Tortured to Life

The Madman's Daughter by Megan Shepard
New York, NY : Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2014.
420 p. ; 21 cm.

On a positive note, I'd say that The Madman's Daughter is creative and kind of fun to read.  It also made me want to read H. G. Well's The Island of Dr. Moreau.  But beyond that the novel didn't really didn't hit the target for me.

Shepard reimagines the story of Dr. Moreau from the vantage point of a character she creates, Juliet, the 16-year-old daughter whom Moreau abandoned to the harsh fate of being an orphan in Victorian England.  Juliet finds her way to the island in the South Pacific where her father is carrying out his hideous operations aimed at creating humans from animals.  But, as the positive Booklist review notes, "this is a romantic-triangle book first and foremost, as Juliet trembles, blushes, and heaves her bosom at both Moreau's hunky assistant and a dashing castaway." I didn't mind the romance but it just was overwrought for my tastes.  Combined, with the rather ludicrous animal-human metamorphoses that occur at the end of the novel, I at times just felt like the novel was silly, rather than thrilling.  For me that is too bad, because I think if it had been toned down a bit, it would have been both exciting, romantic, and thought-provoking.

However, I still would mention it to a student looking for some kind of romantic, thrilling adventure with a bit of the grotesque and science fiction thrown into the mix.

Yeah, I'm Scowling

Scowler by Daniel Kraus
New York : Ember, 2014.
289 p. ; 22 cm.     

I wish I could say I liked this book - I really do.  It's supposed to be a devilishly good Midwestern Gothic tale. It is an intense, twisted, psychological horror story of human depravity and domestic violence - which just didn't move or captivate me.

It's an odd tale of a 19 year old young man who at age ten survived his father's attempts to kill him after beating and torturing his wife.  Unfortunately for us and for the young man, his psyche is a twisted bin of delusions, violence, sexual frustration and anger - embodied in his three vividly imagined "living" playthings - a bear, a little Jesus, and a toothy, vile looking toy with very sharp edges - yep, Scowler.  All of this comes exploding to the fore when there  are the surreal impacts of several small meteorites in rural Iowa where this tale takes place.  This cosmic event breaks open the prison where his father is being held - setting him free to come after the family again, and plants a weirdly magnetic and never cooling meteorite on the farm where the family lives.

There were times as I read it that it just felt sordid and creepy.  I'm okay with dark and violence, but for me it has to have more than the goal of just entertainment or creating the "ick" factor (which this book definitely does).  However, I think I'm in the minority in my lack of enthusiasm for Scowler.  The book has received many rave reviews (check out the book's official page), and is popular with those wanting mature and gruesome horror tales.

It's not a book I'll be pushing, but if someone finds it and likes it, that's okay with me.

A Graphic Novel Becomes a Graphic Novel

Octavia Butler's Kindred: a Graphic Novel Adaptation by Damian Duffy and John Jennings
New York : Abrams Comicarts, 2017.
vi, 240 p. : chiefly col. ill. ; 25 cm.

Almost two years ago, I read Butler's novel Kindred for the first time, and as I noted then, I loved it.   Therefore, about a year ago, I was excited to learn that two comics artists [Damian Duffy who lives in Urbana and John Jennings who used to live here] were in the middle of creating a graphic novel version of Butler's classic.  

If you are unfamiliar with Butler's novel, its hero is a black woman in the 1970s who finds herself suddenly dragged back in time to the antebellum enslaved world of Maryland - where she becomes tangled up with slaves and enslavers that are family connections from the past.  It is a brutal and dangerous world which she quickly has to figure out as she bounces back and forth from present to past.

Duffy and Jennings faced great challenges converting the novel to a graphic novel format, but they really have outdone themselves - and the reception to their work has been extremely positive - landing them on the NYT bestseller list.  With shifting uses of color and skilled condensing of narrative, they have preserved the power of Butler's work, while opening it up to a new generation of readers and fans of graphic novels.

