Stranded

Damselfly by Chandra Prasad
New York : Scholastic Press, 2018.
259 p. ; 22 cm.

Damselfly isn't a bad book, in fact it makes for a good escapist read, but it's not a very good novel either.  This contemporary shipwreck (airplane crash actually) remake of Lord of the Flies just feels thin to me.  The set-up is a group of about a dozen teens from an elite school plane-wrecked on a remote island in the South Pacific, where a new social order emerges as the weeks pass - an order based on manipulation, violence and emerging racial tensions (Asian Indian Americans vs. white kids).  There's also danger from a mysterious presence on the island that threaten them (we assume it's a person since it writes messages in English). If you are wondering, yes, the reader does eventually find out the identity of this threat.

It think - like many shipwreck / stranded tales - the best features are the struggles to carve out a survival against the cruel indifference of nature.  The strongest parts were when simple things like getting sick or injured are shown to be the dire situation they are when stripped of the bene that civilization offers.

In contrast, I just didn't find the battle for domination to be all that believable or interesting.  It is a short novel, and too much just gets hurried and rushed in order to squeeze in the various little (and big) character conflicts.

The novel ends with the reader wondering what will happen next. In some novels that seems like a cop-out, but for this story I thought it was a fairly satisfying end.

Ground Zero

Hiroshima by John Hersey
New York : Vintage Books, 1989, c1985.
152 p. ; 18 cm.

I had the good fortune of going to Japan this summer, part of the motivation was knowing a couple from the US who are running the World Friendship Center in Hiroshima.  They suggested reading Hersey's book - which is available online for free at the New Yorker where it was first published in 1946.

I had read the book long ago and was impressed with what a powerful and important book it is.  It tells the story of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by weaving together the stories of survivors who Hersey interviewed shortly after the bombing.  It is a terrifying retelling of the savage effects of the US bomb and on the strange and random ways that decided who survived and who did not.

Though it was written over seventy years ago, it has immediacy still.  For anyone interested in discovering what it was like to be in the Hiroshima bombing, this remains a powerful testament.

Of Course It's a Mess

Spontaneous by Aaron Starmer
New York, NY : Dutton Books, [2016]
355 p. ; 22 cm.

A bloody mess actually, because what else would you expect when living people suddenly (or should I say spontaneously) explode into a mess of liquefied body parts and fluids?   

The beginning of Spontaneous reminds me a bit of Gone by Michael Grant, in that an ordinary day at a high school becomes anything but normal with a shocking turn of events.  In this case it's when one the seniors in the school spontaneously combusts during a class.  When this is followed by many more single and multiple combustions over the course of the novel things get very crazy, and very disturbing.

I liked the first three-fourths of this novel pretty well.  The premise is a real hook for readers and by telling it all from the viewpoint of one of the smart and grim-humored characters - Mara Carlyle - the novel moves along at a raucous, albeit grotesque pace.  Of course, the government gets involved, theories of causes emerge, the town in New Jersey where it happens is first the scene of a media frenzy, and then quarantined - all the while the hapless senior class that is being afflicted by this tragedy is trying to figure out how to keep living and keep finding meaning in life.  Part of that search revolves around friendships, family, and the sweet romance between the main character and the quirky but nice young man, Dylan.

The challenge of this novel is where to go with it.  And in that I found it not as good as I hoped.  There is a bizarre character, FBI agent Carla Rosetti who by the end of the novel has gone strangely rogue.  There is a friend who's fate is a mystery - was her end a dream or did she escape or something else? There are many unanswered questions.  I didn't expect the novel to tie up all its loose ends, or have a happy ending, but it felt to me like the storyline simply got the best of the author who couldn't figure out a satisfactory ending and so let it just kind of fizzle out.

All in all, I'd recommend it to a student who wants a bizarre story and who won't mind finishing a book while still having a lot of unanswered questions.  Besides, the writing is fresh and interesting and the novel conjures up a lot of questions about mortality, meaning and how one should live in the face of imminent dangers - a parable for our own dangerous times, perhaps.

Mild Cover for Real Terror

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
Toronto, Ont. : Dancing Cat Books, an imprint of Cormorant Books Inc., [2017]
234 p. ; 21 cm.

The cover of this book doesn't prepare you for the horrors that await between the covers.  Dimaline's award winning dystopian thriller is a darn good read and I hope it will be reissued with a cover that better conveys the dangerous, terrifying world that confronts the heroes of this tale - a band of indigenous survivors and resisters who are on the move in the middle of this century when global warming has ruined the North American continent, and made Indians once again the hunted targets of white "recruiters."

The recruiters hunt Native Americans in order to bring them into the control of "schools" where they are subjected to cruel and murderous medical procedures aimed at removing their bone marrow.  The idea is that the marrow will somehow restore "dreaming" to the whites who have lost the capacity of dreaming due to the harrows of climate catastrophe.  I like the metaphoric value of the loss of dreaming, but thought it would have worked better if that loss were a symptom that led to death for the whites, since I honestly don't think a loss of dreaming would trouble people enough to hunt and kill others.  Regardless of the plot motives, the recruiters are determined, dangerous and sometimes assisted by Indigenous collaborators.  It's a horrible world. 

This book reminded me of two other disturbing, but excellent books I've read: the historically accurate City of Thieves by Benioff and the dystopian novel, The Road by McCarthy.

I really liked The Marrow Thieves and will recommend it.  It's an added plus that the author is a Metis, Canadian Indigenous author, adding to the diversity of YA collections.  As far as the cover, my main reason for wanting it different is that I'd like to see a cover that tempts more YA readers to pull this fine book off the shelf.

