Review: Robopocalypse by Daniel H Wilson

In the near future, at a moment no one will notice, all the dazzling technology that runs our world will unite and turn against us. Taking on the persona of a shy human boy, a childlike but massively powerful artificial intelligence known as Archos comes online and assumes control over the global network of machines that regulate everything from transportation to utilities, defense and communication. In the months leading up to this, sporadic glitches are noticed by a handful of unconnected humans – a single mother disconcerted by her daughter’s menacing “smart” toys, a lonely Japanese bachelor who is victimized by his domestic robot companion, an isolated U.S. soldier who witnesses a ‘pacification unit’ go haywire – but most are unaware of the growing rebellion until it is too late.

When the Robot War ignites -- at a moment known later as Zero Hour -- humankind will be both decimated and, possibly, for the first time in history, united. Robopocalypse is a brilliantly conceived action-filled epic, a terrifying story with heart-stopping implications for the real technology all around us…and an entertaining and engaging thriller unlike anything else written in years.

'Robopocalypse' is another in the list of dystopian fictions that are wildly popular right now. Set in the near future, it is the story of what happens when the robots we created become smart enough to want to get rid of us (Cue AC/DC's 'Who made Who'). Focusing on a few people in different locations around the planet, 'Robopocalypse' is written as a supposed series of first person narratives, collected and transcribed by a third party.

First, let's talk about the name. It's dumb. The story, though... that's a different story. I found 'Robopocalypse' to be an entertaining, enjoyable read, from the first page to the last. Though it's structure is clearly modeled on Max Brooks' zombie apocalypse novel 'World War Z' (soon to be a film with Brad Pitt, and a fine book in itself), it is not a clear derivative. Where 'World War Z' kept fairly stringently to a third person omniscient point of view, 'Robopocalypse' is far more personal in the narratives of each person. In fact, that damages the conceit of the novel, the device of the stories having been harvested by a robot and transcribed by a single individual--how would either come up with the very personal points of view of each story? It would have been better to have dropped that idea and just gone with a series of interlocked first person narratives (which these are, anyway), without the 'outside voice' of the transcriber.

Never mind that though (I just tuned it out eventually). It becomes unimportant as the novel steams along. It's entertaining as hell! I don't know if plans are already in motion, but if the rights to this novel isn't bought by a studio by the end of the year, I will be very surprised. Wilson creates both characters and storylines that kept me eagerly reading and wondering... is this possible? He makes a convincing argument. I really enjoyed 'Robopocalypse'. If you like dystopian fiction, so will you.

Review: Robopocalypse by Daniel H Wilson

Review of One Day by David Nicholls‏

Emma and Dexter meet for the first time on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways. So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that? And every year that follows? Twenty years, two people, ONE DAY. From the author of the massive bestseller STARTER FOR TEN.

I'm angry.

Really freaking angry.

I finished this book yesterday, and I'm still pissed off.

I'll try to do this without spoilers.

The basic storyline is this: Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew have known each other since early University. On the evening of graduation, they have an unconsummated make out session that leads to a lifelong relationship. The central conceit of the story is that it revisits them on the anniversary of that date each year for twenty years.

All well and good so far. The glimpses of their lives that we as readers are treated to are sometimes enlightening, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, and often frustrating. Imagine taking the events of your any given day and relating them to a disinterested observer, once a year. Just that day, and no other. Even given the context that would eventually develop, could you fairly expect them to know you or care about what happens to you? If you're lucky, and if you're a very talented storyteller (as Nicholls clearly is), you might be able to create some relationship with that observer, even of the most tenuous sort. But if you can't quite make that connection... not so good.

I was really looking forward to reading this book, as I found Nicholls' earlier novel, "Starter for 10" to be a funny, heart tugging slice of real life. This book has that charm as well. The narrative (most of it-I'll come back to this later) is clear, the dialogue believable, and the characterizations consistent (even given he changes that can be expected over twenty years' time). Nicholls sketches locations in a way that brings the reader right inside the rooms, on the streets, in the moment. I enjoyed that aspect very much. He has a power to his writing that captures the imagination. As a writer as well as a lifelong reader, I really appreciate that Nicholls' secondary and tertiary characters are drawn with the same sureness as his protagonists. That makes for so much more enjoyable a read than the now-popular habit authors have gotten into of 'shorthanding' the side characters--most often they are nothing more than cardboard cut outs, with only the barest hit of life. Not so these minor characters.

So we come to the main characters. Emma first, because I came to like her quite a lot. It's gratifying to see her grow from an angry, self-conscious college graduate into a strong,confident woman. She is by no means perfect: she has her moments of preachiness and self-satisfaction, of self-pity and judgmentalism. They are balanced by her good points, though: she's kind and self-sacrificing, brave and open-hearted. In that way, she's a very realistic character. At the end of the day, despite her faults, you like her.

