Review: In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I suspect some knowledge of WWII would've served me well, going in to this book. I know the basics, but a greater knowledge would've supplied a lot of context this book lacked. Larson writes with the assumption a person reading his book has already done a lot of reading about pre-WWII. Whereas, I tend to read "human interest" nonfiction for an entry point into history with which I'm unfamiliar.

In the Garden of Beasts tells the story of the Dodd family, from the unlikely selection of William Dodd, history professor, as ambassador to Nazi Germany, to the directions their lives take after he leaves the post. The Dodds start out feeling favorably toward Germany, and William Dodd attributes "the Jewish problem" as being just as much Jewish people's fault as it is the Nazis'. The events that change their minds don't affect them directly, but they still realize a lot sooner than the US government, who's privy to all the same knowledge the Dodds are, with the barrier of an entire ocean between them and the conflict.

If you're looking for a book about the social lives of the major players of the Third Reich, you're in luck. This goes into great detail regarding the parties, who's invited to whose, who's in favor on a particular month in 1933 or '34, and who Martha Dodd is dating (that list is almost as long as the guest lists for exclusive parties the Dodds attend). Martha's sex life, in fact, is a greater plot point than the attacks on US citizens visiting Germany who fail to deliver the Hitler salute appropriately.

What I was looking for in this book was how a country goes from a democracy to a fascist dictatorship. That's in there, too. The book covers the time period when President Hindenburg, who appointed Hitler as Chancellor, dies, and Hitler seizes power. The book also shows how history led up to that point, when normally, a better-balanced successor might have been appointed. It shows how Hitler not only disposed of his political enemies, but how he did it in a way that both silenced any opposition, and won his country's approval. The propaganda machine was already in full swing, at that point, and Hitler and his people knew how to use it.

Though Hitler is a major influence in this narrative, his path intersects with the Dodds' very little. He meets Martha Dodd once, and strikes her as charming and charismatic, but a bit shy. William Dodd also finds him charismatic on their first meeting, but finds a later encounter, where Hitler rants about the abhorrence of Jewish people, rather unsettling.

There's another subplot in this book about Martha's being seduced over to the Communist cause by Russian spies. So much of that narrative is speculative, though, as there's very little official documentation. It explains her disaffection with Nazi Germany, but otherwise doesn't add much, except to explain why she behaves as she does after leaving Germany. I could've done without that section entirely.

Overall, this was an interesting perspective on the Third Reich, pre-WWII. I found the narrative thread lacking, but the tidbits of historical perspective were fascinating. The story made clear that any ambassador would've been over his head, in William Dodd's shoes, but he was uniquely unqualified for the role. I wouldn't recommend this if you don't already have some knowledge about the time period and the people it discusses in great depth, but, if you're looking to round out your WWII history with something lighter, this is just the thing.


View all my reviews

Review: Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Of course we're all familiar with Breakfast at Tiffany's: the sprightly, adorable protagonist, her impish ways, and the cast of characters she draws to her like moths to a guttering flame. The movie is adored, revered, had songs written about how it's one thing a fighting couple can agree on. But if you've only seen the movie without reading the book, you have a very different view of the story.

The Holly Golightly our unnamed narrator follows about is a darker creature than the one portrayed by Audrey Hepburn. She's not mean, precisely, but she has a carefully constructed detachment that amounts to the same thing. The narrator watches her push away those who care about her, and embrace those who see only the persona she projects. The movie Holly seems to charm the money right out of mens' wallets; the one in the book has to work for it. The Holly in the movie projects an aura of cool sophistication, while the narrator of the book sees through his Holly as the young woman playing dress-up, putting on a personality as readily as she wears her expensive dresses.

There are also plenty of parallels; the book and movie aren't totally indistinguishable. Still, with the context "Fred," the unnamed narrator, provides, we're given a very different picture in the character study that is this novella. He sees through a lot of her pretenses, and shows how much he cares by never challenging her illusions.

Unlike in the movie, Fred's love remains platonic. Others have noted that there are clues in the text that he's gay, bolstered by the notion he's an author insert, and that Capote, himself, was openly homosexual. I missed all of the hints within the text, though, and would have to reread to provide any evidence. It's not outside the realm of possibility. But, as the story spends very little effort on fleshing out the narrator, it's easy to overlook.

If you've seen the movie based on this book and think you know the story, I recommend you read the novella. They're two very different creatures. As much as I enjoy every role Audrey Hepburn inhabits, I'd been missing out on this fine prose all along. It's not even very long, so, even if you don't agree that it's a lovely, bittersweet story, you haven't wasted a lot of time on it.

I listened to an audio version of this book, narrated by Michael C. Hall of Dexter fame. Though he's played several gay characters, I felt his narration masked the question of the narrator's sexuality. But he was a treat to listen to for a few hours. He was an excellent choice for this one.


View all my reviews

Review: The Masqueraders by Georgette Heyer

The Masqueraders by Georgette Heyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'd never read any Georgette Heyer, but I kept running across her name in various contexts. I finally combed through her books at my local library to find one that was unlikely to make me throw it across the room. Turns out I needn't have worried. Heyer wrote her books before modern romance tropes were established. No alpha males here; just fun characters getting up to mischief without ever thinking of anything below the waist.

