fulfilling my 2021 goal to read one book each month by an author i love that i haven’t gotten around to reading yet
this whole monthly goal to 'read a fulfilling my 2021 goal to read one book each month by an author i love that i haven’t gotten around to reading yet
this whole monthly goal to 'read a book i've never read by an author i love' endeavor has been interesting, especially in those months where the book i hadn't read was the beloved author's debut, which was the case with this one, John Crow's Devil, and Under the Bright Lights.
for some reason, i was convinced that The End of Everything was her debut, and the handful of girlnoir books she wrote were a brief experiment with historical/genre-writing before returning to the realm over which she reigns supreme: contemporary psychological explorations of the dark underbelly of adolescent girlhood.
but no, these four books (Die a Little, Queenpin, The Song Is You, and Bury Me Deep) were how she announced her arrival on the literary scene, and although, of the four, i've only read this one and Queenpin, it's enough to know that she's stunningly good at this style, and now i wonder why she ever stopped writing these literary pulp novels. i mean, the six books she wrote after these are amazing, and she's one of my all-time favorite writers, but the fact that this book was her veryfirst is making me fall even more in love with her than i already was.
because this was outstanding. everything she is—all of her strengths and themes and fixations—all the seeds for what characterizes her later work are here, just in period costumes. in fact, there's a line in this one that pops up, in a slightly different context, in her most recent, The Turnout.
how did she manage to bang this one out of the park her first time at bat? the observations, the turns of phrase, the details, the subtext—she came into this world fully-formed, poised and collected, and unleashed this twisted web of secrets and concealment and guise that reads like the work of a much more seasoned author. it's tight and complex, and there are just layers of dark, dirty things squirming beneath this stylized, economical prose, and it's so damn precise and compact and pure.
as always, her focus is female, and it's centered around the not-so-sugar-and-spice aspects of ladyhood. in her contemporary novels, where her characters tend to be younger, it's effective because
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here, set in 1950's LA, you have the juxtaposition of the blowsy, wanna-be-starlet floozy types, living fast lives at odds with the prim-and-proper housewife ideal, but those trim, coiffed, pencil-skirted ladies have secrets of their own, secrets that are just as seedy despite being so well-concealed.
sex and drugs and murder and the scrabble-and-hustle of trying to make it in a world that pigeonholes its ladies into the boring binary of naughty and nice. and then megan abbott comes 'round, sticks a knife into that seam and lets it all bleed out.
this was a like-not-love book for me—i appreciated it more than i enjoyed it. it conveys its message effectively, it elicits a reaction from the readethis was a like-not-love book for me—i appreciated it more than i enjoyed it. it conveys its message effectively, it elicits a reaction from the reader, and the various storylines meld harmoniously, but i wasn't crazy about the MC, and it’s not for those made squeamish by animal or grammatical violence.
for the gentles: even though it is a book about a lady-turnt-vigilante going around killing people because meat is murder, there is a lot of on-page animal cruelty, including some by the vigilante’s own hands, which means many readers who ordinarily would cheer for this kind of heroine either won’t be able to read it because of the animal-stuff or will be conflicted about her whole deal.
the writing has some iffy spots—there's that tendency of people who are either over- or under-confident to choose the pompous “utilize” over the humble workhorse “use” and it clunks up what they're trying to say. i don't remember if she specifically uses "utilize;" that example is just my personal bugbear, and the foible isn't rampant here, but whenever she tries for the fancy word, it’s slightly off.
those were just PSAs—neither of those things bothered me; my problem was with molly as a character. i need this space to work through my issues with her, and it’s probably going to come across as hypercritical and a little boring, so you don’t need to read it, but i do need to write it, for my own karen reasons. i did not hate the book at all, but the problems i did have with it really got under my skin. feel free to stop reading NOW, if you’re even still here.
hi. okay, so you know how to humbert humbert, Lolita is boinkable but to most readers, there's nothing sexxy in nabokov's descriptions of some sticky kid with dirty feet playing with her gum? the same kind of filter applies here. we’re sold this character as an irresistibly seductive femme fatale; and in physical appearance she fits the conventional bill—beautiful, blonde, and aloof; cutting a dramatic figure in her all-white outfits, using flirtation to get what she wants while remaining inscrutable and cold, hypnotizing every single man with her sexparts; none able to look away from her legs, her breasts, her lips...
but as far as what’s on the page, she comes across more like a parody of sensuality with this pathologically frenzied male-arm-stroking and male-collar adjusting and male-chest caressing and pouting and cooing and lip biting and constant touch touch touching, but there’s no finesse to any of it. it’s compulsive rather than controlled so it reads more like a tic than a tactic; a nicholas cage fembot on ecstasy.
*dawning realization has entered the chat*
oh, wait. her name's molly. if intentional, that's actually very funny.
*dawning realization has left the chat*
molly half-asses her own psychological landscape:
She had learned long ago how easy it was to disarm a man, leaving him dazed and babbling and giving Molly time to formulate a plan that would lead to his ultimate demise. She supposed it was because life had damaged her enough to closet her own feelings, tuck them away, allowing her to focus on wit and irresistible external features which could subdue nearly every man she encountered.
before this:
Women she had met over the years were not as taken, not as captivated and not as kind, often apt to assess her as cold, even calculating, with more than one elevating that assessment to exalt, “What a bitch,” whenever Molly walked away.
but the thing is, they’re not wrong, and that’s what makes molly such a difficult character to root for. she’s not likable, and it’s not because she’s a murderess, and it’s not even because she kills or endangers more than a few animals which seems counterintuitive and hypocritical but reasons. it’s because she’s just…shitty to people. unprovoked low-key shittiness. to men and women, to people suspicious of and investigating her (where a little of that sugar she lays all over her victims would be strategically advisable), even to people she should consider allies, like carl—her only friend. as a gay man, he’s immune to her charms, but their relationship is basically a hate crime—she hits him in the balls, yanks on his hair, showers him with verbal abuse etc etc, while he comes across like he’s got stockholm syndrome.
…he had come to love Molly, and need her, like no one he had ever allowed into his life before. It wasn’t so much that he allowed her there, as that she had inserted herself without regard for his opinion on the matter.
we’re assured she’s got people and their motivations all figured out, including her ownself, but she’s a person lacking in compassion and empathy murdering people for…lacking compassion and empathy. case in point: the end result of what she considers to be a compassionate act is that a little boy is going to wake up beside the corpse of an animal he loves. this is exactly the kind of misguided tenderness that inspired my babysitter serve me my favorite of her "pet" rabbits for lunch when i was four. read the room, molly!
she’s unsympathetic and inconsistent, every interaction is a power play, no matter how minuscule the stakes, she's a frankenstein's monster of conflicting personas who's self-deluded even by serial killer standards and if she heard me saying any of this she would think i was just jelly like allllll women are of her, but she is smug and rude, so there.
this is the scene that made me blow my top a little:
It was Tuesday night at Lola’s. Ladies night. Molly especially enjoyed Tuesdays, not because she felt more secure strolling into an environment where an abundance of women would offer her some anonymity, but because she enjoyed the sexual tension brought about by an excess of women in a bar usually filled with men. Walking up to the bar, she knew a hundred pairs of male eyes were feasting on her, pining for her attention, while at the same time a hundred pairs of female eyes shined bright with the hope that she would trip and fall on her face. This amused her. Carl often referred to her as an attention whore, and she supposed that was as close to a fitting description as one could get.
