Book 34: Ordinary People by Judith Guest

I saw pieces of this movie in a college psychology class, so when I saw the ebook on sale at Barnes and Noble, I snapped it up. Conrad Jarrett is coping with his brother's death and his own recovery from a suicide attempt and depression. His father, Cal, is also struggling with the discovery that his perfect family and perfect marriage aren't all that they seem to be on the surface.

This is a great little book about depression and the journey toward independence and adulthood. Guest's depiction of depression is spot on, and her portrayal of the Jarrett family is nuanced and layered. I love how the family dynamic gains more and more depth as the book goes on. I want to watch the movie all the way through now! B+

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Things on my Bookish Bucket List

 Top Ten Tuesday topic is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's topic is Top Ten Things on my Bookish Bucket List! I've never thought about making a bucket list for book-related goals, but it was a lot of fun coming up with things. I hope I can cross some of these off soon!

1. Join a book club. My boyfriend and I belonged to a graphic novel book club in NOVA, and it was a really good experience. It was a lot of fun discussing the book together all month (he's not much of a reader usually), then going to the meeting and finding out what everyone else thought. We'd usually turn it into a nice little date night, getting dinner and drinks afterward. Now that I've moved, I really need to find another club that meets on a convenient night. Book People in Austin has a ton of amazing-sounding book clubs; I want to go to them all!

2. Attend a Neil Gaiman book reading. I feel like I always find out about these too late, or I'm away when he comes to my city. I need to keep an eye on my local bookstores' event schedules and see if I can catch him next time he goes on tour.

3. Organize my shelves. Back when I only had two shelves, my books were perfectly organized alphabetically by author, fiction separated from nonfiction. My library's gotten a bit unwieldy since then, but I'd love to sit down one week and get it all organized again.

4. Swap out my old $5 paperback classics for hardbound or leather editions. This one will probably have to wait until I've bought a house, so I can avoid a bit of heavy lifting during moving, but they would look so beautiful on the shelf!

5. Read Ulysses. I named my cat after this book, and I haven't even read it! I've wanted to since college, but I'm so intimidated by it. I want to get this book and a reader's guide to read along with it. This is my Mt. Everest.

6. Write a book. I'd love to do this, but writing's so hard. This is definitely a long-term goal...

7. Read 130 books this year. I love using the Goodreads Reading Challenge every year. Whenever I'd get asked about good books I'd read lately, I'd always draw a blank, and the Reading Challenge really helps me keep track of all the titles I've read recently.

CultureMap Austin

8. Write a brief review of every book I read in 2014. This is the whole point of this blog, after all.

9. Spend less money. Way too much of my salary goes to book buying. I need to check out some local libraries.

10. Buy more books from independent book stores and independent publishers. There's an amazing book store in Austin called Malvern Books that only sells books by independent presses. I love going there and looking through their selection, and because of this store I've gotten addicted to books from Pushkin Press. Something about their books is just really enjoyable on a tactile level; they're the perfect size and shape, and I love the French flaps. Books like that exemplify why I hope printed books never truly die.

Book 33: The Holy Terrors (Les Enfants Terribles) by Jean Cocteau

I think the draw of this book was probably in the language of the original; Jean Cocteau was just so quintessentially French, and this book is so subtle and atmospheric that it couldn't help but lose something in the translation. I'd love to brush up on my French sometime and read the original. Anyway, this book is about the obsessive relationship between a brother and sister and two outsiders who are drawn into their inner circle, mostly as observers. It didn't really resonate with me personally, but it certainly has literary merit. It probably outs me as a philistine, but B.

Book 32: Reality Boy by A. S. King

This was an engrossing read. Main character Gerald was featured in a reality nanny show (think Supernanny) when he was five, where he became famous for his outbursts. Now in high school, he still can't escape people recognizing him and judging him for his behavior on the show.

