Re-Read Review: Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen

Keeping the Moon is the perfect beach book.  I should know; I just re-read it in its entirety while on the beach.  Something about sitting in the sand with the sun beating down on me and listening to the waves really made me connect with Colby, the beach town that first appears in Keeping the Moon but makes appearances in much of Dessen's later fiction including her newest novel, The Moon and More, that is due out in June.  Colie is unwillingly deposited in Colby to live with her eccentric aunt in her beach front home populated with run-down furniture while her mother, the newly minted Kiki Sparks, is taking the weight-loss gospel transcontinental.  Colie's experience in Colby is defined by the people she meets, Isabel, Morgan, and Norman, all employees at the beach shack Last Chance Grill.  Through her interactions with these three, Colie tentatively begins to navigate the sometimes treacherous pathways of friendship and ultimately accept the person she has grown to become.  Isabel and Morgan are easily tied with Scarlett and Halley from Someone Like You in the race for best Dessen friendship.  Their easy give and take relationship of honesty and support is peppered with the rituals and inside jokes that are the envy of Colie and readers alike.  And then there is Norman.  Norman Norman (not to be confused with Cat Norman) is arty.  Norman is also incredibly sweet and quite possibly one of my favorite Dessen male leads.  There is something so unassuming but incredibly soulful about him.  Unlike Dreamland, Keeping the Moon is a fun, breezy read that will make you want to don your favorite sunglasses and hit the beach ASAP.  Be sure to stop in at your local beach dive, and leave a good tip!

Other Dessen Re-Read Reviews can be found below:

Just Listen
The Truth About Forever
This Lullaby
Someone Like You
Dreamland

Re-Read Review: Dreamland by Sarah Dessen

I grew up on Sarah Dessen.  I discovered my favorite of her novels, Someone Like You, early in her career and proceeded to follow her closely for the rest of my teen years and into my early twenties.  I never thought of her novels as "issue books" as so many contemporary readers seem to label them.  I just thought of them as realistic portrayals of teens embroiled in family and romantic turmoil...with one exception - Dreamland.  Dreamland is so different from Dessen's other novels.  It is her fourth published novel and is the only one that deals most directly, in my opinion, with abuse in all its forms.  For someone with no sisters, Dessen describes the relationships between sisters in all their complexity very well.*  This is the first thing that struck me as I was re-reading Dreamland.  Caitlin admires her older sister Cass but also has complex feelings of jealousy and guilt regarding her sister's success.  As the oldest, Cass shoulders immense familial responsibility, and when she shirks that, Caitlin is left to fill Cass' very large shoes.  The pressure threatens to drown her.  Desperate for a reprieve, Caitlin turns to Rogerson Biscoe.  She is immediately immersed in a world of substance abuse that shrouds her real life in a dreamland fog.  Caitlin continues to float along in this dreamland, waiting for her sister to return, until Rogerson's protectiveness turns violent.  Suddenly Caitlin is jerked from her dreamland into a very real world of verbal and physical abuse in which she must constantly be on her guard.  Caitlin's fear of Rogerson and the way her world narrows to just his black eyes and his fist is palpable.  Caitlin more than any other Dessen character evokes a visceral reaction in me, and I cried for her when her mother discovered her bruises.  I cried for her when, against all reason, she still misses Rogerson.  I cried for her as she began to piece together the broken girl she had become, and I cried hardest of all when the last piece of her puzzle, her sister Cass, finally returns to her.  Dreamland is the issue book every new Dessen reader fears, but it is an extremely powerful exploration of abuse and the support system that can help the victim reach the other side.

*So I just googled Dessen, and she does have a brother.

Other Dessen Re-Read Reviews can be found below:

Just Listen
The Truth About Forever
This Lullaby
Someone Like You

Review: The Night Cicus by Erin Morgenstern

Image from Musings of a Book Lover

Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus cannot be reviewed; it must be experienced.

Morgenstern has created a story as intricate and amazing as the circus she so artfully describes. Each vinigette is its own black and white striped tent - the contents of which will astound and mystify the reader.

The Night Circus captivated my imagination and promises to be a novel I will return to again and again - each time unveiling a new and fascinating portrait of the mysteries that lie at the heart of each shade of grey.

I wrote the lines above long before I finished The Night Circus. They are as true then, having finished the novel, as they were when I was only just beginning it. As one of the characters states,

Someone needs to tell those tales.  When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative.  There's magic in that.  It's in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict.  From the mundane to the profound.  You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose.  That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words.

It's a novel about a circus, yes, but the circus itself is merely the stage for an epic exploration of the art of storytelling.  The non-linear plot requires readers to immerse themselves in that element of the story much like the circus patrons entering into a different tent each night and becoming enchanted by its contents.  In fact, Morgenstern's writing style reminds me very much of Nicole Krauss' in The History of Love, one of my favorite books of all time.  There's a central slow-burn romance, which is full of so. much. longing that when Morgenstern finally brings the characters together in two simple sentences, I cried.  Even though the lovers themselves are central to the story, the novel follows many characters, weaving them together artfully, exploring love, friendship, passion, and obsession in a variety of mediums.

Best matched with rêveurs.

Read for the Reading Outside the Box Challenge hosted by Kate at Musings of a Book Lover
Level Four: 5 Star Day (and it earned every one of them)

Review: Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan - Recently I posted a breakdown of all the David Levithan books I loved, all the ones I hated/did not finish, and all the ones I was on the fence about. Will Grayson, Will Grayson was one I was anticipating, and despite the fact that every review I read was a glowing, 5-star gush and a recent Top Ten Favorite Characters list hosted by The Broke and The Bookish featured Tiny Cooper on Almost. Every. List. I was not impressed. Apparently, the chances that two of my favorite authors will let me down are high - so high, in fact, that Will Grayson, Will Grayson made my recent Top Ten Tuesday listing books that I liked more or less than I anticipated.  As I wrote in that post, I began Will Grayson, Will Grayson with high hopes only to be let down by the same overly prophetic message about love and homosexuality that has turned me off in some of Levithan's other novels.  I get it; people should be allowed to love who they want, but like I tell my students all the time, show me; don't tell me (or in Levithan's case, beat me over the head with it).  I love a good musical, but as I read Will Grayson, Will Grayson, I felt as if I had been unwillingly thrown center stage into an all-out Glee marathon.  The novel and the character of Tiny Cooper were just a little too much for me.  While I may not be singing praises for Green and Levithan's duet, I can hardly refrain from admiring their writing styles.  Green and Levithan know how to pen an intelligent, biting sentence that channels a full gamut of emotions from sensual to farcical.  Two of my favorites are excerpted below:   

"She kisses like a sweet devouring" (134).

"Just so you know: e. e. cummings cheated on both of his wives. With prostitutes" (139). 