The Masqueraders tells of a pair of siblings, Prudence and Robin, who are posing as the opposite sex. They're hiding Robin, who backed the wrong cause in a recent conflict. Meanwhile, their father claims to be the rightful heir to a title, while they have to pretend they've never met him before in their lives. Neither believes for a second his claim is true; he's played previous roles too well. But then Robin falls for the petite Letitia, and Prudence for the formidable Lord Anthony Fanshawe. While their roles do let them get closer to the objects of their affections, it makes confessing their feelings a bit more complicated.

I might have appreciated this story more if I'd known more about the political rumblings filling out the background of this story. Heyer seems to assume we all know what the Jacobite Rising is, and why it would be terrible to be found out as a Jacobite after the dust settles. It never takes the time to explain, which is just as well. There's plenty of plot to fill these pages.

Unfortunately, some of the pages are filled with characters explaining things to one another the reader already knows. More than once, a scene we just witnessed is related to a character who wasn't there. While it may be revealing in what the speaker leaves out or how it's presented, it makes the story tedious in places.

The strength of the story lies in its characters. Prudence and Robin and their father are all rogues to their core, and it's impossible not to root for them. Prudence lives up to her name, though her loyalty to her brother holds her to her role. As little respect as the siblings have for their father, it's impossible not to like him. There's something utterly charming in his boldness.

The love interests, too, make for interesting reading. Letitia has a thirst for adventure one can see Robin is more than qualified to fulfill, and Fanshawe shows hidden depths in every page he inhabits. They're both well-matched to our heroes.

The dialogue took me some time to adjust to, but, once I did, I found it light and bantering and witty. Heyer preserves many of the Regency speech patterns and expressions, but it turns out they're not that much different from modern speech. It gives her more room to let her characters show off some wordplay.

This was a refreshing change of pace in my search for a romance novel I wouldn't hate. It turns out that all I had to do was go to a time pre-dating modern romance. All the tropes I hate can't be there if the author didn't know she was supposed to be writing them. This also works as a suggestion for romance readers who skip over the sex scenes; the romance is all above the belt.


View all my reviews

Review: Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones

Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the tenth book in my 2014 TBR Pile Challenge. I always enjoy Diana Wynne Jones' writing, but, for some reason, I've been putting off reading more of her books. Can't imagine why.

Fire and Hemlock is a modern retelling of the Tam Lin tale, with some Thomas the Rhymer tossed in. Polly takes the role of Janet, who rescues Tam Lin with her love. Which, considering Polly is at least 15 years younger than Tom Lynn, and starts off a child, has some discomfiting implications. Polly starts off the story with no memory of Tom, but suddenly recovers them just in time to confront the powerful family who has Tom under its thrall.

The story is confusing in places. Part of it is because Polly doesn't understand, so, as the perspective character, she can't fill us in. But there are several aspects still left unexplained at the end of the story. The main points are covered, but why Laurel needs Tom, and later Tom's nephew, the charming Leslie, is never fully explained. Only those with a familiarity with the original tale will understand Laurel and Morton Leroy's ties to Faerie.

That does lead to far fewer info dumps, but it also makes things confusing in places. And some of the plot points seemed unnecessary. Like, if Tom's ability created the hardware store and the people populating it, why are they related to him? That whole plot point seemed needlessly complex.

I did think Nina's role was an interesting one, but that she was underused. There aren't a lot of overweight girls depicted as strong and desirable. That Polly wishes she could be more like her in the beginning is refreshing, though their later falling-outs were disappointing. I would've liked for Polly to have someone she could rely on, so she didn't have to bellybutton-gaze to reach all of her conclusions. I'm not sure why the story required that she was all alone in the world, except for Tom.

Despite my nitpicks, I did enjoy this story. Unlike many updates to classic tales, this didn't feel like it was shoehorning characters' actions to fit the plot. I understood Polly's motivations, and Tom's choices are understandable in retrospect. I liked it better than Pamela Dean's version. Though, that may have as much to do with the lack of enthusiastic recommendation as it does to the quality of Diana Wynne Jones's writing.


View all my reviews

Review: Shattered Pillars (Eternal Sky #2) by Elizabeth Bear

Shattered Pillars by Elizabeth Bear
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the second book in a trilogy that's turned out to be a real treat for me. I didn't know what the expect from the start, and it continues to be full of fun surprises. I have no idea what might happen next, but I'm going to enjoy finding out.

The Eternal Sky trilogy's mythology takes a departure from traditionally European fantasy worlds, and borrows from Russian, Central Asian, and Middle Eastern stories. The reason seemingly contradictory mythologies can exist is because each land's supremacy is shown by whose sky shines overhead. This isn't a matter of time zones; it's a matter of the number of moons in a sky changing by stepping over a border.

In this, Temur, whose people are nomadic horse breeders and excellent warriors, accepts his role as the future Khagan of his people. The wizard (and once-Princess) Samarkar is there to help, as is Hrahima, a sentient tiger, and the silent monk Hsiung. But there are political forces massed against Temur. His cousin also wants to claim the throne, and is being both manipulated and helped by al-Sephehr, a powerful sorcerer with ancient magic under his control. Meanwhile, Edene, the woman he set out to rescue, amasses a kind of undead army to support him.

The characters have grown from their initial beginnings. Samarkar's magic has grown in strength, while Temur's acceptance of the responsibility he must bear is central to the story. We learn a lot more about their companions, and why they're accompanying them, and we even get some back story on the terrible assassin on Temur's trail.

Every page of this story fills out this lush, multifaceted world all the more. There's a lot going on here. The politics are just as complicated as in any historical period, the magic is well-thought-out and nicely balanced, and the people are as fleshed out and thoughtful as anyone you might meet in your hometown. There are no flat, "because I'm the bad guy" villains here, nor any easy answers that would solve everything.

