As promised!
(7) The Eye of the
World (Wheel of Time #1) by Robert Jordan
When you start a 700+ page book with 13 sequels, there might
be a worry about how much time you are going to have to commit to this endeavor.
You might wonder: is this something I really want to get hooked on? Your attachment
to this series is going to depend a lot on your personal tastes. If the reader
is attracted to strange new lands, nightmarish creatures, and action-packed
fights with mighty foes that result in rapid page flipping, then it is likely
that this is the book for you. If, however, the reader’s imagination is a bit
out of order, you are going to have a bad time. One might struggle with
imagining the countryside of these unusual places. Maybe they just can’t imagine
the adversarial critters, so the reader just borrows other monster visages from
movies they have seen. The reader could also grow bored from pages upon pages
of action sequences. You’ll have to decide what kind of reader you are (I lean
more towards the second description) and perhaps decide that this is not the
reading direction you want to venture into.
The story begins as murderous monsters target three peasant
young men in a poor village. The three men have vivid, frightening dreams that
indicate that they might be a chosen soul whose destiny is to save all from
evil forces. They travel with two strangers; matured individuals who have
magical powers. Two women from their village who seem to have important,
pre-destined roles in this adventure also join them. With a book of this
length, you have the privilege to spend a lot of time with each of them. There were many actions scenes with
frightening beast-like enemies that were very fun to read and placed you right
in the middle of the action. The story is not male-centric; the female
characters are essential to the plot. Although they do not apparently share the
same destiny as the three young male protagonists in the story, they still have
a vital fate and purpose.
The book is primarily a travelogue, which seems to be a
trend in fantasy fiction. While some readers might love traveling along side
these characters to exotic and unfamiliar places, the story, plot and character
relationships were a backdrop to the “travel experience.” There were certain
storytelling devices that were too contrived (too many instances of: oh isn’t
that convenient!).
Content Rating: Fantasy fighting scenes
Length: 832 Pages
Genre: Fantasy Fiction
(8) Gone Girl by
Gillian Flynn
While reading this, it was as if a projector was playing a
thriller in the brain. I even paused at moments to consider proper casting for
my imaginary head film. The husband of a missing woman narrates what happens to
him during the days and weeks following her disappearance—especially as
suspicions of foul play begin to mount. Once you start this novel, you are
going to want to read it straight through; who likes pausing an exciting
thriller in the middle to do bothersome things like sleeping? The writing style
is first-person within the protagonist’s own thoughts and a lack of complexity
means the sentences flow well and is a fast read. The book channeled a
Hitchcock movie, but rather than having a twist ending, there were numerous
twists throughout the book that made the story feel deeply layered. I’d rename
the book: Things are not what they appear to be!
Content: Adult
Length: 432 Pages
Genre: Thriller
(9) Shades of Earth
by Beth Revis
Despite a crop of substandard young adult books, the books
of the Across the Universe series
are an unexpected and surprising trilogy of dystopian thrillers. Many authors
of young adult dystopian novels get by on the indiscriminating popularity of
the genre. Just as it is easy to make fun of terrible pop music that teenagers
love, we should be just as critical of the writing and storytelling in the
books that are marketed to young people. It is imperative that the books we are
handing our young adults will nurture their constructive development into a
maturing reader who will eventually handle books with adult themes and issues. Young
adult dystopian novels are very common, and while it is fun to imagine what it
would be like to live in these odd, alternate universes, the author usually
fails to answer two important questions: why and how. Why did society degrade
to this? How did this happen over time? The author might develop and immerse
her reader in an exotic culture, but that is not enough. Those two nagging
questions are ever-present in the back of the discriminate reader’s head and
distract from the overall enjoyment when not adequately addressed. The story is
underdeveloped if the author fails to identify the specific causes and effects
that have drastically and irrevocably changed life for all humans on earth.
But, this series is a refreshing, shining star in a sea of
young adult mediocrity. The first two
books establish the culture of the crew on the spaceship Godspeed: no religion,
no race, controlled births and cloned leaders. The first book begins with Amy,
daughter of a scientist and a career military consultant, deciding if she will
join her parents in stasis as they travel to a new planet. She decides to join
her parents, and is frozen via an uncomfortable procedure for the long journey.
However, when Amy is woken up early, she discovers incredible changes to the crew
of Godspeed. Although there is a love story, the book’s focus is the mysteries of
the ship and the unseemly and covert objectives of this mission.
While traversing through each book, the impression I get is
that Revis first began with answering the “how” and the “why” before starting
to write the narrative. Once she knew where her story was headed, she then embedded
the history of the dystopian spaceship around Elder and Amy, our teenage
protagonists. By the end of the second book, the reader has a fairly clear
understanding of how time and politics upon this space ship have altered human appearance
and culture. Shades of Earth, the
third novel, tells more of the historical story without the reader even
expecting it. The inhabitants of Godspeed finally disembark and colonize the
new planet, but in addition to deadly monsters that prey on the new arrivals,
it also seems to already have natives living there that are not pleased with
their presence.
