This book has been on my radar for some time, but it wasn't until I saw it offered for $1.99 at BN that I decided to go ahead and buy it. My only regret is that I waited so long.
I skimmed through a couple of reviews of this book, and they irritated me. A number of reviewers were annoyed by its lack of realism; apparently they missed the note at the end wherein Y.S. Lee stated, "The Agency is a totally unrealistic, completely fictitious antidote to the fate that would otherwise swallow a girl like Mary Quinn." Who is Mary Quinn? First, that's not her name. She can't live under her real name because she is technically a fugitive, wanted for housebreaking and sentenced to death by hanging. Instead of the rope, she found herself offered a chance at escape and education. Being a smart girl, she took the chance.
Mary is not necessarily a bad girl--she was born and raised in difficult circumstances in 1841. Her father was a sailor and died at sea; her mother was unable to get support from the community and became a prostitute. Mary knows that few choices exist for a girl like her, and she tries to survive in a world that doesn't welcome her. That's why she took to thieving. However, once she is rescued by the school, Mary finds that the education they give her is both helpful and harmful. She is unable to be content in the jobs available to women, and the feminist principles she learned at the school make her dislike the idea of relying upon a man for support either as a wife or mistress.
Educated and unsatisfied, Mary is offered another choice, and this one speaks to her desire for agency within her own life. She is offered the opportunity to investigate for Scotland Yard. The book calls her "a spy in the house," but "spy" isn't really an adequate job title for what Mary Quinn does. She's more of an investigator, seeking evidence to prosecute her supposed employers--the Thorold family where she works as a paid companion for the daughter, Angelica. While she is looking for information for Scotland Yard, they hired her through an intermediary service--the Agency--and are unaware of her identity.
Y.S. Lee clearly knows Victorian England--she has a Ph.D. in Victorian Literature and Culture. Lee's knowledge of the setting helps her to build a believable portrait of London--and the incredibly filthy and foul smelling Thames--but she never creates info dumps. All of the information she provides about London seems an organic part of the plot and serves the purpose of advancing the story. Even Lee's emphasis on the dampness and mildew throughout the city becomes important to a final plot twist.
I know that Mary Quinn's story is unrealistic. I'm OK with that. There are times when a story like this one, wherein a spunky young girl manages to find a fulfilling life actually serve to make readers think even more about the impossibility of the story and the social restrictions placed on women at the time. This book is the first of a trilogy; I will gladly read the remaining two, and I hope that Y.S. Lee continues to write fiction for some time.
The Arno Press edition of this book can be quite difficult to read. The book is a facsimile of the original 1805 publication. The font is set in a Caslon typeface, which, just for fun, also includes what's known as a long s. As Wikipedia notes, when a long s is used, the word sinfulness reads as "ſinfulneſs."
Once I adapted to the typeface, the book itself was a quick and easy read. This is the story of Cazire, a young girl whose father abandons her twice over. First, he takes her with him when he abandons her mother and takes up with a mistress. Under the influence of his mistress, he abandons her in a convent (to be educated--not to take the veil). Upon her apparent graduation, he sends her to live with her mother and ignores her. With this poor parental involvement, and with a largely superficial education, young Cazire takes up several shocking notions. She reads Rousseau (always a bad idea in a Dacre novel!) and decides that the most important aspect of life is love. Heavily sentimental, she understands that few men are likely to meet her high demands of a spouse.
Unfortunately for Cazire, the first man to even come close to her dreams is Fribourg--her mother's neighbor. Fribourg is a husband and father, but these facts are not enough to prevent Cazire from loving him. Fribourg encourages Cazire's affections, engaging her in long philosophic debates wherein he questions the role of duty and the sanctity of marriage.
Much of this novel is predictable, but there are also some truly moving passages. While Dacre clearly condemns Fribourg's philosophy, she is also very careful to present his arguments in detail. Cazire's gradual seduction to philosophy is realistic and well-portrayed.
This novel needs to be reprinted and made accessible to a younger generation of scholars.
I've read this book four times now; this most recent reread was in preparation for reading book five shortly. (I'm rereading the series as a whole.) I've read four of the book in the series so far, and, in going back to the beginning, I'm amazed by how much foreshadowing Richardson really did. The first time I read this book, I was lost. I didn't really understand the Grey. I thought it was a great concept, but it seemed poorly fleshed out.
Now that I've gone back to the book, I can say that my first impressions were wrong. The Grey is not poorly fleshed out--the problem is that Harper doesn't understand it at all. She has friends that advise her, but they can't experience the Grey the same way she can, so it's like she's being taught how to sing by people that are tone deaf (please pardon the disability metaphor--this was the most innocuous one I could think of. As someone that wants to sing, and can't hear pitch all that well, it would fit me, too). They understand the concepts they're talking about, but they are unable to go into the Grey with her and cannot sense it in the same way she can. With each book, Harper's knowledge and instinctual understanding of the Grey grows. Knowing what I now know, it was wonderful to return to the beginning and see Richardson lay the groundwork for a very well-developed paranormal world.
I upped this book from three to four stars based on its relationship to the book that come later. It really is that good--you just have to read the rest to see it.
Sarah Dessen has been blessed over the years with fantastic covers. They call out to me, teasing me and telling me that I'll love what's inside. I rarely listen. Years ago, I did read two of her books, That Summer and Someone Like You, packaged together in the omnibus How to Deal. At the time, I thought they were ok but not deserving of the huge fan following Dessen has built. In the time since then, her covers have continued to call to me. However, I've remembered my prior disappointment and walked away.
This book called my name louder than any of her others. Something about the model's stance on the cover caught my eye. Was she defiant or merely weary? Intrigued, i read the cover copy. What was going on with girl, McLean? Why did she change her name and persona at every school? Why did she travel so much? Was her father doing something illegal? Was she a hostage in a custody battle?
Once I found myself coming up with that many questions, I knew I needed answers. Most of my theories were off-base. McLean's parents did have a messy divorce, but her dad had not stolen her. He was not a con man. Instead, he was a consultant, moving from town to town doing business.