(Especially distressing for me to hear because I love e. e. cummings - but I have to admit, it's quite an effective relationship deterrent!)

Best matched with fans of Glee and Green's and Levithan's distinctive writing styles.

Re-Read Review: Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen

This post is the third in my Sarah Dessen re-read weekend celebration.

One - The Truth About Forever 

Two - This Lullaby 

Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen - Someone Like You is my favorite Dessen novel, and my copy is rather tattered from all the times I've re-read it.  The depth of Halley and Scarlett's friendship reminds me so much of my own friendship with my best friend even though our life choices do not map onto those of Dessen's duo.  In Halley and Scarlett, I see the key to Dessen's novels - the ability of her characters and their experiences to transcend the pages of the book and take up residence in the space around the reader.  Unlike much current fiction that strives so hard at world-building to help the reader escape from this one, Dessen's characters populate a world I recognize and sympathize with.  I cried with Scarlett when Michael died and wondered if he would have stayed when she found out she was pregnant.  I yearned for Macon to tell Halley he loved her as my more practical side screamed, "Run for your life; that boy is trouble!"  I cringed while Halley navigated tense conversations with her mother and celebrated the birth of Grace and the subsequent stake Halley makes on herself and her identity.  What I've discovered recently about re-reading is not only the comfort of a familiar storyline but the way my perspective on the story and the characters changes as I bring my new life experiences to the reading.  For example, the recent birth of my niece colored my perception of Scarlett's pregnancy, and the last lines of the novel really resonated with me as an encapsulation of all the things I want to teach Avarey (whose middle name is, ironically, Grace). Dessen writes from Halley's perspective,

“I hoped that Grace would be a little bit of the best of all of us: Scarlett's spirit, and my mother's strength, Marion's determination, and Michael's sly humor. I wasn't sure what I could give, not just yet. But I would know when I told her about the comet, years from now, I would know. And I would lean close to her ear, saying the words no one else could hear, explaining it all. The language of solace and comets, and the girls we all become, in the end.”

 At the risk of sounding borderline "Girl Power!" what I love about this quote is its acknowledgement of the evolution of character - one that I think Halley, and to a lesser extent Scarlett and Marion, exhibit in Someone Like You.  At the very least, Someone Like You is a reminder that ultimately we must lay claim to our own lives and live them confidently.

Best matched with best friends.

Re-Read Review: This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen

This post is the second in my Sarah Dessen re-read weekend celebration.

This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen - This Lullaby was the selected re-read for the I Eat Words Sarah Dessen Re-Read challenge in the month of March. This Lullaby has always been a favorite of mine - as of many readers.  It was the first Sarah Dessen reading I attended, and I can still hear Dessen's tone and inflection as she read aloud the plastic ware scene.  Remy is such an interesting and relatable character. I, too, like to keep the vacuum lines visible in my carpet. I like, however, how Dessen gives her a past. Remy is a bad girl gone straight-laced, but meeting Dexter will force her to confront life in all of its messy but wonderful complexity. This Lullaby, like my favorite Dessen novel, Someone Like You, has an excellent, well-drawn cast of close friends that illustrate the realistic intricacies of best girlfriends, who even if they don't agree with all your choices, and have no problem telling you, are always there for you no matter what. Reading This Lullaby after The Truth About Forever demonstrates Dessen's penchant for soft-hearted guys. Dexter, like Wes, has a streak of romance in him, but the two characters could not be more opposite. While Wes is very serious and responsible, Dexter is messy, clumsy, and just plain crazy, but what I love about Dexter is his ability to believe in love above all else. Dexter can come off as a little goofy in the beginning of the novel, always willing to make a joke but never take anything seriously, but when Remy breaks it off, we get a glimpse of the sensitive core at the heart of Dexter that takes things very personally - making him a much more believable and lovable character in my eyes.  However, one of the standout characters for me is Remy's mother, Barbara Starr (that name!!).  Like Dexter, Barbara believes in love above all else, as evidenced by her multiple marriages and her career as a romance novelist.  I love that Dessen gives us a sneak peek into a writer's creative process, and Starr's penchant for scribbling notes on anything and leaving them everywhere reminds me of my own obsessive to do list, which includes future blog post ideas!  This Lullaby is an excellent introduction to Dessen for readers who don't know where to begin to tackle her triumphant eleven book oeuvre.

Best matched with fans of boys, bands, and potatoes.

Re-Read Review: The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

March made it official - 2013 will be, for me, the year of the re-read. Recently, Lori at The Broke and the Bookish wrote a lovely post about the sheer pleasure of re-reading, which as book bloggers trying to keep up with new releases, we don't always indulge in. This year, however, disappointed by the overwhelming number of formulaic dystopias and not in the mood for contemporary "issue" lit, which I normally love, I have been re-visiting old favorites. I have Farrah, Britney, and Hilary over at I Eat Words as well as Kate at Musings of a Book Lover to thank for reminding me of the luxury of re-reading. I Eat Words is hosting a Sarah Desen re-read challenge, which consumed my reading last month. One of Kate's challenges as part of her year-long Reading Outside the Box challenge is to re-read an old favorite, which is why I am currently re-reading Nicole Krauss' convoluted and very literary The Great House and loving it.  To celebrate, I'll be posting mini-reviews of the Sarah Dessen books I re-read last month all weekend long.

First up:

The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen - The characters in Just Listen, my first re-read as part of the Sarah Dessen challenge, remind me so much of the characters in The Truth About Forever that I immediately wanted to pick it up after finishing Just Listen. I found I remembered the main characters' names, Macey and Wes, and I remembered that Wes was a sculptor, but after that I was out. I couldn't wait to dive in and get reacquainted. It was a fun ride. Macey, a straight laced perfectionist after her father died, joins Wish catering company and is introduced to the chaos that makes life worth living. She also meets Wes, a swoon worthy bad boy with a tender streak a mile wide, and they begin an extended game of Truth, which causes Macey to open up to someone in a way she hasn't since she watched her dad die. I absolutely love the progression of their relationship; their first interaction defines "meet-cute," and they continue to fall for each other at a natural, realistic pace. However, the standout character in The Truth About Forever, for me, is Macey's new best friend and catering partner, Kristy. Kristy is unlike any character Dessen has ever written in terms of style and heart. She is funny, memorable, and very insightful, coining my favorite novel catchphrase, "SW-OON." But this wouldn't be a Dessen novel if there wasn't some family drama. Dessen artfully draws Macey's mother at a time when the stress of her husband's death has consumed her, but she's too tightly wound to just let go. This tension has bled over into her relationship with Macey and threatens to strangle it. The only thing that keeps The Truth About Forever from being the perfect novel for me is the conclusion. There is an integral plot point resolved but in a "blink and you'll miss it" kind of way. Given its implications, it should have been fleshed out more fully.

