Category: Reviews

The Power of a Library

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews5 Comments

First, a question unrelated to this book review: I’m taking a trip to Washington D.C. next month, and usually when I go on vacation I like to read a book set in the place I’m visiting.  So I was wondering–any suggestions for books taking place in Washington D. C.?  Preferably something I can find at my library…

Which leads me to today’s book review!  It may be that I have a soft spot for Jerry Spinelli’s The Library Card because I’m so fond of libraries myself.  The book is a set of four long short stories (not quite novellas, so what do you call them?)  They’re only connected thematically, and by the presence of a mysterious blue card.  Each owner of the card sees it somehow as The Library Card, and in different ways it ends up changing their lives.

Mongoose and Weasel (not their real names) are on their way to being juvenile delinquents when Mongoose finds the library card.  It brings him to the library, which opens a whole new world of information to him.  This story is especially good because of the character development.  What’s happening to Mongoose is positive, but it’s also pulling him away from Weasel.  We see some of that from Weasel’s point of view, and can feel his pain at losing his friend.  I actually end up feeling sympathy for the kid who’s really trying to lead his friend down a bad path (though not malevolently).

Sonseray is another character who prompts unexpected sympathy.  On the surface of it, he’s a complete screw-up, apt to pick fights and get into trouble.  But the reader also gets to see how much he misses his mother, who died.  The library card leads him to a book that helps him connect with her memory.

I felt less sympathy for Nanette.  The library card helps her become friends with April, but I couldn’t feel the basis of their friendship the way I could with Weasel and Mongoose.  Weasel wasn’t deliberately a jerk, but I couldn’t really see Nanette’s redeeming qualities.  This story was all right, but my least favorite.

My favorite story was Brenda’s.  She’s so obsessed with television that she has a deep emotional crisis when her parents make her turn off the TV for a week.  This one is funny, and makes a very good point.  The library card helps her realize that she has been so busy living the lives of her TV characters, she’s stopped living her own life.

The stories are sweet, funny, sometimes sad.  And they all have a good message about the power of a book to change a life.

Author’s Site: http://www.jerryspinelli.com/

Disappointed with the Mockingjay

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Science Fiction, Young Adult8 Comments

I am so sorry to say this, but–I was disappointed by Mockingjay.  If you read my earlier reviews, you know that I thought The Hunger Games was brilliant.  Catching Fire had flaws, but was promising.  And Mockingjay never fulfilled on the promises.

My Katniss problems of the second book magnified enormously in the third.  She carries on with her inability to figure out what to do.  I had hoped that this was a second book, bridge-segment issue, and that it was just setting up the third book’s resolution.  But no.  The rebellion is in full swing by this point, but Katniss still spends large portions of the book moping and moaning and debating what she should do.  Even after she makes some decisions, she still spends way too much time hiding in closets (yes, literally), heavily medicated, or sunk deep in depression.

Part of me wants to be understanding.  She has, after all, been through Hell, and is in some ways still there.  But so has everyone else.  And a lot of people are handling it much better than Katniss.  People are literally fighting and dying for their freedom, Katniss is in a unique position to help the cause–and she can’t seem to rise to it.

That, I think, is the crux of the problem.  I wanted the story of Katniss taking her pain and her horror, using it all to become a stronger person, and to grow into her role as the Mockingjay, the rebellion’s symbolic leader.  Instead, I feel like I got the story of how Katniss (and Peeta, Gale, Haymitch, Finnick…everyone, really) has been severely damaged by all they’ve been through, and will never fully recover.  It’s probably very realistic.  But it’s not narratively satisfying.

I find myself looking at stories from two angles.  Is it realistic–can I believe that it could be real?  Yes.  But was it a good choice for the writer to make?  I don’t think so.  Maybe Katniss really would lose it completely.  But I can’t imagine why a writer would choose to have her protagonist fall to pieces for the second half of a trilogy (starting midway through book two and going on until the end).

Another problem is that we’re so removed from the rebellion in many ways.  Katniss is a symbolic leader, but she’s not a strategic leader and she only occasionally engages with real fighting.  Mostly, she’s used by the rebel leaders for PR purposes (which actually are some of the best parts, because at least she’s doing something).  In a way it makes sense, but it also traps us in the point of view someone who is only peripherally engaged in this huge sweeping conflict.