While the plot wasn't as exciting as my fantasy of it, McLean's problems were real. She was deeply unhappy with herself and used each move to create another temporary self. Having seen the breakdown of her parents' marriage, she doubts that true long term relationships exist. Her policy of leaving each town abruptly, without goodbyes, reinforces her worldview. Except now, in Lakeview, McLean doesn't get the chance to create an identity. Instead, she's living as herself for the first time in two years. Taking up her true name and identity forces McLean to confront all of the issues she's been dodging. And it also gives her a real chance to connect with others.
I enjoyed this book, but I still don't see what makes her fans love her so much. McLean was a very real character, and she was someone I could sympathize with. At various points in my own life, I flirted with the idea of creating a new self. My user name at GoodReads, Nan, is an outgrowth of that desire. When I started my freshman year of college in 1994, I dropped my full name, Nancy, and gave myself a nickname. Nan was much more than a persona; freed from the baggage of high school, I was able to be myself (still geeky, just more social and willing to take risks). McLean's personas were much different. They were a way for her to hide.
McLean's new friends--Deb, Riley, Dave, Ellis, Heather, and even Opal--are what made this book. Their steadfast devotion to each other and to McLean proved her wrong. Relationships--friendship and romantic--can be real. Unfortunately, the world doesn't revolve around McLean and the lessons she needed to learn. She's unaware that events are moving around her and may snatch her away from these people that have come to mean so much.
I still can't quite decide if I like Dessen or not. I do think this was a sweet novel about finding oneself, but I'm not too likely to revisit it. Dave and the rest of the supporting cast were superb, but I don't feel a strong connection to them. Overall, I do think think this is a good book, and it's likely to appeal to a wide audience.
This novel was originally published in 1807. The author, Charlotte Dacre, was a recognized author of Gothic fiction and Della Cruscan poetry. This edition is a reprint of the first edition; it is literally a photocopy of those pages rebound and reprinted in the 1970s as a part of the Gothic Novels series by Devendra P. Varma. Despite its strong ties to the Gothic, there is very little in this book that is actually Gothic.
The Libertine opens with the story of Montmorency, who, having lost almost all his fortune in gambling, retreated with his small daughter, Gabrielle, to Switzerland. There, in the remote mountains, he believed he could raise her away from the temptations of society. However, society was destined to find them in the form of Angelo. Welcomed into their home as a lost traveler, Angelo overstays his welcome and seduces Gabrielle. He genuinely adores her, but he decides to return to Naples regardless. Only after he leaves does Gabrielle realize that she's pregnant. In the first of a long series of tragedies resulting from the seduction, Montmorency loses his mind in grief when he realizes that his daughter is pregnant. Gabrielle gives birth to Agnes on the very day that her father dies. Throughout her pregnancy, she had only written one letter to Angelo, and she'd sent it before she realized the truth of her condition. He did not respond, since he was distracted by society, and Gabrielle never wrote him again. However, after her daughter is born, Gabrielle decides that she must journey to Naples in order to find Angelo and inform him of his duty as a father. Having borne a daughter, Gabrielle is all too aware of the fate of a girl raised without the protection of a father or a father's name.
In Naples, Gabrielle poses as a male servant, even dying her skin. She works for Angelo, and even helps him to in his affair with another woman. As she sees both his devotion to Oriana and his disregard for the woman, Gabrielle realizes that Angelo will never respect a woman that gave herself to him without a wedding. In despair, Gabrielle finds herself in a position where the only things that matter to her are her daughter's fate and Angelo's happiness.
This is a four volume novel, and that summary doesn't even encompass the first two volumes. In some ways, this novel does read like a Gothic in its condemnation of sin and its extreme violence. However, it is also a novel with close ties to the sensation fiction that would appear in the late nineteenth century. Dacre constantly focuses on the emotion of her characters, on their despair and heartache. Reading this book inspires an emotional response in much the same way that sensation fiction did in later readers. As with that later genre, it details the crimes of present-day characters. Using Dacre's references to philosophers as a guide, it would seem that this novel was written in a contemporary setting, unlike her more traditional Gothics, Zofloya and The Confessions of the Nun of St. Omer. Also, this book is entirely lacking in any supernatural element--explained or otherwise. If it were not written by Dacre, I'm not sure that it would even be considered a Gothic. It might have been considered a late sentimental novel, or even an attempt at realism.
The book itself is occasionally difficult to read. Dacre is well known for her excesses of language, her neologisms like "enhorrored." At times, I was thrilled when characters died, if only because it meant an end to their death scenes.
As with Zofloya, Dacre does try to create a moral for this work. In that other work, she examines the question of nature vs. nurture and whether a mother's example could have saved Victoria from her own dark nature. In this book, Dacre doesn't present questions. Instead, she baldly states that the institution of marriage was created to strengthen society and the bonds between individuals. When marriage is disregarded, and sexual relations occur without that holy bond, chaos results. The sins of the parents will be punished through their children. Here, Angelo and Gabrielle's unhallowed union brings about the deaths of at least three people and results in madness for two others. (Those totals do not include Gabrielle and Angelo, either!)
Dacre's moral is complicated by her biography. It is well established that she had three children prior to her marriage to their father, Nicholas Byrne. Dacre's father was a well known radical named Jacob Rey. He divorced Dacre's mother and married a countess, changing his name to Jonathon King. In addition to the divorce, he was involved in other scandals and was called "the Jew King." Several recent scholars have focused on Dacre's relationship to her father and his faith, which she seems to have rejected. After her marriage, all of her children were baptized into the Church of England. With this history of divorce, of rejected Jewishness, and extramarital childbirth, Dacre's moralizing is suspect. While she may have condemned extramarital sexual relations in her writing, she was also condemning the life she led.
Most of Dacre's work has long been forgotten. Zofloya has enjoyed increased critical attention in recent years. Now that scholars have rediscovered that work, they need to enlarge their focus and discuss her other works as well.
For the past two days, I've been struggling to contain a migraine. I've turned to the Kitty Norville books to give me something to do that wouldn't make the pain worse. It's been a good decision.