Best matched with mothers and daughters or any good girl that wished to land the neighborhood hottie.

February Reading Recap

Image from Musings of a Book Lover

Yes, I know it's already mid-March, but I read (and re-read) several great books in February that I couldn't stop talking about.  I just didn't have time to write about them!  Here are four of my top February reads.

Annie's Ghost: A Journey into a Family Secret by Steve Luxenberg

For Steve Luxenberg's entire life, he believed his mother was an only child.  This belief was not born of assumption.  His mother proclaimed often to friends and family alike that she grew up the sole daughter of immigrant parents in Detroit during the mid-twentieth century.  It came as quite a shock, then, to Luxenberg and his brothers and sisters when upon their mother's death, they discover she had a sister.  Early investigation indicated that perhaps their aunt died at a very young age before his mother really interacted with or grew attached to her as a person.  Although it seemed odd not to mention her, at least this explained why she may have denied the existence of a sibling.  Luxenberg was not satisfied, however, and spent many long hours tracking down medical records, distant relatives, and family friends to uncover the true story of Annie, the sister his mother swore she never had.  Annie's Ghost chronicles this journey into the past, and what Luxenberg discovers about his physically disabled aunt who was institutionalized in her late teens/early twenties for a mental disorder and died there in her mid-fifties will shock you.  It is a riveting account of what happens when you begin rattling the skeletons in the family closet.

One of my really good friends, whose book recommendations I value, lent me her copy of Annie's Ghost to read last summer - that's right several months ago.  I was intrigued by the story line, but I was not feeling the heavy duty history lesson that would come with it.  I finally picked it up at the beginning of this year, and it blew me away.  The first night that I started reading it I was flying through the pages, and I was on about page 60 when my husband interrupted me and asked, "Is that a really good book?"  My husband does not normally question me about my reading habits, so I was puzzled, but I responded, "Yes, it's fascinating."  To which he replied, "I figured because you had this really intense look on your face while you were reading."  Apparently this is a book whose affect can be physically witnessed.  Luxenberg's writing style is very accessible, and the book itself is thoroughly researched.  He is very careful to keep it from only being a portrait of family secrets and broadens the scope of his story to touch on issues such as the changing field of mental health, immigration, and racial and religious tensions pre-, during, and post- WWII.  All in all this is an interesting and engrossing read.  Best matched with fans of historical memoirs.

Read for the Reading Outside the Box Challenge hosted by Kate at Musings of a Book Lover
#2 Another Voice

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman (illustrator)

Min is an off-beat teenage girl, labeled "artistic" by her peers.  She loves old movies and has a tight-knit circle of similarly off-beat friends when she meets Ed, All-American basketball star, and they begin to date.  Ed has established himself as the quintessential jock, right down to all the notches in his belt.  He is so far from Min's type that it is laughable - which is currently what most of the student body does when they see them together.  However, Min is deliriously happy.  Underneath the jock exterior, Ed is actually a really sweet guy who goes along with Min's wild schemes to cook up a dinner party for a famous actress she thinks lives in a nearby neighborhood.  He professes that Min is unlike any girl he's ever known, and she believes him until the pressure of dating an outsider begins to wear on both of them.  As the title of the novel indicates, Min and Ed have broken up, and Min is on a mission to prove to Ed just why that is.  The novel is really an epistle from Min to Ed and is interspersed with drawings of the sentimental objects she collected during their courtship that she is now returning to him as evidence of why they broke up.

I liked Min.  I found her a fun, quirky character.  I sympathized with her heartbreak, but most importantly, I enjoyed watching her grow over the course of the novel to realize that, as cliche as it sounds, you can be anyone that you want to be, and anyone who tries to box you in, even if that box looks special and unique, is not worth it.  Best matched with readers looking for an off-beat high school perspective.

Read for the Reading Outside the Box Challenge hosted by Kate at Musings of a Book Lover
#10 Look at the pretty pictures!

Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

February marked the inauguration of the Sarah Dessen Re-Read Challenge hosted by I Eat Words.  The first book on deck was Just Listen, one of Dessen's later novels.  I didn't remember much about this novel outside the love interest, Owen Armstrong, was a music junkie and a bit of a tough guy.  I was thoroughly surprised then that the central issue of Just Listen is familial rather than romantic.  This book is deep and had me gasping and even crying as Dessen chronicled the faltering relationship between three sisters, Kirsten, Whitney, and Annabel.  Suffice it to say, I could really relate to these girls.

All three girls have been models at some point, and part of the book deals with the struggle to follow your dreams when you don't want to disappoint your parents.  Kirsten and Annabel no longer desire to be a part of the modeling scene, and Kirsten, ever the vocal one, has no problem saying so and striking out on her own in search of a film career at a school in New York.  Annabel continues to pursue modeling gigs, mostly for her mother's sake, but also for the sake of her sister Whitney, the only one who really wants to be a model but no longer can because of a crippling eating disorder.  Living with the memory of finding her sister's emaciated body collapsed on the bathroom floor, Annabel can't turn from the one activity that seems to bind her family together even though she can't stand the thought of being viewed for only her body like she was over the summer by a boy she thought was a friend.

Whew!  Written in Dessen's deceptively simple style, there is a lot of high school angst in this book, but throughout it all, Owen remains a constant source of strength for Annabel.  Best matched with fans of contemporary YA.

Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys

Lina is a teenage girl in Lithuania on the cusp of World War II.  For reasons that never become clear, her family is taken in the middle of the night and forced into years of work camps, first in Siberia and then inside the Arctic Circle.  In Ruta Sepetys' blunt, hard-hitting style, Lina struggles to come of age in a country at war and reconcile the often inconceivable instances of callous violence and abuse she witnesses with the incomparable germ of hope that characterizes humanity.

"They took me in my nightgown."

From the first line of the first page of Sepetys' novel, Between Shades of Gray, readers are tossed into the fear and turmoil of life in the 1940s - especially life in a country ruled by Josef Stalin.  And from this first moment, unfathomable images of terror and violence continue in a deluge.  Just as there is no reprieve for Lina and her family, there is no reprieve for the reader.  I was constantly shocked by the NKVD officers' treatment of the Lithuanian people.  However, Sepetys' prose never overwhelmed me.  The book is comprised of mostly simple sentences, yet they convey unimaginable depth.

Best matched with: in my opinion, Sepetys' novel is an important book that everyone needs to read.  It chronicles a period of history that everyone knows about but from a perspective that to this day has been boxed in and buried. 

