Review: The Duke Is Mine

The Duke Is Mine by Eloisa James

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This book as a test case for me, to see if I really did like Eloisa James. The cover did nothing for me, and the cover copy wasn't interesting either. The fact that this was a retelling of "The Princess and the Pea" didn't do anything for me, either. I'd always disliked that story. According to James' afterward, there's apparently a pun in the story that I missed as a child and never considered as an adult. (With the pun, Andersen's story does improve.) Susan Palwick's version of the story, "The Real Princess," asks readers to question what "sinister motives" might lie behind a man's search for a woman so delicate that a pea beneath so many mattresses could bruise her. Once that story was in my head, I was never able to let it go, and I came to hate "The Princess and the Pea." (Palwick's story is collected in Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears.)

You can see I came to this story will all sorts of baggage. I used that baggage to determine if I liked James well enough to trust her with material that did not initially seem appealing. She did a wonderful job with it. James wove the fairy tale in and out of the story expertly, and she did it in such a way that it rarely felt forced. Her language was typically fun and engaging, mixing anachronisms like the phrase "wardrobe malfunction" in with references to contemporary fiction like The Castle of Otranto. Her heroine was expertly drawn. Olivia was in a difficult position, betrothed to a man that she could not love, but her honor forced her to accept her fate. When she has a real chance at love, rather than chasing it down, she tries to make everyone else happy. Her self sacrifice is almost absurd, but she's been trained all of her life to be a representative of the best sort of nobility. While her parents believe that the training has not stuck, they cannot see just how deeply it is ingrained in her.

I've now come to the conclusion that James is awesome. Not all of her books are five stars for me, but I can trust her to create heroines that I care about, to be playful with anachronisms and allusions, to be the sort of romance writer that I wholeheartedly enjoy.



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RAD

The university where I work is hosting yet another "Rape Aggression Defense" class. 

I am well and thoroughly sick of this shit.

Earlier tonight, I read a thoughtful blog post from Seanan McGuire where she explained why she will not write a scene where her characters are raped.  (Google the post--it's worth reading.)  I applaud her stance.  I'm sick of the rape that fills urban fantasy novels, as if the only way that a woman can be a strong character is because her body has been violated.  McGuire's post got me thinking about rape again, and the email from my university just made me even angrier.

I'm sick of this shit.

I hate the idea of rape defense classes because they put the burden of preventing rape on the victim.  You know what the leading cause of rape is?  It's not walking alone at night, failing to protect a drink at a party, or wearing a short skirt. 

The leading cause of rape is a rapist.

Instead of classes telling our young woman how to defend themselves, we should be teaching how to not rape.  That sounds silly, doesn't it?  How to not rape.  Part of the problem with hosting a class like this is that it acknowledges that anyone can be a rapist.  Women can be rapists, too, although that's not something that we really talk about too much.  It all depends on the definition of rape.  Just over a year ago, the FBI updated its definition of rape.  Now, the definition reads: “The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”  As you can see, anyone can be a rapist--no penis required.  This new definition is not perfect, but it's a start.

Part of the problem with teaching how not to rape is that issue of consent.  The new FBI definition allows the states to establish what consent means as a matter of statute.  From a legal perspective, that's fine.  The problems occur outside of a courtroom, when rape is occurring.

Instead of teaching women how to defend themselves against strangers in the dark, we should be teaching everyone about consent, what it means, and how to respect it.  We should be teaching people to only  have sex with someone that says "YES!" enthusiastically.  Instead of "no means no," we should teach "yes means yes."  When someone is at all hesitant and not saying "YES!" that should be an absolute stop sign.  Not a yield.  Not a "well, let me convince you."  We need to teach people to seek out partners that say "yes."

If you want to play consent games, that's one thing.  However, that's something that you do with a partner after having established that both of you agree to the consent games (which, in and of itself, is a form of consent that can be revoked at any time).

That gets us back to the issue of rape again.  Part of the problem with rape is that it's a crime defined by the victim. Only s/he knows whether or not s/he consented.  Despite what some people want to believe, there are very very few false accusations of rape.  The problem is that a victim can perceive that s/he has been raped but it may not fit the legal definition of rape (bringing us back to that legal issue again) or the evidence may not be enough to convict someone in a court of law.  When the district attorneys choose not to press charges, that does not mean that rape did not occur.  It means that they don't think they could win in court.