Of course, there's a great gaping gulf between reality and reality television, and King explores the truth of Gerald's home life, how the famous scenes from the show played out during filming, and how the editing has negatively impacted Gerald's life. It's something I've wondered about reality stars, especially children who've become famous on reality TV. Alana Thompson, for example, is never going to escape being Honey Boo Boo, and how many of us would really like to be permanently locked in to a persona we wore when we were six?

Gerald has an awful home life and few friends. His oldest sister is abusive, and neither of his parents stand up to her, and his mother actively enables her. Of course, Gerald meets a girl, but Hannah is a fully-fledged character with problems of her own, and she avoids falling into any sort of savior role (in my opinion). Every minor character, in fact, was well realized and integral to Gerald's emotional journey.

This book was a bit darker and more emotional than I'd expected, but I really enjoyed it. Highly recommended. A.

Book 31: Her Husband's Hands and Other Stories by Adam-Troy Castro

This is a short-story sci-fi collection that covers a range of subjects. Going in I was a little hesitant. The foreword was a little too smug and name-droppy for my taste, and the first story, about a world in which fetuses run the world and life begins at conception and ends at birth, made me a bit apprehensive that the whole book might substitute interesting ideas for controversy-stirring political fables. Happily, this was not the case.

I liked some of the stories over others. "Her Husband's Hands," about a woman whose soldier husband returns home as a pair of hands attached to a back-up memory, had a great deal of emotional resonance, and Castro did a wonderful job of portraying the woman's struggle to adjust to her husband's new life.

"Of a Sweet Slow Dance in the Wake of Temporary Dogs" is quite possible the best story in the collection, about a paradise in which all residents truly love and value life—but at a great cost. 

"Cherub," however, is my personal favorite of the lot. In this story, everyone is born with a demon clinging to them, revealing their bad traits for all to see. Rapists, murders, the lazy, all are marked from birth. And then a child is born with not a demon clinging to him, but a cherub. Although a short story, the world-building was well done and convincing, and I was genuinely surprised by every turn the story took. I was still thinking about the ending for days afterward. B

Book 30: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Sixteen-year-old Mara Dyer awakes in a hospital with no memory of surviving the terrible accident that killed her best friend, boyfriend, and weaselly frenemy. The trauma causes her family to move to Florida, but now Mara is hallucinating her dead friends, and additional inexplicable deaths are piling up around her. Also, there's a cute guy.

This book made me feel old. Poor Noah, I can see how teenage me could have found him totally swoonworthy, but mid-twenties me is just not having it. It is neither believable nor attractive when a seventeen-year-old boy orders for his date in perfect Spanish without even allowing her to look at the menu. On their first date! He doesn't know what she likes! What if she had allergies? What's with the single-minded pursuit of her, anyway? Where are his other friends, his hobbies, evidence of a life or inner monologue in existence before the new girl became his raison d'etre? I suppose this is my psyche's indication that I am moving away from teenagerhood and creeping closer to potential mother-of-teenagerhood (perish the thought!), so maybe that made me extra grumpy, but still! No teenager is this suave. No human on earth could be this suave. The romance comprises a major portion of this story, and I just couldn't believe it because this guy is more unreal than Mara's hallucinations.

I was also a little weirded out that all the warnings of playerism from platonic token-of-all-trades friend Jamie were summarily ignored and then banished from the book without further regard, along with poor Jamie himself, whose only purpose seemed to be the thankless chore of tutoring our heroine in Spanish and algebra.

It was a quick read, and I liked Mara's relationship with her family. Her struggles to deal with her recovering memories and the aftermath as well as her best friend's death were engaging.

I don't know if I can stick with this through the whole series, but I do feel compelled to read at least the sequel at some point. Damn you cliffhanger ending! B-/C.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books on My Spring 2014 TBR List

 Top Ten Tuesday topic is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's topic is Top Ten Books on My Spring 2014 TBR List! I've got so many books on my TBR list, it's hard to narrow it down to just ten!

