Review: Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores by Jen Campbell

Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores by Jen Campbell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a short but sweet read, and exactly what the title says. It's a lot of strange things people have said while inside a bookstore.

Most of the quotes came from Jen Campbell's own experiences working at a bookshop during college, and now at an antiquarian bookstore called Ripping Yarns. Both bookshops are in the UK, though the US edition has changed the spelling to make it more American-friendly (and changed "bookshops" to "bookstores"). There are a few cultural references I'd never heard before, but it was no more jarring than discovering there were new musical artists since the last time I listened to the radio. I understood from context that the Five was a YA series about a group of girls.

There were a number of additions from US booksellers, all of which were credited by name and bookstore. If you're expecting the stories from the US to be far different from Ms. Campbell's, though, you'll be disappointed. American readers are no more or less clueless or weird than English ones, at least going by this sampling.

This book was highly entertaining, and over all too fast. It took me less than an hour to read it through in its entirety. It seems better suited for something to have around so you can flip through when you need a reminder, or for sharing your favorites with others.

I would most recommend this to those who have worked in a bookstore, who will recognize some of these shoppers, or anyone who reads Not Always Right. These interactions are more succinct and coherent than some of the entries on Not Always Right. They're also more consistently funny.


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Review: In Other Worlds by Margaret Atwood

In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've read a lot of Margaret Atwood's fiction, but not a lot of her nonfiction. I was hoping for some insight into why she uses the SF trappings she does in her books, and, in that, I was not disappointed. I also learned some things, along the way, including a whole other way to think of genre fiction, no matter how you label it.

Atwood is known for resisting a "science fiction" label, and she explains within these pages why. It's not because she looks down on science fiction, but because she considers her works to be speculative fiction, a branch she considers separate. (I use it as a catch-all for science fiction, fantasy, urban fantasy, etc.)

The book is broken up into personal essays and reviews or commentaries on specific works. The publication of these items is often years apart, and so there's some overlap and repetition. What's interesting is that there is no contradiction. By the time Atwood wrote the first of these pieces, she already knew things she's only grown to solidify.

Atwood's higher education background is in Victorian literature. A lot of this book, then, involves themes and novels of that time period, though she does branch out to cover mythology and modern science fiction and superheroes.

The result is a surprisingly cohesive package covering several concepts regarding science fiction's role in our lives. She addresses the snobbish literary attitudes toward genre, pointing out that its greatest sin is that people enjoy reading it. She discusses "ustopia," which is neither dystopia nor utopia, or maybe it's both. It's how she classifies her own works that others (including me) have classified as dystopian: The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake, and The Year of the Flood. She goes into what influenced these books, and how she feels they distort the modern world, rather than predicting a probable future.

The reviews cover an array of classics and modern stories, from Gulliver's Travels to Never Let Me Go. I was amused to find that, with one exception, I'd either read the books in question, or never heard of them in my life. Luckily, with Atwood's commentary, it sounds like I've been spared having to read them for myself. There's only so much sexism, repression, and colonialism a modern reader can take.

The essays can be repetitive, but this only serves to underline her main points about the universal truths even pulpy science fiction is tapping into. Through these essays, Atwood helps to elevate science fiction, if not to the same level as literary, at least out of the mud into which many critics have kicked it.

If you want to think about your science fiction differently, as part of a greater whole in the history of fiction, I highly recommend you pick this up.

I "read" the audio edition, which is narrated by Margaret Atwood and Susan Denaker. I like to hear the author's intonation when I'm reading a book, though Atwood lacks Denaker's polish. Still, they picked a narrator who sounds similar enough to Margaret Atwood that I forgot the narrators had switched until it switched back. Atwood has a slight Canadian accent, and her voice fades every hour or so, but I enjoyed hearing her read her essays, and I wish she'd been able to read it all. I understand why she couldn't, though, and I'm happy with her temporary replacement.


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Review: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It seems odd to call a book a "classic," after it's only been out for 20 years. Yet, Snow Crash was incredibly influential, both in SF and the SF fandom community. It's practically a requirement before one can call oneself a geek. And yet, this is my first time reading it.