Since rape is a victim-defined crime, it is entirely possible for someone to rape another person without realizing it.  That's where this idea of teaching people not to rape comes into play.  It's a way to make all of us--men and women--aware of our partner's (or partners') needs.  It's a way to make certain that everyone engaged in sexual activities is willing to do so and to cut down on regret.  (Regret and rape are not the same thing.  People often try to confuse them in order to lessen the legitimate emotional burden that comes with rape.  But that's another blog post.) 

It's time to stop telling victims that  they could have prevented the rape if only they'd done something differently or fought just a bit harder. 

That shit doesn't work.

It's time to talk to the potential rapists out there.  Which, honestly, can be any one of us.

Review: The Bandit King

The Bandit King by Lilith Saintcrow

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I really liked this book despite having several reservations about it.

As the teaser at the back of [b:The Hedgewitch Queen|11287858|The Hedgewitch Queen (Romances of Arquitaine, #1 )|Lilith Saintcrow|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1319587813s/11287858.jpg|16215244] implied, this novel was entirely from Tristan's point of view. I don't want to get into spoilers, so I can't discuss the plot in any meaningful way.

What I can say is that this novel changed the way I thought about Tristan. After finishing it, I went back and did a quick reread of HQ, and I could see that he does display behavior that provides clues into his thoughts. However, in that book, Vianne is too innocent to read him, and since it's told in a tight first person format, her POV is all that we get. In BK, the situation is reversed, and we're stuck in Tristan's head. While I didn't find it a problem in the first book, this time, I had a a very difficult time with the restriction. It could be because I didn't like Tristan so well as I did Vianne, but I'm not certain. At the very least, I wanted to understand her thoughts.

This novel also forced me to question the nature of love and obsession. That's something that I tend to focus on in any romance, but it was strongly evident here. Just how much does Tristan love anyone? Why does he love Vianne?

I don't think the book really answers those questions, which is part of the reason why I think I like it so much. Despite understanding himself very well, and having few blind-spots when it comes to his understanding of the world, Tristan is not perfect. He is extremely flawed, and not everything is wrapped up in a bow at the end. That's a good thing.



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Review: Kitty's Big Trouble

Kitty's Big Trouble by Carrie Vaughn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This is yet another good book in the Kitty Norville series.

In this one, Kitty has started to wonder more and more about the history of weres and how they may have been a part of human history. She introduced her suspicions about General Sherman in the first book, and her questions about his nature have continued to bother her. Even though they're supportive, Ben and Kitty's friends don't really understand her obsession with history. But that's part of the nature of werewolves--since they can't have children and all werewolves are therefore "made," the potential to pass down legends and history is impaired. Vampires are also "made," but they have strong Family relationships that create bonds and enemies among their own kind.

Just as Kitty touches on some fascinating clues to a history of supernaturals, she finds herself distracted and en route to San Fransisco. Anastasia has called asking for help--she's on the track of a powerful artifact, but so is Roman. Anastasia needs Kitty's help to make certain that it does not fall into Roman's hands. Of course, Kitty agrees to help. And, of course, the situation becomes much more dangerous than she realized.

Over the course of the series, Kitty has become one of my true favorite characters. She's smart, and her constant desire to know more keeps me coming back for more. She has grown and changed from a puppy to something else altogether, something mature and strong. I can't wait to read the next book and learn what those changes will mean.



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Review: The Taken

The Taken by Vicki Pettersson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I liked this book, and found the protagonists appealing. However, I also had a few major complaints, which are also spoilers. They also deserve a trigger warning, I think.

If you want to find out, read on: To help explain my objections to this book, it might be useful for you to know that I'm not a Christian. I do not practice any faith, so I do not claim any either. However, I was raised in a Catholic household, and I'm a scholar of the Gothic. As a scholar, I have seen the way that those books demonized the Catholic faith. In the early nineteenth century in England, Catholics and Jews were dangerous others that did not deserve full voting rights. Convents were depicted as merciless jails where families imprisoned their daughters against their will. Superstition ran rampant. According to those Gothic writers, no Catholic was logical. It pains me to see such religious stereotypes still in use today--although now our Christian other is the Mormon.

