Reading Roulette: Fourth Pick

The latest group of books to come up in my random selection of books to read includes a wide selection:

Coronets and Steel, Sherwood Smith

Aurelia Kim Murray is a California girl who wishes there were more to life. And there is. For Kim is part of a royal family from a tiny eastern European country, and soon finds herself swept up in the romance and mystery she always wanted-and more, because there's something very different about her bloodline and the magical nature of her ancestral country.

I am sure this got on to my list because of Crown Duel.


Kat, Incorrigible, Stephanie Burgis

Twelve-year-old Katherine Ann Stephenson has just discovered that she’s inherited her late mother’s magical talents, and despite Stepmama’s stern objections, she’s determined to learn how to use them. But with her eldest sister Elissa’s intended fiancé, the sinister Sir Neville, showing a dangerous interest in Kat’s magical potential; her other sister, Angeline, wreaking romantic havoc with her own witchcraft; and a highwayman lurking in the forest, Kat’s reckless heroism will be tested to the utmost. If she can learn to control her new powers, will Kat be able to rescue her family and win her sisters their true loves?

In this charming blend of Jane Austen–era culture, magical whimsy, and rollicking adventure, readers will find a true friend in the refreshingly unladylike Kat Stephenson.

Stephanie is an online friend and I have had this series in my sights for a while. Now I have the kick in the ass I needed to actually read the first one! I confess, I read the first 100 pages already while I was on vacation. It was the perfect choice.


The Rise of Rome: The Making of the World's Greatest Empire, Anthony Everitt

Emerging as a market town from a cluster of hill villages in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., Rome grew to become the ancient world’s preeminent power. Everitt fashions the story of Rome’s rise to glory into an erudite page-turner filled with lasting lessons for our time. He chronicles the clash between patricians and plebeians that defined the politics of the Republic. He shows how Rome’s shrewd strategy of offering citizenship to her defeated subjects was instrumental in expanding the reach of her burgeoning empire. And he outlines the corrosion of constitutional norms that accompanied Rome’s imperial expansion, as old habits of political compromise gave way, leading to violence and civil war. In the end, unimaginable wealth and power corrupted the traditional virtues of the Republic, and Rome was left triumphant everywhere except within its own borders.

Everitt paints indelible portraits of the great Romans—and non-Romans—who left their mark on the world out of which the mighty empire grew: Cincinnatus, Rome’s George Washington, the very model of the patrician warrior/aristocrat; the brilliant general Scipio Africanus, who turned back a challenge from the Carthaginian legend Hannibal; and Alexander the Great, the invincible Macedonian conqueror who became a role model for generations of would-be Roman rulers. Here also are the intellectual and philosophical leaders whose observations on the art of government and “the good life” have inspired every Western power from antiquity to the present: Cato the Elder, the famously incorruptible statesman who spoke out against the decadence of his times, and Cicero, the consummate orator whose championing of republican institutions put him on a collision course with Julius Caesar and whose writings on justice and liberty continue to inform our political discourse today.

Rome’s decline and fall have long fascinated historians, but the story of how the empire was won is every bit as compelling. With The Rise of Rome, one of our most revered chroniclers of the ancient world tells that tale in a way that will galvanize, inform, and enlighten modern readers.

This one I requested on audio CD and will be going with me in the car to Chicago, since I have at least a fourteen-hour drive ahead of me. I very much enjoyed Everitt's biography of Hadrian.

Why am I doing this?

Book Review: In the Woods [2007]

I've been intrigued by Irish author Tana French's The Likeness ever since I spotted it in reviews several years ago, but never had a good opportunity to pick it up. Then, a few weeks ago, Nancy Pearl said on Twitter: "Wish I could read Tana French's In the Woods again for the first time." In the Woods precedes The Likeness in French's fictional world, and Nancy Pearl's recommendation is more than enough for me, so I immediately requested it from my library on CD and checked out the book as well. This turned out to be a good thing, because I spent the next week listening to the CD in the car and then picking up where I had left off in the book, and vice versa--behavior that I reserve only for books that completely absorb my attention.

