Somebody, please save me ...

New Moon
Eclipse
Breaking Dawn
Stephenie Meyer
Little Brown

Okay, I'll admit it. I caved. All of my friends kept going on, and on, and on about the Twilight series. "Give it another chance," they said. "It's sooo good." Um, yeah ... so good that it has taken me more than two weeks to find the motivation to write this post. Good? Are you people insane? I love a schmaltzy romance as well as the next girl, but the blatant anti-feminism almost pushed me over the edge.


For those of you smart enough not to pick up this series, let me give you a quick run down of the plot.

• Girl meets boy.
• Boy turns out to be a vampire and mires girl in all sorts of danger.
• Boy leaves girl (he wants to do the "right" thing) and girl loses her mind with grief and becomes a shell of her old self.
• With the help of her best friend (who turns out to be a werewolf), girls starts to piece her life back together.
• Boy gets into trouble and girl goes to save him which invites more trouble.
• Best friend and boy (sworn enemies because of the whole vampire/werewolf thing) compete for love of girl.
• Boy wins.
• Boy marries girl.
• Girl gets pregnant and the half-human, half-vampire foetus almost kills her.
• To save her life, boy turns girl into a vampire right after she gives birth.
• Girl becomes even more beautiful.
• Incubus baby drinks blood and eats food.
• Best friend imprints on baby girl and complicates the life of his pack.
• Boy, girl and best friend fend off threat from evil, old vampires.
• Everyone is saved and lives happily ever after. Oh barf.
  

I'm willing to give Meyer points for creative use of mythologies. She leverages just enough vampire and Native American lore to make part of the book intriguing to those of us interested in the fantastic. I cannot, however, get over the fact that every story line was resolved and presented to the reader with a pretty little bow. Yes, fairy tales are possible. I just want one where the heroine defines herself and isn't defined by her love of her man or the functions of her body. The entire series gets one drop of blood out of five.

Three Cheers for the Glad Game!

The Prometheus Deception
Robert Ludlum
St. Martins Press

While it is not my normal practice to use this blog as a forum for complaint (it is, after all, a book review site), let me just say that this last year has been pretty hard on me. My dad got sick, I had a terrible car accident, I was homeless for a couple of months, one of my dearest friends passed away unexpectedly, my aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer, and my dad has gotten sicker and won't be getting better. If you add the everyday crap to the pile (the occasional bad work days, the on again/off again relationship with my best friend and my growing hate for the 401 around Milton) I should be laid out on a couch somewhere undergoing intensive bouts of psychotherapy. But I'm not. And why is that, you ask? It's because I've found my inner Pollyanna and I'm constantly playing the Glad Game.

Take, for example, the subject of this week's post. I started to "read" the Prometheus Deception with my dad when we went for a drive to distract him from the pain. He's to the point in his illness where he can no longer comfortably read a conventional novel, so I picked up an audio book to see if that would do the trick. It did and he has spent lots of happy hours listening to one of his favourite authors. The fact that I became so engaged in this particular story was an added bonus -- see how this Glad Game works?

Now, about the novel ... Nick Bryson is a retired spook who had spent his entire adult life working for an ultra-clandestine organization called the "Directorate". After a significant period of adjustment, he has finally settled into his new life as a university history professor when he is suddenly pulled back into the game. Someone is trying to establish a global, supra-governmental organization that would threaten the privacy and security of civilization as we know it. It is up to Nick to track the shadowy leaders and bring them down. This novel was choc-a-bloc full of dangerous exploits, exotic locales, beautiful women and terrifying men. I was addicted to the story and could hardly wait for Nick to figure it all out. 2.5 action heroes out of 5.

Nick and Nora's Murder and Martinis

The Thin Man
Dashiell Hammett
Knopf Doubleday

Who knew murder could be so glamorous? Taking a break from their business empire, Nick and Nora Charles decide to spend Christmas in New York. Between going to shows, flirting, lounging in speakeasies, and drinking martinis in bed, the two beautiful people manage to find some time to help the police solve the murder of the secretary of one of Nick's former colleagues. Suspects in the case include the colleague's former wife, her new gold-digging husband, their odd children, and the secretary's gangster boyfriend. Yeah -- I know -- it's no wonder that they needed the drinks.