Unfortunately, the third book is the weakest of the three.
While Revis certainly has answers to the questions that are formed in the first
novel, this book feels like an early draft with a meandering narrative. Perhaps
she had pressure to finish it in a time frame that did not give her adequate
time to flesh out the characters and events in this final adventure for Elder
and Amy. Also, leaving the confines of the spaceship to a new planet was probably
too much to attempt in one book. So much is happening with these characters and
Revis only has four hundred or so pages to tell it all.
My expectations were sky high, and the descriptions of the
mysterious new planet did not work well to activate my imagination. Despite a
few missteps in the third book, I love this dystopian in space series.
Content: Older young adults
Length: 384 Pages
Genre: Young Adult Dystopia
(10) Bossypants
by Tina Fey
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Bossypants was
marketed as a laugh-out loud silly memoir, but that is a grossly imprecise
description of this chronicle. This is a witty book, but the humor is
understated and softer than what would be expected. The reader would probably find this more enjoyable if
approached as a feminist narrative with some humor sprinkled in.
You’d think that the entertainment industry would be a
progressive and easy place to be a female boss; instead her tales describe the
difficulties of navigating through a male-dominated industry being Tina Fey. Bossypants is an important work, and shouldn’t
be disregarded as simply a silly book of stories. One of the memorable stories
she tells involved a weekend that dealt with three stressful situations:
transforming into Sarah Palin for the now-famous SNL sketch, shooting scenes
with Oprah Winfey for 30 Rock, and trying to find all the decorations necessary
for her daughter’s Peter Pan birthday party. She managed to make all three
happen, and none seemed to be more important to her than another. Fey is very talented at pointing out
astute observations about the condition of womanhood and the challenges that we
face—and the challenges we unduly create for ourselves. Near the conclusion of
the book, there is a wonderful chapter covering “mommy shaming” that made me
want to give a standing ovation (too bad I was reading it on an airplane).
P.S. If you are looking for a guaranteed laugh-out-loud
memoir, try Let’s Pretend This Never
Happened: (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson. You will laugh so much;
you might wet your pants.
Content: Adult
Length: 283 Pages
Genre: Memoir
(11) The Thirteenth
Tale by Diane Setterfield
A well-read young woman named Margaret, who has grown up
working in her father’s bookshop, receives an offer to become a biographer for the
elderly Vida Winter. Vida Winter is the most famous author of Margaret’s time,
yet no one knows anything about her. For her entire career, she was withheld
her identity from the public. Margaret arrives at her home, and Vida begins to
tell her astonishing stories about two indivisible and uncouth twin sisters. Sometimes
these stories are dark and heinous, some are funny and charming. As her story
unfolds, Margaret begins to put together some complexities within Vida’s past,
as well as deal with her own personal issues.
The story refers many times to the classic novels that
Margaret loves, such as Jane Eyre,
and the storytelling feels classic and timeless, similar to what you might
expect from a Bronte sister. Even if you have difficulty reading older classic
fiction, the writing here is accessible and should appeal to a wider audience.
When Vida Winter tells her stories to Margaret, the reader is completely drawn
in to her story with an intense longing to know more. The stories of Winter’s childhood as a member of an unruly
twin combo are captivating.
The problem is, once the loose ends of the mystery are tied
up, your interest begins to languish. Once you venture into the last third of the book, the story,
which once drew you in, becomes very contrived and absurd. After all is
revealed, the ending leaves one feeling that they have been manipulated for the
entire book. Characters that were easy to imagine and seemed like real people
become obviously fictional and fantastical. By the end, there are too many
issues with the story to leave the reader feeling positive about the reading
experience.
Content: Adult
Length: 416 Pages
Genre: Fiction
(12) The Art of
Fielding by Chad Harbach
The Art of Fielding
is a baseball book that isn’t really about baseball. This is a character study
of five individuals at Westish College: a college shortstop prodigy, the
eccentric and brilliant roommate of the prodigy, the sullen baseball team
captain, the sensitive college president, and the college president’s recently
separated daughter. The author uses baseball as a scaffold to tell the stories
of their intricately woven personal relationships. Despite being someone who
only enjoys attending baseball games to consume chocolate frozen malts and
oversized hot dogs, I enjoyed the baseball scenes because they were suspenseful
and descriptive enough to follow the action. The game scenes are described
through the eyes of an onlooker, which makes the reader feel as though they are
right there in the stands. However, most of the story takes place off the
field, and those scenes between the characters are often just as dynamic.
What could have been better? This book is just too long for
its story. Each chapter revolves
around one character; there is no central protagonist. If the author had cut
back on the narrative for some of the characters, the book would have felt
better paced and streamlined. The storylines of the Westish baseball team captain
and the college president dragged, and became uninteresting by the last fourth
of the book. However, the other characters kept the story interesting until the
end, and the final scene in the book was surprising and a bit morbid—I loved
it.
Content: Adult
Length: 528 Pages
Genre: Fiction
(13) The Shunned
House by H.P. Lovecraft
Lovecraft is known for his works in horror, and this was my
first introduction to his stories. The
Shunned House is a short story about the baneful history of a haunted
house. The protagonist’s uncle has developed a hobby of collecting information
about the construction and life of the home, and he spends much of the story
describing all the deaths and illnesses that occurred within its walls. Then,
the story’s setting changes to the haunted house itself, and what happens when
the protagonist attempts to purge it of its demons. This story would have been
awfully dull had it been any longer, but this story was well suited for its
short-length. The horror felt dated, and would be unlikely to ever induce a
nightmare in a modern audience.
Content: Adult
Length: 48 Pages
Genre: Horror Fiction
(14) I Am Legend
by Richard Matheson
Did you know that this is a vampire book, not a zombie book?
Without a doubt, this is the best vampire book I have ever read. The crisp writing completely immersed
me in this vampire-infested world. I was right there with Neville in his
barricaded home as vampires attempted to entice him to come outside. I panicked
with him; my heart would race when things went horribly wrong. I felt his
loneliness and sadness at the loss of his family. Certainly, the modernity of
this book was most astounding. Although it was published in 1954, it could very
well be a brand new release today. The absolute best part of the book is the
science of vampires that Neville studies and explores; by the end, there is an
answer to the “how” and “why” vampires exist. This is an exhilarating reading
experience and I classify it as a must-read book.
Content: Adult
Length: 320 Pages
Genre: Horror Fiction
(15) Fight Club
by Chuck Palahniuk
I wish I had read this before I saw the film version. As I
read, I remembered the actors, sets, and costumes that were already implanted
in my head. I’d recommend either the book or the movie, because director David
Fincher does an outstanding job of capturing the tone and story of this short
novel. If you don’t want to watch the brutality on film but you are still
curious about the story, the book version might be easier to get through.
Nonetheless, this is a slick book about the condition of
being a modern man. Some topics
explored here include the angst felt when the American dream is unreachable,
the claustrophobia caused by the cubicle, and the male drive to hit things to
work out problems. Fight Club had a
peculiar effect, as by the end, I really did wonder if fighting in an
underground club could help me become a happier person.
This is revolutionary story telling, and I have never read
anything quite like this. It is absolutely unique in voice and tone, and
contains great twists. This book applauds violence as an answer to problems, so
it may not be to everyone’s tastes. You might not want to buy your grandma a
copy for Christmas.
Content: Adult
Length: 224 Pages
Genre: Fiction
(16) The Moon is a
Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
This was so, so good. Robert A. Heinlein, where have you
been all my life?
In the year 2075, a covert group of “Loonies” conspire to overthrow
the officials on their homeland, the Moon. With the help of Mike, their
joke-telling self-aware computer, they carefully plot this seemingly impossible
revolution. Because capital punishment has been outlawed on Earth, the
“earthworms” have sent their criminals to Luna to complete their prison
sentence. Over time, the people of the moon establish their own culture, one
that is driven by general consensus of customs rather than laws. There are no
taxes, laypeople serve as impromptu judges to decide disagreements (even on
capital offenses), and the rarity of women means they have strongly respected
personal rights. Earth criminals who do not behave themselves after being sent
to Luna don’t last long; they are quickly eliminated for failing to follow moon
customs.
This science fiction book does not resemble what you might
expect from the genre, as it is not a book about spaceships shooting at each
other. This is a story of political intrigue. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is tightly laced with political
ideologies and focuses on the complexity of planning a regime upheaval. The story is oozing with realistic
science. I love that Heinlein doesn’t waste time explaining the science to a
reader who might not know what he’s talking about. Can you imagine if he had to
stop to explain to the reader every simple physics concept mentioned? I won’t pretend that I totally grasped the science behind a giant
catapult that could forcefully project an object from the moon’s surface to
earth, but Heinlein convinced me it could work!
The writing here is a bit dense and that results in a slower
read. It takes some time to adjust to the style of the Lunar dialect. When you
begin reading, you will notice that some words (“the,” “there” and clarifying
nouns) are often omitted. The Lunar dialect does become easier to read, and adds
extra depth that delineates the developed culture of the Moon from the Earth. I
loved reading about the underground life living on Luna and the family makeup
and dynamics of the Loonies. Heinlein has an exquisite imagination for creating
a plausible libertarian world.
Content: Adult
Length: 384 Pages
Genre: Science Fiction
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Lots of good stuff coming up; I finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K. Dick, and loved it, just not ready to write about it. I have big digital stack of sci-fi waiting for me; hopefully my babies will cooperate and let me read.