1. The Violent Century by Lavie Tidhar: I've got the paperback for this preordered and heading my way in April! I saw a few reviews comparing it to Alan Moore's Watchmen, and I was immediately intrigued. Hoping this will be one I can talk the boyfriend into reading as well.

2. Authority by Jeff VanderMeer: The second of VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, the first book of which I just reviewed. This book comes out in May!

3. Enders by Lissa Price: I read Starters way back in 2012 (I have to admit that I picked it up based solely on its cover, which is way cooler in person, all textured and sparkly), and the sequel got a bit delayed and just fell off my radar, but it looks like it's out now! I'll have to reread the first book before starting Enders.

4. Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight: I just had to have this book last fall, and then it sat on my TBR shelf forever. Gotta remedy that!

5. Fiend by Peter Stenson: I overheard a coworker talking about this book last week, and I had to look it up. A zombie novel from the point-of-view of a meth addict? Dying to read it.

6. Sleep Donation by Karen Russell: I haven't read Swamplandia, but this book has been getting lots of good buzz, about an insomnia epidemic. This comes out March 25.

7. Wild Fell by Michael Rowe: This ghost story sounded like it would be right up my alley, so I look forward to finding a dark and stormy night to snuggle up under a blanket with this one. Too bad real stormy nights are such a rarity in Austin!

8. The Archived by Victoria Schwab: This book has been on my TBR list for so long that I forgot about it and tried to add it again! Gotta read this one.

9. The Who FAQ by Mike Segretto: A book on my favorite band by the man behind the excellent PsychoBabble, a blog about retro rock and classic horror. I'm looking forward to reading this when it comes out in May!

10. Drinking with Men: A Memoir by Rosie Schaap: Another one that I just had to buy and then let sit on my shelf for a shamefully long time. I'm still pretty new to Austin, and this book feels like it could be an accessory to my nostalgia about nights out at bars with old friends in previous cities. Maybe I'll be inspired to seek out a new hangout.

Book 29: Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (Southern Reach Trilogy no.1)

Four women—a biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a surveyor—are sent on an expedition into the mysterious Area X. Previous expeditions either come back changed or don't come back at all, and the border between Area X and the rest of the world is expanding. The book follows the biologist, a loner determined to find out what her husband experienced in the eleventh expedition, and determined to find out everything she can about the laws of nature-defying Area X.

This book was creepy creepy creepy. I loved it. I was impatient to finish each page; like the biologist, I just wanted to understand as much about Area X as I could before I ran out of time, or rather pages. The book was very Lovecraftian in its creeping sense of dread and the gradual revelations about the horrors of the lighthouse and the wall-scrawling creature that lurked in the Tower. The biologist was the perfect narrator for us to follow into this world—intelligent, focused, driven—and the parallels in the discoveries she made about Area X and her relationship with her husband were emotionally resonant in a character that could easily have been dismissed as cold and emotionless.

I was so excited to read that the rest of the trilogy would be published in 2014 as well! A.

Book 28: The Secret History by Donna Tartt

This book was amazing. It's a perfect example of a book that can speak to you despite the fact that neither the characters nor their situations are relatable. Richard Papen escapes his drab suburban Californian hometown for a prestigious college in Vermont and immediately becomes enamored with an elite group of students in the exclusive Greek program, led by a charismatic professor. But as Richard grows closer to the group, he becomes more entangled in their web of secrets.

The group of Greek students represents everything Richard has dreamed of from his dreary home life in California—wealth, sophistication, intellectualism—and I think one of the main appeals of this book is watching Richard's dream gradually warp into a nightmare. Even if I've never been complicit in the murder of a friend, I'm all too familiar with the sensation of experiencing an ideal crumble.

The writing is tense and compelling, and Tartt's send-up of the pretensions of her her college cast is absolutely on point. A+

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Ghost Stories

 Top Ten Tuesday topic is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's topic is Top Ten All-Time Favorite Books in X Genre, so I picked my top ten ghost story books! Not all of these are scary, so even if you're not into horror you might find something you'd like. :)


1. A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle: This is one of my favorite books of all time. It's sort of like a grown-up version of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. Both the prose and the story are heartrendingly beautiful.

2. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R. A. Dick: This is the sweetest little story that left me feeling warm and happy. The relationship between Captain Gregg and the widowed Mrs. Muir is adorable. I haven't seen the 1947 film adaptation yet, but it's on my list!


3. Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill: By Stephen King's son, Heart-Shaped Box is one of the scariest books I've ever read, but the journey of aging rock star Judas Coyne, who bought a vengeful ghost on the internet, is compelling.


4. A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb: Another favorite of mine in any genre. The love story between the two ghosts is one of the best I've ever read, and the writing is gorgeous.


5. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell: A childhood classic! These stories and illustrations were burned into my subconscious from many a late-night sleepover reading.

6. The Ghost and Goth by Stacey Kade: More funny than spooky, this YA book has humor and heart. Popular cheerleader-turned-ghost Alona and goth loner Will have a great dynamic together.

7. From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury: The inspiration for The Addams Family, this book is best read under covers on a chilly October night.

8. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman: I alluded to this one earlier, but it really is a sweet book . . . about a boy living in a graveyard, befriended by ghosts. Neil Gaiman  has a wonderful handle on the parallel sensations of magic and fear that are so integral to childhood.

9. The Shining by Stephen King: You can't mention ghosts without thinking of the infamous Overlook Hotel!

10. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill: The book is much spookier than the Daniel Radcliffe film. Haunted houses isolated by haunted swamps, secret rooms, and tragic histories are the perfect backdrop for a good spine-tingling ghost story.

Book 27: John Dreamer by Elise Celine

Seven teens wake up in a white room, completely blank but for seven individually designed chairs, and are told by a mysterious, godlike figure that they're there to help make their dreams come true.

The premise is actually more interesting and less creepy than I made it sound. The group embark on a series of dreamlike scenarios that are intended to help each member overcome one of their fears and develop the strength to achieve their dreams. The only catch is that the teens never know what's real and what's a scenario, or who the scenario is meant to help, and failure to rise to the occasion is always a possibility.

It's a cool idea, and I applaud the message of developing confidence and inner strength. Unfortunately, there were a few problems with this book that kept me from completely enjoying it. The characters were fairly flat, and it was difficult to care about or fully appreciate the transformation that they supposedly had to undergo before leaving the white room.

The main two characters, Andy and John, were especially lacking. Andy, the narrator, was an almost completely blank slate. We find out a bit more about her toward the end of the book, but she's not nearly flawed enough to be interesting or developed enough to be believable. Love interest John is the same way: handsome and kind . . . and nothing else. Andy literally falls for him in eight and a half seconds. (She counts!) I felt like the story would almost be more enjoyable if the author had cut Andy and John out entirely and focused more on the spoiled rich girl, surly rocker, timid wallflower, alien-obsessed nerd, or insecure fat kid. Andy and John were just so static; their characters had nowhere to develop.

In fact, the strongest chapter might have been the one in which the POV switched over to sullen bully Roy. I was actually invested in his character arc, rooting for him to change, and I felt like there was a real risk that he wouldn't be able to.

The book also could've benefited from another round of editing; there were a few awkward turns of phrases ("would have been losing my time" when "would have been wasting my time" sounds more natural) and not-quite-organic dialogue from the teens. I did get this from NetGalley, so maybe the finished version is more polished.

The images and cover were lovely; I found myself looking forward to each chapter break just for the illustrations.

All in all, good idea and good message, but I think another few workshopping sessions and editorial reviews could have transformed this book from mediocre to amazing. C.


Review based on an uncorrected ARC received from NetGalley.

Book 26: The Here and Now by Ann Brashares

I'm often drawn to time-travel books, but I'm usually disappointed by the execution. It's just too hard to keep a compelling story featuring time travel moving along without leaving gargantuan plot holes in its wake (The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes is a notable exception). The Here and Now, by Ann Brashares of Traveling Pants fame, does a decent job bringing to life a stellar idea, but I felt the book left me a little unfulfilled.