In the Woods is a first-person narrative from the perspective of Rob Ryan, a detective in Dublin's murder squad. Rob and his partner, Cassie Maddox, are young and confident, and their relationship has a special closeness rarely seen between platonic friends. Cassie is one of the few people who knows that Rob is actually Adam Ryan, one of three children who mysteriously disappeared in the Dublin subdivision of Knocknaree in the 1980s. Adam was the only child to reappear, his memory of events blank and shoes filled with blood that wasn't his own. When the book begins, another murder at Knocknaree brings Rob full circle on a case that involves a dead girl about the same age as he was when he disappeared. The results are devastating for Rob, his relationship with Cassie, and the family of the dead girl.

In the Woods is much more than a police procedural, it is a book steeped in nostalgia, both for Rob and Cassie's intense relationship, and for the more distant past--the friends that Rob has lost, and the experiences that he can never share with them. French evokes an elegant yearning with her prose; her lines are by turns wittily sarcastic (Rob's "voice") and deeply evocative, especially when she speaks of places:

It was like stumbling into the wreck of some great ancient city. The trees swooped higher than cathedral pillars; they wrestled for space, propped up great fallen trunks, leaned with the slope of the hill: oak, beech, ash, others I couldn't name. Long spears of light filtered, dim and sacred, through the arches of green. Swathes of ivy blurred the massive trunks, trailed in waterfalls from the branches, turned stumps into standing stones (272).

While his official presence on the case is a textbook example of conflict of interest, Rob's need to pursue the demons of his past is understandable, if misguided. He has spent the bulk of the time between the incident in the woods and the present distancing himself from the little boy he once was, and the emotional and psychological consequences of that action are unknown, even to him.

Grade: A

I definitely agree with Nancy Pearl: I would really like to read this book again for the first time. It was such a great balance of humor and suspense and nostalgia. I wish all books were as moving and intriguing.

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Dead Mother: No

Book Review: Madensky Square [1988]

Before a moving article was published on the occasion of Eva Ibbotson's death in October, I would have said that I was extremely familiar her adult catalogue (and a few of her children's books, such as The Star of Kazan). After all, I'd read A Countess Below Stairs, A Company of Swans, The Morning Gift, and A Song for Summer. I'd tracked down and devoured Magic Flutes even before it was republished as The Reluctant Heiress. So when Laura Amy Schiltz revealed that Madensky Square "was Eva’s favorite among her books. It is also mine. It is one of the mysteries of publishing that Madensky Square is the only one of Eva’s adult novels that hasn’t been reprinted," I was stunned. I raced to find a copy, wondering how I could possibly have missed it. Thank you, interlibrary loan! 

Madensky Square is probably the most "adult" of Ibbotson's adult novels, both in terms of some darker subject matter and the occasional frank discussion of sex. That being said, it's still an Ibbotson novel, and its pages abound with charming, engaging characters. Plot lines are neatly wrapped up and there are delicious standalone sentences. The novel is written in first person as a journal kept by dress shop owner Susanna Weber from 1911 to 1912. In a thriving pre-World War I Vienna, Madensky Square is not just the location of Susanna's store and living quarters, but a thriving community populated with quirky characters who are deftly captured with a few artful sentences. Susanna, while undoubtedly at the heart of Ibbotson's narrative, puts others' stories before her own. We learn about the mysterious Polish orphan across the street who does nothing but practice the piano; her best friend's grief at the death of her married lover; the struggles of a plain girl whose mother is a militant intellectual; and her anarchist shop employee, Nini, whose actions have sad consequences she hadn't anticipated.

Susanna herself is enormously sympathetic; she is the 36 year-old mistress of a prominent military man, and struggles with the knowledge that the daughter she gave up at birth has been raised by a kind and loving family. She is acerbic when it comes to dresses made by the rival dressmaker across town, but supportive to nearly everyone else. The action of the story culminates in the threat of street expansion (a symbol of looming modernization) from the officious Herr Egger, who has dreams of naming rights. Also lurking is the knowledge, on the part of the reader, that World War I will soon sweep through and forever change the radiant and bustling culture that Ibbotson has recreated. Although things are wrapped up neatly at the end of the book, the ending isn't entirely happy, for which I was grateful. I was left with the sense of bittersweet enjoyment that one gets when reading a good book for the first time--knowing that it will end, but realizing that it can be experienced again.

