Tag: Fiction

The Secret Lives of Rabbits

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews7 Comments

I didn’t mean to do a trend this week, it just happened…and then I couldn’t resist the title.  Actually, it’s not much of a trend, because Watership Down by Richard Adams has nearly nothing in common with The Great Good Thing.  No princesses–rabbits instead.

I have a feeling the story is fairly well-known, but here’s a quick recap anyhow.  Watership Down is the story of a group of rabbits who flee their warren, led by Hazel and guided by Fiver’s premonitions.  Through a series of adventures, they establish a new warren on Watership Down.  Along the way, they tell stories about El-ahrairah, a mythical figure who resembles Brer Rabbit and is the father of all rabbits.

I enjoyed this book on almost every level.  I liked the characters, especially Hazel, Fiver and their friend Bigwig (so named for the shock of fur on his head), although many of the more minor characters were well-developed too.  The adventures, especially in the later parts of the book, were exciting ones.  And I loved reading about how the rabbits lived their lives, a mix of science and anthropomorphising.  I’m fascinated by world building and by survival in foreign circumstances, and there was a bit of both in this.

One part that did bother me (and it turns out to be the same issue as in The Great Good Thing, randomly enough) was a total lack of romance–or of much in the way of female characters, for that matter.  I’ve read few books that were this male-dominated, outside of stories set on a British Navy ship.  I love strong female characters, but I can be okay with a mostly-male world, if it feels natural.  The trouble here is, the entire second half of the book is driven by the male rabbits’ realization that they’ve started a new warren without a single female (doe), and had better do something about that if they want to survive.  It would be so easy to have a romance.  There were even a couple of nice does who had a glimmer of character, and who could have been so much more.

Now, before the objection is raised–I know, I know, they’re rabbits.  So what if they only think about does in the context of breeding?  I know–rabbits.  However, they’ve been anthropomorphised in every other way.  They have an organized society, they tell stories, they play games, they clearly have meaningful relationships between brothers or between friends, and it’s even mentioned that sometimes mating pairs are devoted to each other.  But any romance is left completely undeveloped, and we don’t even know how most of them end up pairing off.  Nor does it help that the bucks have names like Dandelion and Holly, easy to say, while the does are mostly named things like Hyzenthlay and Thethuthinnang.  It’s kind of surprising, when apparently the book started as stories Adams was telling his daughters.

Well, now that I’ve gone on about what bothered me, let me backtrack and repeat that it really is an excellent book.  I feel like it might have been more, where the female characters are concerned, but it’s not really a fatal flaw.  It’s still a good read, and well-worth exploring.

Favorites Friday: Female Characters

On By cherylmahoneyIn Favorites Friday4 Comments

I was originally going to do a post about favorite characters in general.  But then I started going through my shelves and pulling off books and I ended up with such a big stack I decided I’d better divide this up.  So, I’ll start off with favorite female characters, and get to the men another day.  This is not exhaustive–there are simply too many–but here are the first ones I grabbed in a scan of my bookshelves.

Alanna from the Song of the Lioness series by Tamora Pierce

Alanna is very possibly my favorite book character.  I think my belief that girls can do anything is due mostly to my mom, and to Alanna.  She’s a girl who wants to become a knight, in a world where girls don’t do that.  She defies the odds and does it anyway, to large extent through sheer stubbornness.  She’s strong, capable, imperfect and not always sure of herself.  And I love her.

Valancy from The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery

Valancy has been repressed and afraid her entire life; when she believes that she’s dying, she starts really living for the first time.  It’s wonderful to watch her seize life.  She’s always been dreamy and imaginative.  When she stops being afraid, she becomes witty and daring too.  Not to mention, she lives inside one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read.

Tavia from A Fighting Man of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Tavia, like Alanna, is strong and capable and doesn’t let anything stop her–be it monsters, a war, or an unwanted suitor.  She can use a sword as well as any man, and combines her strength with depth of feeling and a self-sacrificing nature.  All in all, she’s a wonderful heroine from an author who rarely gave us more than a pretty face.