No so with Dexter, at least not for me. In Dexter we have a most inadmirable character. He's a cad. He's a bit of an elitist. He's selfish and self-centered. And when he's not being all these things, he's self-pitying and whiny. I understand Nicholls' heart for the unsympathetic character--he did some of the same things with the character of Brian in "Starter for 10". Brian was a bit of a wanker at the beginning of "Starter", and it was almost refreshing that he was still a prat at the end. In the middle, though... we come to understand him. We can connect. I remember cringing as I saw myself in some of the asinine things he did, and I think that situation wasn't limited to me. There is none of that with Dexter, though, and it's a pity. At no point did I like or feel any sympathy for him. That's a difficult thing to pull off for an author, especially when the character isn't supposed to be evil (think Humbert Humbert in 'Lolita'). Emma refers to Dexter's good points several times in the novel, but the problem for me is that I saw very, very few of them in action. Maybe if we were treated in the course of the narrative to more instances of those qualities Emma talks about, I could have cared what happened to him at the end. 

And the end... well, here's where it gets the hardest not to spoil. Suffice to say that I hated it, and not because it wasn't what I expected/wanted. I don't go into a book looking for a certain ending. What I do expect is for the ending to make narrative sense, no matter if it's happy or sad. The ending of this book seemed to me to be a massive shark jump, from a realistic, if wistful, ending to one of hyper-drama. Maybe I'll look back on it later and see something different... maybe I'll see the departure point from reality as a good thing, an honest jarring of the senses. Maybe. 

But right now, I feel like Annie Wilkes in "Misery": "It's a dirty cheat."

I give this three coffee cups out of five, because I do truly like Nicholls' writing style, and I admire his way with words and capacity to create believable situations and characters. I may read this again in future and 'get it'. But not now. 


T butting in for a moment: I actually really loved this book despite being unsure about it at the beginning. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and some of the quotes stuck with me even a year after reading it. I honestly think you either love or don't.


  

Review of One Day by David Nicholls‏

Review: Georgia Bottoms by Mark Childress

Georgia Bottoms is known in her small community of Six Points, Alabama, as a beautiful, well-to-do, and devoutly Baptist Southern belle.

Nobody realizes that the family fortune has long since disappeared, and a determinedly single woman like Georgia needs an alternative, and discreet, means of income. In Georgia's case it is six well-heeled lovers-one for each day of the week, with Mondays off-none of whom knows about the others.

But when the married preacher who has been coming to call (Saturdays) decides to confess their affair in front of the whole congregation, Georgia must take drastic measures to stop him. In GEORGIA BOTTOMS, Mark Childress proves once again his unmistakable skill for combining the hilarious and the absurd to reveal the inner workings of the rebellious human heart.

Georgia Bottoms has problems. The family fortune is a myth, her mother is slowly succumbing to an Alzheimer's like fog, her brother is a drunk and a petty thief, and her carefully constructed house of adultery cards is starting to tumble down. To top it all off, her illegitimate half African-American son has come back into her life.  Did I mention that her best friend (and female mayor of the quaint little town of Six Points) is in love with her? What's a Southern belle to do?

I'd heard how funny Childress' books were, so I picked this up at the library; what a disappointment. For me, there were very few laughs in 'Georgia Bottoms', and no heart at all. Childress definitely has ability--his dialogue is well done, and the story does eventually come to a sort of believable end. The problem is that he takes a very round about way of getting there. That's normally not an issue for me (two of my favorites are John Irving and Stephen King, and Lord knows they go all Dickens at a drop of a hat), but the byways in Georgia Bottoms aren't all that interesting, not do they lead naturally to the ending. To tell the truth, it looks like Childress was forcing 'wackiness' in place of actual story. I got frustrated by the meandering side stories because they seemed to be mainly in the service of time worn cliches about the South and Southerners, rather than actually enhancing the story. Childress is no Flannery O'Connor (as he is dubiously compared to on a jacket blurb), no Jan Karon--hell, he's no Fanny Flagg. 

In Georgia Bottoms, he's created one of the least likable characters I've ever read: she's self-absorbed, self-centered, a hypocrite, and an unabashed racist (though she'd deny both of the last to the death). Her world is... unappealing. I 'get' that perhaps that's something that's supposed to make the reader feel wise--the fact that we see these things about Georgia and she doesn't. David Nicholls does the same thing with his main character, Brian, in the fine 'Starter for 10'. The difference between Georgia and Brian, though, is that we can see ourselves within Brian (even while seeing what a prat he can be); there is no such point of connection with Georgia.

I give this two coffee cups out of five--it was ok--because I can see that Childress really does have talent. I'll definitely try another one of his novels, to see if he got it 'right' in another story. Georgia Bottoms is not unstomachable... but I wouldn't read it again.

Review: Georgia Bottoms by Mark Childress

Review: Dale Loves Sophie to Death by Robb Forman Dew

Dale Loves Sophie to Death by Robb Forman Dew

A novel that explores themes of familial and romantic bonds as it tells the story of a woman whose husband stays behind in New England while she journeys to her Midwestern hometown to spend a summer.

Author Biography: Robb Forman Dew is the author of The Time of Her Life, and Fortunate Lives, as well as a memoir, The Family Heart. She also was a teacher at Iowa Writers' Workshop and has contributed stories to Southern Review and The New Yorker, among others.

I picked this book up at the library on a whim, and ended up reading nearly the whole thing while standing in the aisle. Weighing in at a slim 217 pages, Dale Loves Sophie to Death is a quick read... but not a light one.