Grade: A

Random Thoughts:

Although it seems to be categorized as "romance," it's not a romance in the modern sense of the word, but more in the old-fashioned sense of the French "roman" or story--it's a character and community study, rather than a man-woman love story, although that element certainly exists in it.

I'm not sure it was my favorite of Ibbotson's books, but it's probably my second favorite after A Countess Below Stairs. Although I loved the characters, as a staunch vegetarian I couldn't quite like the conversion of a veg to meat-eater through the mechanism of a few tempting meat morsels.

Short stories aren't really my thing, but I now have A Glove Shop in Vienna & Other Stories in my TBR pile. Once I am done I will either declare myself (once more) an Ibbotson master, or start reading her adult novels all over again.

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Dead Mother: Yes

Book Review: Will Grayson, Will Grayson [2010]

My friend Cassandra was off the squee-meter upon the announcement of Will Grayson, Will Grayson, written collaboratively by bestselling YA fiction authors John Green and David Levithan. I've read both Boy Meets Boy and An Abundance of Katherines, so I had at least a faint idea of what I was getting myself into. The book is divided into alternating sections, each narrated by a character named Will Grayson, whom I have decided to differentiate using their relationship with the fabulously gay Tiny Cooper. Best Friend Will is straight and written by John Green, while Boyfriend Will (however short-lived that relationship may be) is written by David Levithan. In the audiobook, two different actors perform the narration.

Best Friend Will tries as hard as he can not to care about anything or get involved, but he doesn't always succeed. As the best pal since 5th grade of the giant, gay, football-playing Tiny Cooper, who also happens to be writing, directing, producing, and starring in his own autobiographical musical, Tiny Dancer (later renamed Hold Me Closer), Will winds up doing a lot of things he's not comfortable with, including not only joining the school's GSA, but meeting Jane, who may or may not have a boyfriend. Boyfriend Will is deep in the closet and pretty much hates everyone except his secret online crush, Isaac. His dad left him and his mom on their own when he was younger, and he loathes school and what he feels is the general pointlessness of life. When the two Wills meet accidentally at a porn store in Chicago, their lives become intertwined in interesting and unexpected ways, leading them to reevaluate their similar fears of engagement with the world.

Grade: B+

Random Thoughts:

I listened to the book in the car, and the audio format was both a blessing and a curse. The downside was that the Emo Will Grayson's parts are not only all in lower case in the paper version, they are also conducted a good part of the time as online chat conversations or stage dialogue. Listening to someone read chat transcripts out loud is not actually that fun . . . BUT there was also a big upside, and that was hearing all of the songs from Tiny Cooper's musical (that appear in the book--I am waiting impatiently for someone to come up with a CD) actually being sung out loud. The awesomeness of this cannot be understated. So, as usual, I am forced to recommend both reading the book and listening to the performance.

I liked the book's concept, even though I am generally wary about collaboratively written books and can't quite say why. I do love Sorcery and Cecilia, so perhaps my protests are mostly for show. The John Green parts were very . . . John Greeny. I'm not complaining, but the vigorously extended Schrödinger's Cat metaphor was a dead giveaway. They definitely did a great job of switching the narrative between the two characters.

I have a deep fascination with other people named Anna, so I totally get the idea of being startled and interested by someone who happens to have your exact same name. However, the end was a bit too contrived for my taste, what with all the [spoiler alert] Will Grayson variations showing up at Tiny's play at the last minute. I also felt like the book struggled at times to be about the Wills and not about Tiny Cooper, as if, having created such a magnificently flamboyant and compelling character, Green and Levithan were reluctant to cede space to their protagonists.

Dead Mother: No
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Book Review: Above Temptation [2010]

I am a fan of Karin Kallmaker, to be sure, especially if you go by the number of her books gracing my double-stacked lesbian romance shelf. However, I haven't really loved any of her recent books, and I'm sad to say that Above Temptation is not an exception to this rule.

Kip, short for Kipling, [really, Kipling? My post on lesbian romance character names is way overdue] is an ex-Secret Service agent in training who works for a fraud investigation company. Her ultimate boss, Tamara Sterling, recruits her to secretly investigate fraud within the company itself, which could bring the business down if it becomes public knowledge. Both women, who have sacrificed personal happiness for the sake of their professional integrity, find themselves struggling to deny the passion that springs up between them--even though Kip can't rule out Tamara as a prime suspect in the case.