Here's the big spoiler: the villain is a Mormon politician. (The timing of the book's publication is also therefore suspect--I can say this as someone that doesn't even like Romney.) The big problem with Pettersson's portrayal of her Mormon villain is that she also makes him sexually deviant. He is a polygamist and runs what amounts to a sexual bacchanal in his basement. Pettersson is playing with the worst stereotypes of Mormons--the idea that they're polygamists and that they allow others to sexually abuse their daughters. This is the modern version of the Gothic stereotype of a priest using a convent as his personal supply of women. She does try to clarify that her villain is unique and not representative of all Mormons by having a trusted character as a Mormon as well. However, that character is only outed as Mormon at the very end of the book, and readers never see how his faith shapes his character at all.

Finally, I was disturbed by the emphasis on rape throughout the book. More big spoilers ahead! It is a constant threat, although one that is downplayed often. I want to say that Pettersson wrote about rape with the appropriate gravity, but the more I think about the book, the less I can justify that stance. Despite realizing that she was almost the victim of a sexual assault, the female protagonist seems to have no reaction to the event. She moves out of her house (temporarily) for safety, but that isn't traumatic either. My home was burglarized years ago, and I dealt with it very well. Even without the physical assault (no one was there when the thieves broke into my home), I still had more mental trauma than Kit did after a physical assault--within her bedroom--that almost became sexual. Also, the "rape festival" (pardon the name--I can't think of any other way to describe it) at the end of the book is just too much. A number of unnamed but respected citizens engage in an auction to buy a pubescent teen's virginity (against her will) and sit back to watch a gang rape as pre-auction entertainment. Of course, everyone is saved and nothing bad happens. I can't help but think that it's just too easy. Sexual danger is a constant part of paranormal fiction, but it's frequently invoked only because the idea of it is horrific. If a writer is unwilling to go through the follow through--the recovery, the work to heal and regain trust in others--writers need to stop using rape or the threat of rape as a plot device.

I do think I will read the next book in the series, as my complaints are likely to apply to this book and this book only. I do wish that I didn't have them at all though.



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Review: A Discovery of Witches

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This book is everything I'd hoped Kostova's The Historian would be, and more.

As an academic, I'm nervous whenever a read a book featuring an academic as a protagonist. I'm sure most people feel the same way whenever they read books that cover a subject they know well. Despite my anxiety, I gave this book a chance in October of 2011, and I'm glad I did that. Deborah Harkness is an academic as well, and her knowledge of the field, as well as her incredible writing, created a book that is both rich and exciting. Having finished the book a second time, I think it's finally time for me to write a review.

Diana Bishop is a witch, one that doesn't use magic. Or, she tries not to, unless absolutely necessary as when the washer nearly flooded her home. But that was an emergency, you understand. She comes from a long line of witches, a line that began with Bridget Bishop in Salem. However, having turned her back on magic, she is a tenured professor at Yale. As the book opens, she's on sabbatical at Oxford, researching very old alchemical texts in preparation for a conference presentation. One of the books she requests from the Bodeleian is far more than it appears, and once she lays hands on it, suddenly seemingly every creature in Oxford is watching her.

There are three groups of creatures: witches, daemons, and vampires. All of them pass for humans and live among them, but each group is quite different. This book that Diana found is very important to all of them, each for different reasons. Some believe it has the answers on how to kill the others. Some believe it presents their origin story. Some want to prevent it from fall into the hands of others.

Shortly after discovering the book, Diana meets the vampire Matthew. He, too, is interested in the book, but his motives become increasingly murky.

This is a fabulous novel. Harkness understands the fever that drives an academic researcher. As I read the book, I, too, wanted to touch the old books that Diana reads. Her obsessions became mine. The novel starts slowly, but the intensity builds steadily. By the end of the book, everything is happening at a seemingly breakneck pace.

I fear this poor review simply cannot do justice to the book; its layers of history and characters are too complicated to lay bare in a short review.

I reread it in order to prepare myself to read the second book. Now I find myself gripped with a fever again--I must know the end of this story! It's not enough to say that I'm excited; I am absorbed.