The publisher Abrams has a nice page web page for the novel - allowing you to see samples of the gorgeous artwork of Duffy and Jennings.

This is a work that I will definitely be recommending.

Violent, Unbelievable - That's History

Samurai Rising by Pamela Turner
Watertown, MA : Charlesbridge, [2016]
xiii, 236 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm

This book had great reviews in VOYA (and other places, too - like the NYT and SLJ).  I had not yet read it, when student asked if I had anything in history to recommend.  Ah ha! I handed him Samurai Rising, and he brought it back several days later saying it was the best thing he'd read in a while.  There's nothing like a student's glowing review to bump a book up to the top of my "to-read" list.

Things I liked a lot about this book:  It's a history - 1160 to1190 in Japan - that I know almost nothing about.  It's well researched with copious notes.  Finally, it's written to be an adventurous, exciting read.

The book is pretty violent - as were most Samurai battles.  There are lots of scenes of hand-to-hand combat with swords, arrows, daggers and copious amounts of blood and corpses.  Strangely, though the violence does not seem gratuitous, as Sarah Miller notes in the NYT review, "Heads topple, limbs are severed, arrows pierce eyeballs, yet these facts are relayed cleanly and directly."

I also appreciated that the author provides an afterward explaining how she made decisions in recreating  the world of the main hero, Minamoto Yoshitsune, even though much of the historic record is sparse.  It's a great insight for students into thinking historically - and creatively.  Finally, I'd be remiss not to praise the illustrations of Gareth Hinds.  His drawings are bold, skillful, uncluttered and yet convey action, emotion and the stately nature of the story being told (the cover graphic at the top is an excellent example of his art).

I was a little stunned to see one review list this as for readers aged 10 - 14.  That would be a very precocious 10 year old! This book should satisfy any high school reader, and frankly I think a lot of adults (myself included) would enjoy this biography.
  

Too Sunny, but It is the Sun!

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
New York, N.Y. : Dial Books, an imprint of Penguin Group, 2014
371 p. ; 24 cm.

This is a book that won me over.  Thirty or forty pages in, I was thinking, "It's just too overwrought; the writing is trying too hard." However, by the time I finished it, I was lost in it, and - honestly - kind of sad to be done with it.  Nelson achieves something that is very hard to do: the writing style captures the inner and emotional life of the narrator's point of view - and does this with two alternating narrators. Additionally, her novel manages to be interesting, thoughtful, emotional, and at times, truly profound.

I told a friend that I had really enjoyed I'll Give You the Sun, and they said, "What's it about?" I ended up saying things like,  "It's about a family falling apart.  It's about the passion for art.  It's about the secrets people keep.  It's about making art.  It's about falling in love.  It's about coming of age.  It's about death." So you get the idea.  There's a lot to like about this book.

I recommend checking out Jandy Nelson's web page, where you can see all the crazy praise that her book has received, and - what I loved best - take a look at the "Gallery" to see some of the art and hard work that inspires this novel.

This is definitely a book I'll be pointing students to. And yes, that is a hanging preposition!

    

Swoosh!

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2014]
237 p. ; 22 cm.

One advantage of being home sick is getting around to reading books that were on my backlist.  The Crossover is one of those, and it helped that I mentioned it a few weeks ago to a student, who told me he liked it.    

The Crossover is a "novels in verse" which I'm not as taken with as some readers are, but Kwame Alexander's novel received such glowing praise and awards - including  the prestigious Newbery Award and honors from the Coretta Scott King Awards - that I felt I had to read it.

I have no complaints about the book.  Alexander dazzles with his lively poems and energetic vocabulary and style.  The narrative of the book - involving twin brothers who are very young basketball phenoms - is exciting, fascinating, filled with sports and family drama, and is unpredictable.  What more could you want?

Really my only gripe is that the book is pretty young for a high school audience.  It feels VERY middle school - including the one twin brother's utter incomprehension that his other brother is more interested in romantic love than in hanging out with him! I guess I'll still recommend the book, but just mention that the main characters are middle schoolers, not high schoolers.