This is the second lesbian romance I've read recently that involved the women going undercover and being on the run. Is this a new theme across the genre? Is romance itself not exciting enough that authors must to make it improbably suspenseful as well? The major problem I had with Above Temptation was that the fraud case was kind of boring and I didn't feel like expending the mental energy to follow the technical details. The romance was well enough written, however, with several heated moments when Kip and Tamara attempted to stick to their principles and the company's no-fraternization rules despite the desperate attraction that built (improbably or not) over the course of a few days.

Grade: B-

Random Thoughts:

I have another Kallmaker book to read in my queue, maybe I will like it better than this one. This "meh" reaction can't possibly be because my standards are higher than they used to be . . .

Dead Mother: No idea. Not relevant?
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Book Review: The Help [2009]

Kathryn Stockett's first novel, The Help, was the sleeper hit of 2009, and still occupies the number two spot on the best-seller lists for hardcover fiction. It still has at least a two-to-one holds ratio in our library system, and it has also been the source of some controversy. Set in Jackson, Mississippi beginning in 1962, the novel revolves around the lives of three characters: one privileged white woman and two black maids. Naive Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan has just graduated from Ole Miss and wants to be a writer, but so far has only managed to get a job writing the housekeeping column for the local newspaper under an assumed name. Since she doesn't know anything about keeping house, she asks her friend Elizabeth's maid, Aibileen, for assistance, leading to a deeper acquaintance than customary between a white lady and "the help." Aibileen is an older woman who has raised many white children and been deeply wounded each time they grow up to be just like their parents. Aibileen's friend, Minny, is an outspoken maid who manages to get herself fired and earn the enmity of Junior League President Hilly Holbrook at the beginning of the book. Hilly is the undisputed villain of the piece (well, other than the institutionalized racism that she personifies), from her proposal that all white families install separate bathrooms for their help in order to keep free of "colored diseases" to accusing Minny, and then Aibileen, of theft, to her tyrannical rule of what seems to be all of Jackson society. She may, in fact, be a little too irredeemably evil, but she is a character that everyone should love to hate. Despite Hilly's ever-watchful eye, Skeeter and Aibileen embark on a project to publish real stories from the maids of Jackson, including the ugly truth about the white women who employ them. They struggle to find interviewees (beyond the initially reluctant Minny) for a task that could easily get its black participants fired, or much worse; a palpable sense of danger hangs over much of the novel, set as it is in a time of civil unrest. However, at its heart The Help is an uplifting and ultimately optimistic story about how we aren't that different after all.

Grade: A-

Even though it has a great story, the book is perhaps a little too self-conscious about its historical time-period (you can practically hear the signposts being printed in caps lock, like a telegram: MEDGAR EVERS-(STOP)-WOOLWORTH'S COUNTER-(STOP)-MARCH ON WASHINGTON-(STOP)-KENNEDY ASSASSINATION-(STOP)-BOB DYLAN). However, within this broader context there are many small, moving, and weighty moments that make that aspect of Stockett's writing, which I guess I would call obvious contextualizing, negligible.

Now, about the "controversy" that surrounded the book, I must of course say a few words. See reviews here and here that discuss Stockett's use of heavy dialect for her black characters. In this interview, Stockett seems genuinely humble about her attempt to recreate the voices of black women in the 1960s. She actually indicated that she added the character of Skeeter "because she worried that readers wouldn’t trust her if she only wrote about black characters. 'I just didn’t think that would ever be allowed to sit on the shelf,' she said. 'So I threw Skeeter in the mix and I felt a little better about it, because I was showing a white perspective as well.'" HUH? When you're reading the book, it sometimes feels like Skeeter is a less developed and less rich character, and now that makes sense. But we have to ask ourselves why an author felt like she would be crossing such a huge line by writing solely with the voices of black women. If authors only wrote about what they knew first-hand, the selection of books would be pretty uninteresting. Are women not supposed to write from the perspective of male characters, and vice versa? Can straight authors accurately represent the thoughts and feelings of queer characters, or not? Should Stephenie Meyer have confined herself to writing about normal teenagers, because she isn't actually a vampire or a werewolf (hang on a sec, maybe that would actually be a good thing . . . Twilight crazies, I'm kidding! Please don't spam me.)? In a similar vein, if Stockett had chosen not to write Aibileen and Minny's parts using dialect, would their sections of the novel have felt as vibrant? You can't write a romance novel set in Scotland without throwing in some Scottish dialect (even if you're an American). I did, however, agree with the Christian Science Monitor, which wondered why none of the white characters were written with a similarly distinct dialect. My favorite review was actually William Boot's "Do I Have to Read The Help?" (answer: yes):