As this second adventure opens, Kitty has taken her radio broadcast on the road. She's got her reasons for leaving Denver, and she'd rather not talk about them, thank you. Especially not with any humans. Her schedule is interrupted by a call from her lawyer, Ben. He's been handling her mail, and she's received a subpoena to testify before a Senate hearing. Dr. Flemming, our friendly researcher from the first book, went public with his findings after Kitty was outed as the first publicly known werewolf. Now the government wants to know what he's been using their money to study. To get a better understanding of the supernatural, they've invited a number of experts, including Kitty.
On her arrival in D.C., Kitty finds herself the guest of the local Master Vampire, Alette. She also finds herself drawn to the were community, a packless society that meets at a local club. Compared to Carl's pack, this D.C. group is a utopia, but as Kitty discovers, their peace comes at a price--nonintervention.
As the Senate hearing moves forward, Kitty quickly learns that everyone involved has an agenda--especially Senator Duke, the Bible quoting chair of the committee. He's especially fond of the verse "thou shall not suffer a witch to live," and seems to think it covers werewolves as well.
Drawn into terrible events against her will, Kitty has to take control of them in the way that only she can. In doing so, she'll discover that she's more of a leader than she's ever let herself believe.
Fans of the book should definitely read the short story, "Kitty Meets the Band," included in the back of the book. It includes some of my favorite call-ins, from the woman sick of the sound of "Muskrat Love" to a guy who'd love to sell his soul if he could play like Hendrix . . . and we haven't even met the band as yet . . .
After recommending this book strongly to a friend yesterday, I realized that it had been so long since I had read it that I had forgotten the plot. I still remembered some of my favorite scenes, but I couldn't recall the story arc of this particular book. So I took it down and read it. And, after reading it, I still found myself flipping to the front of the book to remind myself how it started.
While that might sound like a bad thing, I don't perceive it that way. As I read the book, the narrative seems to progress so naturally that it's often difficult for me to remember the steps that led to any specific event. The events seem to occur organically, each one building to the next.
As the novel opens, Kitty Norville is subbing for a coworker and doing the midnight DJ shift at the radio station where she works--KNOB in Denver. Bored with recent music, Kitty decides to talk instead, and she asks her listeners if any of them have ideas about why The Weekly World News (which is now sadly defunct) had been reporting on Bat Boy for 50 years. On caller suggests that it's a cover up for supernatural activity and hints that he may be a vampire; another caller has heard wolves in an area where they're supposedly extinct. One of my favorite callers asks if she believes in vampires. He asks if she thinks that first caller was a vampire, and when she says she didn't know, he explains that
"I go to nightclubs a lot, and sometimes people show up there, and they just don't fit. They're, like, way too cool for the place, you know? Like, scary cool, like they should be in Hollywood or something and what the hell are they doing here--"
"Grocery shopping?"
"Yeah, exactly!"
The next caller asks about salvation and claims to be a vampire.
Kitty's stint hosting late night and her improvised call-in show turn out to be a huge hit. Her manager is thrilled with the ratings, making it a regular show and even taking it into syndication.
However, at least two people are not pleased--Arturo, the local Master Vampire, and Carl, the alpha male of her pack. Arturo approaches Carl to get Kitty to quite the show, but in a rare showing of stubborness, she refuses.
Kitty is the lowest the member of the pack, and Carl would like to keep her that way. She's the newest wolf in the pack, and Carl wants to keep her as a puppy. So long as she's a puppy, she won't have to stand for herself, and he'll protect her. But the human Kitty is an adult, and she can't stay a puppy forever.
Vaughn's portrayal of Carl's pack is troubling. From the outset it is clear that Kitty doesn't accept her role within the pack, but the voice of the Wolf within her explains that this is how things are supposed to be. As alpha, Carl has sexual access to any wolf in the pack (although he seems to be heterosexual, there's never a clear statement that says that male wolves would not also submit to him). When he chastises Kitty for trying to step outside her role, the yelling will turn into a sexual encounter. As much as Kitty can recognize this as abuse, her Wolf loves him. Changing her relationship with Carl means challenging the pack structure, and Kitty doesn't know if she's ready to do that just yet.
In the course of the novel, Kitty is outed as a werewolf while broadcasting, and society must suddenly deal with the fact that supernatural creatures are real. As she's the only "out" werewolf, the local police come to her when they find themselves facing a series of gruesome murders.
The murders--and Kitty's relationship to her pack--form the story arc for the novel. In some ways, though, they're secondary. The true wonder of this book is Kitty's relationship to her callers. They come to her looking for advice, trying to understand the moral implications of their lives. Or looking for the location of the next vampire orgy. In any case, Kitty tries to talk with them and provide some form of guidance. Through Kitty, Vaughn is able to explore the world she has created in a way that's simply not possible for most urban fantasy.
I adore the Kitty novels, and I can't wait for the newest entry in the series this summer.
I picked up this book due to Avon's aggressive marketing campaign. I get emails from the publisher, and they were pushing this title pretty heavily. After reading the summary, I was intrigued, and since I felt like rewarding myself with a fun romance, I bought it.
The cover copy tells the bare bones of the plot. A few years ago, Autumn and Sam had a fling in Vegas which ended badly--and she's hated him for years because of what happened. When they run into each other at a wedding, they find themselves talking and being civil, and Sam volunteers to help Autumn with a situation that brings him back into her life.
The cover copy also obscures several key facts about the story, and I'm not going to spoil them here. I think they make the story richer and complicate the relationship. What I can say is that when Sam and Autumn run into each other, neither one is looking to resume their fling. However, their increased contact leads them to remember just what drew them to each other in the first place, and as they come to know each other better, sparks begin to fly anew.
When I picked up the book, I had no idea that it was in a series, or that the series was based around a fictional Seattle hockey team. Both facts were delightful. I work in Detroit, and I come from a hockey family. Passages like this one just made me smile:
Sam stood in the tunnel of the Joe Louis Arena and waited to hit the ice. He hated playing in Detroit. Hated the stinking octopus.
