Bookish Thoughts

Back when I first read this series, this was my favorite of the books. I was twelve, and Anne seemed so grown up. She was off at college, studying hard and figuring out what she wanted out of life. The description of Patty's Place, particularly Anne's initial conversation with Patty, has remained etched in my mind. Though I've since learned that living with your best girlfriends is not necessarily a recipe for utopia. On revisiting this book, I didn't find it quite as perfect as I remember it being. Nor quite as good as the first two. It's a bit rushed, skipping over most of the college doings in favor of catching us up on how everyone back in Avonlea is growing. And while the first two books were also basically just a series of vignettes, this one suffered by accelerating through time. Entire semesters passed in mere paragraphs, and it caused some of the relationships to get the short shrift. Then again, I'm not sure I could have stood to read any more abou...

In Alias Grace , Margaret Atwood tries her hand at historical fiction, speculating about what might have happened in the case of Grace Marks - a young maid who was convicted of killing her master and his mistress (Grace's boss) and sentenced to life in prison. The case is murky, with changing testimonies and contradictory evidence. Atwood did a lot of research to try and get to the bottom of it and tell a coherent story about what happened from Grace's point of view. The problem is that she doesn't ever seem to come to any conclusions. Grace is an enigma wrapped in lies wrapped in misdirection. Even though she told her own story in this book, I left it without any real sense that I understood who she was. Was she lying the whole time? Was she sick? Was she faking amnesia or not? Atwood chooses to leave this all up in the air, which left me frustrated. It didn't help that the book is incredibly slow. It took over a hundred pages to get to Grace's account and even...

It was sheer stubbornness that pulled me on to the end of this series. And because of that, I'm not even going to attempt the second Amber arc. But I finished it, and that feels like an accomplishment of some sort. At first I was excited that this series was comprised of such short books. Indeed, I probably wouldn't have finished this one if it had been any longer. But I bet I would have enjoyed the story a lot more had the books been longer. As it was there were so many twists and turns that came so fast I felt like I couldn't catch my breath. And then I got bored because as soon as I accepted one story it changed all over again. So why bother caring? This story needed more room to breath. There were entirely too many characters which meant that most of them got the short shrift. Plenty of relationships were stated rather than ever being explored. And given how many times Corwin had the wool pulled over his eyes, it was hard to really trust his assessments of his sibli...

If you think about this book too hard, I imagine it would all fall apart. The concept requires a pretty significant leap of faith, and the science hangs together pretty loosely. It's very far-fetched. But if you can accept the premise - people have started voluntarily ingesting tapeworms as a form of preventative health care and now those tape worms are trying to take over - then you get a fun, well-paced book with a few moments of true terror. The suspense in this book is really top-notch. The book follows Sal, who was in a car crash six years prior and miraculously woke up from her come right when her family was about to pull the plug. She has no memory of her life prior to the coma and has spent the years since as a guinea pig, as her doctors try to figure out how she made such a complete recovery. Her relationship with her family, particularly her father, is one of the best parts of the book, as they all try to navigate the new normal. But all around her people are starting...

This is easily my favorite LeGuin book yet. I don't know if that's because I'm more familiar with her work and know what to expect from her (and what is probably asking too much) or if this book really is head and shoulders above the rest (it has been argued that this is so). Regardless, it was fantastic and it made my brain buzz in all sorts of good ways. The book follows one man's journey through two diametrically opposite cultures. The chapters alternate between his life growing up on the moon Anarres, where a libertarian anarchy holds everyone equal, and his time as a professor on the planet Urras, where a highly regulated capitalism maintains strong class and gender divides. All his life he's been told that his home is a utopia, the planet a stand-in for hell. But he's not satisfied until he can see this for himself, and he wants to bring his ideals back to the planet and build a better society there. But he discovers that things aren't quite that sim...