I finally read it with a book group. I didn't give myself enough time to read it, which didn't turn out to be as much of a problem as I thought. Others in the group found it inaccessible, and had stalled before the 100-page mark. I'd found it too dense to read at my usual pace, and I actually got up to do the dishes to get away from it, once. But, I was only 40 pages shy of the end by the meeting, and I finished it that night.

The book is about Hiro Protagonist, a computer hacker and pizza deliveryman and the greatest living swordsman. At least, that's what his business card purports, and how ironically he means it is up for interpretation. The story starts with an exciting pizza delivery, with Hiro up against ten minutes left on his 30-minutes-or-less counter, twelve miles to go, and a smartass Kourier named Y.T. (short for "Yours Truly") stealing his momentum. Sadly, the pizza delivery stuff, exciting as it is, never comes up again. Instead, Hiro goes into a virtual reality, Stephenson's imagining of a future internet in 1992, and talks to a library for the next 300 pages. It's as exciting as reading Wikipedia.

There are other events going on, but the Library sections so dragged down the narrative that I can't blame my fellow readers for abandoning this book. There's no immediate connection between Sumerian myth and a virus that landed Hiro's friend and former boss, Da5id, in the hospital. But Hiro sure makes a valiant attempt to interrogate the Library until it gives him every bit of trivia on the subject. I might not have minded these intervals if I'd known what tidbit Hiro needed to get that ah-ha moment. Instead, it reads as two people having an involved conversation about something about which I know nothing, and care even less. They were words better used on character motivation and internal monologues, neither of which Stephenson seems to believe in.

This is most apparent when Y.T. meets Raven, an assassin who rides a cool black motorcycle. She falls for him right off the bat, and I'm left with the unsettling notion she did so only because chicks fall for bad boys. And she'd been doing so well, until then.

For all its innovation, Snow Crash is dated. It explains concepts modern readers are familiar with, like we've never heard of them before. I suppose Stephenson is one of the reasons they're part of the zeitgeist, but that didn't make paragraphs of description of connecting to the internet and using programming languages any less tedious.

None of the above means I didn't like the book. It's just that it's far less accessible than I'd been led to believe. I'd hate for someone just starting out in SF to pick this up, looking for the literary equivalent of Star Wars. It's dense, which means it's also packed with philosophy, social commentary, and shining a light on modern ills. The book group was reminded of
  Ready Player One

, with the character escaping a dire background into an online community where he's adored, and I certainly saw the influence. I saw more parallels to   Jennifer Governmen

, where everything is privately owned and Nike stages shootings over its shoes to generate hype. The financial collapse and open ownership by the Mafia seem to be direct ancestors of Max Barry's vision of a world where we're so owned by corporations, we change our names based on employment.

On a quick read-through to get this book read in time to discuss it, I felt like a lot of its commentary was drowned out with a plot too bogged down with infodumps to explore those points. Maybe, with a bit more time to read it, I would feel differently. Or maybe, without that motivation to finish it, I wouldn't have bothered to find out. Who knows?

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Review: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm writing this review on Jane Austen's 237th birthday. I didn't do that on purpose, but, since I am, happy birthday, Jane, you writer of entertaining books, you!

I first read Pride and Prejudice years ago, as part of an experiment to see if classics are worth reading for fun, outside an academic setting. More recently, I decided to reread it both because of my Austen in August experience, and because I'd been reading some commentary on Pride and Prejudice I didn't agree with. I kept reading that Austen was a precursor to modern rom-coms, and that she advocated for a guy to try harder to win a woman who didn't like him. I knew that wasn't the case, but I didn't know if I was misremembering, or if it was my interpretation that made me read it differently. I've addressed that question here.

The book does follow the story of a woman who doesn't like a man, those being Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. He's originally standoffish, and she overhears him making an insulting comment about her. He falls for her, at first because he thinks she has pretty eyes, and then because she's lively and a good sister and rather straightforward, for her time. She, meanwhile, hears all kinds of ugly things that reinforce her notions of him, and ignores anything that contradicts them. And then his proposal makes it sound like he's doing her a huge favor by stooping to liking her, and she reacts just as a straightforward woman would, by letting him know exactly what she thinks of him. In the end, she finds out the truth, and he makes a greater effort to come across as less of a snob, and all ends happily ever after for them.