From the jacket blurb:
"Dew's astonishing debut illuminates the varieties of romantic love and the unexpected rewards of family life as it tells the story of a woman whose husband stays behind in New England while she and their three young children return to her midwestern town to spend the summer. "

Interesting enough, but that's just the beginning. As the story begins, we meet Dinah, the first protagonist, and learn that this trip is one she's taken each summer for the past eight years, using the time away from her 'real life' to reconnect with childhood and family. We meet her mother, a decidedly unsympathetic character, and her father (who is even more unsympathetic), and wonder where this woman who is trying so hard to be the 'good' wife and mother came from.

Her 'other half' is Martin, her husband of many years. In him, we find a good man and husband, but one that occasionally finds himself unmoored in life, searching for who knows what.


Dinah and Martin have come to rely on the two weeks apart as a time to recharge and remember how and why they originally came together. We see their separate journeys on this particular summer, as Dinah deals with a crisis of faith in her family, and Martin deals with a crisis of faith in his marriage.

I've often looked for a story about a real marriage, dealing with real emotions and the tiny things that make up every day life. This is that book. Though the writer's style is a little bit pedantic at times, she's got the petty irritations and everyday joys of marriage life down. Upon parting, both partners have a similar feeling: From Martin,

      "...and these summers they parted mute with bewildered misery, feeling at once that they were being forced apart and yet each anxious to be away from the other."

From Dinah:

     "She looked at his clean head, silhouetted against the car window, and she wanted to weep at the misunderstanding between them. There was no one, no others but the children, to whom she was more tied." 

Do those sentiments sound familiar? They do to me. And they're just the tip of the iceberg of, "Good God! I know exactly how that feels!"
In the course of the book, Dinah comes to a sort of truce with her parents and a serenity with her own life that rings so very true, while Martin's brief foray into infidelity (one that didn't even horrify me as much as such scenes often do, because it is written and explained so well) ends with his realization of how very blessed he really is. From the last page:

     "...with the children in the back seat and his wife beside him, he realized with wonder and relief that he was happy." 

Dew's style is a little stiff, at times, but she fills her story with the little details of family life that ring so very true. She also never flinches at the truth of a long term relationship: the push/pull of parting and the awkwardness of reunions after a long separation are dealt with honestly. I loved this line:

     "But always at the end of their summer separation they could only simulate, at first, their remembered affection, because, inescapably, there was a trace of shyness between them."

YES! Truth! The thing is, though, they do make that effort, knowing that life will return to normal.

This book was a welcome surprise. I'd not heard of story, nor author, but found it absorbing. In fact, I found myself, days later, worrying about one of their children (that was not a normal flu, I just know it!).

That, my friends, is writing. I give this four coffee cups out of five.

Review: Dale Loves Sophie to Death by Robb Forman Dew

Review: Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

Once again, Geraldine Brooks takes a remarkable shard of history and brings it to vivid life. In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure.

The narrator of Caleb's Crossing is Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. Restless and curious, she yearns after an education that is closed to her by her sex. As often as she can, she slips away to explore the island's glistening beaches and observe its native Wampanoag inhabitants. At twelve, she encounters Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a tentative secret friendship that draws each into the alien world of the other. Bethia's minister father tries to convert the Wampanoag, awakening the wrath of the tribe's shaman, against whose magic he must test his own beliefs. One of his projects becomes the education of Caleb, and a year later, Caleb is in Cambridge, studying Latin and Greek among the colonial elite. There, Bethia finds herself reluctantly indentured as a housekeeper and can closely observe Caleb's crossing of cultures.

Like Brooks's beloved narrator Anna in Year of Wonders, Bethia proves an emotionally irresistible guide to the wilds of Martha's Vineyard and the intimate spaces of the human heart. Evocative and utterly absorbing,Caleb's Crossing further establishes Brooks's place as one of our most acclaimed novelists.

Caleb's Crossing is a historical novel told in three parts. It tells a highly fictionalized tale of "Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, a member of the Wopanaak tribe of Noepe (Martha's Vineyard), born 1646, and the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College." (from the Author's Note). The story is told in three parts, through the eyes of a female colonist and friend of Caleb's, Bethia Mayhew.

The first part takes place in 1657, and relates how Bethia comes to be acquianted with the young brave. In Bethia, we have a girl who is strong and brave, but straitened by the times in which she lives. Her family came into possession of the island through what they consider fair dealing with the native tribes (rather than the land grabs that were more common). Her grandfather is the magistrate of the island, and her father the minister. Bethia longs to know everything. She's learned to read and write (English, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew) through a combination of lessons from her father and through sly listening in on his more advanced lessons to her older brother. She's learned the language of the natives through the same manner. Feeling strangled by the society in which she lives, Bethia often wanders the island, searching for sustenance for her family. In this manner, she comes unexpectedly upon Cheeshahteaumauk (who she quickly renames Caleb), and they become fast, though secret, friends.  Her father's zeal to convert the native islanders to Christianity is given a boost when smallpox sweeps he tribe after he is humiliated by Caleb's uncle; the tribes consider the pox perhaps a punishment from Mayhew's God. Caleb is sent to live with the Mayhews.