The barroom was crowded, as it usually was on Tuesdays. She squeezed her way in between two men at the bar, then turned to the one on her left. “My seat,” she said, reaching out with one hand to remove the Stetson from the man’s head, while the other brushed its way affectionately through his hair. The man surrendered his seat without protest, also happily surrendering his hat which Molly placed on her own head, tilting it back to showcase the mass of blonde curls that swept out from beneath the brim. She turned to the second man, who swung himself around enough so their knees interlocked, with one of Molly’s legs reaching out to caress the man’s thigh. “Vodka, rocks,” she said to the man, whose hand went immediately into the air as a signal to the bartender.
then she drags them both onto the dance floor, where other men flock to grind and caress her (another thing she finds “amusing,” which is such an asshole of a word) and she encourages them all, “feed(ing) their hunger,” and then:
Sometime after midnight Molly broke away. She walked over to a young man who had been assigned to guard her purse, kissing him lightly on the lips in thanks. The man blushed, his mundane night composed of standing on the sidelines watching her dance having just become a spectacular one.
this is the first we are hearing of the purse-guarding gentleman, but the whole scene, the whole night in the bar—does anything like that ever happen outside of a madonna video? this faux-empowerment gained by flirtation, instantly turning men into drooling servants, no competition between them, no expectations of her, content to have orbited her for a time and certainly not following her out of the bar, hoping for more, cuz that would have gotten in the way of the thing that needed to happen in the parking lot, but this sudden abandonment of the pursuit of her apparently irresistible bod makes it seem like these men are part of chuck e cheese’s animatronic band unable to cross the threshold.
that scene pissed me off for its sheer silliness and i could not get it out of my mind for the rest of the book so i had to write about it here to get it out of me. and now i am free.
except for hating molly immensely, i liked a lot of the book, especially the john grimm storyline.
in any case, three months of quarantine has broken my brain, so don't listen to me, booknerds! tend your own reading paths!
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BOOK SCHWAG!!
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as much as i love my hypodermic needle/blood droplet bookmark:
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this little piggie paperclip's the real hero:
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and this secret shiny bloodstain under the dust jacket!
the best thing about this book is that i read it in a day during a period otherwise defined by an inability to sit still or focus on anything for longthe best thing about this book is that i read it in a day during a period otherwise defined by an inability to sit still or focus on anything for long.
me in march: "hey, i don’t have to go to work for how long? great! now i can read all the books and write all the reviews and what a blessing it is to have time!!"
me in may: *read a page* stare into distance *read a page* "do i have any brown sugar left?" *read a page* "why is that wall so streaky??" *read a page* "who was that actor in that thing???" and then at the end of the day there's a half-washed wall, five cookbooks splayed open on the floor, the cupboards are reorganized and potentially-expired items are cluttering the table awaiting their fate (still), there are fifteen tabs open in my browser, several reviews have been attempted and abandoned and maybe twenty pages have been read. also, i am weeping.
so, to the few books that were able to distract me from my...distractions, you have all of my gratitude &thank you for your service.
HOWEVER—objectively speaking, this is a perfectly good psych suspense thriller that didn't live quite up to the fanfroth, considering it's got the same basic bone structure as one of its literary antecedents so, you know, we've been here before, just with different wallpaper.
still, i liked the energy, i liked its swerves even when i saw them coming, although some i was maybe too 'ronadumb to get? there were plot points whose significance went over my head, the most maddening of which was the deli. was that just a red herring/coincidence, or am i being obtuse?
there's a lot packed into this one—it's the kind of criminal mastermindery with many working parts where strategies hinge on making accurate predictions about unpredictable variables, so disbelief-suspension is necessary and by the end it's cluttered with scaffolding that wasn't really supporting anything. unless—again—'ronabrain.
in any event, i'm glad i read it, and since i had the same gulp-it-down reading experience with her second book, He Started It, anything she writes in the future will automatically be on the list to the club that is me.
fulfilling book riot's 2018 read harder challenge task #7: A western. extry points given to me, by me, for choosing a book i've owned for more than a fulfilling book riot's 2018 read harder challenge task #7: A western. extry points given to me, by me, for choosing a book i've owned for more than a year.
this may not be a super-traditional western, but i figure the whole point of the read harder challenge is to get people to explore out of their readerly comfort zones, and since i already like westerns, i can do what i waaaaaaant here.
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i felt a little cheaty reading this one for the book riot challenge, since it’s not a “traditional” western. turns out i needn’t have fretted - this is a weird western that’s really only just a little bit weird. or - it’s weird, but the aspect of it that makes it weird is so undefined it’s barely a ripple, and if we’re label-making, this is more hardboiled mystery than supernatural; thugs and guns and murder and a femme fatale turning man against man. which, true, are all also frequent flyer elements of westerns, but it’s got the interior monologue of a noir, with a protagonist a bit more sentimentally evolved than found in either your typical western or noir:
People are tied together in one way or another. Most men want to believe we are alone and dependent upon ourselves. But I had learned long ago life is like one big knot around your neck from the day you are born. Everyone in the world is tugging on their separate ends.
The trick is learning how to live without having the life choked from you.
it opens with a murder - a man is found stripped, nailed to a tree with railroad spikes through his wrists and ankles, his eyelids are cut away, and he's been left to die out in the desert sun. this is not the only crime between the book’s pages, but it is the ickiest.
ordinarily, the notion of “crime” in a western would be cause for laffter because rules, schmools
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pyew pyew imma cowboy!
but john t. marwood has been called to the town of haxan to bring the law, if not always the order. and whoooo called him? hard to say. he’s not even sure himself
Thermopylae. Masada. Agincourt. And now, Haxan, New Mexico. We go where we’re sent. We have names and we stand against that which must be faced. Through a sea of time and dust, in places that might never be, or can’t become until something is set right, there are people destined to travel. Forever. I am one.
marwood’s got a pretty squirrelly memory, leaving the reader informationally hamstrung, but there are hints - shimmers - of something … extra: people who are a little too adept with their weapons, visions and dreams, a half-defined calling and a something coiled within him which he is powerless to defy. in a certain angle and in certain light, none of this is necessarily supernatural any more than his inexplicable love-at-first-sight for the daughter of the (first) murdered man is necessarily romance.
but it’s czp, so you know they’re not gonna publish a straight-up western. even though we don’t know the specifics of what’s layered over the world as we understand it, we do see the eerie presence flickering throughout the text
The howls sounded like they were circling Haxan in an ever-moving ring, closing in. It gave you the crawlies.
Without thinking, I rested my hand on my gun.
It was then the howling stopped, and an uneasy silence filled the night air.
i’m hoping that the second book, Quaternity, which is a prequel to Haxan, goes a little further in explaining what all of this issssss, but as it stands, it’s a very entertaining mystery/western; somewhat episodic, sprinkled with mini-events, but also plenty of wide-arcs rainbowing over the whole story. the romance bits are shoehorned in there and feel unnecessary and implausible, but the rest of it is really good. and it is not cheating!!
this book has been flirting with me for a while now. and i’ve been flattered - i love its cover and there’s something about the font that pleases me dthis book has been flirting with me for a while now. and i’ve been flattered - i love its cover and there’s something about the font that pleases me deeply, but our coy little dance always followed the same pattern:
“ooh, that cover kicks ass. that font is fun. why haven’t i bought this yet? *turns over book*
this cycle transpired several times; i would be drawn to it without remembering why i had determined it would never work out between us, focusing on the “meh, combat” stuff that i’ve never sought out in my reading life, totally ignoring the words like “battling animals and monsters,” “gore soaked and profanity laden,” and “unflinchingly bloodthirsty,” which is all stuff i DO like*, and putting it down regretfully.
and then the author came into the store, being all affable and you know me - i’m powerless against the affable, so i bought the book, i read the book and dammit if i didn’t enjoy the book.
it’s really … fun. i don’t know how else to say it - but that’s my takeaway - fun bloody fun.
it’s wayback historical fiction about a group of vikings who have been living in north america for generations, isolated and essentially living as a “kept town” by the goachica, a tribe of indigenous scraylings. the goachica provide them with food and protection, but put limitations on their movements, like an invisible cage for their pet mushroom men. which is how the pale-skinned vikings are known to outsiders. to themselves, their town is called hardwork and they the hardworkers.
having lived this long in a bubble, the hardworkers have become incurious and complacent, although they still maintain a group of well-trained fighters called the hird, who are as badass and attuned to each other as you’d want even if you weren’t just sitting around in peaceful captivity. which is fortunate because after years of protection, a prophecy is revealed to the most powerful scraylings - the calnians, that the light-skinned people are going to bring destruction to the world (truefact), and they order the goachica and the other scrayling tribes over which they rule (i.e. - all of ‘em), to kill any mushroom men on sight.
much bloodshed occurs.