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Review: The Book of Tomorrow: A Novel

The Book of Tomorrow: A Novel by Cecelia Ahern

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I finally finished a book by [a:Cecilia Ahern|5781141|Cecilia Ahern|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]! And it was good!

I've tried to read Ahern's books before. I tried both [b:Thanks for the Memories|2410506|Thanks For The Memories|Cecelia Ahern|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328019535s/2410506.jpg|2417683] and [b:Love Rosie|147865|Love, Rosie|Cecelia Ahern|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1306050450s/147865.jpg|3423015], but I couldn't finish them. For some reason, I bogged down in the middle of the book, and it simply could not hold my interest. Still, I could tell that Ahern was a very good writer, and I kept giving her books a chance because I knew that one of them would work for me eventually.

This one was it.

It's the story of Tamara Goodwin, a very self centered sixteen-year-old. She's a brat, and she knows it. As the first person narrator of the book, she's looking back on her recent life and able to condemn the choices she makes, so we know right off that she shouldn't be a jerk by the end of the book. Something is going to happen in the meantime that will allow her to see herself for the first time.

As the novel opens, Tamara's father kills himself after losing his fortune in bad investments. Suddenly poor, Tamara and her mother move in with Tamara's Uncle Arthur and Aunt Roseleen. Shortly after their arrival, Tamara begins to see that something is desperately wrong. Her mother goes catatonic, speaking in simple phrases and unable to leave her bedroom. Roseleen says that it's just grief, but Tamara thinks she needs help. The house is increasingly tense, and then Tamara finds a book at the local mobile library that changes everything. It's a journal, except that someone is writing in it. That someone seems to be Tamara from one day ahead. Suddenly able to know the consequences of her actions, Tamara finds herself adapting and changing her future . . . and herself.

This was a truly magical novel and everything I'd hoped it would be.

Considering the age of the narrator, I'd think this book should be shelved in YA, but most bookstores shelf it with Ahern's other fiction for adults. It's possible that they consider it too literary for teens, which is a shame. I think this book is an excellent introduction to the world of good fiction, a way to bridge the gap from books like [b:Hush Hush|6339664|Hush, Hush (Hush, Hush, #1)|Becca Fitzpatrick|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1311064637s/6339664.jpg|6525609] to fiction written for adults. I recommend it highly.



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Review: The Girl of Fire and Thorns

The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I loved every page of this novel.

[a:Tamora Pierce|8596|Tamora Pierce|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1209044273p2/8596.jpg] gave it a blurb, and she's never led me wrong yet. If you like adventurous fantasy featuring Girls that Do Things (to use [a:Robin McKinley|5339|Robin McKinley|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1314406026p2/5339.jpg]'s term, you'll love this book. The ebook version is currently $2.99. I don't know how long such a good deal will last. If I were you, I'd grab this one up.



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Review: Bitterblue

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This was a brilliant addition to the Graceling Realm series. I don't want to say too much about it, as I'd rather have people read it for themselves. What I can say is this: the book is a long meditation on what it means to heal and move forward.

I've always been drawn to fantasy for the characters. It seems to me that a fantasy must have psychologically real characters at its base in order to allow for the suspension of disbelief for the world in which the story is set. If the characters and the world have nothing real in them, then the book adds very little to the world. For all that the Graceling Realm is quite odd, the characters themselves are quite human. I love that Cashore recognized that Monsea and Bitterblue would need to fight in order to heal. Overall, I found this book to be excellent, and I recommend it highly.



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Review: A Monster Calls

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



You've been warned. If you're reading this review, that means you clicked the spoiler button and are willing to know about what happens in this book. If you don't want to know, stop reading. If you don't want to read about my incredibly personal reaction to this book, stop reading.

Ok, then.

I loved this book. It made me cry, and it made me miss my mom.

My mom died on July 28th, 1990. She was 42. I was 14. It was a heart attack, a very sudden death. She had a chronic illness, but we never expected her to pass without warning the way that she did. I never got to say goodbye. I had a migraine that day when we were visiting my grandparents. I went into the guest room to sleep it off, and my grandfather and sister didn't bother to wake me when they took mom to the doctor's office. She passed away en route.