Jacky Faber from the Bloody Jack series by L. A. Meyer

In some ways I think I admire Jacky less than the other characters on this list–I certainly want to shake her more often–but she’s on here because she’s just so much fun to read about.  For sheer hijinks, she can’t be beat, and I do admire her resourcefulness and “never say die” attitude.

Menolly from The Harper Hall trilogy by Anne McCaffrey

Menolly is gifted with musical talent, and she’ll do anything to write music.  I love that she takes her life into her own hands, and has wonderful adventures in the process.

Stay tuned for favorite male characters!

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/

Catching Up with Catching Fire

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Science Fiction, Young Adult6 Comments

I just finished Book Two of the enormously popular Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins.  Read my review of Book One here.  Be warned, there will be spoilers for the first book, going forward!

I enjoyed Catching Fire, and it had much of the same page-turning quality of the first book.  In fact, I was late for something because I wanted to finish reading the last chapter!  However, enjoyable as it was, it didn’t feel as strong as the first book.  My hope is that this is just the common fate of the Part Two’s of many trilogies.  The first one is new and different and introduces you to everything; the third one is the final epic battle.  The second one is doomed to be primarily a bridge between the two.

The book felt somewhat unfocused, and it may be because of everything it was trying to do, as that bridge for the trilogy.  It begins after Katniss and Peeta have returned to District 12 as the two victors of the Hunger Games.  Quite unintentionally on their part, their dual victory has become a symbol of resistance against the Capital.  The Districts are growing increasingly restless, with rumblings in some and actual uprisings in others.  The first part of the book is mostly about Katniss and Peeta’s attempt to carry on their (mostly) fake love affair, in an effort to present themselves as not at all trying to incite rebellion.  The second part of the book takes us through the 75th Hunger Games.  In the midst of it all, Katniss is still trying to choose between Gale and Peeta, and to decide if she even wants a romance with either, and to figure out how to keep the people she loves safe as the world gets even more precarious.

I think this book definitely succeeded in raising the stakes.  Between the beginnings of a revolution and the Capital’s much more targeted enmity towards Katniss, the scope of the conflicts seems larger.  The dangers feel bigger (and considering it was literally life and death before, that’s impressive).  The threats seem more far-reaching.  I never had to worry about Gale in the first book.  In the second book, anyone could be a victim.  In terms of building towards a climax in the third book, I think this book does do really well.

Catching Fire also carries on Collins’ skill at developing characters in pretty much no time at all.  We get to know some characters from the first book better, and get to meet a lot of interesting new characters too.

I was a little disappointed when it became clear we were going back to the arena for another round of the Hunger Games, because it felt too much like it would be a repeat.  In some ways it was, but it was also very different in very interesting ways–although I was hoping for more dramatic twists than actually developed.

As much as I liked a lot of the characters, I somehow liked Katniss less in this book, and I can’t quite put my finger on why.  Maybe it was that some of her reactions didn’t make her quite as sympathetic.  Maybe it was because there’s clearly something really big developing in terms of a revolution, and Katniss can’t quite seem to figure out how to engage with it, or even if she definitely wants to.  Maybe it’s that she still can’t quite commit definitely to Gale or Peeta, even though she has both time and opportunity (unlike in the first book).  Maybe it’s that she completely fails to see a clue to the twist ending that I found almost painfully obvious (though maybe that’s the author’s fault).  I still like Katniss–but something was a little bit off, and I wasn’t staunchly with her in the same way I was in the first book.  On the other hand, I might’ve liked Peeta better–except I can’t quite decide if he’s skirting too close to being too good.

I think it’s the unfocused plot and whatever it is that’s bothering me about Katniss that leads me to rank this one a bit below the first one.  But don’t get me wrong–it’s still better than a lot of other books!  I’m really hopeful for the conclusion to the trilogy.

And I will say this for Catching Fire–there’s a fantastic moment in here that is probably my favorite of the trilogy so far.  I don’t want to give it away for anyone who hasn’t read it, but for those who have–it’s the interviews with Caesar, especially Peeta’s.  Brilliant.

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