What's interesting about this book is that it isn't just a love story for Lizzy and Darcy. It's also a cautionary tale about making the wrong choice. It's never said how Mr. and Mrs. Bennet found one another, but their temperaments and opinions are so often at odds that it's a wonder they're not at each other's throats. Lizzy's friend Charlotte Lucas consents to marry Mr. Collins, and her only saving grace is how often he's outside in the garden, leaving her alone. Lydia Bennet's impulsive decision about who she wants to be with nearly ruins her whole family, and, while she doesn't entirely seem to grasp the gravity of her situation, she hardly has Lizzy's happy ending.

Because I'd already read a paper version of the book, I thought I'd read it on audio, for a change of pace. I'm glad I did. The audio really brings out the satire and humor of the book. The reader never went out of her way to inject sarcasm or irony into what she was reading, but it was clear, listening to the words, where it was intended.

This is a classic that I think has aged incredibly well. I'm still looking for the modern book that handles love half as well as this.


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Progress Post: Writing Again

I think the last time I wrote a progress post was back in August, or maybe July. It's been a while, for various reasons.

When I resumed my blog, I mentioned I had some handwritten stuff to type up in the haunted house story I'd been working on. I'm not done with that. I've set that project aside, because I'm not in the head space to work on it. The story is, in part, about putting one's life back together and learning to trust people, and that is so not something I can wrap my head around.

What I am in the head space for is the trilogy I keep poking at, much to my former writing group's frustration. That's about betrayal and lies and the damage done when you leave out the whole story, which is much closer to my current mind set. Also, I've been working on it so long, the characters are like old friends. Even the homicidal ones. Especially the homicidal ones.

I've rewritten several scenes, and brought it up to modern day. Characters have cellphones now, and some communication is dealt with much faster. I also had to give my main character a reason to turn hers off, which made for a better story. I'm near the end now (page 239 of 293), and I keep wanting to start off each section with my characters swearing a blue streak, because of the situations I've dropped them into. I've been holding off, because, while entertaining, it wouldn't help the narrative.

It's also leading better into the second book, which may have to be rewritten from scratch. I'll read through what I have, and see if any of it's worth saving.

So, I'm writing again. That obstacle is past me. Now, if I could just get some discipline about it, I'd be content. This is not a good time for my willpower, though. I'll take what I can get.

Review: Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen

Lies My Teacher Told Me : Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm glad I read this book. It's useful, presented in a readable way for the most part, and necessary. It works against the jingoistic tone of American History, stripping away the sugar coating to inform the reader how it actually happened.

Unfortunately, the book is sometimes uneven. The second-to-last chapter is so dry, I set the book aside for a week contemplating if I wanted to read the whole thing. There are some contradictions; the author wants race relations discussed in greater depth, but objects to the information coming from members of the oppressed race. The author objects to making heroes of our historical figures, but then spends most of the chapter on the Civil War building a shrine to Abraham Lincoln.

That's not the say the book is deeply flawed. It addresses several of my own observations about learning history in American schools. The picture in textbooks is scattershot and composed of names and dates, which this book does a lot to remedy. I got a much better idea of the big picture from this book, and how one event led to another. And, despite the author's stated distaste for POC sources, he does illustrate racism throughout history, and how it affects the present. Reading this book, it's clear that racism remains a factor despite slavery's ending 150 years ago, and it's in our power to fix it. Also, he very nicely debunks the "states' rights" myth of the Civil War.

The chapter on the first Thanksgiving told me little I didn't know, though it did highlight points I hadn't thought much about. I'd hoped it would have something I hadn't already unlearned. But then, Nathaniel Philbrick took an entire book, Mayflower, to expand on the concept, so I shouldn't be surprised his was more comprehensive.

Overall, I found this an informative read, and would recommend it to anyone who knew something was missing from the American History class in high school. Unless textbook publishers take some of his words to heart, I think this should be added to the curriculum. Despite its wide approach, it makes history a far more interesting subject, populated with human beings and a narrative instead of cardboard cutouts in flashbulb bursts.