“you die when you die” is the shrugged philosophy of the hardworkers, who believe that death is just a doorway to glory and a ticket to sit beside the gods, so despite the enormous number of horrific bloody deaths here, no one is over-fussed by them. deaths by bears, tornados, arrows, knives, arms ripped off, living folks torn in two by bare hands, eyeballs extracted, thrown off cliffs - every day brings its own challenges, right?
it’s more of an adventure story than one focused on war, although there are many fighting scenes. there's plenty of humor, much cussin' and even some sharks! the POV shifts frequently, giving a full picture of this world, its traditions, magic, mythology, and politics, from all the angles - hardworker and scrayling and all manner of shading within. it’s a bit confusing at first - all these names and perspectives coming at you before you've settled in comfortably, but it comes together pretty quickly. finnbogi the boggy is the most frequent narrator, but also the least interesting, to me. he’s a young man of the hardworker people, neither fighter nor thinker nor much of anything. he’s still finding his place and his purpose, but mostly just trying to get laid. preferably by thyri treelegs, a member of the hird who is way too cool for his gormless ass. he gets better as it goes on, but i would trade any of his chapters for more from the owsla - a group of magically-enhanced female warriors sent from calnia to hunt down any mushroom men who have slipped through the cracks and escaped the massacre.
this is just the first book, and there’s a lot of material left to chew over in the next, The Land You Never Leave. this doesn't end on a cliffhanger, per se, but it ends on a big big setup for book two.
so, even though this book has a map, it lived up to the promise of that font, and now we are in a happy and committed relationship and i'm looking forward to our next step together. which will be published in september.
* you would think a fan of blood and carnage would like war books, but i don’t. i think it’s about context? like, you expect there to be a lot of that in war, but i think it’s more fun to have all that splatter sneaking into the unexpected places. connor said the other day that he didn’t understand the way my mind worked because of some unrelated but totally valid distinction i was making between things, and this may be a part of it. my brain doesn't always make sense, but it's the only one i've got.
finished! review will run on the LARB site closer to pub date, but i think this book is going to do all right - if you have a badass book club, you might want to put it on the list.
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i will be reviewing this for l.a. review of books and i am very excited to dive into it!!
congratulations! semifinalist in goodreads' best young adult fiction category 2016!
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meets
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where to fucking begin?
this is going to be a hcongratulations! semifinalist in goodreads' best young adult fiction category 2016!
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meets
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where to fucking begin?
this is going to be a hugely polarizing book. if you're easily made squeamish by naughty language, depictions of teenagers drinking, doing drugs, having sex, or by violence (animal, people, sexual) or are otherwise a highly sensitive person, this book will probably play too rough for you. but considering how very often some of the events covered in this book make the news, the world probably plays too rough for you.
this book is important, honest, and in many ways realistic and it should be required reading for teenagers, but especially for teen girls. it's definitely full of lessons boys should learn, but there are even more here for girls. i say "lessons" like it's some kind of staid primer on etiquette, but it is far from that. it's a gritty whipcrack of a book that has strong characters and story, but is also peppered with frank depictions about all the insidious ways rape culture manifests in the day-to-day, and about gender, behavior, teen sexualization, peer pressure, slut-shaming, jealousy, sexting, and female rage.
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i will likely reference this movie a lot in the course of this review.
this story is told from three first-person POVs: alex craft, who found her own path to justice when her older sister's rapist/murderer walked on a technicality - and then never walked again, peekay, the preacher's kid; the epitome of girl next door, but the actual girl next door, not the stereotypical angel - she'll drink and is pro push-up bra, and she's representing everygirl here, and jack - the golden boy who has looks, smarts, popularity, talent, the cheerleader on his arm, a colorful sexual history and now, an interest in alex.
I want to know what she looks like with tousled hair. I want to know what the scar on her wrist is from. I understand now why my mom always asks me if I'm interested in any girls as opposed to if I like them.
I like Branley. I've always liked Branley.
I'm interested in Alex.
after her sister anna was killed, and alex gave in to her darker impulses, she's remained on the sidelines of the high school experience; the perfect vantage point to study the oftentimes disturbing interactions of her peers. when she and peekay unexpectedly become friends, she illuminates some of her findings to peekay, pointing out the ways peekay has been unconsciously contributing to the "boys will be boys" attitude that ends up hurting girls and poisoning the sisterhood. she doesn't use that word, but she's definitely a feminist mouthpiece whose lectures would perhaps be off-putting if they weren't coming from a mostly likable character whose odd way of talking is largely due to experiencing life through books instead of getting her teen socialization in a more traditional way.
throughout the book, there are many examples of disturbing behavior that has become normalized - nude photos sent to an ex by a girl dating someone else, to reel him in for some nostalgic casual sex, locker-room details about what female classmates look like naked and what noises they make during intercourse, girls bathroom-graffiti tearing down other girls, girls determining their own worth in terms of sexual currency, being oddly pleased when guys look at your tits when talking to you, or ogle them without the courtesy of a conversation, bitchy remarks over the provocative way another girl is dressed. ("She looks nice," says alex), slut-shaming the girl who "stole" peekay's boyfriend,
"You shouldn't be that way about her," Alex says. "I hear what people say and I bet half of it isn't even true. And even if it is - fine. She's no different from you and me; she wants to have sex. So let her…She likes boys, and she can get them. You were hurt by that, but it wasn't Branley who hurt you. It was Adam."
and it's accepting all these thoughtless behaviors that perpetuates the dynamic where girls turn on other girls instead of holding boys accountable for their actions.
Tonight they used words they know, words that don't bother people anymore. They said bitch. They told another girl they would put their dicks in her mouth. No one protested because this is our language now.
some of the examples were a bit on the prudish side. yes, the guy humping the basketball was maybe sexualizing gym class in a way that someone would find uncomfortable, but we don't know what gender he was imagining that basketball to be, and sex-gestures are not made by boys alone. i've been known to make handy or blowie gestures or even full on penetrating motions, even though i do not have a penis of my own. sex miming is not always threatening or violent, it depends on the context. it's juvenile, sure, but i mean no harm when i make jerkoff motions in place of saying "whatever."
but, whatever. or, rather:
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over the course of the book, as alex establishes her first friendship with peekay and her first relationship with jack, these positive emotions bring her other, darker, emotions closer to the surface. she is fiercely protective of peekay, and when she is threatened one night,
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alex uncages the beast. but it's not always easy to put that beast back in its cage.
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it's definitely a firecracker of a book. but whatever you do, do not call alex a firecracker!
…he said, "How's my little firecracker?"
Like it was a joke, this thing inside me. A cute quirk for a girl to have, our dark leanings reduced to one word.
So I said, "I'm fine."
I'm not fine, and I doubt I ever will be.
The books didn't help me find a word for myself; my father refused to accept the weight of it. And so I made my own.