Review: Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Allyson Healey is your quintessential "good girl." As the only child of a doctor and a stay-at-home mom, she has always been subjected to the pressure to excel at everything she does academically and socially. When she graduates high school, her parents send her on a Teen Tours! of Europe, guareenteing she will have The Time Of Her Life and return a Cultured Young Lady. By the end of the tour, Allyson is feeling more stifled than challenged and has only made one sort-of friend, Ms. Foley, the tour guide, who wears "snow-white sneakers" and speaks in a hybrid British/American accent the other travelers enjoy mocking. "I must be bad at traveling," Allyson decides as she looks forward to her favorite part of the day, returning to the hotel to watch an American movie and fall asleep while everyone else is out at the pub. Enter Williem, a 6'3 Dutchman with a love of Shakespeare and a penchant for acting. When Allyson stumbles upon Willem's traveling troupe as they perform an unorthodox version of Shakespeare's The Twelfth Night, she is made aware that life is full of choices, or "accidents" as Willem calls them, and you can choose to ignore them or embrace them. For the first time in her life, Allyson chooses the latter and is swept up in a bohemian one day tour of Paris in which time becomes fluid and anythng's possible. She emerges on the other side impossibly stained, but when she wakes to find Willem gone, she can't help but wonder in the year that follows if that one day was a fluke or if the real Allyson is still wandering the backstreets of Paris. One thing she does know is that she'll have to go back to find out.

Swoon! Forman's tale of love and longing set against the backdrop of Paris - real Paris not the tourist version - is my krypyonite. It is a sweeping travelogue, both internal and external, and peopled with fantastically unique and fully fleshed out characters. I was immediately captivated by Allyson and Willem's relationship, which propelled me through the first 100+ pages of the novel at warp speed. With just one day to spend together, Allyson and Willem can't be still. If they are, they'll hit bottom, which is exactly what happens when Allyson wakes the next day to find Willem gone. Together we panicked and cried and called Ms. Foley who rides in on her white sneakers to the rescue. Just one more example of how pitiful Allyson's situation is.

This book is more than a romance novel though. The romance is merely a catalyst for self-discovery and growth. When I reached the end of Part One and Willem had exited stage left, I thought what could the rest of this book possibly be about? And I'll admit, Allyson is a bit mopey and withdrawn at first, but then with the prodding of an amazing guidance counselor, who only makes a cameo but very important appearance in the novel, she starts doing things and meeting people, like Dee, who is the master of multiple identities, stating, "This is myself, baby. All of my selves. I own each and every one of them. I know who I'm pretending to be and who I am" (217). The novel's theme that things are not always what they seem abounds in the identity instability of Allyson on that day, her best friend Melanie through their first year of college, and the numerous references to Shakespeare's problem plays, but nowhere are they more perfectly executed then in the totally lovable, totally memorable character of Dee, who helps Allyson begin the transformation from shell to self because, as he so astutely observes, "the people we pretend to be, they're already in us. That's why we pretend to be them in the first place" (237).

Despite my swooniness and my cheerleading for Allyson as she begins to make decisions for herself and finally stands up to her mother, the logical side of me could never completely suspend disbelief and submurse myself in a world where it would not be totally dangerous to go off with limited funds and no cell phone to a foreign city where you don't speak the language with a guy who doesn't know your real name and you met less than 24 hours ago. That's what keeps this novel from being five stars for me; however, I am anxiously awaiting Willem's side of the story in Just One Year. When I finished the book, in just a couple of hours mind you, I immediately googled the release date for Just One Year, which is this fall - yay!! When you read something like this, how can you not be in their corner?

"We kiss again. This next kiss is the kind that breaks open the sky. It steals my breath and gives it back. It shows me that every other kiss I've had in my life has been wrong" (127).

Sigh...

Best matched with those who like a little coming of age romance with their wanderlust.

Bonus story: When my husband got home from work yesterday, I greeted him as follows, "I promise I will cook you dinner soon, but I HAVE TO finish this book! I only have like 30 pages left." He just shook his head and went to take a shower. When he re-emerged, I was still swoony over the book about Paris and lost love when my husband looked at me and very seriously said, "I wouldn't have lost you in the first place." I made the Rory Gilmore Harlequin romance face and almost cried. My husband and I have been together for almost ten years, and the electricity of young love has mostly worn off, so when I read something like Just One Day, sometimes I'm jealous of the newness of falling in love, but what my husband reminded me last night is that the excitement at the beginning of a new relationship is replaced with something deeper and more stable and infinitely worthwhile, if you're lucky. And let me tell you, I've never been luckier in my life.

Review: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Image from Musings of a Book Lover

This is my first review as part of the Outside the Box Challenge hosted by Kate at Musings of a Book Lover.  I chose Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina as my read for "To the Screen," which asks readers to read a book that's been adapted to the big screen.  I've read several books already that have been made into movies - some I loved, some I hated (Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part II, I'm looking at you!!), but the recent adaptation of Anna Karenina with Kiera Knightly intrigued me, so I decided to give the novel a shot.

I actually began the novel last fall while flying out to Las Vegas for the NCTE conference.  Although it took me a while to get into the plot and used to Tolstoy's overly detailed writing style (and to keep all those Russian surnames straight!), I was enjoying the story; however, I picked up several new releases by some of my favorite authors while at NCTE, put Anna Karenina down, and never picked it back up.

As part of my book and blogging resolutions for the new year, I decided to try audiobooks.  Although I took easily to ebooks, I hadn't yet jumped on the audiobook train.  I definitely retain more when I'm the one reading and seeing the words on the page rather than just listening to someone read to me.  Faced with a one hour round trip commute to work every day as well as two massive, classical tomes on my TBR list (Anna Karenina and Les Miserables), I decided to take the audiobook plunge.  I was wary, so I found a free app boasting several thousand free, classic audiobooks called Libervox.  The narrators are volunteers, so they are not perfect, but I could deal.  I started at the beginning of Anna Karenina because it had been a few months since I had last touched it.  The first book flew by, and I was easily pulled back into the story.  However, I experienced problems with book two.  The quality of the narration was beginning to interfere with the story.  Whereas the first part of Anna Karenina had been narrated by one person, each chapter in book two was narrated by someone different.  Not too terribly troubling except some of the narrators were terrible!  One didn't read loudly enough, another was reading in an echoey room, a third constantly shifted while reading creating distracting background noise, and the fourth and final attempted to read Count Vronsky and his fellow soldiers with a faux male voice so over-the-top I had to turn off the narration.  You get what you paid for, right?

I wasn't convinced I needed to drop $40.00 dollars on a quality audiobook I was only going to listen to once though.  Then, lightbulb moment, one of my other bookish resolutions was to utilize my public library more.  My school library doesn't carry audiobooks, but we subscribe to NC-Live that has tons of free audio and e-books, one of which was Anna Karenina.  I downloaded it and was immediately rewarded with an expressive, engaging narrator.  Finally, I was able to lose myself in the story and boy did I.  Several times while listening, I would gasp, cry out, or otherwise react to the events unfolding before me.