I'm looking forward to what the next book holds. I have no idea what to expect. I think I know where it's headed, but, knowing this series, I'll be surprised. And I'll like it that way.


View all my reviews

Review: Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

Journey to the Center of the Earth: A Signature Performance by Tim Curry by Jules Verne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is another of those classics you almost don't have to read. The main points are already such a part of popular culture that reading it is mostly a matter of waiting to see when each part will come up. Still, when I saw it was narrated by Tim Curry, I thought it worth a shot.

The story opens with the discovery of a strange document inside the pages of an old book which brags of a journey through the planet, undertaken some centuries before. Our reluctant protagonist is talked into joining his uncle, the intrepid Professor Lidenbrock, on his own such exploration. Lidenbrock is a geologist, and believes the journey is possible, while Axel holds to scientific convention that says the Earth is full of magma. Of course modern science has borne out Axel's view, but it would be a short book if Lidenbrock didn't turn out to be correct. His theory is sound, by the scientific knowledge of the time.

The book's greatest value lies in its snapshot of scientific inquiry during Verne's time. Verne extrapolates several suppositions, based on the scientific knowledge he's working with. There are several points where he flirts with the truth (he dances all around the theory of continental drift, for instance), only to fall short because he lacks a crucial piece of later discovery. The fantastic creatures the explorers find living underground say a lot about the fossil records that existed then.

The story is fairly straightforward: Axel and his uncle go to Iceland, hire a guide, find the entrance the long-ago explorer used, and travel as far down through the earth as they can before circumstances force them to surface. Most of the narrative involves what Axel sees, rather than what he does. When he does make a decision, it's often the worst one possible. The greatest danger he faces is when he's separated from his uncle and the guide, and his light goes out.

So it's not the most exciting narrative. Still, it's interesting to see Verne's various theories about what an underground explorer might see, and how he came to those conclusions. There were times when I hoped the characters would move toward sources of danger, just to spice up the narrative a bit, but these characters were far too prudent for that.

If it hadn't been Tim Curry reading this to me, I wouldn't have soldiered through it. He adds a much-needed spark to the story. His narration is dynamic, and was often the only reason I kept listening. It was nice to experience this book for myself, but I would've felt the slog a lot more keenly in a print version.


View all my reviews

Review: Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Alison Bechdel is best known for the Bechdel test, which a movie passes if it has two named female characters who speak to each other about something other than a male character. It's a low bar for gender representation, and yet a minority of mainstream films pass it. Bechdel introduced the test in her webcomic.

Fun Home covers far different material than what Bechdel has online. It's a memoir in graphic novel form, of a childhood spent in rural Appalachia under the shadow of her closeted gay father. She only learned the context for a lot of the events of her childhood after her father commits suicide (maybe) and her mother reveals the truth young Bechdel was sheltered from. Bechdel blames herself for her father's suicide, which she's convinced was sparked from her coming out as a lesbian.

The story is told mostly as a series of flashbacks and musings. Bechdel starts each chapter with a seed of memory: a photograph, a letter, a book, or just musing about a childhood recollection. The picture emerges in pieces, of her father's perfectionism, about her museum-quality house, of the family funeral home business and the strange attitudes about death that lends itself to.

Interestingly, the father is never presented as a villain. Bechdel could have exposed his lies and secrets, and blamed him for all the ills in her life. Instead, she presents him as a flawed but sympathetic figure. Her mother suffers for his choices, and Bechdel never glosses over that, but her own attitude is of curiosity and regret. She seems to find, at least in these pages, the sense of closure her father's death left her craving.

Some of the narrative is woven into classical allusions that, unfortunately, went straight over my head. Fun Home assumes some familiarity with Ulysses, which I've never read, and it offers none of the contextual clues that would've brought it together. I can only assume this book is more profound if you share Bechdel's reading list.

I wouldn't have thought the graphic novel format would lend itself to a memoir, but it was used to good effect here. Bechdel illustrates several concepts that don't work in prose, and reproduces photographs to offer context that we'd otherwise have to take her word for. For all the strangeness of the relationship with her father she describes, nothing captures it quite like her vividly illustrated dreams, or her scene stagings that show him off to the side, engaged only with his inner world. And her childhood home is hard to grasp without the illustrations capturing their pristine perfection.

This is probably the most profound graphic novel I'll ever read. It's short, but that doesn't mean it's a quick read. It's dense with meaning and emotional resonance. It was excellently done.


View all my reviews

Review: Bellwether by Connie Willis

Bellwether by Connie Willis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I initially marked this book as science fiction. Connie Willis is best known for writing SF. But, there are no science fiction elements in this book. Some of the science is fictional, but it's too modern-day and plausible to be classified in the genre.

Sandra Foster is a sociologist working for a research corporation, studying fads. HiTek wants to know what starts them, so they can start the next one. The  incompetent office assistant, Flip, misdelivers a package, and Sandra meets Bennett O'Reilly when she tries to return it. He's a chaos theorist, and she's so used to analyzing fads that her entire thought process grinds to a halt when she sees he's not following a single one. Intrigued, she sticks close, even combining their research projects when his funding hits a major snag.

The plot is fairly light, with few surprises. Sandra researches trends, is stymied by Flip or HiTek's management, grows closer to Bennett, and accidentally reaches a goal almost every background character is striving for. She spends a lot of the book musing about the happy accidents of science, so the ending manages to feel nothing like a deus ex machina.