I am vengeance.
and she's just excellent at being vengeance.
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it's not all horror and violence - there are bright shiny spots of hope and positivity. there is a scene with peekay and her friend sara having a tricky conversation with peekay's parents that is both hilarious and emotional and an example of excellent parenting.
and the relationships between all of the female characters, as trust grows and resentments change, is beautifully, naturalistically, handled. alex and jack's romance is also sweet, in the way it changes jack's priorities and allows alex some happiness, albeit a complicated happiness.
I text Alex and tell her good night, she responds with the same, and I hold my phone tightly, too aware that the present is all we have if I can't mention the past and she won't talk about the future.
but alex is a complicated kind of girl - she's lived through an experience that shattered her family - turning her mother into an alcoholic who never leaves the house,
Nothing is ours; nothing is sacred. The one thing we shared was pulled into pieces, memorialized and mythologized so that everyone could participate in it. When she was missing, Anna's picture was tacked in so many places around town it's what I see when I think of her, not her actual face. I see that picture next to a lost cat poster and a lawn-mowing service advertisement.
I learned later they did find that cat.
and has darkened her entire worldview
Anna told me I would understand about boys one day. She said that everything would change and I would look at them differently, assess their bodies and their words, the way their eyes moved when they talked to me. She said I'd not only want to answer them, but I'd learn how, knowing which words to use, how to give meaning with a pause.
Then a man took her.
A man took her before I learned any of these things. He took her and kept her for a while, put things inside of her. Of course the obvious thing, but also some others, like he was curious if they'd fit. Then he got bored. Then he got creative.
Then my sister was gone and I thought: I understand about boys now.
And she was right. Everything did change. I look at them differently and I assess their bodies and watch their eyes and weigh their words.
But not in the way she meant.
this book definitely left its mark on me. i murmured "holy shit" several times while reading it, because it is SO FAR beyond what YA lit of my youth was,and the fact that books like this are necessary (and they are), is depressing.
it's not perfect - i have some logic-questions, and alex is just a little too knowing for her age and experiences, but a book that reminds girls to be cautious and self-respecting and to call dudes out on their bullshit, and reminds guys to be respectful and that stupid decisions have consequences, well - i'm a fan.
not everyone will appreciate being punched in the face by a book.
fulfilling my 2019 goal to read (at least) one book each month that has been digitally moldering, unread, on my NOOK for years and years and years.
notfulfilling my 2019 goal to read (at least) one book each month that has been digitally moldering, unread, on my NOOK for years and years and years.
not at all bad for a sickbed one-day read!
i am very glad i decided that one of my 2019 reading goals should be to start reading through the backlog of nookbooks i've been accumulating over the years. i'm even a little glad i got sick enough to feel zero regrets or guilt in giving myself a free pass to spend the whole day in bed, reading, which is not a thing i often do. i'm the kind of dummy that, if i'm too sick to think clearly enough to get writing-work done, i will use the time to scrub the bathtub or color-code the tupperware containers to their lids with nail polish. but THIS was one of those reading-only sickness - too achy to clean or even turn pages. THANK YOU FOR FINGER-TOUCH PAGE TURNING TECHNOLOGY, SCIENCE!
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this is my perfect version of a sickday book - it's not too intellectually demanding but it's also not brainpudding. most importantly, it keeps you wanting to read and read and read (and cough) and read as it pops you with TWIST after TWIST and CON after CON and REVEAL after REVEAL and so many muuuurderrrrrrrsssssss. which is a lousy list of things to experience in real life when you're sick, but is great for your sickbed reading.
there are so many twists and turns, i just could not put the book down - there's always one more delicious WHAAAAAAT? or OH NOOOOO around the bend, and each one makes you appreciate just how tricky murder can be; identifying people who fall into the category of the kind worth killing is easy, carrying it out and covering it up is a little more complicated.
take notes, notetakers!
this one has lived on my virtual shelves so long that by now everyone else has already read and reviewed it, and no one needs my encouragement in that department, so instead i will just say THANK YOU to the many people who told me i should read this/i would love this either directly or indirectly, through their glowing reviews. you are all wise and attractive humans.
i am on the Bones & All street team!!! #BonesandAll tagging st. martin's press (hahaha come school me, young'uns!) but - jealous??? you should be! i gi am on the Bones & All street team!!! #BonesandAll tagging st. martin's press (hahaha come school me, young'uns!) but - jealous??? you should be! i got this awesome bag:
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that made me wanna eat people:
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and THE BOOK! (now punctured with my teethmarks)
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this book is SO MUCH FUN and i am thrilled to be on its team. hashtagtasteslikepeople
Someday I'll wake up and find they've built a maze around me, and I will be relieved.
fans of karen russell, kelly link, aimee bender - i'm looking at YOU! this book is your JAM! as long as it's understood that your jam is going to be spread on top of delicious human flesh.
Penny Wilson wanted a baby of her own in the worst way. That's what I figure, because she was only supposed to watch me for an hour and a half, and obviously she loved me a little too much. She must have hummed a lullaby, fondled each tiny finger and toe, kissed my cheeks and stroked the down on my head, blowing on my hair like she was making a wish on a dandelion gone to seed. I had my teeth but I was too small to swallow the bones, so when my mother came home she found them in a pile on the living room carpet.
The last time my mother had looked at Penny Wilson she'd still had a face...Even when my mother noticed the gore down the front of my OshKosh overalls, even when she registered the blood on my face, she didn't see it. When she parted my lips and put her forefinger inside - mothers are the bravest creatures, and mine is the bravest of all - she found something hard between my gums. She pulled it out and peered at it. It was the hammer of Penny Wilson's eardrum.
and that's what happens on page one.
it is a charming little story of cannibalism and girl power. our girl maren has been a people-eater her whole life. she doesn't know why, but when she senses love being directed her way, her automatic response is to devour the source. during maren's childhood, her mother was forced to sacrifice all hope of a stable life and career in order to protect her from the fallout of her unfortunate meals. parents do not like it when your kid eats their kid, so their lives were a series of temporary homes, suitcases, and midnight flights. everything was pared down to the essentials:
We'd never had throw blankets at home - if we got cold we'd just take the comforters off our beds. Throw blankets, like placemats or window ornaments, were not necessary.
but that kind of life can only go on for so long, and the day after maren's 16th birthday she wakes to find she has been pushed from the nest. her mother is gone, leaving only an envelope of cash and maren's birth certificate, where she learns her father's name for the first time.
and what follows is - adventure! she sets out to finally meet her father and along the way, she eats meets new people, including others with her devouring nature. they are not exactly like her - everyone has their own triggers, methods, and reasons for munching, but it's a sort of familial bond that is completely new to her.
this is the cheekiest cannibal novel i have ever read, and maren is a hell of a heroine. the book is full of cuddly themes like love, family, and self-discovery, but never forget how dangerous love can be, with people like maren. (view spoiler)[
I wasn't jealous. Not really. I just wanted Lee's attention - if not forever, then at least for the seven and a half minutes it would take for him to polish me off.(hide spoiler)]
and for all the light, there's plenty of dark. and metaphor. and the melancholy of a childhood lost:
The pillow was cool on my cheek. I understood now why the smell of laundry soap was so comforting: things couldn't be too hopeless if somebody was still bothering to wash the sheets.
hair rope, unfinished books, souvenirs, drunken cowboys, unrequited lust, road trips, cannibal etiquette, hobo stew, awkward requests, college dorms, carnies, all good things.
in fact, there is only one thing in this book that made me frown. (okay, two: (view spoiler)[ poor kitty!!! (hide spoiler)])
My name's Andy. What's yours?"
"Maren."