Reading this book, I remembered the impotent rage, the feeling of separation from peers, the fear about the future. It was all so real and true that I felt like breaking something, too.

I hope this book finds its way into the hands of those children and teens and adults that need it. We need it not only when we lose someone but also just to understand our own nature and the importance of what we do.

I loved this book.



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Review: Fair Game

Fair Game by Patricia Briggs

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



After the "hero takes on monster and wins, despite intense physical and/or emotional pain" format of the last few Mercy or Anna books, it was nice to read this one. Not only was it formatted as more of a mystery than the other books have been lately, but it also advanced the plot within the shared Mercy & Anna world. Finally. Things are changing, and no one can continue to ignore that fact.

This book might have been five stars, if not for the sexual violence. Rape and/or threats of rape have popped up too often in Briggs' most recent books, and I'm not comfortable with that at all. While Briggs does write about it well, and the attacks do have lasting psychological effects on the survivors, I'm still not pleased to see it being used so often as a plot device. Not everything is about rape, and I don't want all of Briggs' books to be about it, either.



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Review: Mind's Eye

Mind's Eye by Håkan Nesser

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I've been trying to broaden my horizons by reading more fiction by non-American writers, but this book wasn't the best choice. It just fell flat for me.

I didn't like the detective and thought he was far too much of a stereotype of a detective. His one unique trait was his love for playing badminton against his junior colleague, but we never actually read a match. They always take place when the narrator is with someone else . . . so we never really get to see how he uses that game.

Speaking of the narrator, I found it really obnoxious that the book shifted viewpoint from the accused killer (which, as the cover copy tells us is also an eventual victim), to the detective, to his junior colleague, to another victim . . . I prefer my mysteries to be tightly focused from the point of view of one or two characters alone. We were never with one character for very long, and this was too short a book to really accommodate all of the swapping.

Next, the language. I understand this is a translation, but I still wasn't pleased with the word choice. Using the word "pussy" once was acceptable, as the character that said it was trying to be shocking and offensive. When that same word pops up in another character's free indirect discourse, ug.

Finally, I saw the solution a mile away. I'm not going to give it away, but I will say that I do think it was heavily foreshadowed.

I don't care all that much if the next books are better. I won't be continuing with this series. Life is too short to spend reading books that are merely OK when there are so many great ones out there.



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Review: Dark Mirror

Dark Mirror by M.J. Putney

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



As the book opened, I wasn't certain that I'd enjoy it. As an adult reader of YA books, I tend to like my books to have a certain level of sophistication in writing. Roughly, I tend to like books aimed at older teens. This book was clearly set for younger audience than I'm used to.

However, once the plot got moving, I got sucked into the story. It's a fairly straightforward plot--a young noblewoman is identified as a magic user. Magework is socially unacceptable, so her father sends her away to a very expensive school that can teach her to control and eventually bind away her magic. However, upon arrival, Tory learns that not everyone agrees with the mission of the school and begins to question why magework is so unacceptable.

Add in a cranky roommate, a love interest at the neighboring boy's school, and some time travel, and you've got this book.

There's nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all.

I do wish that Putney had written for a slightly older audience, though. There are hints throughout the book at the way in which social control is used to condemn magic, and there are hints of deeper relationships at work. I would have liked to see those hints developed further. As it stands, this is an enjoyable three star book for me. I'd rather have given it four, but I'm just a little too old.



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Review: Virgin River

Virgin River by Robyn Carr

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



An entertaining bit of fluff that wants to be more Virgin River is the sort of book that you turn to when you want something with a little more depth than your average romance but no real distress. One of my former coworkers at Waldenbooks was crazy about this series, and after having read the first one, I can understand why.

Mel, our widowed heroine, is a strong, intelligent woman. Her love interest, Jack, is a physically powerful and kind retired Marine. Their romance develops out of their respect and admiration (as well as some physical attraction) for each other. I would say that this is a mature romance--despite the steaminess of some of the sex scenes (and they were rather descriptive), the genuine attraction this story holds is that it is about adults falling in love with each other. Jack has been through wars. He has physical and mental scars, but he's OK 95% of the time. Mel is barely holding herself together after her husband's sudden death. It isn't until she's begun to heal and build a new life for herself that she can see how wonderful Jack is.