He stood behind Logan Dumont and in front of Blake Conte. Captain Walker Brooks hit the ice first admist a wall of booing Red Wings fans. Sam had always found jeering crowds amusing. He fed off all that passion, and no one was more passionate about a sport than hockey fans. When it was his turn to step on the ice, he stuck his glove under one arm and skated across the ice, waving like he was a conquering hero. He looked up at the filled seats and laughed. He might hate playing at the Joe Louis, but he loved playing hockey. He'd been on the road for over a week and was exhausted and jet lagged, but the second the puck dropped, that all went away. Adrenaline pounded through his veins and rushed across his skin. He dominated behind the blue line, using his body to agitate and intimidate. He closed firing lanes and spent four minutes in the sin bin for cross-checking and hooking. The latter was complete bullshit. It wasn't his fault that Zetterberg got tangled up in Sam's stick. He should go back to Sweden and learn how to skate like a big boy.
Pansy ass.
I will add that any Red Wings fan wouldn't call the arena "the Joe Louis." We call it "the Joe" and leave it at that. But, since Sam isn't a Red Wing, I'm willing to forgive his lapse. I'm also willing to forgive his hatred of octopus. While I adore the tradition and cheer whenever I see a squid hit the ice, I'm sure it's disgusting to other teams. (Thankfully, we only throw squid, not rats like some fans!)
--back to the review--
Sam and Autumn felt real to me. They each had their reasons for behaving so recklessly in Vegas, and the wounds and regrets they carry from that meeting are lifelike. They are not always likeable, but they're also believably flawed.
The sex was fairly graphic at times, but that's also in character. Neither or these characters does anything by half--once they've mad a decision, they throw all their energy into it. Once they decide to have sex, they aren't tame about it.
Overall, I liked this novel enough to read it in one night. (I finished it after midnight, hence the two-day spread in my dates.) It was fast paced and fun, and exactly what I wanted at the time.
Wow, this book was a lot better when I skimmed it!
I originally checked this book out of the library on March 28, and I started reading it almost immediately. However, I stalled out on page 53. For those of you that have read the series, you know what happened at the end of Dreamfever. Mac spent the first 50 some odd pages of this book whining about the choice she'd made at the end of the last. While I do understand the emotional trauma involved, and I would not have liked to see Mac brush off the event, Moning's treatment of it left much to be desired. It felt as if Moning want to convince her readers of Mac's trauma through sheer repetition. It was too much for me, and I had to put the book down.
Today, April 25, I picked up the book again. I wanted to know how this series ends, dammit, and the book was due back to the library today. So I decided to skim. I avoided any long passages of exposition as they uniformly seemed to be of Mac whining. Instead, I looked for scenes with conversation. I was quickly able to skim through the book, getting the jist of the plot while running from Mac's thoughts. With that method, I read this nearly 600 page book in four hours. And I liked it.
Apart from Mac's near-constant whining, the book provided a satisfying ending to the series. I liked the choices Moning made regarding the change in the world. A few of the revelations were moderately surprising, but they did not come from left field. They had been foreshadowed--as pretty much everything in this series was foreshadowed--but Mac hadn't given enough hints to truly lay bare her entire plot.
I'm glad I didn't spend money on this book. Heck, the only one that I ever owned was the first book (originally as a mass market paperback, but I gave that away in the swap when the publisher offered it as a free ebook). I do think this series is inventive and reasonably brave. Not many writers have the courage to torture a character as thoroughly as Mac was tortured. But that's also part of the reason that I don't want to return to this series. Bad things happen in this world--and bad things happen to Mac. I did not enjoy following her on her journey from Mac 1.0 to Mac 5.0. While I do think these books are good, they're not fun in the way I like my books to be fun.
Before I get into this review, I need to explain a few things. I don't like to read books about endangered children. Right now, I don't like to read books about missing people. They hit too close to home for me, and I cannot vicariously enjoy the tension created by these situations. My reasons are simple: these situations are too real. When I was a teenager, two girls in my hometown were killed by a serial killer. I did not know Michelle and Melissa Urbin, the sisters he kidnapped and killed from Fenton. I went to a neighboring school. The facts of their disappearance and deaths shaped my personality and reading taste, though. I do not enjoy reading books from the point of view of a rapist or killer. And the tension created by endangered children sickens me. I've only recently begun to avoid books about missing people, and I don't know how long that will last. In December, one of the professors in my department was reported missing. Her disappearance is considered a possible suicide, but without any clear evidence of her fate, the case remains open.
I didn't want to burden this review with this information in order to seek sympathy. Instead, I want you to understand that this book was so amazing that I was able to enjoy it despite the baggage I brought with me.
As the cover copy makes clear, this novel opens with a traffic accident. A woman is involved the accident and drives away; when the police find her walking down the road a few miles away, she is unable to provide identification. In an attempt to distract the police officer from her role in the accident, she tells him that she is one of the "Bethany girls," referring to an unsolved case of missing sisters from 30 years before.
The police immediately suspect that this woman is not telling the full story. She explains that she's been living under an assumed name for years and does not want to endanger her privacy, so she refuses to give them her current name. She does not want publicity. She knows facts of the girls' lives, but most of that information is available to a dedicated internet searcher. The police do not know what to believe, but they do know they have a mess on their hands. Detective Kevin Infante is assigned to investigate the woman and determine the truth--if such a thing exists.
The novel unfolds slowly, moving between multiple narrators to tell the story of the missing girls, their family, and the investigation. From memory, I would say that there may have been as many as eight narrators. The chapters move back and forth between the narrators and back and forth between the present and the past. Thankfully, Lippman is a powerful writer, and the switches between different points of view were rarely jarring. Instead, we as readers get to see the tapestry of lives woven around the missing girls. We see how their loss devastates their parents, Miriam and Frank. We see the relationship between the girls as we learn of their childhood. We see the frustration of the detectives as they seek to discover the threads that tie this unnamed woman to the Bethany girls.