Like the Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man is very sophisticated read. I don't find Hammett's writing quite as hard-boiled as Chandler and in some respects, this novel reads almost like a Restoration comedy of manners. No matter how you look at it, however, Nick and Nora are a couple worth knowing. Three prohibition dodgers out of five.

The Tide that Binds

What I Was
Meg Rosoff
Doubleday Canada

Set in an English backwater boarding school during the early 60s, What I Was tells the story of 16-year old Hilary --a boy who has already mastered the art of disaffection. Having been expelled from two schools previously, H ends up at St. Oswald's and quickly settles into the same old routine of bad food, worse dorms and the torturous attentions of upper classmen. Just living in such a dour and dismal place proves to be an exercise of Sisyphean proportions. It all changes, however, the moment H meets Finn -- a boy of almost unbearable beauty who lives in a cabin at the edge of the sea.

H is taken with the young man on a number of levels. In fact, it is almost as if Finn is the mirror of what H desires to be --independent, confident, capable, smart and elusive. It has been quite some time since I have read a book that so captures the feelings first love -- the excitement, anxiety, fear and absolute yearning for someone other than yourself. As the friendship between the two characters grows, Rosoff takes her readers to an almost magical place where anything is possible. The real world eventually intrudes, however, and H's idyll collapses like a wave crashing against the sand.

What I Was is a lovely story in all ways. The author's prose was passionate, intimate and at times, left me breathless -- so much so that I want to visit the land, sea and sky that she has beautifully described. The fact the the story eluded my expectations was an unanticipated bonus. Three and a half wheeling seabirds out of five.

Romancing the Stoned, er ... Stone

Tribute
Nora Roberts
Jove Books

This past weekend found me up in the MoFo hanging with the parentals for the Easter holiday. I haven't been sleeping well in the last little while so my mom decided that it wouldn't hurt if I "borrowed" one of her sleeping pills. Note to self -- never read a romance novel after taking someone else's medication. The dreams are a little weird.

I am going to go on record and state that I actually liked this novel. If you recall from a few posts ago, Ms. Roberts had definitely let me down with her last series -- her trilogy was too long, too poorly written and the characters were uninteresting. Tribute has managed to restore my faith in her romance-writing prowess. This novel had a good plot, a mystery that kept me guessing, a hot graphic-novelist hero with an uber-cute dog, and an approachable, not-too-perfect heroine. All the right things to keep me entertained. Now if I could only figure out how to sleep. Sigh. Two point five superheros out of five.

Reading America

Run

Ann Patchett

Harper Perennial

One of the coolest things about my job is that I get to travel. Oh sure, sometimes it's a total drag, but if I'm honest with myself, I have admit that there are way more ups than downs. Take this past week, for example. When I left Toronto on Monday morning, we were in the middle of a freak snow storm. Tuesday morning found me running outside in shorts and tank top, watching the sun come up over the hills in LA. Who could complain about that?

Another benefit of being on the road is that I get to try on cities. Some, like Chicago, have the comfortable feeling of favourite sweater. I know I could live there and not feel out of place. Others, like Miami, are way more exotic ... kind of like eating a spicy new dish -- looks interesting, but you're not always sure that you're going to like it. Like travelling, reading can also let you try out new places. This week's novel, Run, is set in Boston and the city just pops out of the pages of this book.

Set over a period of 24 hours, this book is about family -- the ones you're born with and the ones you choose. It is about obligation -- both perceived and real and how that sense of duty nurtures and destroys. The book is also about love -- the kind that stretches beyond death and fills your soul with joy and sorrow. And finally, it is about secrets -- the unsaid truths that shape our thoughts and actions in unanticipated, sometimes unpredictable ways. In a nutshell, this book is about our own families. Read it if you dare. Three unhurried walks along the Freedom Trail out of five.

It's in the genes, baby, it's in the genes.

The Time Traveler's Wife

Audrey Niffenegger

Vintage Canada

I haven't actually been to the bookstore in a couple of months. My TBR queue is a little out of control from the wondrous giftage I received over the holidays and to be honest, I am desperately trying to save money. What the hell was I thinking in becoming a homeowner? The world is a cruel, cruel place when it forces you to choose between blinds for the windows or books for the shelves.