"That's a nice name. I've never heard it before."
"Yeah," I said between bites of tuna fish. "Usually it's Karen."
"It's nicer than Karen."
LIKE HELL IT IS!
but that personal attack aside, this book is one of those books that is just sheer rollicking fun and i want all my ladyfriends to read it please.
this is an author whose novels i have been meaning to read for a while now, on the basis of all the glowing reviews here on holy shit, was this good.
this is an author whose novels i have been meaning to read for a while now, on the basis of all the glowing reviews here on the gr and on those gorgeous covers,
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but i just haven't gotten around to them yet, and now don't i feel foolish…
because this is fantastic. i was apprehensive about reading this, having been burned by that elizabeth hand one that scoffs at you for not having read the larger work it is referencing, but i was assured by karly that these can stand alone quite nicely, even though they are "of that world."
this one starts out like a fable - a little br'er rabbit folktale that gets slowly consumed by a dark fairytale cloud. eventually it passes over, you pass through, and the story concludes with a snappy little moral à la your traditional fable. but you have had to pass through such a horrible, transformative darkness to get there, it leaves a lasting mark. it is a wearying journey.
and it is beyond wow.
if you are going to read just ONE of these free tor shorts, or if you want to join this bandwagon of reading MANY of them, and are looking for an entrance point, this is the one.
in the vivid and memorable opening scene of this novel, owen arthur bradshaw rescues a little girl from a potentially dangerous and decidedly undignifin the vivid and memorable opening scene of this novel, owen arthur bradshaw rescues a little girl from a potentially dangerous and decidedly undignified situation.
but don't start organizing a parade for him just yet, because he is certainly no hero to little girls, especially when it comes to his daughter eeona, and his behavior towards her has looong term consequences.
this is a multigenerational historical/magical epic taking place in the virgin islands spanning from 1916 through to the 1970s. it follows the bradshaw family through their loves and losses, and the consequences of their family curse. it's all restraint, passion, family, fate, history, secrets, betrayal, and war, as these sprawling books tend to be. it is also a parallel history of the virgin islands, beginning with their transfer from danish to american rule, and the difficulties for those occupying this liminal space: to be a citizen of an owned territory so far removed from the controlling country, this ostensible, nominal belonging while not being truly equal, nor "seen" for what they are; an independent culture with independent values. a trinket in on the mantlepiece of america; a place to roll up on for the novelty of its beaches and local color, disrupting the serenity, putting up fences, and reducing the local people to an insulting backdrop (dear god, that film...)
the story is told through the two bradshaw daughters, eeona and anette, and their half-brother jacob.
eeona is a fascinating character. she is the devastating island beauty whose hubris is in believing too much in her own mythology and hype, denying herself romantic relationships, protecting others from her dangerous beauty, and scorning all the men who don't live up to her deceased daddy, becoming a cold woman. and, man, there is nothing more dramatic than how spectacularly a woman like this who has held herself back from love and indignity will eventually fall.
eeona's got all kinds of secrets, both of her family's past and of the more... corporeal sort, and the keeping of these secrets while denying herself a fully-realized life is a lonely strain.
She was seeing herself running alongside the beach that flanked them now on the left. Seeing herself like a beautiful animal with hair flying behind her. She was galloping. She was something to be feared. She loved herself most like that. She also hated herself most like that. But no matter, because she missed herself most like that.
that passage broke my heart a little - a woman yearning for her childhood freedom and innocence, despite having had a childhood that is pretty horrifying to an outsider.
her sister anette is the complete opposite. she is the embodiment of pure, unrestrained freedom, embracing the romantic possibilities, and ending up with three children by three different men.
Eeona never forget that she a lady from a genteel family. Me? I forget all the time. I laugh with my mouth open wide-wide.
oh yeah, and she speaks in dialect instead of the self-consciously "proper" speech of her sister.
anette is a propulsive character - a force made up of impulse and energy, unapologetic, which is such a contrast to the her almost-ascetic sister.
jacob's contribution to the narrative is primarily his perspective of the american experience - he leaves the islands to join the army and experiences all the racism and resentment of the american south in the 1940s.
he contributes other things, but - spoilers.
overall, it's a strong debut. while the overall "story" is a little disjoined and meandering, the characters alone are strong enough to hold the reader's attention, and the magical elements are nicely employed. read it for the descriptions and the characters - it is terrifically lovely.
this is the most uncomfortable i have ever been reading a book the author dedicated to their mom.
it's a psychosexual romp with animal abuse, cutting, this is the most uncomfortable i have ever been reading a book the author dedicated to their mom.
it's a psychosexual romp with animal abuse, cutting, plenty of drugs and drinking, childhood sexual abuse, maiming, murder, and just all around unlikeable people. mommy, i did it all for youuuuu!
there's also a lot of cigarette smoking - which is rare in romance novels these days.
it's a very sexually graphic book about about two self destructive and damaged people who fall into a relationship sort of like that one in fifty shades, but without all the safe words and option to say "no." the sexy bits were not as embarrassingly written as many in other books i have read, but it is way brutal, both mentally and physically.
here's the thing - i don't care how you decorate your bedroom, who you invite back to it, or what you do once you're in there, as long as everyone wants to be there and is old enough to know better - it's none of my business. you wanna be tied up, wear outfits, bring a fruit bowl in the mix, beat the shit out of each other, go ahead, have fun. but even with this admirable open-mindedness of mine, there came a point while i was reading this where i was like, yeah, no, this is not okay. and i started getting a little apprehensive. because there's some things you can't come back from as a reader, some things you can't condone. i guess i do require a little basic human decency, dignity, and respect,
but i'm glad i kept reading because it did not go the way i feared it was going, and even though it was still a very distressing read, and i don't approve of all the decisions made by the author or the characters, it was undeniably affecting, if not something i really see myself recommending to anyone else.
but go ahead, you erotic thriller fans - this one is for y'all, just don't expect to be all starry-eyed with love for any of the characters.
this is one of the first books from angry robot's new crime imprint, exhibit a, and it is a pretty solid foray into the genre.
numbspooky-month float:
this is one of the first books from angry robot's new crime imprint, exhibit a, and it is a pretty solid foray into the genre.
number one: i love the title.
number two: i love the synopsis. let's take a moment, shall we?
“When did you last Google yourself?”
Wealthy businessman, Will Frost, gets woken in the middle of the night by an anonymous caller, asking him exactly this.
When Will goes online, he finds a website has been set up in his name, showing photographs of the inside of his home, along with photographs of six houses he’s never seen before.
In the first of these strange houses, a gruesome murder has already taken place.
Will is then told that his own family is in mortal danger.
The only way he can keep them safe is to visit each of the houses on the website in person – before the police discover what has happened there.
Seven houses.
Seven gruesome homicides.