This is not a novel that delights in pain. Despite the emotional pain of the girls' loss, this novel never becomes voyeuristic. This is not a book about what happens to the girls after they disappear from the mall. This is a book about what happens to everyone else. The woman who claims to be a Bethany girl forces the police to reopen the case and reevaluate their investigation. She claims that her captor was a cop, further complicating the matter.
What is the truth? Who is this woman? That's something that, for the time being at least, only the dead know for certain.
It's up to Kevin Infante and the Baltimore PD to discover if there are any answers available.
As the fact that I'm reviewing an audiobook should make clearn, I listened to the audio edition of this novel. Eerily enough, I started this book on March 29, the same day the girls disappear. Linda Emond narrated the book, and she was remarkable. Lippman's writing changed with each shift in point of view, and Emond's voice changed with it. Despite the tricky nature of the narration, I never found myself confused as to which character was the viewpoint character at any time. For those of you that enjoy audibooks, I recommend this edition highly.
Overall, I found this book compelling. I could not wait to drive to work and listen to the next installment. While I was able to anticipate some of the answers, I did not see everything coming.
Lippman is a brilliant writer, and I look forward to exploring the rest of her works.
There are some things in life that are guaranteed. The end of the semester is always a good day. (yay!) Taxes will always irritate a large portion of the population. Detroit will always have attitude (if nothing else). And I will always enjoy a Jennifer Crusie novel.
I listened to this title as an audiobook and enjoyed it immensely. It was my companion as I drove to and from the D for the last two weeks of classes, and I don't think I've ever blushed so much while driving. :-)
This is the story of Sophie Dempsey and her little sister Amy. The two sisters have come to Temptation, Ohio, to film an audition clip for their acquaintance Clea. The sisters normally film weddings, but Amy is ambitious and sees this as her opportunity to break into something better as they help Cleo restart her film career. Neither of them realize that Clea had done porn before her marriage and this audition tape is an attempt to reopen that part of her life. Their very arrival in town creates problems. As Amy films the drive into the city, Sophie gets into an accident with Stephen and Virginia Garvey--two upstanding members of the town council.
Phin Tucker is the local mayor, and he's caught in a reelection fight against that same Stephen Garvey. Phin's family has held the office for years, and he doesn't want it all that much. But he doesn't want Garvey to have it either, and when Garvey tries to use the "film people" as a wedge issue in the election, Phin realizes that he has to know what's happening at Clea's farm.
Sophie has spent her youth traveling all throughout the country; she comes from a family of confidence men (& women), and she's innately suspicious of "town boys." With is fourth generation mayoral office, Phin is the definition of a town boy. He, in turn, is wary of her. His father had warned him long ago about women he called the Devil's Candy, and Phin can recognize that Sophie is a danger to him and his way of life.
Their wariness is not enough to keep them apart, but their attraction may not be enough to keep them together, either. As the filming continues, and the election nears, the town will throw every obstacle possible in their way. They can only have a future together if they fight for it--but they're not used to fighting for themselves. Are they up to the challenge?
Oh, and who is the murderer terrorizing the town?
(OK, I admit it, that last line is not fair. But there is a murder, and it's important, and I don't want to tell you any more. So deal.)
This novel was utterly amazing and fantastic. Vaughn clearly knows superhero literature, and her fondness for the genre allows her to write in it with respect while analyzing the tensions at the heart of superhero mythology.
Celia West is the famous daughter of Commerce City's two most famous superheros--Captain Olympus and Spark, the founding members of the Olympiad. They were not the city's first superheros--a masked man called Hawk fought crime before they did. Hawk had no powers, and he retired just as the Captain and Spark became proficient at their calling. Celia has very little contact with her parents. She cut all ties with them when she was a teenager. They always placed the welfare of the city before their daughter, and while she could understand their priorities, she also found it difficult to bear. Villains always assumed that Celia was a priority in her parents' lives, and she was kidnapped several times (six and counting . . .) in an attempt to control her parents. It never worked.
Part of the distance between Celia and her parents stems from the fact that she's normal. She has no powers and no common ground to share with them. This distance--as well as her relative fragility--makes it difficult for them to relate to one another.
This is the situation as After the Golden Age opens. Celia is working as a forensic accountant in a firm that consults for the DA. After her most recent kidnapping attempt, the DA asks specifically for her to be assigned to what may be the case of the century--a tax fraud prosecution of the Destructor, a notorious villain and her parents' arch nemesis. As Celia digs into the case, her complicated history resurfaces in such a way to cast doubt on her reliability. Celia cannot bear the thought of being judged for her prior acts, and she digs deeper into the Destructor case to prove her worth. She's also concerned because several new gangs are attempting to take control of Commerce City. It's clear that there's a mastermind behind the recent attacks, but it's not clear just who that might be. The Destructor is locked away, and someone new seems to have stepped up to fill the vacuum.
Alternately funny and shocking and heart-rending, After the Golden Age questions one city's reliance on its heroes as saviors. Moving between Celia's past and present, the novel explores the complicated relationship between our childhood and our adulthood as the parents we both love and despise shape us to become like them.
Vaughn is not a stylist. Her prose is clean and serviceable, establishing the points she's making with a minimum of description or purple prose. All the same, her quiet observations of characters make this novel the powerful story that it is. When I first heard about this book, I knew that I wanted to read it. Once it was available, I bought it almost immediately and read it almost all the way through in one day. This is a fast-paced story, one that gets you to care about characters and the City where they live.
I believe I said this about Carrie Vaughn's other standalone novel, Discord's Apple, and I'll repeat myself here. I do not want Vaughn to write a sequel to this book. After the Golden Age is a fantastic story from beginning to end, and I don't want to see that perfection weakened in a series.
I bought this book largely because the author was in the store doing a signing while I was there. I thought the premise sounded fun, and I decided to give the book a shot. The fact that it had won a RITA for best debut novel helped, too.
Overall, this was a fun, light read. It took a while for me to get into it, as the male lead was extremely irritating as the book opened.