Anna Karenina is known by many to be Tolstoy's pièce de résistance, and I can see why.  The story is epic despite the fact it mostly chronicles the intricacies of daily living.  It is this complex focus on the minutiae of daily life, though, that makes the novel so compelling.  We've all been heartbroken like Kitty, in love like Anna, unsure of our relationship status like Dolly and jealous, jealous, jealous of friends and lovers alike like all the woman in Tolstoy's fictional world.  (I remain, however, less than interested in the minutiae of scything or hunting snipe.)  This complicated, introspective meditation on passion and human nature that I loved ultimately became the thing that grated on my nerves towards the end of the novel.

Note: I'm not sure if you can spoil a classic; even before reading Anna Karenina, I knew how it was going to end, but just in case, spoilers will henceforth ensue.

I pitied every single character in Tolstoy's novel, but I was rooting for Anna and Vronsky even as I pitied Alexey's losing battle with propriety and his obvious inner struggle to maintain his wife and the facade of a normal household and family.  However, once the lovers had won, the predictable thrill of the chase wore off and was replaced by a never-ceasing litany of real and imagined jealousies on the part of Anna.  Her constant worrying refrain that "Yes, that's it, he must be in love with another woman" made me want to shake her.  "What did you expect?!" I'd shout.  "The man had no qualms going after a married woman!  And even despite that fact, there is no certifiable evidence he is cheating on you now!  Your constant sniveling and petty arguments might drive him to it though!"  Retrospectively, I see that Tolstoy was attempting to show Anna descending into a state of paranoia and near madness.  He succeeds, but not without driving his reader to those extremes as well.

And even though I knew what was coming, and even though I was thoroughly sick of Anna and her inner monologue at this point, I was still dumbstruck and teary-eyed when she made her choice to leap under a moving train, forsaking her children and all others, in a reckless attempt to atone for all the wrong choices she had made and erase the guilt that bogged her down.

Kitty and Levin's sweet, slow-growing relationship was the bright spot amid the dark and torrid knots of lovers dotting Tolstoy's pages.  I cried happy tears as Kitty and Levin exchanged vows in chalk upon meeting again after she had first refused him.  In depicting these two characters and their relationship, Tolstoy's writing style shines with eloquent and profound statements of love and companionship.  Although I found Levin's affirmation of God in the final pages of the novel a bit preachy, it was fitting that he had the last word.

For days I thought about what I would write when I reviewed this novel, and what's come out isn't really a review.  I find it difficult to condense a plot so timeless yet so complex into a few paragraphs and really do it justice.  Suffice it to say that this novel and these characters are ones that impacted me, flaws and all, and are ones that I suggest all readers get to know personally to form their own assessment.

Best matched with anyone who has had a broken heart.

Recommendation: David Levithan

I was so excited when I attended NCTE in November to learn that David Levithan would be there.  Several of his books have made their way onto my all-time favorites list, and I routinely recommend them.  Some of his more recent reads haven't been my cup of tea, but I'm not one who lets a bad book get in the way of a good author (see J. K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy).  At NCTE, Penguin was selling Levithan's Marly's Ghost for $5.00 and tossing in a galley copy of Levithan's newest novel Invisibility with Andrea Cremer for free.  I was so pumped.  I read Marly's Ghost, which is a Valentine's Day version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, on the plane ride home and was disappointed by its lack of originality.  Levithan wrote in his author's note that "for the actual writing, I sat with a copy of A Christmas Carol on my lap and went through it paragraph by paragraph, line by line, 'translating' the original story into my new story...some lines stayed verbatim."  This attention to detail is obvious and not for the betterment of the novel.  An idea that could have been interesting and refreshing turns out stale.  I began Invisibility with higher hopes.  For one, in reviewing Levithan's body of work, I found that I tended to love his collaborations more than his standalones.  Two, this was not billed as a remix but as a totally original work, unlike Marly's Ghost.  I am ashamed to admit that I couldn't get past the third chapter.  Because of some weird curse, I obviously never got far enough to figure it out, Stephen is invisible - others can't see him and therein lies the problem: there is nothing to distinguish him to the reader either.  He is a flat, one-dimensional character.  Elizabeth, who is the only one who can see Stephen, seems to have more bite and body, but even that wasn't enough to keep me going.  After two epic fails, I decided I needed to catalog what I loved and hated about Levithan in a tangible way.  At first I thought it was his collaborations I loved and his standalones I hated, but as Invisibility proved, it's not as black and white as that.
  
Loved

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (with Rachel Cohn) (my first David Levithan)
Dash and Lily's Book of Dares (with Rachel Cohn)
The Lover's Dictionary
How They Met and Other Stories

Didn't Love

Marly's Ghost
Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List (with Rachel Cohn)
Love is the Higher Law 

Anticipating

Will Grayson, Will Grayson (with John Green)
Every Day

Did Not Finish

The Realm of Possibility
Invisibility (with Andrea Cremer)

Maybe someone with keener insight can find the commonalities for me.  The breakdown of my list seems so arbitrary.  I am not giving up on Levithan though.  I have heard fantastic things about both Will Grayson, Will Grayson and Every Day, so I will definitely be reading them as soon as I can get my hands on a copy.  The premise of Every Day reminds me of The Lover's Dictionary, which I loved (no pun intended), and Will Grayson, Will Grayson is a collaboration with John Green.  What are the chances two of my favorite authors will let me down in the same book?

The Raven Boys by Maggie Steifvater

*Warning* Spoilers ahead!

From Goodreads:

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”

"It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore."

Unlike Maggie Stiefvater's The Scorpio Races, which feels realistic even though the plot centers around killer water horses, The Raven Boys is the stuff of legend and myth.  Blue comes from a long line of psychics - the real deal, which is ultimately the catalyst for her interactions with The Raven Boys - a group she normally avoids.  However, Gansey, Adam, Ronan, and Noah are not the typical prep school type.  Each is consumed with his own personal demons, but it's Gansey's quest that binds them all together.  For most of his young life, Gansey has been obsessed with finding the sleeping King Glendower.  His travels have taken him all over the world tracking intersecting lines of energy called ley lines.  His copious research led him to the tiny town of Henrietta, Virginia where his path crosses Blue's, a girl born of a psychic but who is not one herself; however, she has the uncanny ability to amplify psychic energy.

Although I've rapidly lost interest in the sudden surge of paranormal fiction flooding the YA shelves, Stiefvater's novel(s) still appeal to me mostly because despite the odd occurrences or presence of fantastical creatures, the stories cannot be classified as paranormal.  Instead, they are the perfect blend of legend, myth, and folklore.  It's King Arthur for the modern age.  It's hard not to get caught up in the Raven Boys' quest, and at times, the predictions and ghostly apparitions the boys and Blue encounter had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.  Stiefvater knows how to keep you guessing in this novel - sometimes a little too well.  The last few chapters speed by with very few resolutions, evoking more questions than answers for the reader.  Since The Raven Boys is the first in a cycle, I understand that Steifvater is setting up the plot and the reader for book two; however, I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I find Steifvater to be at her best in her standalones when she is not concerned with leaving enough loose ends to tie up in another book or two.  Although I think Steifvater could have effectively condensed the plot of The Raven Boys to one novel with an open-ended conclusion a la Forever, I am still eagerly awaiting the release of book two. 