I really liked Gale.  He does develop a ruthless streak that certainly wasn’t admirable, and he doesn’t always know the right thing to say to Katniss.  He’s flawed.  But he takes an active role in the rebellion, he engages with what’s going on and understands what they’re fighting for, and he’s still trying to protect the people he loves.  There’s a scene where the community is threatened, and it’s actually Gale, not Katniss, who makes sure that Katniss’ sister is all right.  He’s still thinking straight.  Unfortunately, he’s not the protagonist.

It’s still an exciting book, and I did find it absorbing–although one reason it was a page-turner was because I was trying to get to a more satisfying part of the book, and then I never did.  I liked the grayness of good and evil, which we saw before and was even more evident now.  The character development, so good in the others, was lacking.  When new characters were introduced, they didn’t feel as vivid as similar minor characters in the first two books.

As to the love triangle.  Well.  It was resolved, but it was resolved quickly, and ultimately I didn’t find it that satisfying.  Maybe this just wasn’t the right setting for a romance.  But the first book managed such a nice balance with that, I feel like there must have been a better way to do it.

I realize that some of what I wanted from the book may be cliches.  Maybe Collins was trying to tell something really different, that didn’t follow the normal conventions of a coming-of-age story, or of a traditional romance.  But you know something?  Some devices are used a lot because they work.

I still think The Hunger Games is one of the best books I’ve read this year, and it was worth reading the other two just to find out what happened.  I just wish I’d liked what happened!

Author’s Site: http://www.thehungergames.co.uk/

Stranded with a Talking Mouse

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews1 Comment

It’s funny the books that stay with you.  I remember around about third grade (maybe, I don’t remember that part for sure) we had to do a certain number of book reports during the school year, maybe per month.  I don’t remember if I found that challenging, but I doubt it.  🙂  I also don’t remember any of the books I did for this, except one: Abel’s Island by William Steig.  For whatever reason, that one stuck.

Although I don’t think it was until I reread it last week that I made the connection–William Steig!  The one who did a bunch of picture books!  You know, Doctor De Soto and Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (and he also has the happy good fortune of being alphabetically near James Stevenson, my favorite picture book author).  Yet another advantage of revisiting childhood favorites.

By all means check out the picture books, but for now, back to Abel’s Island.  Abel is a mouse, who lives in a fairly modern society with other mice.  They have clothes and towns and jobs–although Abel doesn’t have a job himself, because his mother has money.  Abel and his wife Amanda go out for a picnic in the woods one day.  When a storm comes up, Abel is literally blown away.  He’s carried down a stream and ends up on a small island in the middle of the river.  And there he stays, unable to signal help or to build a craft which will survive the river’s current and carry him to the opposite shore.

Abel has to figure out how to survive on the island, taking care of his physical needs and, even more so, struggling to deal with his intellectual and social needs.  I suppose it’s a bit of a Robinson Crusoe story, but a lot shorter and more interesting!

I’m trying to remember what I liked best about the book when I was a kid, and it may have been the survival aspect.  Now, it’s Abel’s internal growth.  His time on the island strips away all the clutter and the defenses that society normally gives us, and forces him to really look at himself in raw honesty.  He realizes how pointless his life has been, struggles with how he’s been living, and ultimately comes to a new realization about his calling.

Pretty deep stuff for a kids book, right?  😉  It’s handled fairly lightly, but the themes really are deep and universal.  Yet another example that makes me want to throw things when people say, “oh well, I didn’t expect much depth from it–it’s a kids book.”  A talking mouse can have an existential crisis too, and do it in a way that will make it a perfectly appropriate book for a third-grader.

I won’t swear that Abel’s Island is really vastly better than all those other books I read that I can’t remember anymore.  But it’s definitely a good one, and one worth remembering.

Oh, THAT’S What the Obelisk Is!

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Science Fiction6 Comments

I’ve just finished reading the ABC of classic science fiction writers–Asimov, Bradbury and Clarke.  I’m not sure which is my favorite, although Asimov is the one I’m most likely to read more by.  For all of them, I felt I could really see their place in the science fiction canon.  It’s nice to go back and see the originals that have filtered out into the culture in references and inspirations.  Although I read novels by all three, all of them felt somewhat like short story collections.  Maybe it’s a product of being from a time when science fiction magazines publishing short stories were much more prevalent.  Anyway, I feel I have better geek cred now that I’ve read more of the classics–and also because I recently watched Firefly.

