, 2015
|
Aug 14, 2015
|
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