My only problem with The Help is that, in the end, it’s not really about the help. For all her assurance in sketching out the foibles of the Junior League, Stockett is shakier when it comes to the maids. They never quite come into focus—they’re more useful for what they see rather than who they are.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with him, but perhaps if Stockett hadn't felt the pressure to include a white character in order to get her book "on the shelf," that wouldn't have been the case. In my opinion, the book is stronger because it has both white and black characters, and both perspectives are fully explored.

Random Thoughts:

A friend of mine (whose taste in books I trust implicitly) recommended the book to me by handing me a paper copy, but things being as they always are, I didn't have time to read it before I felt like I'd probably better release that one back out into the wild. As I often do, I ended up listening to the audio version instead, which was narrated by one actress for each main role, as well as a narrator for the strangeness that is Chapter 25 (in which Stockett inserts an omniscient narrator for the first and last time). It's possible that my feelings about the dialect would be stronger if I had seen it on the page, rather than hearing it performed by the two excellent narrators for Aibileen and Minny. Of the three, the "Miss Skeeter" was definitely the weakest link, but I thought that was true of the character as well. The omniscient narrator of the benefit scene was terrible, and clearly had no idea how to speak with a southern accent. The unexpected upside(?) of listening to the book, rather than reading it, was an unconscious desire to adopt a faux-Southern accent.

I literally cannot read or hear the word "Jackson" without thinking about Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. At least it's a good song. I also found myself humming Chuck Berry's "Maybellene" on numerous occasions as I was getting out of the car.

Especially interesting in context: This article about a black writer's conference. I wonder, do black writers feel like Stockett is co-opting their narrative space? Most of the reviews I found were by white women (like me).


Dead Mother: No, which was actually a surprise
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Book Review: Very LeFreak [2010]

I saw a pre-pub copy of Very LeFreak at ALA Midwinter and thought the premise was interesting: A technology-addicted Columbia freshman finds relief from her hedonistic party-girl lifestyle at ESCAPE (Emergency Services for Computer-Addicted Persons Everywhere). I've never read anything written (or co-written--the cover gives a shout-out to Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist) by Rachel Cohn, so I didn't have any preconceived notions, other than what I read in this SLJ article (thanks to Cassandra), which had me scratching my head. She waited until the book was finished to see what it would be like to cut herself off from technology? Nevertheless, I plunged in.

For the first half of the book, Very (aka Veronica) is Addicted to Technology (brand and product names and song titles dropped madly), which makes her treat most people, especially her sweet and caring roommate Jennifer (whom Very insists on calling Lavinia), like shit. She also maintains an obsessive and secret online relationship with a mysterious persona known only as "El Virus," whose disappearance from the online world serves as a catalyst to her breakdown and exile to ESCAPE. In the second half: therapy, self-awareness, love, redemption. There are several reasons for Very's technology obsession, primarily a globe-trotting childhood with her (now dead) pyromaniac mother, and Cohn doesn't shy away from tackling difficult issues such as intimacy and sexuality.

I had several problems with the way this book was written. Not the premise, because technology addiction is certainly a very current and realistic topic, especially for the demographic at which this book is aimed. I have lately been considering my own level of addiction (which is fairly high, but not yet smartphone-enabled) and whether or not I should take a periodic break. Nevertheless, the way Cohn handles it is not very subtle, involving Very coming to a series of realizations with her therapist that spell out the message in technicolor letters.

In therapy, Very had made the connection that perhaps her overdependence on technology had been her way of not dealing with other, deeper pains. It wasn't about the technology so much as it was about something to do, to stay busy all the time, and to not connect to what was really in her heart.

I feel like most readers are intelligent enough to draw their own conclusions along this line, given the numerous illustrations of the way Very uses technology to avoid deeper interaction. This is not to say that Cohn paints a picture in which technology = bad, the discussion is certainly more nuanced.

In addition, I felt that the writing itself was often trying too hard to be hip, or cutesy, or edgy, and usually just ended up being over the top. For example, this character introduction:

Jean-Wayne's parents, a French-Canadian artist mother and Vancouver-based Chinese businessman father, were both Francophiles and cowboy movie aficionados; they'd met in a Montreal patisserie next door to a revival house cinema where they'd both been to see a matinee showing of Stagecoach, starring John Wayne. They'd named their hybrid boy in tribute to their hybrid passions.

Trying too hard. And the last sentence is unnecessary, since the reader could have gathered that from the previous information.

Yet somehow, despite not liking the writing style, or Very, or the fact that the action was agonizingly slow until Very made it to ESCAPE, I still ended up liking this book. Why? Because, like Very [spoiler alert!], I fell in love with Jennifer/Lavinia.¹ I am a sucker for a sweet romance.

Grade: B-

Random Thoughts:

On the scale of books that deal with the topic of sexuality and bisexuality, I do rate this highly. While not explicitly about these things, the description of Very's introduction to sex, her self-labeling as a "slut," and her view of oral sex as "a way for the giver to maintain control over the receiver's pleasure while simultaneously allowing the receiver to feel satisfied and grateful, but not attached" all have a realistic and touching quality. For me this, not the technology mumbo-jumbo, was the real meat of the book.

It seems like I've been reading a ton of books lately that feature dead mothers (despite my great dislike of that trope), so I'm making that statistic an official part of my book reviews for 2010. At the end of the year, we'll see if I managed to read more books with living mothers than dead.

Youtube videos from user Very LeFreak ("Technology Detox with Rachel Cohn"). This seems to be connected to some sweepstakes that Random House is running.

Dead Mother: Y
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1This is exactly what happened when I read An Abundance of Katherines and just goes to show you that love interests, unsurprisingly, can be a lot more attractive than the main character.

Book Review: Into the Wild Nerd Yonder [2009]

Jessie, the protagonist of Julie Halpern's Into the Wild Nerd Yonder, has a dilemma. She's had two best friends, Bizza and Char, since first grade, and she's pretty much gone along with whatever trendy thing--starting in a band, writing a soap opera, or becoming punk groupies--they wanted to get into. But more and more, Jessie realizes that there are things she likes to do for herself, like make cool skirts, or kick ass at calculus. She's afraid that these things might get her the label of "nerd," though, so she keeps pretty quiet about her actual personality until Bizza finally crosses the line with the guy that Jessie's had a crush on for years. Never mind that the guy turns out to be a total jerk, Jessie finally has an excuse to branch out. After hanging some with the band geeks, she realizes that she might have more in common with the D&D playing nerds than she is entirely comfortable with. Will Jessie have the courage to make new connections with people she actually likes, even though it might get her the "nerd" label? Of course she will.

I've spent the time since I finished this book trying to figure out why I didn't love it. Was it the predictability? The present-tense narration (which I generally, inexplicably loathe whenever I come across it)? The obviousness of the story's message? Probably a combination of all these things. I would be worried that I might be ruined for "normal" (i.e., not paranormal) YA fiction, except I enjoyed Saving Francesca so much. What I liked most about this book was actually the relationship between Jessie and her older brother, Barrett, who is a senior to Jessie's sophomore. They have a great, supportive relationship, and I often found myself more interested in his plotline (renouncing punk and dating the most popular girl in school) than Jessie's. I also think the book is right about girl-frienship groups and how they change over time (or stagnate), I just didn't connect with the narrator. Perhaps because I am already a self-professed nerd.

Grade: C+

Book Review: Secret Society Girl [2006]

After I read and enjoyed Rampant, and after following Diana Peterfreund's blog and learning about her path as an author, I decided the next logical step would be to go back and read Secret Society Girl, the first in her Ivy League series. I must confess that I know next to nothing about secret societies in general, and Yale secret societies such as Skull & Bones in particular (wasn't there some movie with Pacey from Dawson's Creek or something?), but that certainly didn't stop me from enjoying this tale of a literary magazine editor who finds herself unexpectedly "tapped" by the most exclusive society on the "Eli University" campus, here renamed "Rose & Grave." Amy Haskel is outspoken and career-focused, but she still feels like she doesn't quite belong with the few other women who are selected as the first female members ever to be inducted into Rose & Grave. The sudden change in Amy's life has her at odds with her (formerly BFF) roommate, keeping secrets from her sweet potential boyfriend, and also makes her unexpected allies with a circle of people she never would have otherwise known. Pledging to join a secret society, offering its members her "love and affection, everlasting loyalty, and undying fealty" turns out to have much more of an impact on Amy's life than she expected, especially when outraged and powerful alumni protest the decision to admit women by making Amy's life (and those of her new "brothers" and "sisters") as difficult as possible. Add that to boy confusion and post-college career angst, and you've got an action-packed series opener that had me eagerly ordering the second book through ILL.

Grade: A-

Random Thoughts:

I couldn't help thinking about the Gilmore Girls repeatedly as I read the book. Not so much the Life & Death Brigade as the whole Yale University setting, the Daily News, etc. Now that was an excellent TV show.

The book was much more about the problem of integrating women into an all-male world than I thought it would be, and less . . . Gossip Girl-y. I guess maybe it was the title that had me thrown off? Not that this wasn't a pleasant discovery, and I probably should have known better given the delicate handling of sex and gender politics in Rampant.

An interesting post by Peterfreund about the "New Adult" marketing niche that the Ivy League novels purportedly fit into. And follow-up here.

I always appreciate a well-drawn gay or lesbian character in any high school or college-centered novel. I've been reading too many YA books lately, in particular, who act as if the GLBT population doesn't exist at all.

Book Review: Gravity [2008]

I was recently on a panel for the New England Library Association entitled Alterna-Lit for Teens. I'll probably be writing reviews of some of the books I read for my portion (coming out books) at some point when I have the energy, but in the meantime I wanted to write about Gravity, by Leanne Lieberman, which was actually presented by one of my colleagues.

Gravity is set in the 80s in Toronto and revolves around a family of Orthodox Jews. Although the narrative is from the perspective of the younger daughter, Ellisheva Gold, who falls in love with a girl she meets while on vacation, the story is really about the entire family and their struggle with faith. Ellie's mother works to find ways to express her faith despite the restrictive confines of orthodoxy, Ellie's sister Neshama is determined to leave and never look back as soon as she finishes high school, and Ellie's father believes that if the Jews had been more observant, the Holocaust would never have happened. Against this background, Ellie fights doggedly against her attraction to Lindsay and also her desire to know more about the world and science than her religion finds strictly acceptable. When she accepts that she does prefer girls over boys, she must come to terms with what that means for her belief in God. The story resonates at the end with the balance she finds between her faith and her sexuality.

Grade: A-

Random Thoughts: I don't love the cover photo--I think the model's skirt is much too short. I did like that the book was set in the 80s, although that didn't have too much to do with the movement of the plot. I especially liked the tension between Ellie and Lindsay--they don't have much in common, and they may not actually like each other much, but they nevertheless find themselves drawn together.

The author's website.

Book Review: Saving Francesca [2003]

Some list somewhere of YA literature "for adults" recommended Saving Francesca, by Melina Marchetta, and it has the distinction of being the book I was reading during that whole labor & delivery thing. Therefore, my recollection of it is a little fuzzy--however, I do remember liking it! Francesca is accustomed to struggling with her vibrant, overbearing mother, until the day that Mia doesn't get out of bed. To make things worse, Francesca is the only one in her group of friends to begin 11th grade at St. Sebastian's, a formerly all-male school still adjusting to its transition to co-ed status. As Francesca's family falls apart, she loses touch with her old, shallow friends and finds herself bonding with an unlikely group of girls and boys. She is embroiled in an initially adversarial flirtation with House leader William Trombal, who unfortunately already has a girlfriend.