Most notably I am awaiting resolution of the weird, almost non-existent love triangle between Blue, Gansey, and Adam.  It's a stated fact, if you believe a whole hosts of psychics and visions, that Blue is going to kill her first love. Although it's unclear how, it's clear that somehow Gansey is involved.  Assumption number 1: Gansey will be her first love.  But no, Blue meets Adam and so begins their awkward, innocent, but totally adorable flirtation, and I as a reader was rooting for them.  Blue's relationship with both boys remains in it's infancy - she's not used to getting intimate - so it's unclear how things are going to progress.  Will they parallel the prophecy that has overshadowed her entire life and the vision that recently turned her life upside down, or will fate intervene leading her and The Raven Boys down a path they never could have imagined in their wildest dreams?  And do they have some wild dreams.  Stiefvater hints with the last line of the first novel in this cycle that the next book will deal with the power of dreams - dreams that you can manipulate and can become tangible.

As the main characters, Blue, Gansey, and Adam are very well-developed, but the supporting characters are equally intriguing if only for the unanswered questions Stiefvater leaves the reader with.  When I first met Noah, I knew something was up.  He is a character defined by absence and abstienance.  He doesn't eat; he doesn't seem to sleep; he merely exists on the fringes of the boys' foursome.  In fact, I wondered why Stiefvater bothered to pen him at all.  He seemed a character of little value to the narrative, but when his death is acknowledged, he becomes more present and an integral witness and guide to the quest.  He seems to have fulfilled his role though by the end of the first book, so I wonder how and if he will reappear in the second.  Ronan Lynch also remains a mystery.  In my mind, he is the most intriguing character.  All dark and sharp edges, Ronan is caring around some heavy baggage in the form of a secret surrounding his dad's death.  Ronan also seems in touch with some primordial magic that even Gansey with all his study and Blue with her connections to the spiritual world do not possess and have yet to imagine.  The possibilities for his character seem limitless, and I'm eager to see how Stiefvater will develop him further.

This book is an irresistible, strange journey, highlighting a writer at the pinnacle of her career.  I have not read Stiefvater's first faerie novels, but I have read all of her published works in order since Shiver and watched her style evolve into the accomplishment that is The Raven Boys.  It is a book I highly recommend for readers on a quest for something magical.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore was the surprise of the year for me.  I had heard rumblings about it but wasn't fully committed to investigating it further until my librarian recommended it to me.  The day before we left for Christmas break she called me down to the library to pursue the new shipment of books she had acquired, so I could pick my holiday reading.  Sloan's novel was there as well as Ally Condie's Matched and Crossed, which have been on my TBR forever, so I snapped them up.  I decided I needed a little break from YA and series, so I picked up Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore first.  I didn't really know what it was about, but as Jamie at The Perpetual Page Turner recently wrote, there is a beauty in going in blind - no expectations, and what I found on the other side was fascinating, slightly mysterious, and overall satisfying.  The only book I read this year besides Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl that was so compelling I read it in a day, this novel is a brilliant commentary on the intersection of print and web-based technologies and the dangers of dependency on both.

The novel follows main character Clay Jannon, a fledgling designer, through his ordinary life dealing with ordinary things like layoffs, job searches, roommates, and relationships, but all of that changes when, on a whim, he enters Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, whose front window boosts a "We're Hiring" sign.  Immediately, Clay is intrigued if confused by the store's shape, size, and contents - most of which are books he's never seen or heard of - as well as its mysterious owner, Mr. Penumbra.  Clay takes the night shift, which brings him in contact with Mr. Penumbra's many colorful patrons as well as Kat, a self-proclaimed Googler, and when his curiosity gets the better of him, he is plunged into a world of cryptic texts, secret societies, and archaic methods of coding and decoding.  Can Clay and his friends convince Mr. Penumbra and his patrons that technology can help them on their quest?  Can they uncover the secret to immortality encoded by "The Founder" hundreds of years ago?

This book is a mish-mash of genres that blend into a seamless commentary on our ever evolving relationship with technology.  It's part typographer's Bible, archeology dig, Hardy Boys mystery, literary criticism, and techie manual.  The novel highlights the power of following your instincts and daring to make a mark on the world. In his epilogue, Sloan brings the book full-circle and reflects on some of its more philosophical aspects.  Almost like a challenge to the reader, he writes, "But I hope you will remember this: A man walking fast down a dark lonely street.  Quick steps and hard breathing, all wonder and need.  A bell above a door and the tinkle it makes.  A clerk and a ladder and warm golden light, and then: the right book exactly, at exactly the right time" (288).  Ultimately, it is about the saving power of literature - how it can make you climb out of yourself - how it can sustain you. 

If you're not yet convinced that you need to read this book, I leave you now with my favorite quote from the novel: 

"Neel takes a sharp breath and I know exactly what it means.  It means: I have waited my whole life to walk through a secret passage built into a bookshelf" (143).

Sloan's novel is that secret passage in the bookshelf that so many of us have longed for but have yet to find.

Best matched with bibliophiles and techies.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

I loved Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver, but Linger and Forever left me cold, so when I first read about The Scorpio Races on Stiefvater's blog, I thought, "Killer water horses?  Not for me."  However, I kept reading amazing reviews of this book.  Stiefvater posted numerous times on her blog how The Scorpio Races is the most "her" book she's written.  I finally decided I had to read it, so I picked it up at the National Council of Teachers of English Conference, where I got to meet Stiefvater, and all of those reviewers and Steifvater herself were right.  This book is amazing.  It's the most authentic book I've read in a while, earning it the honor of "Best Book I Read in 2012" on my 2012 End of the Year Book Survey, hosted by Jamie at The Perpetual Page Turner.  (I'll be posting mine soon!)

From Goodreads:

"It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.  At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.  Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition — the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen."

Even though this is a book about killer water horses, there is nothing fantastical about it.  The plot reads very realistically.  I caught myself several times thinking Stiefvater's Thisby was a real place.  She paints the landscape and the characters, main and supporting, so convincingly, and as always, her writing style is very lyrical, which in this novel, evokes the wind-swept island cliffs and the powerful muscles of a galloping horse beneath you so clearly that I half believed I was there myself.  I don't claim to be very outdoorsy, but I did grow up on and move back to a farm, and when I go out on the back deck in the morning and look out over the field, the land I grew up on, to the woodline and see the early morning streaked sky, I think this is home, and Puck's love of Thisby really resonated with me.