Seven chances to save his daughter’s life…
right?? awesome. this is the kind of stuff i like in my crime fiction: the psychological suspense that builds with each page, the ever-tightening circle of discovery and possibility of being discovered at a crime scene and prevented from fulfilling the rest of the task, the frustration of having to fly all over the globe, knowing that at the end of each flight, there will be one more gruesome tableau to confront and wearily endure, while the psychological toll escalates because of not knowing what will be waiting at the end-end of the journey, and how this will all play out, and if he and his family will still be alive. phoar.
and for the most part, it's great. terrific pacing, very bloody and horrifying, plenty of tension and obstacles and close calls, plenty of different POVs, so you get that "noo, i want to know what is going to happen next for this character; don't give me another tam chapter!" but in a good, delayed-gratification kinda way.
and then the ending. it wasn't bad, not at all. stuff gets resolved, for the most part. you will not be unsatisfied. and it's not that it is ambiguous - there is one piece of the puzzle "missing" in on-the-page words, but you know what's what. however, he decides to pull a girl with curious hair move on the last page (the short story itself, not the collection as a whole) and it is just
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but still in a good way.
i just don't like it when authors try to get tricky with a "you will remember this ending!" when it hasn't been that kind of tricky for the whole of the book. it seems unearned, unnecessary.
but still - a lot of fun, a lot of ick, and if this is indicative of the quality of thriller coming out of the angry robot house, i may have to become a thriller-fan.
skippy dies on the first page of this book. then there are 600 pages of buildup and aftermath.
it has been compared to Infinite Jest,which i can see, buskippy dies on the first page of this book. then there are 600 pages of buildup and aftermath.
it has been compared to Infinite Jest,which i can see, but i also feel it is a good companion-piece to The Instructions. all three of these books (IJ only in part) focus on adolescents who are in school/boarding school environments that use genuinely funny (as opposed to manipulative-funny) humor to offset the horrors of youth and its incipient discoveries. they all have elements of the absurd, of the near-slapstick spectacle, and each book's action revolves around a troubled holden caulfield-type of character whose actions propel the narrative. in the instructions, the characters all revolve around gurion, and infinite jest, the characters satellite hal. but what further links all these books, to my mind, is the strength of the supporting characters.
i am trying not to digress too much into a discussion of the comparison-pieces, so i will try to focus on the characters in this one here.
mario is fantastic, in his would-be lothario role, and there is something that should be gross but in this book is very funny, about a bunch of virgin boys sitting around and talking/boasting about sex. it is like when tobias talks about "the clatter" of his wife's breasts.
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you just want to kind of pat them on the head, until you realize they are staring at your chest and you have to slowly back away.
dennis is another favorite of mine. he is so cynically realistic, so already-figured-it-out, you can't help but feel sympathy for him and recognize that his acerbity is a response to what shiny youth-hope he has already shrugged off.
ruprecht, obviously.
but the best are the scenes with all the boys together. their banter, their rapid-fire patter, the casually innocent homophobic remarks and endless dick-jokes of boys at that age, the "your mom" jokes, the giggling over the word "mound." (okay, i giggled, too.)
standout moments: patrick "da knowledge" noonan and eoin "MC sexecutioner" flynn's audition for the school concert. i spoil-tag it, because i think it is nice to have the option.
(view spoiler)[
The boys mount the stage, gold chains clinking, and spend the next few moments slouching back and forth, mumbling mysteriously to themselves. Then, to an enormous, naked drumbeat that explodes from Sexecutioner's ghettoblaster to rock the entire hall, they begin to bounce around the boards, making inscrutable hand signals, their vast trousers flapping about them like sails, and Knowledge grabs the mike: 'I got X-ray EYES, but she's wearin lead PANTS, so I got to get her BOOTY wi-'
'Next!' The judgement issues summarily from the review panel before Sexecutioner has even had a chance to drop his first 'motherfucker.' For a moment, the boys remain rooted to the spot in ungangsta-like attitudes of woundedness, mocked by the drumbeat that is still thumping around them; then, unplugging the ghettoblaster, they clamber down and make the walk of shame to the exit.
'What in God's name was that?' the Automator says as soon as they have left.
Trudy peers down at her clipboard. "original material."
"Our old friend original material," the Automator says grimly.(hide spoiler)]
which is funny enough, just in the wide-eyed belief that this material would be suitable for a concert at a catholic boy's school, but the real hearttwist comes, for me, when the program(me) is announced:
'Did we get in?' Eoin 'MC Sexecutioner' Flynn asks anxiously, stuck at the back of the crowd examining the board.
Patrick 'Da Knowledge' Noonan scans the list again, then, scowling, turns away. 'No.'
'We didn't?' Eoin is shocked.
'What did you expect, man?' Patrick throws up his hands at him. 'Take a look at the programme, it's wall-to-wall Whitey!'
ah, the sweet optimism of youth. and the sweet racial dysmorphia, as both eoin and patrick are unhappily white themselves.
obviously the dance is another great moment, and what the dance devolves into, but those are the big show-stopping scenes. there are also amazing quiet scenes, like the fear of jelly. and more serious matters, like tom's secret, and what it does to howard, and the criminal way it is handled by the school, and just the fact that the situation subverts expectations in a surprising way, and then allows those expectations to play out to a conclusion in a way which perpetrates those expectations to the public-at-large without justice. this makes no sense if you haven't read the book, and probably maybe even no sense to you if you have, because i am trying to dance around the spoiler-flames here, and it's too juicy to spoiler-tag, because i know you people are drawn to those like a trail of breadcrumbs.
but - god - for all its humor, this book is so freaking sad. it's about all the Big Things, like how we never really know anybody, or appreciate the ones we should, about the disconnect that occurs between adolescence and adulthood, about the wide-eyed optimism of youth that slowly gets stripped away. about betrayal and the inability to confess, to communicate, to speak. this is probably where the connection to infinite jest is the strongest; the wounded shutting-down.
and then all the ways we try to cope with life: drugs, romance, grasping at straws, charity, music, science, cutting, anorexia, pregnancy - anything to try to feel or to escape. (also very IJ-y)
it would be a bleak little book if not for the sheer lyrical momentum of it. paul murray's got a great sense of pacing, both in the unspooling of the story, and in the tonal pacing. it is never allowed to get too bleak or too frivolous - he manages the mood very well.
it's true that the female characters in this book kind of get the short end of the stick. (this is not meant to be a "penis envy" joke) they are less characters as stand-ins for ideals, mostly just there to embody the robert graves-idea of the white goddess and the black goddess;their role is just to affect the male characters, but this doesn't really hinder the story, unless you are someone for whom "the way females are represented" takes precedence over, you know, the story itself.
this is a great book, and one that is hard to review. it perfectly describes the conflicting teenage desires to grow up, while still clinging to brittle vestiges of innocence, and then flipsides it with the adult characters and their painfully-familiar nostalgia over their own lost youth, all in a bigger story about the search for truth in history and in present-day life.
there are so many elements i didn't even get to touch on: celtic mythology, the dark shadow of carl, donuts, scary drug dealers, pop music tarts... i encourage you to read it and tell me what else i forgot to even mention.
april is national poetry month, so here come thirty floats! the cynics here will call this plan a shameless grab for votes. and maybe tHAPPY POETRY MONTH!
april is national poetry month, so here come thirty floats! the cynics here will call this plan a shameless grab for votes. and maybe there’s some truth to that— i do love validation, but charitably consider it a rhyme-y celebration. i don’t intend to flood your feed— i’ll just post one a day. endure four weeks of reruns and then it will be may!
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Romeo and Juliet: Love Story or Cautionary Tale?
this is the question this book conveniently asks in the middle of the narrative, giving me the perfect jumping-off point for my review.
because this is a retelling of romeo and juliet, with meth. in verse.
thought i should get that part out of the way right off the bat. because, yes, i have bemoaned to book-in-verse format time and time and time again, because i think that usually, it doesn't really do the book any favors; it just looks like a buncha sentences broken up unnecessarily to make the story longer. and i am also not a romance-reader, although i have done my explorations in my two romance/erotica book clubs. but that is simply for the sake of broadening myself so i know what's out there. but i was kind of charmed by this author's comment on one of my threads that i decided to take the risk. you know, to see what's out there.
and even though i know for sure i am not the ideal reader for this, i'm glad i gave it a shot, because i did like it, despite still maintaining that books do not need to be written in verse.
so back to the cautionary tale. yeah, romeo and juliet. the quintessential love story of two crazy kids who fall in love after knowing each other for about an hour and die tragically because they can never be together...
i mean, shakespeare pretties it up and makes you sympathize with the lovers because he could do that - he's shakespeare. but it's a waste, right? a teenage infatuation that never had the chance to go the way of most teenage infatuations: the screaming matches in the hallways, the drunken late-night gifts left on doorsteps after driving over the lawn and totally ruining it, the revenge hook-ups, the burning of photographs... teen love is a rite of passage that (hopefully) gets all the drama out of the system in order to form more meaningful attachments later in life, and killing yourself over some teen-love is a total cop-out.
but to return to the book. this is only a sortof retelling. there are the lovers from different worlds, the parental disapproval (which, considering the Thing That Happens in this book, is totally understandable), murrrrderrrr, "montag street", and an unhappy resolution. which is all i will say about that.
but the meth element adds another dimension (why you no write about meth, shakespeare??) it brings up the theme of love-as-addiction, and whether a powerful infatuation can be as destructive as substance abuse.