In part two (1661), Bethia's world is shattered when her beloved baby sister dies (her mother died in that child's birth), quickly followed by her Father. In order to assure her brother's acceptance at a school in Cambridge that will complete his preparation for Harvard, Bethia is bound into a four year indentured servitude to the headmaster. She journeys hence with her brother, Makepeace, Caleb, and another Native American boy, Joel, to find privation that she'd not imagined before. Her master is kind, but the treatment of the Native boys that she calls friend is deplorable. We meet a female Native scholar here, as well, Anna, and suffer miscarriage of both a child that was unknown to all, and of justice, when the father fails to be brought to justice. A love triangle, of sorts, is introduced at this point, as Bethia must choose between her friend/former suitor back on the island, and the Harvard educated son of her master. We finish this section with the impending graduation from Harvard of Caleb and Joel (Makepeace has long since dropped out of the picture).

The third, and weakest, section begins in 1715. An aged Bethia is reminiscing about her marriage (I won't say to whom), early married life, and the ultimate fate of Caleb and Joel. The weakness of this section is in it's very disjointed nature. It jumps back and forth in time, perhaps indicating the mental state of the aged narrator, but I found it nonetheless jarring.

I enjoyed this book, as I've enjoyed all of Brooks' books. Her prose is spot on, as is her grasp of the times and the language of the times. Brooks is a historian, and it shows in each of her novels. I ended wanting to know more about the real Caleb, but, sadly, there is very little factually known about him. The biggest weakness, as in all of Brooks' novels, is her 'romance'. In no book, including this one, is it ever believable, nor does she seem comfortable writing such scenes. It's almost as if an editor (or perhaps Brooks herself) said, "This is a novel and you're a woman, so there has to be some romance." As insulting as that is to female readers and writers, more insulting is the perfunctory and uneasy way she deals with 'The Luv'. I'd far rather she skipped that and gave us more of the fabric of her characters' lives, because she excels in that sphere.

All in all, I enjoyed Caleb's Crossing, but I would have junked the romance and tightened up the third act. I'd give this three coffee cups out of five. Enjoyable, but not a don't miss.

As a post script to make you think, the second Wopanaak tribesmember to graduate from Harvard is Tiffany Smalley. She just graduated this year. 

Review: Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

Review: The Passage by Justin Cronin

“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.” 

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear — of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.

As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey — spanning miles and decades — towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.

With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterful prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.

Wow. This is one hell of a big, complex book! 

At it's outset, it is set in a not-so-distant future. Scientists have made a discovery that they think could be used to save the terminally ill; their research is co-opted by the military, in hopes of creating a 'super soldier'. Using prisoners on death row as the guinea pigs, what is actually created is an entirely new being who best resembles an armor covered vampire that can influence minds. Of course, in the tradition of great monster movies, such an abomination cannot be contained for long. Our mega-vamps escape and wreak havoc, destroying first Colorado (where they are housed), and then most of the US (and maybe the rest of the world-Cronin is cagey and never really clarifies that).

Skip ahead a century, and we're suddenly plopped into a dystopian future, where the few remaining humans live in walled compounds, constantly on alert for incursions from 'dracs' or 'smokes', as they call the failed experiments and their 'children'. The plot thickens when a mysterious girl appears, and we get hints that the 'dracs' are influencing the minds of the colony's leaders.

This is a bold novel. Cronin takes on great swaths of time; some sections he handles better than others. However, I have to admit that even the sections that falter a bit are absorbing. Apparently this is intended the first in a series (and there is the requisite ugly cliffhanger at the end of the book to ram that point home); still, I wonder if the author started out intending to tell a complete story and had to stop to avoid having a 1k page book. Very few authors can sell a book like that, because it has to priced prohibitively to cover publishing costs. 'The Passage' feels like an unfinished book to me, unfortunately--the end is forced in a way that a planned series ending rarely is.

Before you get to that end, though, the ride is delightful! Cronin surprised me more than once, which is golden. As a long time reader of Stephen King, whose works this reminds me of very strongly (and who is one of the few that could sell the aforementioned 1K page book), I've seen a lot in the way of twists and interesting characters, and I've learned to anticipate and predict 'what happens next'; it's refreshing to be startled!

'The Passage' is an ambitious novel that doesn't quite live up to all the promises it makes; the ride is enjoyable enough, though, for me to give it four stars (despite the ending). I'm looking forward to the sequel. 

Review: The Passage by Justin Cronin

Review: Starter For 10 by David Nicholls

The year is 1985. Brian Jackson, a working-class kid on full scholarship, has started his first term at university. He has a dark secret—a long-held, burning ambition to appear on the wildly popular British TV quiz showUniversity Challenge—and now, finally, it seems the dream is about to become reality. He's made the school team, and they've completed the qualifying rounds and are limbering up for their first televised match. (And, what's more, he's fallen head over heels for one of his teammates, the beautiful, brainy, and intimidatingly posh Alice Harbinson.) Life seems perfect and triumph inevitable—but as his world opens up, Brian learns that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

In 'Starter for 10', David Nicholls takes a risk that not many writers of popular fiction care to take: he creates in his lead character a young man that is not always admirable. Brian is not terribly attractive, he's moody, he often has a terribly timed sense of off the wall humor, and he's overly concerned with 'what people think'. Even Nick Hornby (to whose books this story is often compared) doesn't risk creating a lead that the reader doesn't always like.

That, however, is the genius of 'Starter for 10'. Brian is us (or at least the way many of us perceived ourselves when nineteen and spotty). He says stupid things, he does stupid things... even at the end of the story, when we should comfortably be able to like him, he's in the midst of lying to a character to whom he should be grateful. And we like him anyway.

Brian is in his first year at University. It's 1985. His dream is to compete on the televised 'University Challenge', as a sort of connection to his deceased father who followed that show closely. From first page to last, Brian is a social climber, determined to 'be somebody' at uni; more particularly, he wants to be more than the lower middle class kid from Surrey. He takes social risks that had me cringing even as I laughed... and I laughed a LOT while reading this book. Nicholls' dry, droll sense of humor is punctuated with broad gags and crude snickers, making Brian a believable manchild in a world that is difficult for him to navigate.

Vulnerability is also contained within. Brain's flashbacks to life with and immediately after his father's death, events that absolutely shaped who he is in the literary present, are touching, as is his terrible love/pity relationship with the friends he leaves behind (and indeed with his mother). One of the painfully funny clips comes as Brian returns to uni after Christmas break and faces loneliness. When he begins to suspect that HE is one of 'those people', the ones that are avoided once first term friendships are formed, I had a heart pang for him even as I smiled.

I came to this book after seeing and thoroughly enjoying the film of the same name, but (no surprise) this book is better than the film. The Brian of the film is still the same lovable loser, but the screenwriter chose to dump many of his darker, more unlovely traits in favor of making a good vehicle for likable actor, James McAvoy. In that, the writer succeeded, but at the price of oversimplifying a complex (and ultimately more satisfying) character.

Read 'Starter for 10'. It's lovely.

  

Review: Starter For 10 by David Nicholls

Review: Juliet by Anne Fortier

Twenty-five-year-old Julie Jacobs is heartbroken over the death of her beloved Aunt Rose. But the shock goes even deeper when she learns that the woman who has been like a mother to her has left her entire estate to Julie’s twin sister. The only thing Julie receives is a key—one carried by her mother on the day she herself died—to a safety-deposit box in Siena, Italy.
 
This key sends Julie on a journey that will change her life forever—a journey into the troubled past of her ancestor Giulietta Tolomei. In 1340, still reeling from the slaughter of her parents, Giulietta was smuggled into Siena, where she met a young man named Romeo. Their ill-fated love turned medieval Siena upside-down and went on to inspire generations of poets and artists, the story reaching its pinnacle in Shakespeare’s famous tragedy.
 
But six centuries have a way of catching up to the present, and Julie gradually begins to discover that here, in this ancient city, the past and present are hard to tell apart. The deeper she delves into the history of Romeo and Giulietta, and the closer she gets to the treasure they allegedly left behind, the greater the danger surrounding her—superstitions, ancient hostilities, and personal vendettas. As Julie crosses paths with the descendants of the families involved in the unforgettable blood feud, she begins to fear that the notorious curse—“A plague on both your houses!”—is still at work, and that she is destined to be its next target. Only someone like Romeo, it seems, could save her from this dreaded fate, but his story ended long ago. Or did it?
 
From Anne Fortier comes a sweeping, beautifully written novel of intrigue and identity, of love and legacy, as a young woman discovers that her own fate is irrevocably tied—for better or worse—to literature’s greatest star-crossed lovers.

Who knew that the William Shakespeare classic, "Romeo and Juliet", was based upon a true story? Not me! "Juliet", by Anne Fortier, features a story within a story. The main narrative is about Julie/Giulietta, a distant relative of the original Juliet. Living in modern day America, she is astounded when her guardian aunt dies, leaving the bulk of her estate to Julie's twin sister. Julie is left a mysterious directive to return to the Italy of her birth, in order to pursue a lost family treasure that her parents had died protecting. In the midst of running from thugs, meeting Siena's inspiration of the Montegues and Capulets, and starting to fall for a member of her family's 'enemy clan', she learn the real story of literatures's star-crossed lovers.

To be honest, these were the chapters that I liked best. Turns out that the real Romeo and Giulietta lived in 1340's Siena, not Verona. Their story is actually more interesting than Shakespeare's, I think, because Romeo turns out to be a bystander from a third family, caught in a crossfire of family rivalry that apparently continues to today in Siena. These passages were so well written that I would gladly read an entire novel just about them. I found myself thinking about the historical story long after the book was finished. Brava for Fortier for her historical research!

The modern day narrative truly pales in comparison. While it was interesting, I found myself having to really stretch to recall the protagonist's name after just a few days. There were places where the dialogue, especially from Julie's sister, was extremely hokey--she sounded more like a 30s movie gangster's moll than a modern day woman. Some of the action scenes were also clumsy; it was difficult to decipher exactly what was happening, or the scene wasn't 'guy' enough when the main player was a guy. To make up for the shortcomings, though, Fortier's heroine was fairly believable, and the romance was done well. And, as I stated before, the historical sections were astounding. Romeo's horse race through the streets of Siena... perfection.

I liked "Juliet", on the whole, and can completely see myself reading it again, if only for the background story.


  

Review: Juliet by Anne Fortier

Review: Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson

 

 Amy Curry thinks her life sucks. Her mom decides to move from California to Connecticut to start anew—just in time for Amy's senior year. Her dad recently died in a car accident. So Amy embarks on a road trip to escape from it all, driving cross-country from the home she's always known toward her new life. 

Joining Amy on the road trip is Roger, the son of Amy's mother's old friend. Amy hasn’t seen him in years, and she is less than thrilled to be driving across the country with a guy she barely knows. So she's surprised to find that she is developing a crush on him. At the same time, she’s coming to terms with her father’s death and how to put her own life back together after the accident. 

Told in traditional narrative as well as scraps from the road—diner napkins, motel receipts, postcards—this is the story of one girl's journey to find herself.

Bags packed? Check.
Full tank of gas? Check.
Provisions of snacks? Check.
Tunes? Check
Random cute boy driving you across the country? Check.

What a GREAT list to make, right? That’s basically the premise of Morgan Matson’s debut novel, Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour. And how epic it was! I loved how this book sucks you in right from the beginning and won’t let you do anything until you’ve finished it. Filled with song lists and food and hotel receipts along the way and insights on the various states via Amy Curry’s travel journal, you begin to take seriously the gems of wisdom she passes along:  

“If you’re driving through Indiana with Roger, don’t ever let him tell you about the movie, Hoosiers. YOU WILL REGRET THIS.”

Amy is battling some emotional demons as she embarks on a cross-country drive from California to Connecticut. Her promise to join her relocated mother in their new home by driving her Jeep Liberty out with the help of Roger Sullivan spurs her on. Roger is the son of her mom’s friend and is on the way to Philadelphia to spend the summer with his dad. At first Amy is closed off and just wants to get the trip over with but after a few initial detours it is evident that Amy and Roger begin to share much more than just a ride. Through it all, Amy encounters different people that help her through her emotional turmoil. From the eccentric and bubbly Bronwyn, who updates Amy’s wardrobe to the mysterious MUZ who sends her to a place of emotional epiphany at a Dairy Queen in Richmond, Virginia. Throughout the road trip we get chapters and snippets of the event that lead up to Amy’s torment and how it changed her relationship with her family. As that onion is slowly peeled back we get to see Amy’s emotional load lighten. I usually don’t really like plot points told in a flashback but in this book it’s done incredibly well. Those chapters are short, just mere snippets and just when you start getting into the meat of it, the story changes back to what’s going on with Amy and Roger. Morgan Matson is able to use this device to keep us intrigued about Amy’s past and the event but it doesn’t leave us frustrated and actually makes us glad to get back on the road with Roger. 

Roger, as a character, seems fairly one-dimensional as the story is told from Amy’s point of view. Other than his odd dumb guy pining for his ex girlfriend, he really doesn’t show much depth for most of the novel. However, what he does add to the story is a sweet sensitive, sometimes conflicted partner to Amy and as he brings her out of her doldrums you recognize his importance as a catalyst of healing for her. You see Amy encounter all these other people throughout the trip that she opens up to and you want to scream at her to talk to Roger and it’s not until the very end that she realizes his vital role in her healing heart. That his role was secured at the beginning of their trip when they made their first vital detour to Yosemite. Roger is a defining moment for her and their moments together and their banter are priceless. You won’t be able to get enough of them together. 

Ultimately, this is a very sweet story of a fun trip with two people who get to know each other better over the course of a few days. But to merely write it off as just that would be unfair to the brilliant writing and storytelling that Morgan Matson demonstrates in her debut novel. Her use of music and landmarks along the way helps the reader really visualize the journey and by the end of it if you walk away with nothing else from the novel itself, you will have a great list of new music and a strange craving for roadside diner pancakes, greasy burgers, and cream soda.

And if you don’t smile at least 1654654651654 times while reading, then you are probably dead inside. Or maybe you are not a fan of cute warm-fuzzy coming-of-age stories in which case, why are you even reading my review of this book?

-Jeannie?
Why i do believe my Inner Monologue has made an appearance. Um..yes disembodied voice in my head, what can I do for you? I’m kind of busy right now, you know, writing a book review, can this wait until later?
- I just wanted to point out to you that in your previous paragraph there you insulted the fine readers of this respectable award-winning blog. You might want to rethink your words up there. Just saying.
I am totally being called out right now...this is so embarrassing. Listen, everyone out there reading *waves at readers* knows that this is totally my stream-of-consciousness writing style and they know that I basically regurgitate everything in my head without much of a filter. Trust me, they GET it.
-Well, I’m just not sure they’ll be able to take you seriously, which brings to point, are you ever going to review a book you DIDN’T like?
What? What do you mean? Why would I do that?
-Well, everyone is just going to think you loooooove everything you read, which I know isn’t true because you’ve flounced books before.
SHhhhhh, you stop NOW, Inner Monologue, I really don’t need you to screw this up for me now.

*stuffs Inner Monologue in the far recesses of mind*

Where were we? Oh yes, so why did I love this book so much (enough to rank it up there with Anna and the French Kiss)? I really appreciated the whimsy of this, the carefree youth of exploration and discovery (which is a running theme) just made me a bit wistful. If you are older and feel like you’ve experienced it all, this book will bring you back to a simpler time in your life where the things that weighed on your mind the most didn’t deal with mortgages, API scores or borderline hypertension. And honestly? I love road trips. I love the serenity in the car while cruising at 70 miles per hour down stretches of lonely desolation only to find an oasis in a questionably hygienic roadside diner where you will experience the greasiest grimiest food ever to hit your upper digestive track. After finishing the book you really feel like you’ve not just read about their Epic Detour but that you’ve been on it yourself. Go ahead, indulge in this fun read. You won’t regret it. Unless you are dead inside. 

 

Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour is Morgan Matson’s brilliant first novel. Look for more from her in the near future. I am Jeannie and if you’ve learned anything by now, you can see that I am quite random. If you are a fan of randomness in all things please stop by and chat with me on Twitter. Fair warning, I can talk about books, Glee and all things Twilight until my keyboard blows up into an oblivion.

Happy Reading,
@gojeannie          

Review: Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson

Review: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

 

 Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn’t understand that once love -- the deliria -- blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the governments demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holoway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.

But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
    - Alfred Lord Tennyson

I’m going to get to the relevance to Tennyson’s poem in just a second but first: 

This book really needs a health advisory note on the cover: “WARNING: Do not read if you have a history of high blood pressure, hypertension or have experienced an anxiety attack. It is advisable to indulge in a glass of wine or a xanax before reading. If at any point during the reading of this story you start to feel heart palpitations, difficulty breathing or a numbness in any of your extremities, please put the book aside and seek medical attention.”

I have just done my public service duty for the month. 

Talk about a RIDE. This book is pretty much a non-stop roller coaster. Even when you get to the end you feel like you are still on a downhill dip waiting for the next turn and hoping that the tracks begin to plateau. But guess what? That doesn’t happen. The story not only leads you through the trials and tribulations of the main character and her torment and struggle over trying to fit in and be “normal” following a tragic event in her family or for her to follow her heart which leads her down a dangerous path, but it literally pushes and pulls you through the scenes like a runaway car. You are being dragged through this story, a little against your will, because you fear so much for Lena and her plight.

the Love Wall

Lauren Oliver’s book, Delirium dares to ask us all the questions that Tennyson poses in his poem: if we had a choice to never feel the heartbreak that love sometimes brings us, would we chose to cure ourselves from the pain? And to take that further, the books asks: what if we had no choice? What if we were raised in a society where heartbreak is eliminated but so is love? Why wouldn’t we want to be cured of something deemed so toxic to us that it threatens our sanity and our life? So begins the heartbreaking story of Lena and her coming of age discovery of her family, of herself and of love. Lena is faced with a future of utmost certainty. She lives in a country (the US, it seems) where the borders are closed on all sides no one in, no one out, all in the name of national security and protection. She knows that a few months from now when she turns 18 she will have the procedure that will make her brain unable to recognize and express love and then she will be matched up to a boy that also has had the same procedure and they are to be married. Just like her parents, her sister, and her aunt and uncle before her have. Most of the “cureds” that Lena knows seem to be well adjusted functioning members of society and claim that they are much happier after the procedure. But there’s a pestering thought in the back of her mind that the way her society conducts their lives may not be the right way. That thought festers into a full blown anarchy when she meets -- and falls in love -- with Alex.

Yes, yes, yes...another dystopian romance novel. You think that after The Hunger Games and Matched I’d finally had enough. Well, apparently not. I guess I’m a masochist for these kinds of stories. Put a young girl in an impossible situation against a giant conglomerate and let’s see how she fares! Oh and make her fall in love, too! Wheee! The comparisons to Ally Condie’s Matched and to a lesser extent, Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, are well warranted. They are books in the same genre, after all. What sets Delirium apart from the other two series is a constant sense of hopelessness that eats away at you as you read. It really is a bleak existence to live in when you know the best part of your life will be a feeling you will be forbidden from experiencing or expressing. Even during some of the more lighthearted moments between Lena and Alex you are constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. Lena, as a character is hard to relate to. She very much is in the belief that her society’s way is the best way and even when she is happy with Alex she still considers the procedure as an inevitability in her life. This is hard to accept because you want her to be the rebellious heroine from the get go. But she actually, quite reluctantly, fills those shoes...in due time. And even at the end you’re not sure what her next steps will be. In a way, I like a character with a little mystery that keeps you guessing, but this story already weaves so many “what ifs” into it that this seems to be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back. Don’t get me wrong, I like Lena, but she frustrates me all the same. However, her inner turmoil and her struggle is contrasted by her true escape from it all in the moments she shares with Alex. Their relationship is forbidden and punishable, but they carry on knowing the consequences and that makes for very exciting storytelling.

Above all, for a book whose main focus is to erase love and emotion from one’s psyche, there are moments that are filled with such unbelievable emotion that you find yourself shaking in it’s aftermath. How the words “Mommy” have such amazing resonance that you are unable to read further through the blur of tears in your eyes. And how one young girl’s struggle to find herself becomes not only a race for her life but a race for the future of all people in her society. A heart wrenching read that will have you tearing your hair out by the last sentence in anticipation of the long wait until the next book in this trilogy is released. 

Lauren Oliver is the author of the widely popular young adult novel, Before I Fall. Delirium is the first book in the three book series. The next book is called Pandemonium and will be out in February, 2012.