Sandra's voice is dryly sarcastic. She presents the people around her like an ongoing sociological observation, noting their quirks and patterns while remaining curiously unaware of her internal world. Her lack of self-awareness plays a part in the overall plot, so it's entirely forgivable.

The book is social commentary with a lot of insight into human nature. While the book's answers to what causes fads is too pat for the real world, the insights about their spread and how people regard them is spot on.

Sandra's observations about HiTek's management are satire at its best. She pokes fun at corporate speak, red tape, team-building exercises, useless meetings, and the disconnect between management and the people doing the work. Through Flip, Willis illustrates how the least competent are often the best rewarded.

Flip stands for a lot more than that, though. She has even less self-awareness than Sandra, and she actively undermines a lot of HiTek scientists' efforts. Every bit of progress is stymied by Flip's carelessness, and she lobbies to get rid of the only person who can neutralize her disasters. Not out of jealousy, but because the woman is a smoker when the fad is to treat smokers like second-class citizens.

The subject of fads has interested me for a long time: how they start, why people pick them up, why they die. Despite its status as fiction, this book had a lot of answers for me, and many of its views coincided with my own. I found it hilarious and entertaining, and the theme is one I can get behind.

I listened to this on audio, narrated by Kate Reading. I've listened to books she's narrated before, and she's always impressed me with her crisp, professional delivery. She gets across Sandra's voice well, and captures Flip's attitude by giving her a lazy drawl. Some of the other characters sounded similar to one another, but it was forgivable, because Sandra rarely talks to large groups of people at a time. I could always tell who was really speaking.


View all my reviews

Review: The Neil Gaiman Audio Collection

The Neil Gaiman Audio Collection by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very quick audio collection of Neil Gaiman's stories for young readers. It includes three stories and a poem.

The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish is about a boy who trades his dad to his friend, then has to keep going farther and farther from his house to trade him back. It's a funny story, mostly in how nonplussed the father is, and each child's disappointment to discover the dad was the worse end of the swap.

The Wolves in the Walls is about a girl who hears noises in the walls, and warns her family. Nobody believes her, though they each remember a dire adage about what happens if they come out. Young Lucy is brave and sensible. It's a fun, whimsical story.

Cinnamon is in the classic fable style, about a princess who won't talk, until a tiger shows up to claim the reward offered by her father. The solution is easy, of course, to someone willing to look at the problem from Cinnamon's perspective.

Crazy Hair is a narrative poem about, well, hair, and what happens when a curious 3-year-old tries to tame it. It made me think of my own father, and I had to track down a video of its being performed so I could share it with him. Very cute.

The very end of the collection includes an interview between Neil Gaiman and his daughter, Maddy, who sounds like she's around 8 years old at the time. She has some excellent questions, but the best part is how she wraps it up.

Overall, the audio collection is charmingly entertaining, and, though aimed for a very young audience, enjoyable by anyone who likes Neil Gaiman's writing. This is read by the author, who's an excellent narrator.


View all my reviews

Review: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I usually wait until after my book club meetings to review the month's selection. But I read this month's so far in advance, I'm backing up the rest of my review list if I delay it that long.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a classic, in that I first heard of it from underclassmen being "forced" to read it in public school. It deserves better, but I don't know a better way to get in front of students' eyes than assigning it as mandatory. It bridges the period that spurred the Civil Rights Movement, and shows the hardships of descendants of freed slaves, and everyone who looked like them. It lends a perspective on a piece of history we commonly associate with the Dust Bowl and WWII.

The book tells the story of Maya (Marguerite) Johnson, who grows up in Stamps, Arkansas. She and her older brother, Bailey, are sent there to live with their grandmother when their parents separate. Their mother briefly claims them in Chicago, but they're sent back to Stamps after a rape by her mother's boyfriend leaves Maya unwilling to speak. Racial tensions eventually lead their grandmother to take them to their mother's new home in San Francisco. While it's less overtly racist, Maya still runs into a lot of limitations, most notably when she decides she'll be a street car operator and has to persist at this ambition for weeks while the gatekeepers politely hope she'll go away.

The book reads as a series of loosely connected vignettes, rather than a single novel. It is autobiographical, so it's no coincidence that it reads more like a memoir. I kept waiting for a connecting narrative thread, and, while the themes and tone and voice remain the same throughout, it felt uneven. The resolution at the end of the book felt anticlimactic.

Despite the horror of rape, that's one of the easier parts of the books to read. Young Maya puts the reader right into her head leading up to the event, and in its aftermath. She depicts the violence done to that young body and mind without ever describing it in violent terms. Through her eyes, one sees the absurdity of asking an 8-year-old what she was wearing to provoke the attack, even while modern news outlets describe a young rape survivor as looking older than her years.

The language in this book is lovely. I've often found that poets are better at prose than novelists are at poetry. Despite the disjointed nature of the story, it felt like every word was there because it needed to be, and that to remove one was to destroy the whole flow. Angelou captures sentiments and experiences vividly in a few well-chosen words.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings isn't always a pleasant book to read. It shines a light on a lot of aspects of history the majority of Westerners have been allowed, even encouraged, to overlook. Racism is easier to stomach when it's evil Germans perpetrating it. When it's the people we've been identifying with throughout history, it's jarring. That is precisely why this is a valuable book to read, despite the difficult themes and the terrible ordeal young Maya survives. We could all do with a little more empathy.