Prenna belongs to a secretive community of refugees who fled the tail-end of the twenty-first century to settle in our present day (the book takes place in 2014, though the group immigrated a little earlier). Although the group ostensibly colonized the past to try to change the horrible future facing Earth (carbon emissions increased, leading to global warming; a horrible blood disease turned epidemic and is spread by mosquito bites; and all progress is nonexistent), their leaders are now more focused on staying hidden and preserving the time line as is. One of the major rules is avoiding intimacy with "time natives," but this rule is beginning to pose a problem for Prenna, who finds herself developing feelings for her classmate Ethan. Ethan, unbeknownst to Prenna, saw her as she first appeared in the present day exiting the time stream and has been intrigued by physics and time travel (and Prenna) ever since.

I had a tough time deciding what age group this book was directed toward. The plot was light on the detail and angst I've come to associate with YA, but the mention of sex, though totally PG and appropriate in context, seemed a little out-of-place for middle grade (but maybe I'm just behind the times here). I always enjoy the teenagers-versus-the-establishment plot variety, and I appreciated that Ethan and Prenna were fighting something more important than just their relationship. Both seemed to place greater priority on the lives jeopardized by the actions of the time travel leaders. However, their little vacation detours, although sweet, did kind of detract from the tension of the story. I suppose they were necessary to build the relationship between Ethan and Prenna into something past insta-love. Both characters were likable, although Prenna seemed a little more hesitant, and I liked Ethan's directness and sense of humor. The Traveler One storyline was excellent, although my mind ran in circles trying to keep the alternate timelines straight. And the ending was tragic.

So, great idea, decent-but-not-stellar execution, and lots to think about. It felt a lot shorter than it actually was, which is usually a good sign, but I found myself craving more detail and substance. I think this would be a fun book to read in a book club just because there's a lot to dissect; I'd love to hear other people's thoughts. B.

Review based on an uncorrected ARC received from NetGalley.

Book 25: The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane

Goodness, this book is anxiety-inducing. It really is perfectly crafted, every word perfectly calculated to draw the reader further in; I'm surprised that this is McFarlane's first book.

Ruth is an elderly widow living alone in a house on the beach. She has two adult sons who call occasionally and visit infrequently. Ruth is proud of her independence, and so she is unsure of how she feels when Frida shows up at her door, claiming to be her government-assigned carer. Ruth's meditations on aging, her childhood in Fiji, and her first love are absolutely beautiful, and it's impossible to look away from Ruth's paranoia and gradual unraveling as Frida insinuates herself further and further into her life. A.

Book 24: Cress by Marissa Meyer (Lunar Chronicles #3)

I really enjoyed the third entry in this series; I thought it was the best one yet. It was still easy to spot the twists from miles away, but that's not such a terrible problem to have. (If you can't surprise your readers, at least let them feel smart, right?) I love how Meyer has now introduced three (and a brief appearance by a fourth, it seems) major female characters, all of whom have distinctly different interests and personalities, and all of whom manage to be strong characters without falling into the "strong female character" caricature (see these comics by Hark a Vagrant's Kate Beaton for some hilarious examples). Because it's YA, all the characters have love interests, and as I said in an earlier review, I don't really buy the foundations of these relationships, but all of the characters can stand alone, and I appreciate that they all (except maybe Wolf) seem to recognize that they have more important things to do than moon over their love life. Excited to read Winter when it comes out! A

Book 23: Scarlet by Marissa Meyer (Lunar Chronicles #2)

I was happy to see that this book continued to follow Cinder and Kai even after introducing Scarlet. I don't quite buy the building of the romances in the series (why did Scarlet think Wolf was going along with her to confront the dangerous gang he'd supposedly fled just a few weeks ago?), but they are sweet. I thought this book was slightly weaker than the first, but I like where the series is going. B-