Happy reading,
@gojeannie     

 

Review: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Review: The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

 

There were once two sisters
who were not afraid of the dark
because the dark was full of the other's voice
across the room,
because even when the night was thick
and starless
they walked home together from the river
seeing who could last the longest
without turning on her flashlight,
not afraid
because sometimes in the pitch of night
they'd lie on their backs
in the middle of the path
and look up until the stars came back
and when they did,
they'd reach their arms up to touch them
and did.      

If I told you that this was a story about a girl who’s sister died and the whole book is about how she figures out how to mourn her loss, you probably wouldn’t want to read it. But if I told you that you would swoon with unbelievable hope and love for her and her healing heart you probably would be interested. So let me tell you, it’s both of these. In Jandy Nelson’s first book, The Sky is Everywhere, we meet seventeen-year old Lennie Walker who’s entire world comes to a screeching blinding halt when her 19 year old sister, Bailey, dies suddenly and leaves her an only child. Complicate that loss with her mother walking out on Lennie and Bailey when they were just toddlers and then raised by their grandmother and their Uncle Big and you’ve got a therapist’s wet dream

So Lennie develops these odd coping mechanisms. One of which is to write sad poetry and then tuck the scraps of words in odd places around town. Each chapter is a delight to start off with a poem that she either “scrawled on a paper coffee cup” or “buried in Gram’s garden.” Mostly, the poems are sad and about missing Bailey or sometimes what Bailey is missing. Complications a typical 17-year old would go through are compounded by her inability to grieve properly for her devastating loss and her confusing feelings about boys. Two boys in particular. One boy is her dead sister’s boyfriend, Toby. 

Ouch. 

Lennie and Toby pour their grief into each other and find solace in that shared misery. They are lost at sea in their sadness and it seems that the the only safe harbour is in each others arms. This, of course, brings on Lennie’s horrible sense of guilt and feelings of betrayal to her sister. And as soon as you start yelling at your book (What? Please, you know you all do it sometimes, too.) for her to stay away from Toby and to get over herself and start tearing her hair out and screaming for redemption...in strolls Joe. Joe Fontaine whose name sounds like it belongs to a movie star or a professional athlete and who you expect to glide around everywhere he goes with a guitar strapped to his back and his tousled hair and his 1,000 watt smile. As a recent transplant from Paris (Paris!) he becomes one of, if not the only, slice of brightness in Lennie’s life. 

Lennie and Toby’s relationship is punctuated by sadness and grief whereas Lennie’s relationship with Joe has a foundation based on the common love of music (she plays clarinet at virtuoso levels and he plays every instrument you can think of, but he’s most comfortable with his guitar) and family. It’s funny how obvious the choice should be here, but that’s the thing about one’s heart or in this case, in one’s heartbreak, your head and your heart just sometimes don’t communicate. 

There were parts of this book that had me screaming at the characters because of what I perceived as sheer stupidity. There were other parts that made me want to float around on my back in a mirrored reflecting pond on a summer day with nothing but the sound of the birds singing tender melodies to me. Then there were the parts that had me cringing and crying for the heartbreak and the pain the characters go through. Overall though, I felt like I had been through all 12 steps of grief before getting to the end. It was an emotionally exhausting ride. But as with most difficult travels, the oasis at the end is well worth it. Though primarily wrought with sadness and grief, the undercurrent is that of hope. You hope for all things in this story. You even start to hope for impossibilities and as the truth gets revealed slowly as if peeling an onion, you start to hope that even Big’s mystical model pyramids can bring life back from death. 

Simply put: this was an extraordinary read. Filled with witty Lennie’s incredibly hilarious inner monologue and descriptions of her grief tearing at her being piece by painful piece, it is a true portrait of how we mourn loss. Through it all, the one person who fills in the gaps is Lennie’s grandmother, a stalwart warrior of a woman who spent her entire life punishing herself with a secret that, once revealed to Lennie, blows open the doors to the house of their grief and so begins the healing of their souls. 

One of the reasons I tend to gravitate more to Young Adult novels (because at 37, a wife and a mommy to a toddler, I am anything BUT a young adult...shoot, the jury is still out on whether I can even call myself an “adult” but I digress...) is the blunt honesty that most of these books take with tough topics. I read Joan Didion’s popular memoir on mourning the death of her husband, The Year of Magical Thinking, many years ago and it still continues to have a very profound effect on me. In comparing the stages of grief from both books (and I mean no disrespect to Ms. Didion as she wrote a personal memoir versus Jandy Nelson’s work of fiction in this novel but I can’t help but compare) I can definitely say that Lennie’s grief is more in-your-face and her pain floats more easily on her countenance than the descriptions of grief that are almost poetic in its serene acceptance in nature but still hard hitting from Ms. Didion. Lennie may dance around her issues but her grief is evident in every facet in her interactions with people. The only true joy you get from her is when she is with Joe. She even states very bluntly while she’s with Joe:

“I try to cover my face with my hands, but he won’t let me. And then we are wrestling and laughing and it’s many many minutes before I remember that my sister has died.”

One last thing about this book, there are some really amazing things that happen in this story, but nothing as dreamy as seeing the bed in the forest. For real.  

The Sky is Everywhere is Jandy Nelson’s very first book (applause!). Her next novel is called The History of Luck due out on October 1, 2011.  

        

Review: The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson