Love and Drowning

Sometimes I like to trawl through Buzzfeed Books.  Their content is hit or miss, but I like the articles they pull together with 20 books for cranky people, or 5 books to read before the movie comes out, or any combination of various numbers of books that meet various off-the-wall conditions.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that Buzzfeed recently had an article called "20 Under 40 Debut Writers You Need to Be Reading."  I added quite a few to my "books to look for" shelf in Goodreads.  Then, as I was in the local library for an unrelated reason, I saw one sitting there on the new arrivals shelf, just waiting to be checked out.

This book is set in the U.S. Virgin Islands, both before and after the islands become a U.S. territory.  I have had a bit of an interest in Caribbean literature after visiting the DR and reading The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, so this book fit right into that groove and pulled me out of making a final push toward finishing my 2014 Challenge books.

This is mostly the story of two sisters, but it's also about how Virgin Island society changes as tourists, cars, TVs, and American-style racism show up on the islands.

There's a strong mystical bent to the story.  People move between myth and supernatural activities and normal day-to-day life without much comment.  Annette, the main character, has a wonderful, strong, unique voice.  She and her sister Eeona are elemental.  They take action based on urges, compulsions, and fate, despite rational thought warning them away.  Annette speaks and thinks in a strange English, she makes the words bend to her.

I am not whole-heartedly endorsing Land because I am not sure I understand a major facet of the book, the thematic element that blends together and confuses familial and romantic love.  

Final Call:

That being said, I do recommend this book, strongly.  The author does a wonderful job of capturing the relationship between people and their homelands.  At catching racial nuances.  She weaves a spell and its worth getting caught up in it.  At the end, I actually missed being in a place I have never physically been!

    

Fevre Dream

This is George R.R. Martin, of Game of Thrones fame, but well before he became a household name.  And let me tell you, this book is like a really really quick version of Game of Thrones.

First, the basics of the story are really engaging.  The setting is a knock out.  You meet a lot of interesting characters, and a lot of intriguing action occurs.  And then.  And then.

The plot doesn't go well for the good guys.  They disperse.  They take FOREVER getting their acts together.  When they do get their ducks in a row, their victories are anticlimactic.  Sound familiar?

Actually, it probably doesn't, because Game of Thrones still is not this far along in its development.  After TWENTY YEARS of real life writing time.

At least this is all one volume.  

Final call:

  

Imagine Mark Twain's Mississippi River, only with vampires.  And Martin is really honing his knack for making you feel uncomfortable in this story.  If you like babies at all, you really should skip a few chapters in the middle altogether.

But in the end, Abner is a great character, Martin has an incredible gift for dialogue, and this is still way better than most. 

Don't Tempt Me

I am still on the fluff train.  Loretta Chase writes romance.  Better romance than a lot of folks, but still romance.  Don't Tempt Me is more or less ridiculous, given its basic plot premise, but the entertainment level is still decent.

This book is basically cotton candy, all fun and no substance.  Don't let that stop you, but don't let it rot your brain, either  :)

Final call:

This may be cheesy romance, but at least its pretty good cheesy romance!

Out of the Easy

As I was still trying to heal from A Discovery of Witches, a friend loaned me this book.  It's a young adult book, technically.

Some of my favorite books are young adult books, so I was game.  And this was really quite a nice read.  Josie's likable, she's quick on her feet, and she has her human moments, too.  The relationship triangle is not at all what you think at first, that's a plus.  

A few problems here and there, like when characters occasionally break out in modern slang despite living in 1950s New Orleans.  And some things are just too pat, like the heroine deciding she just has to go to the university that a random woman in a book store tells her about, despite having never heard of it before.

Final call:

Maaaaybe even four stars.  There's a fair amount of meat here, and a big helping of entertainment.  It'll only take you a few hours to read it, so you might as well get started!   

The bad, the good ...

As I was studying, and when I was still reading for fun, I quickly realized I needed fluff.  I saw Deborah Harkness's A Discover of Witches for like $3 on Amazon and picked it up.

This was a decent book, at first, but it quickly spiraled into insanity.  Really quickly.  In lieu of reciting all the terribleness myself, just go here and read Whitley's review:  Reading With a Vengeance.  It's way more detailed and way more entertaining than anything I could provide.

After that travesty, I sought refuge in one of my favorite authors, Cherie Priest.  I knew Priest's latest book is the start of a new series.  Maplecroft is Lizzie Borden's story, if Lizzie had to deal with Cthulhu.

I was not at all aware that this was Priest's homage to H.P. Lovecraft, but that ended up being a pleasant surprise.  You know, this isn't my absolute most favorite of her works, but she is just one of those authors that you can trust to deliver a good story that's written well.  

Final call:

A Discover of Witches

This book literally does not make sense.  Any sense. At all.  This is my first one star review!

Maplecroft

And this book will revive your faith in storytelling.  Choose this one, in a heartbeat.  How on earth is Harkness more well-known???

Number9Dream

So let's talk David Mitchell.  Despite some stiff competition, he is probably my favorite author.  He has six books out (including one just released!), and now I have read three of them.  

The other two under my belt are Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas.  These books read like two facets of one very large story.  And then I read a recent interview with Mitchell where he admitted his works not only share supporting characters - they are probably all telling the same story.

Anyway, Mitchell is known for wacky narrative structures and extreme feats of imagination, and  that absolutely describes Number9Dream, even though the end effect is very different from his usual.  If he has a usual.  

Instead of trotting through space and time in disjointed but connected narratives,  Number9Dream  stays in one person's viewpoint (well, not really, but kind of).  We follow Eiji, a young Japanese man searching Tokyo for a father he's never met and dealing with the death of his twin sister and abandonment by his mother.  Eiji takes a lot of detours and has some definitely imaginary adventures on his journey.  Coincidences and obvious plot devices abound.  He falls in love.  He comes to terms with the trauma in his life.

But one of the questions in the end is, "just how much of the plot actually a happened, versus being imagined by Eiji?"  I believe that it is all in his head.  Really.  Eiji, the name, is explained twice in the text as meaning "incant" and "world."  I think he's making it up, the entire thing.  

A lot of the criticisms people have about the book, I think, don't apply if this is true.  People are seeing a hack plot with too much crazy stuff and a not-quite-right view of Japanese culture.  I say that it's Eiji's voice that is responsible for the plot "problems" and the outsider-looking-in view of Tokyo.  I think Eiji's been in Kagoshima thinking his way out of his problems the entire book, using his manga and video games to fuel his fantasies.

Then there's the 5th part of this book, A Study of Tales.  Who else would juxtapose Eiji's quest with stories about a talking goat, a sentient hen, and a primordial man to frame up questions about authorship, agency, and the meaning of life and death.  You just can't get this stuff anywhere else.

Number9Dream left me feeling many things, but most of all, at a loss.  However, there is at least one point in any David Mitchell book (and often many, many points) where you get a particular feeling, one of being extremely far-sighted.  You start to see the entirety of life and how it works much more clearly than you normally do, and the day-to-day begins to seem very myopic but also the only chance we have to make any kind of difference.

And that is why I love his books.

Final call:

This actually isn't my very favorite work of his, but he's still head and shoulders above the crowd.

New camera

It happens to be in my phone, but still. 

I took advantage of its panoramic mode to capture the River bridges yesterday.  I think it did pretty well!