I also really appreciated the slow-growing romance of Sean and Puck.  Unlike the deeply passionate relationship of Grace and Sam in The Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy, Sean and Puck's relationship seems to spring up naturally between them, growing out of their mutual love for the land and horses.  Everything about Sean is so deliberate, and yet, when he speaks to Puck or touches her, every word, every action is infused with longing.  It is a beautifully restrained relationship, culminating in an anticlimactic kiss, which is perfectly orchestrated against the backdrop of the November ocean so that the couple becomes part of the landscape that they love so much.

But this book isn't really a romance.  This book is about courage and survival and independence.  It's about how hard it is to achieve those things and be respected, especially when you are a woman, and how you have to fight like hell to keep the things you love.  And although it's not a romance in the strictest of senses, it is a book about love.  Love for your family, for your friends, for the land, and for the horses.

I highly recommend this book.  I think Stiefvater is at her best in her stand-alones when she's not concerned with cliffhangers or loose plot lines that can be picked up in another book.  The Scorpio Races is a deeply moving, satisfying read.  If, like me, you saw "killer water horses" and thought, no way, I urge you to put your preconceptions aside and pick up this wonderful novel that transcends age and genre.  You will not be disappointed.

Best matched with fans of family dynamics, natural settings, horse races, and light romance.

Collateral by Ellen Hopkins

Ellen Hopkins is one of those authors that immediately goes on my "to read" list.  I read my first Hopkins novel, Burned, as a teen, and I've gobbled up everything she's written ever since.  I was ecstatic when she transitioned into writing adult fiction with Triangles because even through I still admired her verse writing style, her teen plots were becoming a little too melodramatic for me.  However, as I mentioned in my 2011 End of the Year Book Survey, Triangles also spread itself a little too thin.  I was pleasantly surprised then by how much I loved Hopkins' newest adult fiction, Collateral. 

Told solely from the perspective of the main character Ashley with the exception of poetic inserts from her boyfriend, Marine, Cole, Collateral is a cohesive, introspective look at military relationships.  Collateral begins in present tense but is interspersed with flashbacks, which Hopkins calls "Rewinds," to provide further insight into Ashley and Cole's increasingly complicated relationship.  Despite the fluctuation in time, the novel is surprisingly linear in its depiction of Ashley and Cole's relationship.  When it begins, Ashley and Cole are firmly entrenched in their love, but as the novel progresses, the reader begins to see the cracks in its perfect facade, mirrored in Ashley's Rewinds, which finally grow into chasms by the novel's conclusion.

Hopkins poignantly portrays the uncertainty faced by military couples and also highlights issues such as alcoholism, violence, and infidelity that peak during training and tour.  In her author's note at the beginning of the book, Hopkins indicates the hours of research she put into this novel from the news feeds she scoured about the unit she modeled Cole's fictional unit after to the interviews she conducted with military wives and girlfriends.  Her dedication to an accurate depiction of life and love in the military shows in every page, and although she strives in each novel to write the gritty realities of every day life, I feel she succeeded more fully in Collateral because she focused more on the minutiae that makes up every day life and relationships rather than inventing over the top calamities to befall her characters.

Best matched with readers interested in military family fiction.

One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies by Sonya Sones

I read my first Sonya Sones' book, What My Mother Doesn't Know, as a teen.  Pre-Ellen Hopkins, Sones introduced me to novels in verse, and I've been a fan ever since.  In addition to a unique writing style, Sones demonstrates incredible insight into the life and mind of a typical teenager even if the circumstances are atypical as they are in one of Sones' earlier novels, One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies.

From Goodreads:

"Fifteen-year-old Ruby Milliken leaves her best friend, her boyfriend, her aunt, and her mother's grave in Boston and reluctantly flies to Los Angeles to live with her father, a famous movie star who divorced her mother before Ruby was born."

I received a copy of One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies at the National Council of Teachers of English Conference where I met Sonya Sones, and I read it on the plane ride home.  It is a quick yet compelling read.  Although a bit campy at times, Ruby is dealing with heavy issues of grief, homesickness, and betrayal which, to a fifteen year old, signal the end of the world.  The novel was very poignant in places, and I found myself blinking back tears.  I refused to cry on a crowded plane, but it says something about the power of Sones' storytelling abilities that she could have me considering it.  Despite some tough plot points, the novel is set against a backdrop of Hollywood starlets, which will appeal to young teen readers. 

Best matched with pre-teen or early teen readers.

Review: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Amy Elliott Dunne sounds perfect on paper - only child of prized child psychologists and authors of a series devoted exclusively to her (narcissist, party of one!), beautiful, easy-going, rich, a native of Manhattan, and quasi-writer married to the man of her dreams, Nick Dunne, handsome, killer smiler, also a writer.  Amy, in my humble, unscientific opinion, is an egotistical, schizophrenic, sociopath.  And Nick, who truly seems like a normal guy in the beginning, morphs into some kind of crazed bastard himself.  This novel is like a beautifully orchestrated train-wreck.  I couldn't put it down if I wanted to.* 

Amy goes missing on their fifth wedding anniversary.  In an era of crime-shows, both fact and fiction, Nick is an immediate suspect, and a personal history and set of clues begin to unravel a terrifyingly bizarre picture of an unstable marriage.  It's hard to review this book without giving anything away.  Unintentional spoilers will appear.  Suffice it to say, Flynn's novel is the essence of psychological thriller.

As a reader, I felt like Flynn was psychoanalyzing me sometimes, toying with me.  Against my will, I liked and believed Nick too - at first.  Diary Amy really got to me - at times she had me near tears, and as the evidence piled up, I threw Nick under the bus.  I felt betrayed when Flynn revealed her ace.  Then I marveled at her wit, applauded her ability to manipulate me so thoroughly, and read on.

Gillian Flynn is a phenomenal writer, and she had me turning the pages at warp speed, but I was only halfway through the novel, and I kept thinking, if I've got this thing figured out already, I am going to be so disappointed.  All that fantastic build-up to lead to 200 pages of, "Oh, I knew that was coming."  But I had an inkling that Flynn wouldn't do that to me.  And she didn't disappoint.  I turned the page, and my earlier train of thought was confirmed - a set-up - but more intricately fleshed out than the brief vision I entertained.  But Flynn wasn't going to give in easy.  I never could have guessed the rest.

Flynn is a fascinating author because she plays along with the reader.  She indulges their fantasies and then whisks the rug out from under them, leaving them disoriented but with a deep desire to see this story through to the end.  Gone Girl is the first book in a while that so thoroughly engaged me.  I have to admit I wasn't so much disappointed by the ending, but it certainly wasn't satisfactory.  But maybe that was Flynn's goal all along - leave the reader wanting more but unsure of what "more" even is.  I've said too much already - you'll have to figure this one out for yourself.