The town of Virgin River is idealized, although Carr does try to make it look gritty by including some people living in extreme poverty and some pot growers. Unfortunately, they don't really disrupt the town so much because none of them become characters. They might have been there forever, but they're outsiders in the eyes of the town and don't change its daily life much at all.

Will I read other books in this series? Yes. Will I expect much of them? No. Sometimes you just need a comfortable old friend of a book, and I think these might fit that bill nicely.



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Review: Girl in the Arena

Girl in the Arena by Lise Haines

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



Years ago, one of my goodreads friends gave this book an amazing review, and it's been on my radar ever since.

When I saw a few days ago that my library had an ebook copy available to lend, I snatched it up with glee. Now all that I can say is that I'm glad I didn't pay the $5 to buy it.

There are many things that I did not like about this book; in fact, there are so many things that I find it difficult to number them all. Therefore, I will stick to the biggest complaint: I could not suspend by disbelief for the setting.

Haines' idea of gladatorial combat to the death aired on live tv seemed like a fascinating combination of reality tv and our society's love affair with violence. However, I simply could not buy into the Gladiator ("Glad") culture and its inherent lack of respect for life. Quite simply, the Death Race movies (even the one from the 1970s) seemed more believable. Part of the problem may be the fact that I was watching the WWF pay-per-view event when Owen Hart fell from the arena ceiling and died. I saw how a modern arena responded to the death of a beloved athlete, and Haines' attempt to combine Roman attitudes with modern tech simply didn't gel.



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Review: Blood Wounds

Blood Wounds by Susan Beth Pfeffer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Wow. What an amazing book.

Pfeffer has a gift. She can take readers to the dark places in our souls and back out again. We're changed by the journey, tempered, and drained. Her fiction explores what it means to be a family, to have others to rely on or that rely upon you. And she explores what it means when you are alone and don't have that support. Finally, she shows the moments when kids see their parents as real, as flawed, as loving and as hateful.

Someday, I hope that I will be able to write with one tenth of Pfeffer's power.



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Review: The Hunger Games Trilogy

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I'm late to the party with this one, so I won't bother to write a full review.

I read the whole trilogy after seeing the first movie. (I am, of course, assuming that they will make the others.) After seeing the movie, I knew much of what to expect in the book, although I have to say that it was nice to see some of the things I'd inferred from the action of the movie laid out explicitly in the book. In particular, I was glad to see that I was right about Katniss' relationship with Peeta in the first Games--that she was uncertain about her feelings but knew she needed to manipulate the sponsors.

If I hadn't read the full trilogy all at one go, I might have stopped after the first book. It was good, but seeing the movie first (as well as the sheer predictability of it) weakened the emotional intensity of it for me. However, I did have the full trilogy, and the second book sucked me in completely.

I understand there is some debate in fan circles about the last book. I will put myself in the camp of those that loved it. It was brutal and exactly what it needed to be.



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Review: Kill Me Softly

Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A long time ago, in the year 2000, I graduated with a Master of Arts in English.  Despite the fact that there was no formal path for this at my university, I focused my studies on fairy tales--specifically, the literary fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Andersen, and others.  My interest in fairy tales coincided with a boom in scholarship about them.  Jack Zipes, Maria Tatar, Ruth Bottigheimer, Donald Haase, and more were establishing that fairy tales were an appropriate area to study and that the tales were far more complicated than we remembered.  They also examined the ways in which fairy tales have been reused, revised, and repurposed by modern artists.  Zipes, in particular, studied the cultural work of Disney and didn't like what he saw.



After having devoted about three years of my life to studying fairy tales, I decided to purpose a more standard path of study and did my doctoral work on nineteenth-century British literature.  However, since I can't stand to be too mainstream, I at least focused on the Gothic as a subgenre. 



In the years since then, I've kept my eyes out for fairy tale retellings.  I'm still fascinated by the short tales and the hold they exercise over our cultural imagination.  I was delighted to find Sarah Cross's Kill Me Softly, and even more excited when I received an advance reader's copy of the book from Netgalley.