The strengths of Saving Francesca are both the subject mattter (the ripple effect of Mia's depression strains Francesca's relationships with her father and teachers in addition to her mother) and the slow, deliberate filling out of characters through Francesca's sometimes unreliable narration. Francesca's eventual group of friends isn't just a clique-y group of girls as in many teen school-based novels, but a mix of slightly outcast boys and girls whom circumstances have thrown together. The characters are fresh and vibrant, and the ending brings the story to a satisfying full circle.

Grade: A

The author's website. I especially like the Australian part--she lives in Sydney.

Book Review: Perfect Life [2009]

I keep making these forays into what I guess you might call "Literary Fiction" in an attempt to broaden my horizons, or make myself better at Reader's Advisory, or something. I read a few reviews of Perfect Life, by Jessica Shattuck, while I was doing collection development at work and impulsively placed a hold. As usually happens when I finish one of these books, I ended up somewhat disappointed. The novel is the story of four college friends (three women and one man, Neil) who attended Harvard undergrad together, and the action largely takes place in Boston (which is one of the problems, but I'll get to that momentarily). As the story begins, advertising executive Jenny is preparing for her son Colin's christening. Colin is biologically the child of Neil, who has agreed to give up his right to have knowledge of or contact with the child. So naturally, he is peering in the window of the fancy church that social-climbing Jenny has selected as an appropriate staging ground. The other friends, Laura (stay at-home mom and wife to a self-made immigrant) and Elise (lesbian and new non-bio parent), are each also prominent characters. I feel that the main difficulty with Perfect Life is that it takes on too many things. Each thirtysomething wrestles with mundane issues such parenthood and connecting with their spouse, in addition to heavier topics such as biology, inheritance, marketing, video game design, and a general crisis of faith. Jenny's husband [spoiler alert] is diagnosed with cancer, bringing her perfect world down around her ears just as she pioneers the launch of a new drug for postpartum depression. Laura, the most likeable character, struggles to find meaning in the daily routines of motherhood. Elise, a biologist, finds her partner's desire to meet other children conceived with their donor's sperm bewildering. Neil returns to Boston for reasons unknown even to himself, and it is around him (as the wild card) that the action largely turns.

In a weird way, this book is like a cousin of The Magicians, which I also read recently: a youngish group of friends struggling to find a place in the world and have angst and complicated relationships. But because Shattuck presents the narrative from the perspective of each of the four main characters, a lot of the interactions and character motivations end up feeling shallow because the reader never gets to spend enough time with one person. I lived in Boston for several years, and still don't consider myself an expert, but something about the way Shattuck dropped street, restaurant, and place names into the narrative really struck me as unnecessarily forceful, as if she was always trying to stress the location as an integral part of the story. Unfortunately, I don't feel that the location was an integral part of the story; the events could have played out anywhere. I get that Shattuck lives in Cambridge, and she wants to write what she knows--but it really was like reading one of those Gossip Girl or chick lit novels in which the names of designers and posh locales are always intruding on the plot.

I guess it probably sounds like I didn't really like this book. I'll be honest: it took me a long time to finish. I wasn't hurrying to pick it up. But it did make me think about a few things, like parenthood and friendship between adults, in a different way.

Grade: B-

Book Review: Laura Rider's Masterpiece [2009]

Once in a while I pick up a piece of contemporary literary fiction, just to keep my hand in for the purposes of reader's advisory, or to see what's out there and confirm that I'd rather be reading Fantasy & Science Fiction. Almost inevitably, as was the case with Jane Hamilton's Laura Rider's Masterpiece, I finish the book with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction. Laura Rider has been married to Charlie for twelve years, and is tired of his sexual attentions. She also aspires to writing a "conscious romance" that explores the motivations of Everywoman. Enter Jenna Faroli, local radio show host and woman of interest to both Laura and Charlie, who begin an email correspondence with her that is engineered (by Laura) into a romance for her observation. Predictably, this does not end well. I would describe the novel as a character study of three fairly unsympathetic characters, but I felt that Hamilton never really spent enough time from a single character's perspective to make me sympathetic to his or her motivations. Charlie quickly fades to the background, and the book is nominally about Laura Rider, but the lack of depth and occasionally flowery descriptive prose prevent the reader from truly becoming connected. I did like the cover art, however.

Grade: B-