Best matched with an insatiable, if morbid, curiosity.

*I read Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl in a day.  This book is 400 pages.  It's been a long time since I've read any book in a day.

Review: The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling

The release of J. K. Rowling's much anticipated novel since her beloved Harry Potter series has received a lot of press.  The Casual Vacancy refers to an empty seat on a council due to an unexpected resignation - in this case, a death.  The novel opens with the death of Barry Fairbrother (Rowling has always had an interest in metaphorical names...) a man whose politics didn't impress many but is painted throughout the novel as a genial upstart.  It is his seat on the parish council of the little town of Pagford in the English countryside that the parishioners are now squabbling over.  The central issue at stake is reassignment of the town's slums known as "The Fields" to Pagford's larger neighboring city Yarvil as well as the closing of BellChapel Addiction Clinic, frequented mostly by inhabitants of "The Fields."  Fairbrother, born and raised in the Fields, was staunchly against the reassignment and closing of the clinic because it would limit educational opportunities for children from the Fields and more likely than not acerbate their homes lives.  Many of the children in the Fields were born to drug addict mothers like Terri Weedon, who of her many children, only has two who have yet to be removed to foster homes by Social Services, seventeen year old Krystal and two year old Robbie.  The story of the Weedons from the Fields is interspersed with the stories of some of Pagford's most revered residents, like the Mollisons, who opposed Fairbrother's agenda at every turn, and the Walls, who both work at Pagford's school, and the Jawanda's, an Indian couple respected only because they are both doctors, and the Price's who try to stay out of everybody's way.

Like Harry Potter there are a lot of characters, but unlike Harry Potter, no one set rises to the surface for the reader to stand behind and really get to know.  Everyone in this novel is equally flawed and spiteful.  In this respect, Rowling's adult novel is much more realistic than her previous work and about much more than politics.  In fact, like Harry Potter, it's central message seems to be about having tolerance for those around you, but in the town of Pagford where stereotypes and stigma run deep, it's not that easy.  None of the characters ingratiate themselves to the reader.  I felt sympathy for many of them, but I actually liked very few, if any of them; some of them seemed slightly stock.  At times Rowling's novel was shocking - the Weedons are not like the Weasleys who are considered poor in the wizarding world, but it's a shabby poor, and one that their good spirits make up for.  Nor in the most mistreated parts of Harry's history was he ever neglected like Robbie Weedon.  It is a disgusting and bone-shuddering life that Rowling depicts, but what's worse is the townpeoples' attitudes towards this very obvious problem.  Some of the members want to cut the problem out like a bad spot in a piece of fruit or in the skin, but it goes much deeper than that.  While reading Rowling's novel, I was constantly reminded of the current racial and political clime.  What's to be done about the rate of unemployment and the overreaching of government aid programs?  When does aid become a burden?  Should someone who falls off the wagon be left there to pick up again on his or her own? 

As a self-proclaimed fan of Harry Potter, I knew this book would be the furthest thing from Harry Potter, and I was right, but it's hard as a reader of Harry Potter to separate that author in my mind from this one as I'm sure it was hard for Rowling to separate herself as the author of Harry Potter from the author of The Casual Vacancy.  In some places, she tries too hard to make the distinction that this is not a novel for children.  In the first thirty pages, I encountered some very adult themes, language, and descriptions that seemed not at all necessary to the plot or character development but were merely included to prove that this was a different genre than she'd worked in before.  One thing she can't change though, Rowling is a wonderful writer.  She has a way with the written word, and the novel's language was always a marvel.  Be warned, it is 500 pages, and you will not fly through them like you may have a 700 page Harry Potter book.  This is not a plot-driven novel but a character driven one and one whose ending is markedly different from the hopefulness stored at the end of each Harry Potter novel. 

In all honesty, this is not a book I would have picked up had J. K. Rowling's name not been on the cover, but I'm glad I did.  It was an intriguing read that made me think.

Best matched with readers of contemporary adult fiction who are interested in characterization.

Fall Book Previews

I was asked to do a segment for the local TV/Radio station at my school, and I was so excited to a list of new and upcoming releases for the fall.  After shooting the segment with one of my students, I thought, who better to share this list with than all my friends in the blogosphere*?  Mark your calendars for these new reads!

****

The approach of fall indicates a time of change – a new semester has started, the leaves are turning, and the weather is getting colder.  If you are looking for something to ease the transition, check out one of these new releases.

Bloggers have been raving about Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl since its publication late this summer.  On the surface, Nick and Amy Dunne’s marriage looks perfect, but that façade is shattered when Amy goes missing on their fifth wedding anniversary.  Nick swears he is innocent, but are things really as they seem?  Told through alternating perspectives, Gone Girl will make an excellent, suspenseful companion on a cool fall evening.

If you prefer contemporary issues to suspense, check out Ellen Hopkins.  Hopkins will debut her newest young adult and adult novels this fall.  The young adult novel, Tilt, was released on September 11.  Tilt is a companion novel to Hopkins’ first adult novel, Triangles.  Where Triangles chronicled the lives of three women in various stages of their marriage, Tilt presents the perspective of those women’s teenage children.  Hopkins is well-known for tackling tough issues like eating disorders, teen pregnancy, and homosexuality.  This book will be a gritty, realistic portrait of teen life today.  Due out later this fall, on November 13, is Hopkins’ second adult novel, Collateral.  Collateral focuses on military families and the struggles they face in a time of national insecurity.  Both of Hopkins’ novels are presented in verse, giving her writing an artistic flair.  Don’t let their hefty size fool you.  Hopkins’ novels are always quick, compelling reads.

If you see reading as more of an escape into a world of mythology and action, look no further than young adult author Rick Riordan.  Riordan is famous for his Percy Jackson series about the travels and trials of a young demigod, born to Greek god Poseidon.  The third book in his Heroes of Olympus series entitled The Mark of Athena is due to drop October 2nd of this year.  In this series, Riordan teams Greek and Roman demigods on a quest to discover and close the Doors of Death.  Will the Prophecy of the Seven be fulfilled or will the seven demigods chosen for the assignment fail?

Last but not least, mark your calendars on September 27 for the release of J. K. Rowling’s much anticipated first novel since the close of the Harry Potter series.  The Casual Vacancy is adult political fiction, accomplishing Rowling’s desire to leave the fantastical world of Harry Potter behind her.  Set in the town of Pagford, a tiny English hamlet, the death of a prominent politician turns the town into a warzone as the council scrambles to hold an election to fill the parish seat.  Despite the new genre, knowing Rowling, readers are promised a complex, satisfactory storytelling experience.

Check out your local library this fall for these new books, and happy reading!

*Is this word spelled correctly?  Is blogosphere a technical term?