While I'm not exactly sure when I picked up this novel, I can tell you that I found it on the Chapters table of "great reads." From the publisher's blurb on the back, I knew it was the kind of book that I wanted to save for when I needed to lose myself for a little while. My timing, it seems, was perfect because once I started to read this novel, my everyday world faded away and I could think of nothing but the story of Henry and Clare.

Henry, as the book's title suggest, has a genetic disease that causes him to travel backward and forward through time. When he travels, he cannot take anything with him (he arrives naked and nauseous), he cannot "change" history, and he cannot control the length of his stay. What he can do, is visit the the older/younger version of himself. Can you even imagine what it would be like to drop in on yourself as a seven year old? Very cool. What makes the story so compelling is how it is told from both the perspective of Henry as well his wife Clare. Each chapter is time and date stamped with Henry and Clare's "ages" and often, each character narrates a portion of the text. I cannot begin to describe how intricately beautiful this love story is. I can guarantee you, however, that it will become a classic. Five weary travelers out of five.

Killing Me Softly

The Lovely Bones

Alice Sebold

Little Brown & Company

Over the years, I've known a lot of people who have read and recommended this book. To be candid, I was suspicious of its seemingly universal appeal and thought of it in the same way that I would an Oprah's pick -- it might be good for the "masses", but surely I wouldn't find it interesting. It wasn't until my boss tossed it on my desk that I gave it any consideration at all. I am so glad I did.

The Lovely Bones opens with the teenage narrator, Susie Salmon, telling you that she has been murdered by Mr. Harvey -- her neighbour from down the street. As Susie watches her family from a curiously godless heaven, her loved ones slowly start to disintegrate and then regenerate themselves in a post-Susie world. While the subject matter is a tough (Susie is, after all, killed by a serial murderer who never gets caught), the novel is uplifting in the sense that each of the characters end up in a place that feels "right" to the reader. Don't get me wrong -- it's not all sweetness and light -- but it did feel real and maybe that's the appeal of the novel. Three very friendly ghosts out of five.

Wizards of Oz

A Fraction of the Whole
Steve Toltz
Anchor Canada

Sorry that I have been away from you guys for awhile. Once again, my personal life has gotten in the way and left me with very little time to write. I have, however, managed to read a line or two and if you count trashy romances, I've knocked back three books in the past two weeks! Um, yeah. I'm definitely not bragging.

So, let's talk about the subject of this week's entry -- Steve Toltz's A Fraction of the Whole. I don't even know where to start -- this was one funny, if slightly acidic, book. The novel recounts the story of Jasper Dean, his misanthropic father Martin Dean, and his notoriously famous uncle, Terry Dean. This family definitely puts the "fun" in dysfunctional and parts of the novel had me snorting with laughter. Toltz's prose was also starkly beautiful at times, so much so that he moved me to tears. Think John Irving with a dash of Augusten Burroughs and a smidgen of Immanuel Kant. Yup -- it is that complex.

While I can totally appreciate why this novel was short-listed for the 2008 Booker, it boggles the mind that this is actually Toltz's debut work. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next. Four not-so-happy Schopenhauers out of five.

Just Friends

Strip Jack
Ian Rankin
Orion

Even though I've been crazy busy over the past few weeks, I managed to find some time to hook up with my old friend John Rebus. OMG ... it's so not what you're thinking. He's dating someone else at the moment (her name is Patience -- could that be more fitting?) and while I don't think they are going to last forever, she seems happy enough to put up with both his job and his lack of commitment. He doesn't seem any happier though. I wonder how long it will take for him to notice?

Anyway, even though it's against protocol, John also told me about the new case that he's working. It's an interesting one ... he and the team were doing a raid on a local brothel and someone tipped off the press. Not so unusual, except one of the patrons was a high-profile MP. As it turns out, the raid was only the beginning of the MP's trouble -- before the scandal could die down, his socialite wife turned up dead. John barely had time to talk to me -- he's heads down working all of his leads.