I listened to this book on audio, read by the author. Generally, I've found the audio books I've liked best were read by the author, who, after all, knew exactly where the emphasis was supposed to go and how to pronounce all the names and places. It's the closest you can be to curling up inside the author's thoughts while she wrote. There were times when Angelou sounded exasperated with her own words, but she was definitely the best narrator for these words.


View all my reviews

Review: Scarlet (Lunar Chronicles #2) by Marissa Meyer

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don't know what made me give Scarlet a try when I found
  Cinder

such a chore. I suppose I'm just more forgiving of debut novels. Or more of a sucker for fairy tale retellings than I'll admit. Either way, this is a vast improvement.

Scarlet introduces the title character, who lives in rural France, wears a red hoodie, and has bright red hair. In case it's not perfectly obvious yet, it's a futuristic take on Little Red Riding Hood. We open with Scarlet furious the police have given up on finding her missing grandmother, when she meets a mysterious and very strong man who goes by Wolf. He knows where to find her grandmother, and off they go to Paris to rescue her, with a jaunt through the woods breaking up their journey. Her story is interspersed with Cinder's, who escapes from prison with a roguish thief who has a space ship, and tracks down Scarlet's grandmother, too, in hopes of getting answers about her past.

The narrative tension is vastly improved from the first book. There are no easy choices for our characters; they're often faced with causing one person's death, or causing several more, or their own. Cinder's reluctance to embrace her true identity costs her, but it also works to Scarlet's benefit. Nothing just works out for anyone; they have to use all their resources to fight a powerful enemy, and they still come out behind.

This book, at least, has a kind of resolution. It's not the resolution we might hope for, but there is a brief lull for the characters to catch their breaths before launching into their next task, and we have a good idea where they might start when the next book opens. The story ends on a hopeful note, with these two resourceful young women having found one another.

The love story in Scarlet is more compelling than in Cinder, though it's not without its predictable turns and cliché tropes. The characters are aware of how quickly it happened, yet it doesn't feel forced or rushed. Considering the circumstances, they'd both have to be fundamentally broken to feel nothing.

This is a promising progression of this series, and it's convinced me to pick up the next book. I feel like all Cinder lacked was another plot to offset the main one, or to introduce some of the greater conflicts we see in Scarlet. All of that is fixed in this installment. And now I find myself looking forward to book three.

I listened to this on audio, narrated by Rebecca Soler. Her voice was better suited to Scarlet's fiery temper and Wolf's quiet menace. Another narrator might have exaggerated the French accents the story called for, but they were subtly done. One of the android voices was rather more screechy than I liked, but it did fit the character.

View all my reviews

Review: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I can't say what inspired me to pick this up, except that it was available as an audio book through my library, and I didn't know what I wanted to listen to next. I'm glad I went in without expectations, because I think the author did a lot of things with this book I might have closed my mind against if I expected something else.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao tells the story of a US-born Dominican boy named Oscar de León, cursed to never find love. The narrative takes us from modern-day America back to the early reign of Trujillo, the Dominican dictator assassinated in 1961, and forward into the narrator's hope for the future. The story is actually a first-person account by Yunior, who doesn't step into the story until about halfway through. He falls in love with Oscar's sister and becomes Oscar's only friend, and witness to the curse plaguing him and his family.

Oscar is the consummate nerd. He's overweight, obsessed with all things SF, and spends much of his copious free time writing out his epic tales. In college, Yunior finds Oscar sitting in his room watching Akira most days. I was worried the narrator would blame Oscar's lack of a love life on his nerdy habits, but Yunior, himself, is also into geeky things, and he has no trouble attracting two, sometimes three women at a time. (Not that the women know how many he's seeing.) There is some fat shaming in Oscar's depiction, and, though we see how hard it is for Oscar to try to take up running, Yunior isn't terribly sympathetic to Oscar's struggle with his weight.

The story's attitude toward women is hard to pinpoint. As Oscar treats them like an unattainable goal to keep throwing himself at until he racks up enough Nice Guy points, and Yunior treats them mostly as interchangeable objects to have sex with, it would be easy to call this a misogynist narrative. Except, we also get several sections in the perspective of Lola, Oscar's sister, and we hear of their mother's struggles in the Dominican Republic as an attractive, dark-skinned girl. So the female characters we see in any depth are just as fully developed as Oscar and Yunior.

Most of my interest in this book lay in the perspective of Dominican culture, both in the Dominican Republican and in the immigrant communities in the US. I know precious little of the history and culture, and, while this is hardly a comprehensive lesson, it did lend me a lot of insight. Yunior is proud of his heritage, but he doesn't romanticize it. He's well aware of its limitations and how it shaped the immigrant communities he and Oscar are a part of.

The choice of language in this book can be disorienting. Yunior can go from talking like a professor to spouting Spanish profanity to a street lingo peppered liberally with the n word. It was discomfiting to hear that word dropped so casually, even by someone reclaiming it. Yunior's language choices are essential to understanding Oscar's troubles with fitting in, though.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is one of those books I'll keep thinking about long after I've finished reading it. There's a lot going on, even in what look like the most straightforward scenes. I'm not sure I could recommend it to anyone who wouldn't be angry with me for not preparing them, but the best way to approach it is unprepared, with your mind open but aware of where it's coming from.

The edition I took out from the library also included Drown, a short story collection. Most of the stories are about Yunior, the narrator of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. They cover his childhood in the Dominican Republic, his life in New Jersey and girlfriends he's had, and a boy without a face who features in two of the stories. The final story in the collection tells how Yunior's father came to the US and gained citizenship, and why it took him so long to bring his family to live with him. The stories lend some perspective to Yunior's characterization, and they offer more cultural context, but I wouldn't have picked them up on their own.

I listened to an audio edition of this book, narrated by Jonathan Davis and Staci Snell. I thought the former narrator did an excellent job of carrying most of the book, and the latter did a fine job on reading the few female-perspective sections. Davis sounded authentically Latino when the narrative called for it, though I can't comment on whether he sounded Dominican. He treated the material as a performance. I felt he stepped into Yunior's role in the story, rather than just reading his words. I'm glad I listened to this on audio, because the Spanish interspersed throughout the text is easier to get in context if you know how it's supposed to sound, and Davis's inflection made it a lot easier to follow.


View all my reviews

Review: The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

The Professor & the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity & the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this for a book club. With the difficulty I had getting into it, it's for the best that I did, because I would've abandoned it, otherwise. It turned out to have some interesting highlights, though I'd hesitate to recommend it to others.

The story of the Oxford English Dictionary is a varied and complicated one. This focuses mostly on two of the men who made it possible: Professor James Murray, who compiled most of the information that went into the dictionary, and Dr. W.C. Minor, an asylum resident who contributed many of the quotes used to capture the essence or history of words. The majority of the book focuses on Dr. Minor: why he was in an asylum, what he did while he was there, how his contributions helped. Dr. Minor has a combination of free time and access to books that proves essential to the making of this dictionary.

The structure of the tale isn't linear. It jumps around in time, starting with a tale of when Professor Murray and Dr. Minor first met. Only, it turns out, that's a sensationalized account people passed around as the truth. The real story is far less interesting, but you don't learn that until about three quarters of the way into the book.

Though it is true that Dr. Minor wouldn't have had the time to put in all his work on the dictionary without his stay at the asylum, to present it, as this narrative does, as wholly positive is romanticism of mental illness at its worst. If you asked Dr. Minor if he'd rather have contributed nothing and never been plagued by delusions of demons getting into his room through the floor, it's just a guess, but I'm willing to bet he would've chosen mental health. The illness later proves so distracting to Dr. Minor that he's unable to contribute further, anyway. Think what he might have been able to do if inspired to help and given full control over his faculties. Think what he might have accomplished on his own. We've come a long way from locking people up in asylums, but we still have a way to go in our attitudes toward mental health.

The book seems a bit scattershot at times, unsure what it wants to focus on. The dictionary, itself, is rarely discussed except in very dry academic terms, and Murray is barely a footnote. And yet it's not quite a biography of Dr. Minor, because it leaves out a lot of detail that might've shed light on his struggle. It doesn't even offer a psychological diagnosis until the last pages, nor does it touch upon the kind of Victorian psychiatry Dr. Minor would've been subject to. In its place, the book speculates, with little to back it up.

I found this an interesting read. I thought it captured the scope of the project of compiling the first English-language comprehensive dictionary well, and I picked up several interesting tidbits of information. In the end, though, I didn't find it readable enough to recommend others read it, unless they're really interested in the OED.


View all my reviews

Review: Emeralds to Emeralds, Dust to Dust (Oz Reimagined) by Seanan McGuire

Emeralds to Emeralds, Dust to Dust by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is only one of the short stories in the Oz Reimagined anthology, but it was released as a standalone short story on ebook. I wish more anthologies would do this. I've read far too many anthologies I wish I'd just picked through for the reasons I bought the anthology lately. And, in this case, I don't think I'm enough of a fan of the Oz books to justify picking up the whole thing.

"Emeralds to Emeralds, Dust to Dust" posits an Oz beset by humans from our world, who crossed over the Deadly Desert and are now relegated to their very own Emerald City ghetto. Dorothy is all grown up, and is tasked with keeping humans in line, but they resent her for her status and for beating a path to a land that's less than magical to them. The story is a very short murder mystery. A body is found in the human sector of town, only it's clearly a plant to stir anti-human sentiment.

If you hold the Oz books as sacred or purely innocent, you're unlikely to enjoy this story. This takes a lot of the magic out of the world. Ozma is controlling and petty, and Dorothy is far more cynical than the young girl who was once horrified to accidentally kill two witches. Sand from the Deadly Desert is a drug, called Dust, that's potent and often lethal.

The alterations aren't without precedent. Considering what happens to wilderness not under federal protection, it's not a stretch to suggest that large numbers of human immigrants into a magical land may have a negative effect. And Dorothy couldn't possibly remain an innocent little girl forever. I'm not familiar with Ozma's role in the books, but power has, historically, gone to people's heads, and it sounds like Ozma has a lot of it.

If you're looking for a nostalgic stroll through the books you loved as a child, you may want to skip this. But if you're looking for a creative take on what may have been, I'd recommend giving this story a shot. It's a quick read, compellingly written, and easy for even those of us not as familiar with the Oz books to follow.


View all my reviews

Review: The Heart Goes Last (Positron #4) by Margaret Atwood

The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This might just be the most frustrating serial fiction ever. Not because of how it's written, but because of the publication schedule. This is most certainly not the end of the story, but there's no release date on episode 5, and this one came out over a year ago.

The premise behind Positron is a near-future dystopia, where people deep in debt voluntarily go into prison for six nonconsecutive months a year. The other six months, they spend in suburban paradise. Stan and Charmaine are happy with their choice to enter the system, until Stan finds a note he believes was left by the woman who lives in their house during their off months, and fills his head with all kinds of fantasies. Only, it's a code name used by Charmaine, so she can cheat on Stan with Max, the man who occupies their house during the months they're imprisoned.

Four installments in, Stan's death has been faked and the subversive forces are working on getting him out, while Charmaine is being ogled by the guy in charge at Stan's funeral.

I'm honestly not sure if I'm rooting for Stan and Charmaine's eventual reunion. The only things they have in common are that they lie to each other and lust after other people. Stan was momentarily interested in his wife again when he realized she was the sultry vixen he'd been lusting after, thinking all along she was boring and pure. But he's easily distracted by a defective sexbot, who imprinted on a stuffed animal instead of the man she was built for. And, while Charmaine genuinely grieves for her husband, there's a heavy burden of guilt involved, as she believes she killed him.

I guess I'll see what future installments bring. I sure hope there will be future installments.


View all my reviews

Review: Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente

Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I like fairy tale retellings. At least, in theory, I like them. I've found a lot I was dissatisfied with, often because the characters were shoehorned into their roles without a lot of character exploration. Despite the glut of Snow White retellings, this one sounded different enough it deserved a chance. Besides, it was nominated for a Hugo.

Six-Gun Snow White takes place in the Old West, in an untamed land populated by robber barons and the exploited native population. A silver baron, Mr. H, takes a native girl named Gun That Sings as his wife, without consulting her on the matter. He threatens to exploit her family's land to gain their grudging consent. She has a single daughter, and dies. Mr. H's new wife ironically names her Snow White, and spends much of the girl's childhood bathing her in ice cold milk to take the darkness out of her skin.

Snow White escapes her stepmother, and just in time, because, as in the original tale, the evil stepmother wants Snow's heart. The huntsman comes in the form of a bounty hunter who sees Snow as just another spoiled kid who'll be easy to track down. But she's clever and resourceful, and learns everything she can about surviving in the lawless lands. The dwarves show up as the women running an all-female town.

The ending of the story takes it in an odd direction. I suppose it would have to; everyone knows the iconic story, and we can't have a predictable ending. I would've had an easier time with it if I'd been clear on the relationship between Snow and her stepmother's mirror-child, the reason why the stepmother needs Snow White's heart. There's a strong bond between Snow White and Deer Boy, but I was never sure if it was familial or emotional.

The western angle on the Snow White story is a new one to me, and a non-white Snow White is a clever twist. And this Snow, for all her adherence to the plot formula, directs her own fate. She becomes the central character of the story, not just its victim. This is no damsel summoning woodland creatures with her innocence. This Snow White carries a gun, and doesn't hesitate to use it when she needs it.

Despite the many, many Snow White retellings, this one manages to stand out from the rest. I don't know if I'd call it my favorite, but it is compellingly written, with an excellent sense of character, motivation, and the importance of the essential symbols, like the mirror and apples. This didn't win the Hugo, but now I'm really intrigued about the novella that did.


View all my reviews

Review: Eat Slay Love (Living With the Dead, #3) by Jesse Petersen

Eat Slay Love by Jesse Petersen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the third book in the Living With the Dead series, a lighthearted look at the zombie apocalypse. This installment finds a ramping-up of the tension and stakes.

Sarah and David survived a zombie apocalypse that started where they were in Seattle, and they've made something of a name for themselves as they cut a swath through the zombie-infested countryside. In this, the third book, they're making their way to a rumored Midwest Wall, which supposedly stopped the invasion from spreading east. If it's real, it's possible Sarah's mother survived the outbreak, and that there's still a place where civilization is intact.

The vest majority of the book takes place in rural Oklahoma, where they pick up a former celebrity news reporter, barely escape an insular community of survivors, and meet a drug-addled former rock star. Both Sarah and David get a chance to show off what they've gained in the zombie apocalypse, as the threats get ever more dangerous and they're called on to tap all their resources.

All of the books are told in a self-help format. The first book is about saving their marriage with a common enemy, so the chapter headings are all themed after relationship advice. The second establishes their zombie-hunting business, so it's styled after business manuals. This one is more of a general/motivational self-help, which strikes me that the concept is running thin. It still works in this book, but I can't imagine how a future book might fit the theme.

There's a strong thread throughout this book about taking advantage of the zombie apocalypse, for better or worse. David and Sarah aren't the only couple who resolved their differences to fight zombies, and many characters tap into strengths that had been languishing in the civilized world. Obviously it's not an improvement for people turned into or eaten by zombies, and Sarah speaks longingly of the trappings of society, but the survivors are changed by the experience, mostly for the better.

I've read reviews of the fourth book that suggest stopping with this volume. It does wrap up a lot of plot threads. I'm content with where we leave Sarah and David at the end of this book. One gets the idea their story is done. There are a couple of threads still left hanging, but they don't seem they'd overly affect these two in the life they've accepted by the end of this book.

If you like humor and snark in your zombie books, I recommend this series. It's a nice change of pace from the grimdark that dominates the genre. There's still gore and death, but it's tempered well with levity.

I listened to this book on audio, narrated by Cassandra Campbell. Her voice generally captures Sarah's snark, though some of her emphasis and pronunciations are a little off. And by this third book, some of her voices for characters are indistinguishable. There were times when I couldn't tell if a character was speaking, or if Sarah was narrating.


View all my reviews

Review: Tales Too Ticklish to Tell by Berkeley Breathed

Tales Too Ticklish to Tell: Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Several months ago, I found a pile of Bloom County books at a library sale. Of course I snatched them up. I have fond memories of reading these when they were new, though I didn't understand a lot of the punchlines at the time.

In Tales Too Ticklish to Tell, Breathed's style was pretty well cemented. When you think of Bloom County, you think of these character designs, and this type of humor. It's bitingly sarcastic, a little absurd, and allows for no sacred beliefs to go untouched. Media scandals, TV evangelists, scapegoating, gun control, short attention spans, and objectification are all examined and skewered in turn.

As with Loose Tails, what surprised me was not how dated the jokes are (and some of them really are), but by how well some of them hold up. If you ever need a reminder that the media has always been lazy and sensationalist, look no further than its depiction in Bloom County. The characters regularly comment as they watch the news or read the paper, and we see how their local paper distorts what it hears to make an attention-grabbing headline. Above-the-fold scandals were the clickbait of their day.

There are places where the author lets his unconscious biases show, but, for the most part, the satire is evenly doled out. Some of the characters lean liberal or conservative, but they're all poked at in equal amounts. And, when the ultimate man's man, Steve Dallas, is taken and turned liberal, he's an object of ridicule, and his old friends are horrified. If one considers Opus the author's mouthpiece, then it's clear which way the author leans, but an argument could easily be made he's not.

I don't know how much entertainment value these comic strips have for generations who didn't live through what they parody, but, for someone who can remember most of what they discuss, it's fun to revisit them. They hold up surprisingly well, and finally understanding jokes that flew right over my head when I first read them is gratifying.


View all my reviews

Review: Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I won this book through a giveaway at Roof Beam Reader. It's the first full-length Kurt Vonnegut book I've read. I was unprepared. Though, I'm not sure any amount of preparation would've been enough.

Our unnamed narrator is researching material for a book about the day the atomic bomb first went off, from the perspectives of family members of Dr. Hoenikker, one of the scientists who invented it. In the course of his research, he learns of a substance called ice-nine, which can change the properties of water so that it needs a much higher temperature to melt, invented by Hoenikker. He notes its potential for worldwide catastrophe, then thinks nothing of it. Nothing, that is, until he winds up in an island nation where the inventor's three children converge, and our narrator is drawn to events that lead to ice-nine's release into the world.

Throughout the book, the narrator describes a philosophy he's taken on in the place of the Christian religion, called Bokonism. It posits the uselessness of religion and the meaning behind seeming coincidence. At first, the reader is led to believe this is a longstanding belief he's been assimilating for years. It's only as the book goes along that one realizes how recently he picked it up, and that, when he speaks about events most people would assume will happen after the book wraps up, he's foreshadowing.

The book is told in satiric, rapid-fire prose. The chapters are short, and they read as vignettes saturated in irony. Bokonon teaches our narrator that man is the only thing worthy of being regarded as divinity, but the behavior of human beings in this story is far less than divine. People are selfish and greedy, and, above all, hypocritical. The island nation our narrator visits has outlawed Bokonism and is sworn to execute its founder, but it turns out that all its citizens practice it in secret, even the leaders who've made it a crime worthy of painful execution.

I can't remember the last time I read speculative fiction written in this time period that didn't evoke the Cold War. This one makes its analogue plain as day, evoking the atom bomb from the very start. The message is clear: people are self-destructive by nature. Giving them a weapon that could destroy us all can't end well.

There are some aspects of the book that made me uncomfortable. I couldn't tell if Vonnegut didn't realize he was being racist, or if he was making fun of the sort of people who'd say such things. The way he presents comments about Newt's height make me think it's the latter, but it's a close thing.

This is an odd book, but not an unpleasant read. It goes at a nice clip, and it has plenty of wry satire to entertain. It seems a bit preoccupied with its satire rather than characterization or language, but it can be forgiven. I'd liken it to the movie Dr. Strangelove, at least in tone. I'm glad I got the chance to read it, so I can quit treating Vonnegut like an obstacle to overcome, and instead view him as a writer I'm sometimes in the mood to read.


View all my reviews

Review: The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century by Ian Mortimer

The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century by Ian Mortimer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My interest in history is in the everyday. Random facts and dates and politics may tell me what shaped the world we have today, but I want to know what people were doing while all that went on. This book, then, was right up my alley. And it was in my 2014 TBR Challenge because otherwise, I was never going to get around to reading it.

The book is, as the title says, a guidebook for anyone wanting to visit England in the 1300's. It discusses customs, fashions, crime, justice, economic classes, conditions living in cities, food, travel, people's homes, and, briefly, the Black Death. It's the first history book I've read about the time period that doesn't dismiss research suggesting the Black Death was viral. But there are entire books devoted to that particular puzzle. In this, it's little more than a footnote, except to note how its effect on lifestyles and the population.

The book is absolutely packed with information. It covers any aspect a person visiting from our time period needs to know so they don't stick out. It presents the populace not as clueless rubes, but as people living their lives and worthy of respect despite their lowbrow humor.

Unfortunately, the Time Traveler's Guide isn't terribly readable. It's excellent as a resource to consult to get a good idea of the flavor of the time, but, as a cover-to-cover read, it's rather dry. That exhaustive research and thorough information doesn't take long to get tiresome. It's like that person at a party you were sorry to ask about their area of expertise when they're still going on about it an hour later.

Overall, this is a valuable resource for anyone who needs to get the flavor of everyday life during the time period. I recommend keeping it on hand to consult as needed, rather than reading all the way through at once. I'm going to keep it on hand, but I'm not going to read it as I did this time around again.


View all my reviews