After reading this book, I set down my nook and simply said "yes."  Finally, here, an author has explored fairy tales in a way that gets to the darkness at their root while still creating a new and interesting mythology of her own.  Finally.  Yes.



The book opens with a startlingly apt quotation from Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire.  "I don't want realism.  I want magic!" Blanche DuBois states, and that sentiment shapes this novel.



Mira has lived her entire life in the care of her godmothers.  They're lovely, kind, and caring women, and they took in Mira as an infant after her parents died in a fire at her christening.  Now that she's nearly sixteen, Mira is horrified to betray them, but she also feels that needs to do something that's been nagging at her for years.  She needs to return to the town of her birth, Beau Rivage, and visit her parents' graves.  Since this means running away from home, Mira is willing to do that.  She's planned her escape well by creating a false trail leading to a make-believe online boyfriend.  But she's never managed to plan what to do once she arrives in Beau Rivage, and that realization hits her shortly after her arrival in the city.



Mira finds herself alone in a casino cafe called Wish, and it's here that her plan starts going awry.  She meets another teen, a young man with blue hair, who calls himself Blue.  He tries to get her to leave the casino (which is called Dream), claiming to be the son of the owner.  Blue wants her to leave before she can meet his brother . . . and he fails.  Mira does meet his brother, Felix, and falls for him.  Hard.  Felix comps her a room at Dream, and he vows to help her find the graves.



Dismayed to find that she hasn't left, and horrified that she's met Felix, Blue attaches himself to Mira as well.  The two brothers don't share their time with her; instead, she seems to drift between them a bit like a pinball.  Quickly, Mira becomes aware that Blue's friends are odd.  They share inside jokes that disturb Mira, and none of them are really happy.  Viv has a wicked stepmother (sorry, normal stepmother, Freddie explains) and an obsessive gardener with a crush on her.  The apple logo on her laptop is covered by tape.  Small animals and birds cluster around Freddie, who is helpless to push them away.  Still, Mira isn't freaked out too much until Viv's mirror tells the girl that she's gorgeous, which is something she clearly doesn't want to hear.  They talk of curses, and stop when they realize Mira is listening.



As the cover copy makes clear, fairy tales are real in Beau Rivage.  Mira is shocked to learn that, just like Blue and his friends, she too has a role to play.  And fairy tales are not pleasant stories at all.



Cross is an elegant writer, and she deftly explores the menace and beauty that attracts readers to these tales.  However, she's not content to let them rest with the "happy ever after" versions that we've come to know in the last 100 years of children's stories.  Instead, she looks back to the tales when Cinderella's sisters cut off parts of their feet in order to fit into the slipper (and the prince didn't notice until birds told him that blood was spurting out of the shoe!).  She's clearly read the darkly wonderful collection of tales by Angela Carter called The Bloody Chamber.  The first line of one of the stories in that book, "The Tyger's Bride," is wonderfully evocative of the entire book's tone: "My father lost me to the beast at cards."



Thrust by her own stubbornness and desire into a world that both confuses and attracts her, Mira must learn to navigate the rules in order to survive.  She must decide which brother to trust, which tales are true, and she must learn how to shape her own fate.  Otherwise, she may just become a character in someone else's story, and she won't like how that one ends at all.



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Review: Die for Me

Die for Me by Amy Plum

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Wow. I have very little to say about this book. While I liked it in the beginning, as it wore on, the book seemed to lost both originality and charm. I did like the fact that Kate, the heroine, recognizes that Vincent's devotion to her and need of her may become a burden. But other than that, there's very little here. The novel presents no real insights into life, the human condition, sacrifice, or what it means to love. Instead, we have a story about an insecure young woman suffering from depression after the recent death of her parents discovering love for the first time with an impossibly gorgeous supernatural man. Yawn.

*start rant* Also, I have to add that I'm getting really sick of Absentee Parent Syndrome in young adult novels. It's normally just irritating. However, in this book, Kate's parents are dead, and it's a case of Depressed Orphan Syndrome. While Plum does a good job portraying Kate's depression at the loss of her parents, I have to say I'm getting sick of dead parents as a plot device. As an orphan myself, I find it rather sickening. *end rant*



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World Book Night

I picked up my books for World Book Night today. In one week, I get to walk around Detroit and give them away. I can't wait.