In fact, between the job and his new girl, I'm not sure when we will next meet. Maybe in a couple of months when things are a bit less zany for the two of us. We'll probably go to another restaurant though -- the location for this week's encounter only got three stars. The food was decent, but the place seemed a bit tired and formulaic.

Hurtin' My Head

Anathem
Neal Stephenson
William Morrow

A few days ago, one of my friends sent me the email equivalent of a chain letter in which he listed 25 random things about himself. In an ideal world, the recipients of his note were supposed to respond in kind, but since I don't exactly go for that kind of thing, I didn't reply. I did, however, spend at least a few minutes thinking about the types of things that I might write.

When I tried to come up with my favourite book of all time, I got stumped. It appears that I have a favourite song, a favourite colour, and a favourite city, but I can't seem to settle on just one "favourite" book. What about a favourite author? Well, that objective seems a little more reasonable and I think I've come up with a top ten.

The D-E-S Top Ten Authors, Poets and/or Playwrights (in no particular order):
Paulo Coelho
George R R Martin
Neal Stephenson
Robertson Davies
Geoffrey Chaucer
William Shakespeare
Edmund Spenser
James Joyce
Jane Austen
Margaret Laurence

Number three on this list, Neal Stephenson, writes super brainy, math-based fiction, and I think his latest offering, Anathem, has just made my top five books of all time. The story is narrated by a young monk, Fraa Erasmus, who wrestles with concepts of space, time, quantum physics, logic, and multiple realities. I'm not going to lie to you ... this was not an easy read. Once you start it however, be prepared to get lost in the 900 plus pages. It is totally worth it. Five almost Socratic dialogues out of five.

Booker or Bummer?

The Gathering
Anne Enright
Black Cat

I finished reading The Gathering a couple of days ago. I'm inclined to believe that it is one of those books that you have to think about for awhile before you can actually presume to analyse it. I can tell you right now that I could think about it for the next year and still not know what to write. It was one of those books that hurt to read.

The Gathering is narrated by Veronica, a thirty something housewife, who has just learned that her brother Liam has committed suicide by filling his pockets and walking into the sea. She goes off to England to retrieve his body and bring it back to Dublin for a traditional Irish wake. The story jumps back and forth through time in a decidedly stream-of-consciousness kind of way and we learn that Liam and Veronica shared a terrible secret that may (or may not) have led to Liam's death.

The secrets, sins, vices, and failings of the entire Hegarty clan are laid bare for all to see. In fact, the most compelling part of this novel is how Enright describes a family that is no more or no less dysfunctional than any other. There is a universality in her characters and the defiant vulnerability of the protagonists (both Veronica and the imagined ghost of Liam) is heart-breaking and achingly beautiful. Three and a half drams of whiskey out of five.

Fiends, Animals and Fucktards

You Suck
Christopher Moore
William Morrow

Over the past few months, I have spent a great deal of time in my car. The downside is that I don't particularly enjoy driving -- especially by myself. The upside is that I have recently discovered audio books. Thanks to both my kick ass sound system and my local library, the road is no longer a sad and lonely place.

Last week, I listened to You Suck by Christopher Moore. The book opens with the hero, C. Thomas Flood (aka Tommy) discovering that his girlfriend Jody has recently turned him into one of the undead. Like all good fledgling vampires, Tommy goes out and recruits a minion -- Abby Normal -- a sixteen year old goth girl who looks like a broken marionette. Abby is completely infatuated with "vampire" culture and lives for the day when Lord Flood will complete her transformation into a creature of the night.

Maybe it would have been a different experience had I read the novel instead of having listened to it, but the best parts of the narration were the "excerpts" from Abby's journal. When she called someone a fucktard for the first time I almost drove off the road I laughed so hard. Like all Moore books, You Suck was a hilarious. Three stoner stock boys out of five.

Ordinary People

Middlemarch
George Eliot
Penguin Classics

The problem with reviewing a "classic" novel is that everything relevant, interesting, or even slightly thought-provoking has already been written. Virgina Woolf once said that Middlemarch is a "magnificent book which, with all its imperfections, is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people." Um, yeah. Given enough time, I'm sure I would have come up with that line. Really.