The story is this: Eva, the daughter of a courtesan, runs a school teaching courtesans how to properly behave so that they can be matched with husbands. The women come to her willingly, having realized that their time as a courtesan is coming to an end (basically, they've "aged out") or their experiences have been unpleasant. None of her students know her true name or her mother's history. One day, a duke shows up, furious that his Arabella had left him. He tracked her to Eva's school, and talks of the woman as if she were a possession. Eva is pleased to tell him that Arabella is out of his reach--she's married and an expectant mother. (It had taken some time for our duke to find Eva.)
Irrationally irritated, the duke decides to research Eva and punish her. He does this by buying her debt and explaining that the debts could be waived if she supplies him with another courtesan. Unwilling to pimp her students, Eva finally decides to take on the role herself.
The consent issues in the book are murky. Smith would like to play with the idea of forced consent, but she also works very hard to explain that Eva desires the duke and makes the choice of her own free will.
The setting is murky as well. There are no clear recognitions of time; the cover would indicate that the book takes place in the Regency period, but the social work with Fallen Women movement is a later Victorian attitude. In Smith's London, every well born man seems to keep a mistress--or courtesan, I should say--in addition to his wife. Few people object to the practice, and our duke is even able to talk with his mother about his missing courtesan, Arabella. Obviously, many of the wives hate the practice, and Eva's father's widow is especially vitriolic. However, it's an accepted social practice, and no men are shunned for keeping a courtesan. Women actually seem to compete for the role, which also complicates the issue.
This book is the first in a trilogy, and I'm not sure that I'll continue with it. While the sex was fun, the ahistorical nature of this historical romance bugs me. I also don't like the idea that Smith is trying to invoke the old fashioned rape fantasy without addressing its baggage. Overall, this is a fun read but not one that you'll want to think about deeply.
My husband and I went to see Sucker Punch the weekend it debuted, and we enjoyed it greatly. However, I was disturbed by the fact that of approximately 30 people in the audience, only six of them were women (including myself). For all that this movie was an attempt to cash in on the vision of violent women, it was not a movie that sought to show them as empowered. Instead, it was a film about watching women and the power women hold when they are observed by others. In this case, the "others" were clearly men. The subtext of the movie was clearly visible even in its commercials, which would explain why so few women wanted to see it.
In a related note, Sucker Punch was referenced in a recent skit on Saturday Night Live. You can see the skit below:
And then there was this sketch "The Silver Screen," the premise of which, as far as I could tell, is that it's funny when old queens give each other pet names. Every time Taran Killam and Elton kissed, the audience hooted.
This was not to say "The Silver Screen" wasn't funny. It was very funny. And there is definitely room for gay humor on TV. But not if it's being used as the only thing making a sketch funny: the concept for "Silver Screens" couldn't have been more than "Two gay men spend more time making googly eyes at each other while dressed like Christopher Guest from 'Waiting for Guffman' than paying attention to Vanessa Hudgens." (To be fair, a lot of things are better than paying attention to Vanessa Hudgens.)
As I read what Salon had to say and rewatched the skit, I can't help but think that Drew Grant missed one of the vital points of it. He also participated in one of the things that made me truly angry about this episode of SNL: the casual sexism.
In my reading of the skit, I do see the focus as being upon the gay movie reviewers, but it is not insignificant that they're reviewing Sucker Punch. They're pointing out to viewers a fact that should be obvious but hasn't been talked about nearly enough: this movie has a very limited audience. It's aimed primarily at heterosexual men and boys--especially those with an interest in s/f, steampunk, or manga. Despite the growing influence of the geek market, that's a rather small niche. The shocked faces of Tarran Killam and Elton John (I love the delayed shock in John's case) indicate just how appalled they are by this spectacle of women's bodies and violence. Their disinterest in Vanessa Hudgins (which Drew Grant endorses) becomes less a dismissal of the movie--about which they have no interest--than a dismissal of modern women altogether. The only woman they admire in the course of the skit is Claudette Colbert--about whom Killam's character says, "They don't make them like they used to," before adding that her "bangs scream sex!" John's character, not to be outdone, adds "Now that's a muff I'd put my hand in."
SNL bothered me so much that week because this sort of humor was used throughout the night. It was as if the writers could not imagine a gay friendly joke that was also friendly to women. Instead, the jokes that night focused solely on Elton John's sexuality and presented women as disinteresting at best, disgusting at worst. I know Rachel Dratch isn't on the show any more, but that night would have been a great night to bring back the infamous skit "The Woman with No Gaydar." Dratch's character always looked silly when she'd find herself in a gay bar and think that it was a great place to find men, but the humor was never mean spirited--unlike "The Old West" skit that night, wherein Kristen Wiig, as a old West prostitute, continually throws herself at Elton John's cowboy character, only to be repeatedly insulted as he pursued a local cowboy.
Warning: movie spoilers ahead.
I loved Sucker Punch. I thought it was inventive and visually stunning. It's the story of a seemingly unnamed young woman (supposedly 22 years old). After the death of her mother, the young woman tries to protect her younger sister from their stepfather (whether he's threatening the child with violence or with specifically sexual violence remains uncertain). In the struggle, the younger girl dies, and the stepfather decides to have our heroine committed rather than make her available to police questioning. This scene is quick and scored to the Eurthymic's "Sweet Dreams," in one of the better uses of the song I've ever seen. In addition to the song, the opening sequence features voice-over narration talking about guardian angels and their ability to save you. At the institution, the stepfather signs up our girl for a lobotomy. The doctor will be there in five days. In the meantime, she'll participate in the theatrical therapy endorsed by the Polish doctor in charge of the facility.