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which, yeah, it pretty much can.
and her characters are sympathetic, too: julia is a talented pianist in her huge home with well-meaning but distracted parents and reed is a stoner being raised by his older brother, who cooks meth to pay the bills. worlds collide.
their connection is forged through music. reed plays guitar, writes his own songs, he is the bad boy in a leather jacket who has a secret tenderness that attracts julia. of course, there is familial disapproval on both sides, and their love is thwarted on all sides, until in true shakespearean fashion, through a series of decisions and misunderstandings and treachery, things get dark.
and it is sad and touching and realistic. and, lord, does the verse just fly. this is a very fast read. that is one good thing about the verse-format. you can feel like a reading-machine!
and so i wanted to leave you with a bunch of cautionary photos of meth and its aftermath, but the pictures i found were too horrifying even for me, and i couldn't deal with posting them on this review.
i love this book. yes, it is a story about vapid and shallow people who live selfish and hedonistic lives and treat other people like playthings, but i love this book. yes, it is a story about vapid and shallow people who live selfish and hedonistic lives and treat other people like playthings, but there is an elegance, a restraint to the prose that manages to discuss, in the same tone, both doomed love and the breakdown of the american dream. and it is masterful. some may say the great american novel.
makes me want to tear my eyes out with my hands and stomp on them forever and ever.
yeah, you thought this was going to be a book review, didn't you? and maybe goodreads will choose to make this a "hidden" review under their new policies, but i don't care, because it makes me so angry that this is happening in this way that i have to scream about it, even if no one hears me, and there isn't enough room in a status update for me to vent my rage, and this is a book community, and i feel like you should all feel and share my outrage...
WHO THOUGHT LEONARDO DICAPRIO WOULD MAKE A GOOD GATSBY?? AND WHY DOES IT LOOK LIKE HE IS IN THE GAP WHEN HE IS FLINGING ALL THOSE CLOTHES AROUND???
it is unbelievable. i haven't read this book in years, but i know that it did not take place in some art deco-themed casino in vegas.
and i assume the commentary on over-the-top consumption is just as relevant to our times as fitzgerald's, and the makes-you-squint way it is shot and the soundtrack (what is that soundtrack all about???) is a modern-day reinterpretation of jazz-age glam; a reversal of the futuristic sci-fi films of the seventies, but it is making me puke and i want to stop puking, please.
dear jackson pearce, consistency may well be the last refuge of the unimaginative, but cover-consistency?? we are booknerds. we needs it.
i am not suredear jackson pearce, consistency may well be the last refuge of the unimaginative, but cover-consistency?? we are booknerds. we needs it.
i am not sure what fairy tale this is based on. yes, obviously, the little mermaid,doofus. and that works for half of the narrative, but what about the other half? three sisters with the powers to see the past, know the truth of the present, and see the future? whose parents were a woodsman and a wealthy woman? this seems to have fairy-tale trappings, but i do not know it. and don't talk to me about the fates, because they don't create the future, etc, they can just see it. and (view spoiler)[werewolves (hide spoiler)]??? what is this mishmash??
but for all my confusion and cover-disappointment, i really liked this book. mermaids without tails; what will they think of next?
this is a story of lo, a mermaid-like creature who is forgetting her human past living among her "sisters" in the water, and celia, one-third of a triplet unit with the aforementioned powers, her allotment being that she can see people's pasts when she touches them. after the two of them meet while saving a boy from drowning, celia will finally come to appreciate her power, and use it to help lo remember. but lo's got some secrets, and a bit of an agenda. and drowning boy only complicates things.
it is a fairy tale. there will be tests. and dilemmas. and nothing is quite what it seems.
pearce does a really good job blending the fairy-tale elements into a contemporary narrative. the "under the sea" bits are spooky and sorrowful with just enough danger to keep it interesting.
she also writes the sister-relationship very well. i assume. being sisterless myself, i can only comment on how it seems to be accurate, with the closeness and compassion and the infighting and the jealousy and the protectiveness and the insoluble bonds that wrap everything up together.plus, these are triplets, so...very close bonds, there.
the ending is pretty great. that's about all i want to say on that. she does a clever little reversal, just a flash and a flip of a fin in the water, and it is unexpected and very neatly done. had the ending not been as strong as it was, this probably would have been a three, but color me impressed.
**now with all-new tragedy in the spoiler thingie!!**
hell hath no fury like a rich teenager accustomed to evading responsibility for her actions.
if yo**now with all-new tragedy in the spoiler thingie!!**
hell hath no fury like a rich teenager accustomed to evading responsibility for her actions.
if you want to read about my personal journey through pain and terror and shame and eventual, tainted, triumph, you may click on this spoiler thingie:
(view spoiler)[ wow - now i know who gets off on hearing about how bleak and sorrowful my life is. noted. so, i had been wanting to get my hands on a copy of this book for ages, ever since all the YA queens on here had been gushing over it. it really sounded like my cuppa; bad girls, secluded community, murrrderrrr. i tried a few sites that kept listing it as being in stock, and then suddenly becoming unavailable just as i gave up my credit card info. bill thompson ordered me an outlandishly expensive copy, which eventually also turned out to be "unavailable." this book was playing so hard to get, it made me want it even more, and then i was invited to participate in the book tour. awwww, the YA ladies are accepting me into their fold! i will be on my best behavior so we can nurture this relationship and they will not regret extending the hand of internet friendship to me! so i dashed off my email and street address, and waited by the mailbox. and waited and waited. and eventually, wendy darling contacted me and sweetly asked me if i had received it. and that's when we realized, together, that i was a complete idiot. in my haste or excitement or exhaustion, i had managed to mis-type both my address, and my email address. wonderful. so the package was sent to an address that had one number incorrect, according to the USPS tracking system. on the site, there was delivery confirmation to an address that was close to, but not exactly, my address. no problem - i will go to the address, and fetch my package. i wrote a lovely note and sealed it in an envelope, requesting that the person who mistakenly received my package either leave it with my super or arrange a time for me to go over and retrieve it. and then i went running out into the late-night rain to find this address. this address that does not exist. in a perfect world, it would be right across the street from me, but that is a gas station on its own island right before queens boulevard, across from which is the big six shopping plaza and this giant land of condos. i went there, anyway. i went on either side of my building. i went several streets over, because queens can be weird sometimes with its numbering. but nope - there is no such address. there were tears. and phone calls. and "oh my god they are going to hate me why did i make such a stupid mistake??" i am very sensitive when my actions inconvenience others. this is why i cannot understand people who litter, for example. i really hate letting people down. so i called greg and yelled at him, because i am a bad friend. and then he came all the way here and asked at the gas station if anyone had delivered a package there, because he is a good friend. and the gas station attendant was apparently a jerk. so, double thanks to greg who was out in the rain while i was bawling like a moose. so the very next day, i got to the post office a half-hour before it even opened, with the tracking number and everything - ready to hear that "why, yes we have your package right here!" instead, my postal guy just pointed me to the machine at the back when i finally got to the front of the early-bird line, and told me to look up the number. which i did. and got the same result as online - delivery confirmation to an address that doesn't exist. so i got back in line, because i am -again - very very polite. and i got the same guy, and i explained that yes thank you i knew it had been confirmed, but i was just curious about where it had been confirmed, since there was no such address, and i was kind of hoping it had been brought back to the post office. so he toddled away and eventually came back and told me this tale: my regular postal worker was not working on the monday when the package came, and their substitute did not know what to do with it, so they did indeed bring it back to the post office. on tuesday, my regular postal worker returned to work, recognized my name, and knew where it should go. so he brought it to my building and left it in the foyer. excellent. so my super must have it! but my super did not have it. and it was not on the little table where people leave mail that isn't theirs. and it was not on the radiator where people leave stuff they don't want. and it had not fallen behind or under the radiators or tables, because i checked. and it was not in front of my door. and a really politely-worded note posted in my foyer for days and days yielded no book:
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it was the worst. somewhere in my building, someone has that book. and i live in a really nice and friendly building where most people are either old-timers or young families. packages sit on that table all the time, without anyone snatching them. i have never had a package go missing, even when they have just been left in front of my door. why did it have to be the irreplaceable book that went missing? so then it was time to snap into action. wendy darling had been a sweetheart throughout this process, but that did not stop me feeling gutted and like the worst human being to ever ruin things for an entire internet community. i boo-hooed all over the internet, and people started to help me out. jen fisher found me a link to a copy on abe that was fairly expensive, but manageable. and connor contacted the publisher for me. my plan was to order a ton of copies from the publisher, and send them out to the next few people in line after me, to unruffle feathers and make sure no one would murder me. eventually, the publisher got back to me, and it seems the cost of shipping for even just one copy of the book would be more than 60 dollars. which kind of blew my plans. i would have willingly paid that for the book, but i am kind of resentful of the cost of shipping things these days. that is probably stupid of me, but it is a fact. and i am terribly poor right now. so i bought the copy on ABE, and it said it would be shipped in 6-16 business days, even though it was just in the middle of the usa. whatever, it's fine. 18 days later, i still have no book. connor contacted the sellers, since we did it under his name and address just to prevent another book-theft. and they were all, "hmmm. it will be there in 2-3 days" but it wasn't. and then they contacted someone and fixed something and eventually i had it. BUT AT WHAT COST??? wendy is still working out some magic on her end about getting more copies, but i am shattered still from this. my advice to you all is - if you get your hands on a copy of this book, do not let it out of your sight. there is something haunted about it, and all sorts of mayhem may visit you.
****i feel so much better now, because another copy went missing, and it had nothing to do with me! another poor person on the book tour was sent a package that somehow opened itself in the mail, and the book went one way, and the empty package went the other, and was delivered. how depressing is that - to get an empty envelope in the mail, knowing fury was inside of it? the horror!! but in good news, i sent my copy to them, and i have had confirmation that it arrived safely. let's hope the luck holds...
if you just want to read my book review, here it is. eliza boans is a staggeringly wealthy girl from a gated community with a tight-knit group of friends and a narrow worldview. and she has just committed murder. this book will give you the who, what, where, how, and most importantly, the why. lizzie's got her reasons.
fyi - this is not a character you are going to love. even when she is being loyal and noble, she throws just enough of a catty edge into her speech to remind you that she is no one you would want to hang out with. but you wouldn't have it any other way, and at least she is funny. sometimes you just want a good story about a rich snotty girl who does something deplorable and does not get redeemed at the end. it is way more realistic that a manipulative sociopath will remain a manipulative sociopath until the very end. considering she is basically raising herself, except when her mother breezes back into town with expensive gifts and stories of sexual conquests, it is pretty impressive that she has only killed one person. that we know of. the mystery is not that she killed, but why.
and as far as that mystery goes, it is not any big revelation. this reader has been around the block enough to spot a dropped hint. but as a character study, it is top-notch. eliza and her friends are fascinating. there is more at work here than just a group of modern-day furies enacting justice on their own terms. it is not simply shallow bored rich girls with an axe to grind. these are inconsistent characters with no self-awareness who operate purely on impulse. especially eliza. her inner thoughts are teRrifying and she is not only an unreliable narrator, she is also wildly self-deluded. and it is very striking to watch all of this play out.
considering what i went through to get a copy of this, the book had a lot of unreasonable expectation and anticipation to fulfill. and it mostly succeeded. this is a great new addition to the world of aussie YA. jane austen fans - rejoice - there are a lot of bonnet-tips here. and a character named jane ayres, which should make me want to barf, but somehow, in the context of all the other allusions, works just fine for me. i would have liked a bit more neil, and a bit more closure, but this is a solid book that will maybe someday be easier for y'all to get.
and now i await my orders.
baby's first twitter review @karenbrissette! which i still don't understand, because don't tweets have to be under a certain character-number? i am new to this! m'aidez!!
so i understand why barnes and noble has this filed under "teen paranormal romance," but that is really a terrible designation. frankly,it is terrible that such a category even exists, or that there are such a substantial number of books in the section. to my way of thinking, it should really only be like half a shelf, like the agriculture section in our store. (because, really, in nyc, who needs that many books about how to raise chickens?)
teen paranormal romance. gross. seriously, why are girls so into falling in love with corpses or werewolves? kids got some sick kinks these days.
but my point is - this is not a paranormal romance. it is just a twist on the little red riding hood tale. two sisters, with three eyes between 'em, battle fenris with the help of a dashing woodsman...
god, that sounds stupid.
but it's actually really enjoyable. when the sisters were young, they were attacked by a fenris - kind of like a werewolf, but not dependent upon the cycles of the moon, necessarily. one sister sacrificed herself (and one of her eyes - eee) to save her younger sister. now they are all grown up, and they battle the fenris wherever they find them, with red cloaks and hatchets and knives and feminine wiles. pretty badass.
scarlett is the older sister, horribly scarred from her years of single-mindedly and obsessively destroying fenris. rosie is the younger, novice hunter, who feels compelled to hunt because of the sacrifices her sister made for her, but who still yearns for a regular life like a regular girl.
silas is the dreamy woodsman who has known both the girls from childhood and lends his axe to the fight. and by "axe," i mean...well, axe. but also some smoldering feelings.
this could easily be stupid, but it is a really great concept. because, see, fenris are drawn to young girls. young, pretty, good-smelling girls who are too oblivious to the dangers around them. girls who maybe get a little too drunk at a club in their miniskirts and tottery heels, who let themselves get into situations that end badly for them. (mmm marinated in vodka - all the better to eat you with, my dear.) and scarlett is their protector - the patron saint of dumb drunk chicks. and it would be nice if such a patron saint existed, but they don't, so seriously, ladies - stay in control. there are all kinds of predators, and not all of them will have doggy-breath. some may even seem civilized.
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the relationship between the sisters was particularly well-done. theirs is a bond based upon a chilling formative-years experience, and a common goal that has to necessarily remain unshared with the greater world. with silas, the three of them form this tiny insular circle, binding them ever-tighter into what should be a claustrophobic situation, but throughout all of the danger and the petty squabbles and the misunderstandings, their sisterhood prevails. it is a wonderful testament to sisters.
i'm a little partial (short and stout) to fairy-tale retellings, but even without that setup, it is a pretty cool story about some kickass young ladies. and one guy. but mostly the ladies. i do recommend it to people who like the YA action books, but i honestly wouldn't stress the romantic elements. they are not what is carrying this book.
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