At this point in the series there are so many lies and half-truths and shifting alliances that it's getting exhausting. No sooner do we learn what someone did and why then it's revealed that half of what they said was a lie. It's getting easier to root for Corwin, if only because he's the only character whose motivations are wholly revealed to the audience. I'm bored by these books at this point. But the ten-book series is actually two five-book series. And the next book, the last in this arc, is less than 100 pages long. So I'll finish it. Then I'll take a break and see if I care enough to try the second series. Which is about a different character and sounds like it might be about something different. And is called Trumps of Doom , which is such an appealing title right now. For now I just can't bring myself to care about Corwin and his family and whether or not they win. I want more from my fantasy. More characterization, more intricate worlds. No...

I've only read two of Isabel Allende's books, but I've already come to expect a lot from her as an author. Those two books were so good, amazingly structured and filled with fully-realized characters. I loved everyone from the protagonists to the third-string characters. Even the characters I didn't like felt like complete people, which complicated my feelings in wonderful ways. And The Japanese Lover  didn't quite measure up. I think part of it may be that she was working with a different translator. There were glimpses of the lyrical language I'd become accustomed to, but they were few and far between. But it was more than that. This book felt unfinished. It wandered and jumped didn't flow as well as I wanted it to. It tried a bit too hard to be hip to current culture in the modern-day sections (perhaps Allende should stick to historical fiction?). It felt like whole chapters were missing, chapters that would make me care more about these characters and...

There are only so many stories. Or perhaps I should say that there are only so many plots. A person goes on a journey. A stranger comes to town. Two people fall in love. You could argue that there's only one story: a person goes on a journey. You might shift the viewpoint (so he comes to town). The journey might be physical or emotional or mental. It all boils down to a person starting in one place and ending up in a different place, and the story is how they get there. When you read as much as I do, these structures become familiar, comfortable. Stories are interesting because of the details they provide, the different ways they can get you to see the world. Reading about the same people doing the same things all the time gets boring because, as I said, there are only so many stories to tell. But reading about different people doing those same things. That's how you learn and grow. The familiarity of the story makes it easier to learn about different cultures and ways of lif...

An argument could be made that all fiction is fantasy, on some level. Hell, an argument could probably be made that all writing is fantasy, but for now we'll stick with fiction. These books about Anne are often considered historical fiction. Actually, they can probably just be called fiction, since LM Montgomery was writing, in some ways, about her own life. They're books for children, morality plays in a way, though they go down a bit easier than Little Women  did. But if I were to ever formally argue that all fiction is fantasy, these books would be Exhibit A. To start with, they are Montgomery's fantasy life. The life she wishes she could have led, had she had a bit more confidence and a bit more education and a bit more luck. Her writing, and Anne's own optimism, makes it so easy to fall into this trap of believing that she lives in a perfect, idealized world. The books are comforting, the writing lovely. It's like stepping into nostalgia. Who wouldn't wan...

The Likeness  is a deliciously claustrophobic mystery that skirts up against being a ghost story. It's haunting and lyrical. It got under my skin such that I couldn't think about anything else when I wasn't reading it, and then I couldn't sleep for thinking about it. It's rare that a novel leaks into the rest of my life the way this one did, and I absolutely loved it for it. The premise requires a significant suspension of disbelief. Detective Cassie Maddox, lately of the Murder Squard but currently working Domestic Violence began her career as an undercover agent. During that time she created the persona of Lexie Madison to infiltrate a drug ring on a college campus. When she was stabbed, she got pulled out, but the identity was left live in case they needed her again. So imagine her surprise when, several years later, Lexie Madison turns up dead. With no leads, Cassie agrees to go undercover again, under very different circumstances this time. So yeah, that in...

Thief of Time  is a lot sillier than I remember it being. It's not exactly a bad thing. But I remember loving this book, and this time around I only liked it. It was fun and funny. But the past few books have had a depth that this one lacked. So I ended up feeling a bit let down. The thing this book is missing is the biting social commentary that I remember as such a hallmark of the Discworld  series. Of course, it took years for the books to evolve from the silly adventures of Rincewind to the much more hard-hitting advancement in Ankh-Morpork. They're all satire, but some of them are a whole lot lighter than others. The past few books have been heavy, though. Pratchett was tackling more complicated issues, holding that distorted mirror back up to our world and demanding that readers take a good look around. And so Thief of Time  feels like a bit of a regression. It's a good, solid book. But by Discworld standards, it is merely okay. There's a lot to like here. Su...

I've made it through the third book in the Chronicles of Amber, and it feels like this story is finally starting. More than the books that came before it, this one felt like a solid beginning. I'm finally caught up with everything that happened before the series started (I think), and I'm ready to see what happens next. Also, the book ends on a hell of a cliffhanger that has me chomping at the bit to dive into the next one. But I'm trying to hold myself back, because I can see myself easily getting sick of this series. Better to keep the anticipation ratcheted up, so I can use it's momentum to get through all ten books. As excited as I am about the third book, I should say that it's basically an extended info dump, punctuated with brief action scenes that mostly serve to keep Corwin from acting on his information prematurely. One by one, he makes his way through various family members, putting together what happened while he was suffering from amnesia and how ...

Jasper Fforde's The Last Dragonslayer  is a lot more accessible than his other books. I liked The Eyre Affair , though I get the feeling that that series requires a PhD in English to be truly appreciated. And Shades of Grey  is one of the most difficult books I've ever succeeded in reading. By comparison  The Last Dragonslayer  is positively straightforward. Which makes sense, as it was written for children. The world he creates is still absurd, a mishmash of high fantasy and modern technology that is a little too unrecognizable to really qualify as urban fantasy. But I felt like I understood most of the references this time around. It's not that his plot require that much brainpower. This is a pretty simple chosen one story about an orphan who finds out that she's the last in a long line of dragon slayers and it's been prophesied that she will slay the final living dragon. There are twists and turns, but nothing too outlandish. No, the absurdity is in the details...

I have to admit that the conclusion to this trilogy felt a little flat to me. There were definitely some good things, and I still think the series as a whole is good and tackles interesting questions with some good nuance. I even liked the actual ending of the story. But so much of this book felt like a rehash of the second one that I felt a little bored by the end of it. Once again, Tally has had her brain rewired, and once again she sets out into the wilderness where he solitude helps her figure out what she actually wants. The love triangle sort of fizzles out and the stakes are revealed to be not nearly as high as it seemed. What felt like a worldwide conspiracy is mostly confined to one city, and Tally's role shifts. She does help save the world, but it's more about preventing a war than ushering a grand revolution. Which isn't to say that the revolution doesn't happen. But it's not the complete overthrow of society that the rebels wanted. And that's pr...

I love this series so much. I'm so glad it got turned into a TV series and was brought to my attention, or I may never have heard of it. In the fourth installment, the protomolecule has opened the doors to thousands of empty, terraformed worlds. The aliens were also carbon-based, oxygen-breathing beings, so all of the worlds they created are able to sustain human life. More or less. The critters there aren't exactly edible and it's taking some work to figure out how to grow edible food in foreign soil (with all its foreign bacteria), but the vacuum of space is being held at bay and that's a big thing. With all these worlds to explore, two groups of humans naturally decide to fight over the first one they come to. Because no matter how far we go, we take ourselves with us. The refugees just want a place to call home. The scientists want to study the biosphere before it becomes contaminated. The corporations want to get their hands on the huge lithium deposits. And Ho...

I'm still torn about this series. I'll keep going, mostly because the books are so short and there's enough here to keep me interested. If nothing else, it's fun to see the things my favorite authors have taken from this series and improved on. The wry language, the periodic breaking of the fourth wall, the fluid dimensions, the god-like protagonists learning about empathy. This series contains the bones of my favorite fantasy. But it's frustrating to know how much better this could be and not see it realized. This is mostly in regards to the women in the series. We get two new female characters in this book, and while they are an improvement over the previous book (five sisters summed up as "bitches, all" and one queen who shows up just long enough to have sex with Corwin), there's still something to be desired here. First there's Lorraine, who at least manages to feel like a person. She seems to be living her life on her terms, tragic as they...