Once at the institution, the sense of reality--odd though it may have been--rapidly breaks down. The evil orderly (who seemingly runs the place) seems to be using it as a dance hall/brothel. The other patients--who are all attractive young women--perform on stage and in the bedroom for the local influential men. When the doctor gets our girl--now called Babydoll--to dance for the first time, everyone around her is stunned. They stare at her, open eyed and open mouthed, as if she was the most amazing thing they had ever seen. The audience doesn't see the dance--instead, we see a story of Babydoll talking to a mentor and asking for the tools to achieve power and escape. He tells her that she needs a map, fire, a knife, and a key. Back at the dance hall, the orderly decides to give Babydoll to the High Roller--a man that will arrive in the clinic in five days. Babydoll convinces her fellow inmates to seek the items with her in order to escape. Each time they seek an item, they use Babydoll's dancing to distract their mark. As with the first dance, the audience never sees what Babydoll does and instead sees a mission that becomes a metaphor for their task.
Throughout the movie, Babydoll is seeking independence and power. She wants to use the tools of her oppressors to set herself and the other women free. The way she entrances her marks with her dancing is much the same way in which we viewers are stunned by the movie. As the tagline claims, we are unprepared. But more than that, we viewers are implicated in the crimes against women portrayed in the movie. We are the audience being silenced and controlled by Babydoll's metaphorical dancing. This is a movie that wants to empower women but at the same time uses them as objects of consumption.
This mixed message comes through loud and clear, and it's no wonder why women stayed away from the movie. We've seen enough misogyny. We don't need more fed to us as a metaphor for empowerment. But at the same time, this film is not misogynistic. It's confused, and that confusion hits the heart of our culture's relationship to women more accurately than any parable of hate or power. Just like our culture, it can't decide if it's best to be a doll or a real girl.
When SNL used Sucker Punch as a passing mention in their skit, they knew exactly what they were doing. They knew that this is not a movie for gay men--or for anyone other than a certain portion of the geek community. They knew what they were saying when they glamorized Claudette Colbert to the detriment of living women. Normally, I love SNL, but that week, I simply could not look beyond the misogyny.
What does it say about me that I loved Sucker Punch? Well, the simple facts of the matter are:
I'm a geek.
I like action movies.
I like steampunk.
I'm an academic with interests in gender studies, so the indeterminacy of the film's potential for misogyny and for empowerment gives me plenty to think about.
Basically, except for the fact that I'm female, I am part of this film's target audience and I enjoyed the complexity and layered nature of the film.
Now that a year has passed since everything changed, the world is trying to adapt. It's still a constant struggle to find food. Miranda's family is increasingly isolated in their house, only venturing out once a week for food. Remarkably, though, they have survived this year. With the coming of a wet and rainy Spring, their lives continue to change in unexpected ways.
First, they get a new family member. Miranda's brothers go to the Delaware to catch fish while the shad are running, and Matt meets Syl. They are married quickly, and the young woman upsets the balance of the household. She's been out in the world since the disaster, and while she doesn't talk about it much, her very presence forces Miranda to realize just how sheltered they've been.
Then, surprisingly, Miranda's father arrives. He and his pregnant wife, Lisa, had tried to find her family out west and failed. They've returned to be close to his older children, which is especially important to them now that Gabriel has been born. In addition to the three of them, they also bring three strangers: a large friendly man named Charlie and Alex & Julie Morales (of the dead the gone). Alex has a plan. He wants to take Julie to the convent/farm where he'd sent Brianna in the past, and after that, he wants to join a monastery.
But he didn't count on meeting Miranda and her fierce desire for life. In his desire to protect his sister, he can't see that families are reshaping themselves to include everyone beloved, not just kin.
Also, having survived a year in this new world doesn't mean that Miranda and Alex have mastered it. Surprises continue to await them, and some will be terrifying.
Pfeffer recently asked in her blog if readers would be like to read a fourth "Moon" book. I answered yes. This is a dark, dystopian world, and the characters make difficult choices. I want to know more about their survival. While I don't always like Alex & Miranda, I care about them and I want a future for them and their families. So, yes, I want a fourth Moon book!
I have a problem with this book. According to Goodreads, the ebook is 240 pages long. That seems like a decent length, comparable to McMann's other's titles. However, when I read this book on my nook, it was 159 pages--including several pages of copyright information at the front of the book. It's possible that I read this book in a smaller font than the one it's paginated by, but that usually doesn't alter the number of pages listed. And, it would seem that my edition was the full book, as had a solid conclusion to the story.
The reason I'm going into such detail about this is very simple: I do not think Cryer's Cross was long enough to be sold as a hardcover novel. While I can't do a word count to verify my impression, this seems like a novella, and I'm not very pleased that the publisher decided to sell it for $16.99. While it is a good story, and I did find it deliciously creepy in at least one spot, I would have felt cheated if I had paid $16.99 for it. Thankfully, the nookbook version is selling for $4.99 at bn.com. That's how much I paid, and I do feel like I got my money's worth. However, I would have resented the book if I had paid full price for the hardcover.
Overall, this is a solid novella about a haunting. It fits into the classic parameters of the genre. As an adult reader of YA, I can't say if a teen would find it scary, but the climax of the novel did disturb me. McMann's typical narrative structure--present tense, third person omniscient narration, short sentences--worked nicely to highlight the manner in which Kendall's brain works. Kendall has OCD, and McMann presents a sympathetic and realistic portrait of a girl working to control her anxiety disorder in a town filled with anxiety. My husband has OCD, and it was refreshing to read about a character that has it and is not crippled by it.
I do have one final note to make about this novella: I'm deeply amused by the setting. I live in South Central Michigan (very near Ohio), a little west of the setting for the Wake trilogy. Nearly two years ago, my uncle's family moved from Michigan to Belgrade, Montana, outside Bozeman. Cryer's Cross is also set outside Bozeman. The coincidence of these settings gives me a small chuckle.
This book was so not my cup of tea, and, as a student of the Gothic and fan of Stoker's Dracula, that's saying something.
As I listened to the narration of this abridged audibook, I came to several conclusions. First, I was happy with the abridgment, although I occasionally found myself asking "and why did they have to go here again?" Second, it was nice to hear the Eastern European locations and names pronounced properly. That's the extent of the good things I have to say about the audiobook. It was narrated by several people, and while their voices were pleasant to listen to, I found myself having a hard time emotionally engaging in the reading. For a relatively dramatic text, their readings were rather flat.
