Ship Breaker Hits Lucky Strike

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2010
326 p. ; 22 cm.

Like Going Bovine, this book won the Printz Award. Unlike Going Bovine, which I just didn't care for, I think this book is more likely to circulate among teen readers. My friend and I were discussing this book, and she was less positive about it than I was. We both thought that Bacigalupi was masterful at setting and atmosphere, but she felt the plot was a stretch - even for the willing suspension of disbelief required of dystopian sci-fi.

Like her, I question whether this is the best book of the year for young adults [my vote would have gone to The Curse of the Wendigo], but I thought the plotting was tight, suspenseful and would engage many readers.

Both of us agreed that the adolescent main character,Nailer, and his original crew were both interesting and strong - and that the opening scenes of the novel are really compelling. I think both of us found that the relationship between Nailer and the rich swank - Lucky Girl - he saves to be too cliche. We both thought that his moral code of crew loyalty would not have made such a quick acceptance of this girl.

I thought his father's power and evil to be overdone, and think that a more powerful ending would have had Nailer ultimately betrayed by Lucky Girl - or at least betrayed by the swanks who take her back in....alas, that might have made the novel too depressing...

Classic Yuck!

The Curse of the Wendigo by Rick Yancey
New York : Simon & Schuster BFYR, c2010.
424 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.

Yancey's follow-up to The Monstrumologist is great; I think an even better book than the first. As in The Monstrumologist there is plenty of gruesome gore and supernatural violence - bodies turn up flayed, eviscerated, and missing eyes and faces. There are basements full of green sewage and dead bodies. What raises this book above all the ick is it's finely crafted plot and superbly drawn main characters - Dr. Warthrop the late 19th century monstrumologist and his orphaned assistant are fully developed and interesting characters.

The framing of this novel, like the first one, is a clever device attributing the story to the journals of a very old, deceased William Henry - giving the novel an air of authenticity. It also benefits from many references to people and events of the period, so that it reads a bit like historical fiction - but without the dullness that genre sometimes exhibits.

Our book group at the high school just finished Stephen King's Pet Sematary - and the contrast couldn't be greater. Where King's writing is sloppy and uneven, this book was tight and elegant. I'm definitely a fan.

More Darwin, Yes!

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species: a Graphic Adaptation
Michael Keller, illus. by Nicolle Rager Fuller
New York: Rodale, 2009.
192 p.

I think I fell for Darwin after reading his Voyage of the Beagle about 15 years ago. (BTW, it's a great adventure read.) That prompted me to read several biographies of Darwin, and these only improved my admiration for him. He was a ridiculously rigorous scientist and a very humane person. I remember being especially impressed by his rather progressive attitudes toward parenting and by his generous decision to share the discovery of natural selection with Alfred Wallace - even though Darwin had arrived at his theory (though unpublished) many years before Wallace. Finally - which brings me to the book I'm highlighting here - I tried (but failed) to read all of Darwin's Origin of Species. Well, let's just say that it is not an easy read - it's labored and technical at times; after all Darwin, was trying to cross all his t's and dot all his i's - knowing how controversial his theory would be. So it was with interest that I found this "graphic novel" adaptation of the Origin of Species.

I'd recommend this book with a few qualifications. The book is an excellent introduction to Darwin's theory of natural selection. I especially appreciate how it follows the organizing structure of Darwin's work and distills its main points of evidence and argument in a clear and understandable way. The book is also colorfully illustrated and lovely to look at (that's why I've included a picture of its cover). My only complaints are that it is nearly impossible to tell what are exact quotes from the Origin of Species, quotes from Darwin's letters, or the authors own retelling. I would have appreciated some kind of key to this such as all excerpts from the letters in quotes, while excerpts from Origin in italics, or some such format. At times it was also a little confusing to tell what findings were modern contributions vs. those contemporaneous with Darwin. These complaints aside, this book is a wonderful contribution to popularizing Darwin's stunning discoveries and insights.