But today I actually wanted to talk about Arthur C. Clarke.  Or his novel, that is–I decided to read 2001: A Space Odyssey, mostly because I wanted to see if it made more sense than the movie.  Amazingly enough, it did!  It’s worth reading the book just for that–it’s like being handed the magic keys to unlock the secrets of this classic and utterly incomprehensible sci fi movie.

The book follows essentially the same path as the movie, beginning with primordial man, who sees a strange black obelisk one day, and then picks up a bone and discovers tool use.  But what the book tells you (and the movie doesn’t) is that the obelisk is an unmanned probe sent by highly advanced aliens who are seeking intelligent life.  They see potential in primordial man, and the obelisk actually helps him to discover tool use.

The book goes on as humanity leaps ahead to (a very advanced) year 2001, and discovers an obelisk on the moon.  The obelisk sends a message to Saturn (Jupiter, in the movie), and astronauts are sent out to see if anything received the message.  This gives us the best part of the story, as astronaut Dave battles with his shipboard computer, HAL, who seems to have gone insane.

That’s by far the most relatable part of the book.  When HAL receives a command at one point, he responds with, “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”  I think that’s been the mantra of every computer since.  I can’t do this thing I’ve always done in the past.  No, I can’t explain it.  I just can’t.  I’ve been tempted to name every computer I’ve ever owned HAL, except I feel it would be asking for trouble.

2001 has some good moments, though it certainly isn’t a perfect book.  Even though it’s about the biggest moments in human history–the discovery of tools, the discovery of alien life–there are still long stretches where nothing much happens.  In that regard, the movie is significantly worse, but it’s an issue for the book too.

If the actual events dragged at times, at least the concepts of the book were fascinating.  I don’t know if they were ground-breaking at the time.  Despite what the cover quote says, I didn’t find it all that mind-bending; I’d already encountered a lot of the concepts by way of Star Trek–advanced aliens who have evolved into noncorporal beings, unmanned probes, aliens helping other races along on their evolutionary path, a future where Russians and Americans work together in space, travel by way of wormholes.  I don’t know if either influenced the other, or if they’re just sci fi archetypes, but there were definitely shared concepts.

The book is not big on humor.  The funniest part was in the introduction.  Clarke was writing about how pervasive 2001 has become, and mentioned talking to the astronauts who were the first ones to circle around to the far side of the moon.  They told him they had considered radioing back that they were seeing a giant black obelisk, but thought it would be ill-advised…

2001 is a good book if you want to delve into sci fi’s history, and even more so if you care about finding out WHY there was a baby floating in space at the end of the movie (there really is an explanation).  I enjoyed it for those reasons, but otherwise I’m lukewarm.  Though it does give me a great framework for relating to my computer.

Author’s site: http://www.arthurcclarke.net/

A Human and Hideous Snow White

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult4 Comments

Reading A Tale of Two Castles put me in a mood to reread a favorite Gail Carson Levine book, Fairest.  Set in the same world as Ella Enchanted (and very loosely connected), this one is a retelling of Snow White.

The main character, Aza, has milky white skin, blood red lips, and coal black hair–the traditional Snow White.  Except that Levine takes this to its literal and logical conclusion.  Pay no attention to the cover–Aza is ugly.  As someone would be who had literally white skin, red lips, and black hair.  In her favor, Aza has a kind disposition, a loving family, and a magnificent singing voice.  She’s not a princess, but she ends up visiting the castle for the King’s wedding to his new bride, and finds herself caught up in intrigue–and intrigued by the handsome prince.

As with Ella Enchanted, Levine has given us a very clever, practical and creative retelling of a familiar fairy tale.  Many of the original elements are there, but reshaped.

Aza is the best part of this.  Besides the part about her appearance, she’s a wonderfully human character.  She’s not perfect, but she’s sympathetic.  She wants to do the right thing, but doesn’t know what to do in some difficult situations.  She has to find her own strength, and her own value.  She struggles a lot with her appearance, and sometimes gives in to temptations.  She’s both likable and realistically flawed.

This is definitely an excellent Snow White retelling–one of the few.  It occurred to me I hadn’t read many, and a recent search didn’t turn up much.  Anyone have a suggestion for another good retelling of Snow White?

Author’s Site: http://gailcarsonlevine.com/