Middlemarch, which was originally produced/written as a serialized novel, reads very much like the script of a daytime soap opera. The plot focuses on the stories/character development of three main families -- the Brookes, the Vinceys, and the Lydgates. The novel is set in a fictional Midlands town during the early 1830s, and like a modern-day soap, the different narratives intertwine and add all sorts of complication to the characters' lives. Also like a daytime soap, the novel explores contemporary social themes -- in this case, religion, class mobility, political reform, the status of women, the nature of marriage, love vs. passion, and individuality (self-interest) vs. the social good. Middlemarch is a big book about big ideas. The fact that it is also a delightful read is just a bonus.

And, while I don't normally talk about the author, I'm going to make an exception in this case. George Eliot, or Mary Ann Evans as she was also known, was an extraordinary woman. Shunned by "polite" society because she lived unmarried with her partner, George Henry Lewes, she was one of England's leading Victorian writers and intellectuals. Even though women were publishing at the time, she took a male pen name to ensure that her novels were taken seriously. At the heart of most of her writing was the belief that it is the mundane and ordinary that prove to be the most interesting. Middlemarch is a brilliant example of this belief. Four extraordinary ordinaries out of five.

Jane Eyre -- A Poem, by the D-E-S

Jane Eyre

Charlotte Brontë

Penguin Classics

Plain Jane, good and kind,
Met a man who knew her mind.
Loved him well despite his lie,
Became so sad she thought she'd die.

Plain Jane, a girl devout,
Left her man and ventured out
Into a world -- unknown and vast
Her soul adrift, her strength surpassed.

Plain Jane, a family found,
Joy and gladness all around.
But for the man she longed inside.
Buried deep, not cast aside.

Jane ... Jane, without a word,
His mind to hers, the call was heard.
To her Rochester she ran
Their souls entwined, their lives began.

----------------

Hey gang. I thought I'd mix it up a bit in terms of the reviews. I called my mom and read Jane Eyre to her over the phone (duh, the poem, not the novel ) and she gave me the green light to post the entry. The whole exercise seemed so Grade 5 that I figured I should pretend like it was homework.

Anyway, she said she'd happily take all criticism with regard to how poorly it is written and I cheerfully promised to pass it along. Oh -- and for the curious, Jane Eyre the novel gets 5 brooding heroes out of 5. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it.

Postcolonial or Post 9-11?

The Inheritance of Loss
Kiran Desai
Penguin

When I was in grad school, postcolonial criticism was all the rage and as part of a number of courses, I had to read the likes of Said, Spivak and Foucault. While my brain is no longer capable of understanding and/or internalizing such big ideas, some of those lectures must have stuck because as soon as I picked up this novel words such as alternity, hybridity, otherness, imperialism and ethnocentrism immediately came to mind.

And it's true -- the novel, which is set in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas during the 80s, deals with all of these themes and how British and American culture, in particular, have altered the characters' perceptions of themselves. In addition to the collision of cultures, the story also examines the conflict between past versus present desires, the efficacy of terrorism, the gluttony of consumerism, and the cult of the individual. The more I read, the more I wondered if, despite the overt references to other examples of post-colonial literature, the novel was an expression of a post 9-11 sensibility? Is this even a legitimized critical approach? I would think so, but since I've given up academe, I'll have to leave it to the experts.

As for a rating, The Inheritance of Loss won the 2006 Man Booker prize so who am I to give it a score? I can say that it was lyrical, wise, beautiful and sad. In other words, a very good read.

May I have the envelope, please?

The D-E-S book of the year award for 2008 goes to (pause for drum roll and fumbling with a waxed seal ...) Diane Setterfield for her novel The Thirteenth Tale.

I absolutely adored this book and recommend saving it for one of those cold, rainy nights where you can curl up by the fire with a blanket, a glass of wine, and have the weather provide the soundtrack to the story. Don't plan on going to bed early though -- once you start this one, you might find it hard to put down. A few of my friends have written to complain of lost sleep and unproductive workdays. Do yourself a favour and start it on a Friday. Or better yet, take it up to the cottage and save it for a dark and stormy night. Enjoy.