As for the book itself, I was not all that impressed. It started rather strong, but by the end, I found myself thinking that this was the Da Vinci Code of vampire novels. Our two main protagonists spend most of the novel shuttling around Europe, traveling from location to location, always searching for a rare text or work of art that would help them locate Dracula's tomb. I do understand what they hoped to find at the tomb, but the search itself is based on several assumptions that just didn't make that much sense in the audiobook (I will recognize that the explanatory passages may have been abridged and not present in my copy). Their entire search seemed contingent on one scrap of paper--and a refusal to consider that a nearly thirty year old scribble might not have been the clue they sought.
I was incredibly frustrated with the narrative structure. Normally, I would appreciate the intertwined narratives, but I got annoyed when Paul and Helen kept having to explain their recent history to every scholar they met--while at the same time making certain that no communists overheard . . . If this were a movie, that repetition alone could be used as a drinking game. How many times must they share these dangerous facts . . . and why does everyone believe them?
Of course, it would be remiss of me to neglect a mention of the Keystone Kops, sorry, the communists. While some of them did appear dangerous, for the most part, they were ineffectual and merely irritating. Rather than add danger to the plot, the communists seemed to exist only to make travel through Eastern Europe more difficult.
Finally, I must talk about Dracula. This was the most toothless portrayal of the vampire that I have ever read. <spoiler>I was angry, really angry, when all it took was one bullet (in all probabilities, silver) to kill this ancient evil. The final confrontation is no more than three pages long. After all the build-up and mounting suspense of the novel, the confrontation failed to deliver an emotional payoff. Also, this whole mess took place because Dracula wanted a personal librarian? Lame.</spoiler>
I did think that the end of the book worked well, but it was simply too little, too late.
This book was not my cup of tea. Based on its rating and sales numbers, I know that I am one of the few to dislike it so intensely.
Thank you, Jasmine, for allowing me to borrow your copy of this book!
This is another solid entry in the Mercy Thompson series. I enjoyed the story as well as the character development. I don't want to reveal secrets and provide spoilers, so I will simply say that this book finally explores some of the mysteries of Mercy's heritage. The answers we are given here are both surprising and believable. Briggs continues to use the landscape of the Columbia Basin to enrich her story, and her deep grounding in the setting adds weight to the novel.
I would have liked to see more development for some of the new characters, and the novel does seem to resolve itself quickly. But that could be because this is a fast novel and took me roughly five hours to read.
Overall, each Mercy Thompson book reminds me why I enjoy them so much and leaves me eager to follow her further adventures.
This book was exactly what I wanted at exactly the right time. I was suffering from a migraine yesterday when I started it, and this light and fluffy concoction was enough to distract me from my pain while still being light enough not to add to my strain.
This book is entirely predictable, but that's part of the reason you'll want to turn to it. As much as we readers know how the narrative will end, it's a delight getting there. The characters are lively and often filled with joy. Love of music fills each page. Even the villainess in this book is forgivable.
I did find the historical moment of this text fascinating. It's set in that lost period after the First World War, when Austria was trying re-stabilize itself after the crushing disaster of a lost war and lost empire. Each of the characters often yearns for the past they knew and lost while at the same time looking forward to the world they are creating. They want to create a Vienna that is free from the sins of the past (read: reliance on titled nobility--this is a republic, now), but at the same time celebrate their heritage (oh, the music of this city!). My German prof used to say that it was obvious Vienna was the heart of an empire, and you can see that in this book, too.
I'll easily add this title to my list of comfort reads. If it can get me through a migraine, I know this book is a keeper.
There is no easy way to review the ninth book in a series. If you're reading this review, odds are that you fall into one of three camps. You're my friend on Goodreads, and you read all of the reviews that show up on your update screen. You've read books in the series, and you want to see how the later books compare to the first few (people in this camp may either enjoy or despise the series--they're doing the equivalent of looking into the last chapter to see if the book is worth reading). The third camp is composed of fans, and nothing I can say will stop you from reading this book. The only relevant question for the third camp is hardcover or paperback?
Last year, I was lucky enough to see Kim Harrison while she was on tour for Black Magic Sanction. At the time, she said that the Rachel Morgan books were heading toward a finale, and that she didn't envision that many more of them. Once again, I was able to see Harrison on tour. This time, she said that she sees this series ending with book 12 or 13. She knows Rachel is heading for her Happy Ever After, and once she arrives at it, the series will end. Since this is book nine, we're not that far away from the end.
As I look back on the series, I am consistently amazed by the character development. Each of the major characters--as well as a few of the minor ones--have grown and changed throughout the series, sometimes in surprising ways. Much of that growth becomes evident in this book. Rachel, Jenks, Ivy, and Trent go on a road trip to San Francisco for the Annual Witch's Convention. Rachel, as readers understood from the last book, will be speaking and trying to mitigate the damage of her past deeds. Jenks and Ivy are there for support. Trent, on the other hand, is riding with Rachel as a part of an "elf quest." His security, Quent, can't leave Cincinnati for family reasons, and the only person that Quent trusts to get Trent to the West Coast is Rachel. He's not heading for SF, but he's also not willing to tell Rachel much about his final destination. He can't hide the fact that others of his kind are out to kill him, though. Throughout their time stuck together in a small vehicle, the changing nature of their relationships becomes clear. While Trent doesn't fully fit in, he gradually becomes part of the Vampiric Charms family while on his quest.
Nothing is quite as it seems. Rachel's trip to SF will have far-reaching, messy implications for the future. Trent's quest will change everything readers know about him. And no one will walk away from these events unmarked.
As I was reading this book, I kept thinking back to a line from T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock." Prufock questions if he has "the strength to force the moment to its crisis?" The characters in this series--Rachel, Ivy, Jenks, Trent, even Al & Newt--find themselves at a moment where they have to decided if they have that strength.
I could not have enjoyed this book more thoroughly. Harrison says that it's her favorite to date, and I can see why. Pale Demon is the work of one the best in urban fantasy at the top of her game. I simply cannot wait to read what happens next.
A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee