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Pride and Prejudice and the Friend Zone

I'm veering a bit off-course of my usual blathering about writing and learning from books to share some thoughts about one book in particular. I recently decided to reread Pride and Prejudice, because I'd been reading commentary describing Jane Austen as the precursor to romance novels, and that it's her fault we have the attitude in fiction that women will come around if a guy is nice enough to them. They traced this back to Pride and Prejudice, and Lizzy Bennet's about-face regarding Mr. Darcy. I knew this wasn't the case, but I didn't remember the exact content of the book well enough to dispute this assertion.

I picked it up on audio, and I'm about 2/3rds of the way through it now. Luckily, I didn't have to read far to get the proof I needed.

In chapter 19, Elizabeth is approached with a proposal of marriage by Mr. Collins. She's done nothing to encourage him up to this point, and, the more time she spends around him, the less she likes him. Also, she's not the sort to hold back on her feelings. So, when he asks for her hand in marriage, she flat out but politely rejects him.

His answer is that he's heard it's customary, because of "female modesty," for a woman to reject a marriage proposal the first time, so he isn't discouraged. This goes back and forth several times, and she says, "You must give me leave to judge for myself, and pay me the compliment of believing what I say." When that fails to discourage him, she says that she doesn't know what she can say that will.

It was a surprise to hear this from a female character, even one as strong-willed and outspoken as Lizzy Bennet, during the Regency era. It's more direct than I'd expected, and it addresses exactly the point I was looking for to show that Austen didn't advise men to wait around for women to change their minds.

What makes Lizzy change her mind about Mr. Darcy is not that he changes, but that she finds out she's misjudged him. Within the book, she gets to see more sides of him. He's a textbook introvert, not the snobbish, cruel man she's been led to believe he is. He's a contrast to Mr. Collins, who really is that boorish and annoying, and who Lizzy was right to reject.

If readers are getting out of this that Austen wanted women to love the jerks who express interest, they didn't read very deeply, and they missed that line in chapter 19. She advocates, in this very book, for women knowing their own minds, and shows us how annoying it is to be pestered by someone they don't like.

I couldn't help but form parallels between Lizzy Bennet's predicament and that of the "friend zone" I've been reading a lot of commentary about lately. Mr. Collins feels entitled to Lizzy's affection, and won't hear otherwise, no matter how she feels, much like the "nice guys" who lament the attention their female friends lavish on "jerks."

It's interesting, that Jane Austen knew and wrote about something we still haven't grasped, almost 200 years later. I wish I read more modern stories that got it. Until then, I have my Pride and Prejudice rereads.

Review: Shiver (Wolves of Mercy Falls #1) by Maggie Stiefvater

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While this book is a great improvement over many YA romance tales, I was overall unimpressed with this love story between a girl and a werewolf. There was potential for an interesting story, but, instead, we're treated to pages and pages and pages of longing sighs and people wanting to do things to each other.

Shiver is about Grace Brisbane and Sam Roth, the aforementioned girl and her wolf. She's attacked by wolves when she's 11, and Sam saves her. Six years later, wolves attack and kill a boy in her school, and she runs out to stop the town's menfolk from shooting "her" wolf. But the gunshot makes him switch back to a human, for some reason, and she takes him home to keep him warm, because the cold is what makes him turn into a wolf.

The vast majority of the book is these two playing house. They sleep in the same bed, with nothing more scandalous than kisses exchanged. She makes him dinner. He eventually meets her absent parents. They talk about how much it'll suck when he turns back into a wolf. (And I was never sure how they knew he'd never be human again.) Grace goes to classes, sometimes, and occasionally the real world intrudes on their cuddling, but mostly, it's a book about teenagers in love.

Considering how aware they both are of how short Sam's time is, they certainly take their time with the relationship. Every time they pulled away from one another, I wondered why. They both consider the 6 years of mooning after one another (before she even knew he was human) to count, as far as how long they've loved each other. So why do they sit back and wait? Very odd.

It doesn't help their case at all that the threats to their relationship are abstract. There's no countdown, nothing they can fight against. The major conflicts (hunters in the woods, Shelby) just fizzle out. Without anything for them to do about the inevitability of winter, I had a hard time rooting for them. It feels like they spend most of the book puttering, wasting time until the conclusion.

It also felt like there was a lot of telling. The phrase "as if" seemed to stand for, "I don't want to describe what this looks like, so this is what they're doing." There were a few times when it was used correctly, but, for the most part, it stood in for describing character motivation. Also, we're told Grace is insensible to others' inner workings, but I never saw that reflected in her choices or judgments. She trusts Sam right off the bat, after all, and she isn't wrong.

There were aspects of the book I liked. Grace's parents were self-involved and neglectful, but they weren't bad people, just bad parents. Grace is an overachiever, because she's taken care of herself for a long time, to which I can relate.

I also liked Grace's friends. Rachel fades into the background a bit, but Olivia's role was fairly integral to the plot. I liked that Grace's friends didn't vanish once she "met" Sam. Other characters also matter, and they clearly have their own worlds and motivations.

I listened to this on audio, narrated by Jenna Lamia reading the Grace perspectives, and David Ledoux reading the Sam perspectives. Unfortunately, even with different readers, it became clear to me that both voices sounded the same. Sam was meant to be poetic, always writing song lyrics in his head, but I never felt anything lyrical in his word choice. Grace's practicality didn't show in her sections, either. Ms. Lamia's reading had a wistful note that added humanity to Grace's character, but Mr. Ledoux's often sounded whiny, or younger than the 18 years he's supposed to be depicting. Weirdest of all were the parts where they're reading dialogue for the other character. They could've at least tried to imitate one another's cadence.

Overall, this book is better than a lot of YA romance, but that doesn't mean I'd recommend it. If you're fourteen and falling in love for the first time, it's probably great. But I never felt like the conclusion was anything but inevitable, or that anything they did would change it. Nihilism is fine for a life philosophy, but it's no way to write a book.


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Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Cinder by Marissa Meyer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I went into this book with such high hopes that I suppose it was inevitable that I'd be disappointed. Still, it would've been nice if the book had met at least one of my expectations.

Cinder is a SF retelling of Cinderella, set in a dystopian world infected with an incurable (and 100% deadly) plague, and where world powers are truncated into a few major players. Meanwhile, up on the moon, there's a colony of people with the power to persuade, to make you see what they want you to, and to control people's movements. Our heroine, Linh Cinder, is a cyborg, a human girl implanted with computer and robotic parts. Because this basically gives her super powers, this is somewhat balanced by her low status as property of her "stepmother," Linh Adri, the wife of the now-dead Linh Garan who adopted Cinder before contracting the plague.

If the main conflict of the book was dealing with the plague, the book fails to deliver on that point. If it wasn't, it wastes a lot of pages on the subject. Cinder's beloved stepsister, Peony, contracts it, and Cinder is donated to medical research to help find a cure. By the end of the book, the most resolution we get on this point is that there is a cure, but that the evil Lunar Queen Levana has it, and is holding it hostage to gain political power.

One would hope, then, that the Lunar threat is addressed in some way. We get some answers about how it can be dealt with by the end of the book, in the form of the most frustrating conversation I've ever been privy to ("But I can't do all that!" "I was just getting to that, after my five paragraphs of clumsy exposition about why it's important you do it. But first, let me explain this diagram of the nervous system . . .").

As others have noted in their reviews, though, the ending just drops off. There are no resolutions, only a building of conflicts that ends with the heroine deciding not to give up. I wouldn't have minded the book ending there, if I'd felt the rest of the plotting was tight enough to justify the lack of resolution, but I didn't. I felt like there was a lot of back-and-forth and establishing of how evil Queen Levana was and why it was important to stop her and how good Cinder was. Conversations were interminable, characterized by info dumps and avoiding the point.

The book is set in China, in "New Beijing" (because the old city was razed in WW4, and you can't reuse city names, I guess). There are sprinklings of Asian flavor, but it felt more like what you'd see in Chinatown than China. There are blatant stereotypes (dragon ladies, packed-tight housing, kimonos and geisha makeup), but Cinder could've been strolling the streets of New York City just as easily without losing any cultural details. Perhaps it was supposed to illustrate a homogenization of this future world, but it came off as appropriative, to me. The fact that she's a white hero in an Asian world made me rather uncomfortable, too.

I listened to this book on audio, and the reading was good, though the female narrator doesn't modulate her voice at all for Prince Kai's dialogue. I was fine with the notion he might sound feminine, but it makes some of the scenes where he's talking to world leaders unintentionally funny. If that might bother you, I'd recommend against the audio. Otherwise, the narrator speaks crisply, though sometimes melodramatically. Her background is in voice acting for American dubs, and, well, there's a reason I pick subtitles when I'm watching a film that isn't in English.


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Reading Challenge: 2013 TBR Pile

I've decided to participate in a reading challenge in 2013. Generally, I avoid them, because I never know what I'll want to pick up next. But this one allows me enough freedom to read what I want, while nudging me to read things I've been meaning to.

The 2013 TBR Pile Challenge is to take 12 books from one's TBR (to-be-read) pile, with up to two backups. The book must have been there for at least one year, and I'm adding the "difficulty" that I must already own it. Further rules and tracking information is up at Roof Beam Reader.

Here's my list, alphabetical by author, which I'll update with links to reviews as I complete them:

1. A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle
2. A Private Hotel for Gentle Ladies by Ellen Cooney
3. In the Woods by Tana French
4. Dumping Billy by Olivia Goldsmith
5. The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones
6. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
7. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
8. Boy's Life by Robert R. McCammon
9. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
10. Things I Want My Daughters to Know by Elizabeth Noble
11. Faithful by Stephen King and Stewart O'Nan
12. The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

And my backups are:

1. Black and White by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge
2. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

That should give me a decent variety from which to choose.

If you want to challenge yourself to read 12 books that you've been meaning to read for longer than a year, visit Roof Beam Reader to sign up, and make sure to read the rules.

Hopefully I'll see you there!

Review: Succubus on Top (Georgina Kincaid #2) by Richelle Mead

Succubus on Top by Richelle Mead
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the second book in the Georgina Kincaid series, about a succubus living in Seattle. I enjoyed it, though, if it was supposed to keep me wondering, it didn't do a good job. But, I still felt myself pulled through to the end, so clearly it lacked no narrative tension.

The book starts with Georgina earning an award from her demonic employer for exemplary performance. Per her agreement from Succubus Blues, she's stepped up to corrupt more souls and take more energy through sex. She's dating Seth Mortenson, an author whose books she reads avidly, but she refrains from sex, much to both their frustrations. Seth knows what she is, and why she can't have him but she can have half the guys in the city, and he's remarkably cool with this.

The conflict in this book comes from a few sources. The main one is that Georgina's friend, Bastien, is in town trying to seduce the local conservative talk show lady. Then there's another of Georgina's friends, Doug, who's acting strangely. I thought the subplot was far more emotionally investing for Georgina, where the main plot felt like a distraction, like she had to keep breaking away from her real life to go help Bastien. The fact that her friend is a jerk who doesn't appreciate all she does and nearly sabotages his big chance doesn't help the main plot's case. He also does his damndest to sabotage Georgina's relationship with Seth, for which there's far too much forgiveness going around far too early.

At one point, Georgina refers to Seth as an alpha male, which made me wonder if it's the author or Georgina who doesn't know what the word means. Seth is a textbook introvert who is happy to fade to the background. The biggest conflict he causes is when he's too busy writing to pay attention to Georgina, and he's so apologetic he more than makes up for it. He does have his moments where he shows alpha tendencies, but most of his role is to be accepting, supportive, and forgiving.

For all its involvement with demons, this series is rather tame so far. There was a body count in the first book, but this one brings down the violence, threatening Georgina with rape (which she gets out of) and unhappy friends. The stakes are lowered, but it's Georgina's charisma that keeps the reader interested.

I will definitely be picking up the third book, Succubus Dreams, at some point. I find this an enjoyable, if light, series, and I'm interested to see where the overarching plot is going.

Previous Richelle Mead reviews:
Succubus Blues

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Review: Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary by David Sedaris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a really quick read. They're all short stories about animals by David Sedaris, illustrated by Ian Falconer. The animals speak and go about their lives almost as if they're people, but within their animal natures. So sheep are stupid, crows are mean, cats are vain, and chickens are judgmental. It's like a twisted Aesop's Fables, without the morals at the end.

Most of the stories are slice-of-life tales. The book opens with a cat going to a salon run by a baboon to get ready for a party. There's a story about a squirrel and a chipmunk who are dating, but it doesn't work out, and the chipmunk always wonders what might have been. There's another story about a motherless bear who tries to use this fact for sympathy long after everyone's sick of hearing about it. There's another story about what storks tell their children about where babies come from. The last story is about an owl who tries to learn new things to distract him from his grief over losing his wife, while his idiot relatives try to set him up with another owl.

It's hard to say this is all good: there are some rather disturbing stories. One is of a too-cheerful lab rat. Another is about a newborn lamb whose eyes are pecked out, and the accompanying illustration is rather ghastly. "The Judicious Brown Chicken" was also gruesome. Just because these stories about animals doesn't mean they're for kids, or even to be taken lightly. The natural world is actually rather cruel to the fuzzy creatures we know and love, and Sedaris doesn't sugar-coat any of that.

There is humor to be found, but it's mostly the darkly funny kind, not the laugh-out-loud. I'd worry for people who laughed while reading this, actually. Maybe the delivery is better in a live reading, but the words on the page didn't lend themselves to much chuckling.

If you like David Sedaris, or dark and twisted satire, pick this up. It doesn't take long to read. Though, I don't think this is a good sampling if you're trying to figure out if you should read more of Sedaris's books. His nonfiction tends to be lighter than this.


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Review: Peter and the Shadow Thieves (Peter and the Starcatchers #2) by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

Peter and the Shadow Thieves by Dave Barry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the second book in the Peter Pan prequel books by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. As I enjoyed the Peter Pan story long before this series came along, I was wary what they might do to the mythos. But all they've done is expand on it in a way that's respectful to the original, and true to the spirit.

In this book, Peter overhears some visitors to his island saying they're going to London to harm his friend, Molly Aster. He stows aboard their ship to help, but instead winds up lost and hungry in Victorian London. He's up against the Others again, this time with the formidable opponent of Lord Ombra, a being made of shadows who manipulates others by stealing theirs.

I realize this version of Peter was meant to have been raised in an orphanage, which made me wonder why he was so hopeless about how to survive on London's streets or how to get around. He was in an orphanage, not a prison. It could be his orphanage was outside London, and I can't remember if that was established in the first book. But, with the information I had, he seemed awfully unable to fend for himself.

This book establishes why Peter would return to his island, which he officially names Neverland by the end of the book. I thought it might also explain the wandering shadow that leads to his meeting Wendy, but, no, not yet. It does introduce him to J.M.Barrie, who helps him get away from a rather odious man on the streets of London, and also to George Darling, a good friend of Molly's.

This is good for middle grade, though the image of a man made of shadows may frighten smaller readers. It's a fun story, though, and jumps straight into the action. There are several stories going on at once, and all are compelling and full of danger. Peter is fully invested in the success of all of these subplots.

While the story is mostly told through Peter's point of view, the narrator is omniscient, and we see what enemies are up to and what they're thinking regularly. Within a scene, we get several characters' thoughts, though it doesn't feel like head-hopping. The story and perspectives are easy to follow.

I listened to this on audio, narrated by Jim Dale. He's an excellent narrator, especially for stories geared toward younger readers. His delivery also allows for the humor within these stories to show. Though there are several menacing characters, he has enough of a repertoire of accents and deliveries that they all sound different.

Previously reviewed by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson:
Peter and the Starcatchers


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Review: Gone With the Nerd (Nerds #4) by Vicki Lewis Thompson

Gone With the Nerd by Vicki Lewis Thompson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I enjoy Vicki Lewis Thompson's books, but I want nothing more than to sit her down and read her dialogue aloud to her. I can forgive some of the flaws, but the consistently terrible dialogue makes me wince.

While this is the fourth in the series, it's not necessary to read them in order. They're connected by theme, rather than continuity.

Zoe Tarleton is a Hollywood actress, typecast in the sexy love interest role. She thinks she's up to something more challenging, and she's going to prove it by going against type and playing a "nerd," a woman scientist whose life is threatened because she's invented a pill that will help with weight loss, sexual dysfunction, and aging. I was relieved to find out, at the very end, it was meant to be a comedy, but that created more puzzlement: since when are comedy roles well-respected?