I AM the Wolfman

Tooth & Nail

Ian Rankin

Orion Books

I read in the introduction to the novel that the original title of this book was Wolfman. It made me wonder how people come up with both titles and cover art. Does the publisher make the decision? Does the author have any creative control? And in the case of this particular novel, what do hydro lines and what looks suspiciously like starlings, have to do with a serial killer that bites his victims on the belly post-mortem? Maybe it's like a Warhol album cover for the Velvet Underground -- conceptual and far beyond my level of understanding.

Enough musings -- on to the meat of this post. Tooth & Nail is the third installment in the Inspector Rebus crime series by Ian Rankin. In this "episode", John finds himself shipped off to London to assist in the investigation of a particularly gruesome series of murders. As you would expect, nobody is terribly keen to have to listen to the "import" and as such, he seems more a fish out of water than ever. I particularly enjoyed the way Rankin used language in this novel to highlight Rebus' alienation. When Rebus' first gets to London, his accent and idiom are so thick that no one can understand him. We are meant to feel a little sorry for the rumpled old bloke. And I did.

I imagine we'll see Inspector Rebus at least a couple of more times over the course of the new year. For 2009, I'm going to try to branch out a little and read selections from outside my comfort zone. As for Tooth & Nail, this crime novel gets three hoolit cheers out of five. Fangtastic!

Four Reading Birds

My Sister's Keeper

Jodi Picoult

Washington Square Press

Another Christmas has come and gone (well, not quite -- technically this is just day four of twelve) and I have already made a dent in the new additions to my to-be-read pile. While I haven't yet opened up all of my gifts, so far I've received three books and a gift card. The best part, of course, is that I had yet to read and/or buy any of them. I'm so giddy I can hardly sit still. Well, until I get absorbed into the pages -- then you need a crowbar pry me from my seat.

First up was Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper. I had heard a lot about this book and had even picked it up a few times at the bookstore before getting distracted by something else. As it turns out, I should have kept it in my basket. This was an amazing read.

Set somewhere in New England, the novel tells the story of Anna and Kate. Kate is a sixteen year old girl who, at the age of two, was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. Anna, her thirteen year old sister, is a genetic match who was essentially bred by her parents to act as a donor of cells, marrow and tissue. The books opens with Anna visiting a lawyer's office to become emancipated from her parents -- they want her to donate a kidney to her dying sister and she has finally had enough and wants to be able to decide what to do with her own body. I was hooked from the opening word.

Putting aside the interesting moral issues that the book raises (which I will admit rescued it from being just another schmaltzy melodrama), I was very much engaged by the narrative technique used by the author. Each chapter in the novel is narrated by a different character in media-res. There are a couple of flashback chapters that fill us in on the back-stories of the various characters, but essentially, the reader lives the drama with the protagonists. Except for Kate. We don't hear from her until the very end of the novel. I'm not going to tell you how it turns out. I will say, however, that I was surprised and genuinely sad. Three point five breaking hearts out of five.

Always a Bridesmaid ...

The Prairie Bridesmaid

Daria Salomon

Key Porter Books

Okay -- so I now have a new rule when going to the bookstore. Do not buy books based on the on-air musings of your favourite radio host. It doesn't matter that you have a slight crush on him, that you totally dig the groovy music that he plays, or that he actually smells fantastic (I know this for a fact -- he once sat next to me in the Atrium and I was sure that I was in olfactory heaven.) Matt "Slivertongue" Galloway cannot be trusted -- he can make anything sound good. Even a poorly-written, angst-filled piece of crap.

The Prairie Bridesmaid is a novel about Anna -- an unhappy, almost thirty-something who decides that she's got a lot of bad in her life -- her job as a high-school English teacher is completely unrewarding, she's in a soul-sucking relationship, and she smokes and drinks far more than is good for her. While she is trying to sort out these woes, she's also dealing with a bunch of other dramas -- namely, an ailing grandma, a flighty-sister, and a wedding-from-hell.

Is this ringing any bells with you? Yup ... substitute New York for Winterpeg and you have every other chick-lit novel that you ever read. Sure, Salomon was witty, sardonic and more than just a little bit cynical. She just wasn't as good as the hype. One tattered crinoline out of five.