To research her role, she asks her contract lawyer, Flynn Granger, to spend a weekend away with her so she can observe him. He has a girlfriend, but they both realize while they're negotiating this agreement that they're attracted to one another. They push forward with the plan, anyway, and wind up in a rustic cabin in the middle of a small town gripped in Bigfoot fever. The townsfolk are hoping to prop up the local economy, stalled since the mine closure, by the fact that they've had several Bigfoot sightings.

I figured out the mysterious stalker/attempted murderer within 50 pages, but that's not why I read these silly books. I read them for the tension, which was more believable than in previous Nerd books. Flynn thinks he's serious about his girlfriend, Kristen, and initially doesn't want to cheat on her. How he figures some of his actions don't constitute cheating, I'll never know.

There are a number of factual and time inconsistencies. Characters go out to have breakfast, talk to people for about a half an hour, get back to the cabin, and are suddenly famished. I didn't get the feeling the author knows a lot about how Hollywood works, though she also sidesteps several clichés. Zoe may be approaching her mid-30's, but she isn't obsessing about her "expiration date" or hunting for wrinkles in the mirror. She's aware her age may become an issue, but it doesn't bother her yet. However, for her age, Zoe is strikingly naïve. It never crosses her mind that her attractive lawyer might have a girlfriend, she calls him a nerd to his face, and she assumes all nerds are alike. I suppose it's to highlight a theme that not all nerds are the same, but it came across clumsily and made her character skirt the Too Stupid To Live line.

As with Nerd Gone Wild, the antagonist has a kinky side to show how evil she is. I dislike this tendency of Ms. Thompson's, to associate deviant sexuality with mental illness and a tendency to do harm. Most of the people I know who practice BDSM are moral, sane people. They're not very open about their tendencies, though, just because of this societal attitude that something is wrong with someone who practices BDSM.

You may want to skip the last chapter entirely, by the way. It's saccharine sweet, and adds very little except the clarification that Zoe's nerd role was for a comedy. I didn't need to read about Zoe's life a year later to know they'd be happily ever after. It was too much.

These books are great for mindless escapism, and an alternative to the alphaholes found in most romance novels. But, I don't recommend going in with the expectation they're well-written, and definitely don't take this dialogue as a good example. I've seen log cabins less wooden.

Previously reviewed by Vicki Lewis Thompson:
Nerd in Shining Armor
The Nerd Who Loved Me
Nerd Gone Wild

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The Stories You Don't Tell

Last week, I wrote about leaving out prose in strategic ways in your story. This week, I wanted to discuss writing stories you don't intend to show to the world.

Picture of underground waterfall in
Ruby Falls Cavern obtained here

One could argue everything I've written falls under this category, though I have gotten braver. I've shared pieces with my writing group, and I'm entertaining the notion of submitting something when things are less chaotic.

There are most certainly things I'll never show anyone, though. That writing I did when I was in middle and high school, typing away at all hours of the night with my parents a room away? I've read it. It's so bad, it's not even worth trying to polish it. There may well be something salvageable in that mess, but it's too painful to read. We're talking about some amateur attempts.

The notion of writing uselessly doesn't frustrate me, though. I wouldn't be the writer I am without that practice. Everyone has to start somewhere. It's because I made mistakes and recognized the imperfections that I was able to change them and do better.

Ask published authors how many books they wrote before they submitted for publication. Ask how many tries they made before getting an offer from a publisher. Ask how long they'd been writing before they were able to finish a book they were proud of.

There's no shame in writing just for yourself. You learn how to write by making mistakes, by trying new techniques, by stumbling into what works for you. Sometimes, that means doing a writing exercise that may turn into a full novel or a short story at some point, but is useless as-is.

It's not a waste, so long as you learned something.

Now, if you've been doing this for years and you feel like nothing you write is worthy of seeing the light of day, you may have a problem. You'll need a reality check. If you're truly awful and not improving, you'll want to take some writing workshops or read some books on writing for new approaches. Or, you may want to show what you've written to someone who can critique you, so you know where you're going wrong.

And, who knows? Maybe your only problem is that you lack confidence.