The Hunger Tests

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau
Boston : Houghton Mifflin, [2013]
344 p. ; 22 cm.

Ok, so my title for this post is a little cheeky, but it is hard to read The Testing and not hear many echoes of The Hunger Games.  However, Charbonneau still manages to write a pretty exciting, lethally adventurous dystopian survival tale.  In this series the young people are elites chosen for the "honor" of the annual testing that will decide who continues on to their society's only university where they will be groomed to be the future leaders of the United Commonwealth.  Unfortunately for them, they have no idea just how final some of the testing will be, culminating in a grueling survival trek across hundreds of miles of apocalyptic-war ravaged territory starting at what was - before the catastrophic wars that nearly destroyed humanity - the city Chicago (echoes of Divergent).

I think what makes this novel work is that it is well paced and plotted, and the main character is an interesting, resourceful figure (and female hero).  Like The Hunger Games, the element of trust vs. mistrust between characters keeps things exciting.

I don't think I'll read the next two installments in the series,  but I did enjoy reading The Testing and would definitely recommend it to readers wanting to continue reading exciting dystopian fiction - especially fans of The Hunger Games.

Taste of Ashes

Ashes by Ilsa Bick
New York : Egmont USA, 2012.
465 p. ; 21 cm.

This book continues my trend of generally not being a big fan of zombie or zombie-type books.  I found it interesting enough, and readable - but I never got lost in the book, neither in the plot or in the characters.

Ashes, in a nutshell, tells the story of Alex, the teen protagonist who is recently orphaned and suffering from a terminal brain tumor when the novel begins.  She is out hiking in a remote area of Michigan when massive electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) sweep the planet - killing billions and essentially destroying modern civilization as we know it.  Additionally, the EMPs turned nearly all teens into vicious zombie-like hunters who are fast and smart.  For a good plot refresher, take a look at Bick's website where she recaps Ashes for those about to start in on book 2, Shadows.  

To me, the novel is essentially a teen adventure / romance / melodrama melded onto a post-apocalypse nightmare world with lots of danger, gruesomeness, and skin of the teeth getaways.  If you like that sort of thing, then I think you'll love Ashes.  If not, you'll be like me and think, "Ok, that was entertaining, but I don't think I'll read books 2 and 3."

I Think I'll Skip the Movie

Yellowstone River

The Revenant by Michael Punke
New York : Picador, 2015.
262 p. : maps ; 21 cm.

Given that the movie version of this book was critically acclaimed, I decided to give it a read.  I'm glad I did.   It's not a great book, but it is a good one.  Punke has taken the mostly true story of Hugh Glass, an 1823 frontiersman, and fictionalized it into a solid revenge and survival tale.

I found The Revenant a compelling read, hard to put down, as Glass manages to survive harrowing experience after harrowing experience.  Beginning with his near fatal mauling by a grizzly to his almost being killed in an ambush toward the end of the novel, Glass is a fascinating figure - damned to experience shocking pains and injuries, and yet charmed in that he always walks away from them a survivor.  The revenge aspect was less interesting to me.  Part of what fuels Glass' survival is his determination to live and bring retribution to the men charged with watching over him, who instead robbed and abandoned him.  It's not a noble pursuit, but it feels realistic.

Along the way, there is some subtle and fascinating changes in Glass' attitudes about satisfying his desire for revenge.  But the power of the novel lies in Glass' remarkable skills, grit and ability to make quick and risky decisions that ultimately save his life.

The movie on the other hand, seems to have opted to bump the violence levels up several notches and to make revenge and gore the heart of the film - "pain porn" one reviewer calls it.  I think that's too bad, since in a more compassionate director's hands the film really could have wrestled with the troubled spirit of the frontiersmen and the ultimate emptiness of revenge attained.  That is at the heart of Punke's novel and is why I'll stick with the book and let others suffer through the film.    

Sol Man

The Martian by Andy Weir
New York : Crown Publishers, [2014]
369 p. : maps ; 24 cm. 

There should be two genres - science fiction and scientific fiction, with scientific fiction being fiction that is so  steeped in science and so close to the near-future of actual science that it reads like contemporary fiction.  If so the The Martian would be an amazing example of scientific fiction.  At times while reading it, I found myself forgetting that humans have never actually set foot on Mars - only probes and rovers. 

This novel is a great bit of exciting story telling.  It follows the adventures of one astronaut stranded on Mars when his crew abandons  him, firmly convinced that he is lost and dead.  The novel unwinds a modern survival tale - how will he even survive long enough on such a hostile planet, and will earth based efforts to rescue him be successful. 

It is an amazing feat that the author takes what could be a very boring scenario and turns it into a wild adventure, a thrilling live or die race to the end. 

The details are so meticulous (and interesting) that I often felt like I was reading a fictionalized version of actual events.  Reviews compare it to Robinson Crusoe and Apollo 13 - not a bad analogy.  If you like a good, gritty, unpredictable survival/or almost survival tale with lots of fascinating details about living on a bitterly cold planet that has almost no atmosphere, then you'll love this novel.  I did!

BTW, a Sol is the term NASA uses to describe one Martian day.

Abduction is So Romantic, or Is It?

Stolen by Lucy Christopher
New York : Chicken House, [2013], c2010.
299 p. ; 21 cm. 

This 2011 Printz Honor book started out strong for me - a teenager meets a slightly older, attractive guy in a Bangkok airport, flirts with him, gets drugged, hustled off, and drugged some more, finally waking up his captive in a totally isolated homestead in the barren Australian outback.

I liked the beginning of Stolen, as the victim, Gemma, terrified that her abductor is eventually going to assault and murder her, begins assessing her odds of resisting, escaping, etc., and tries to deal with the extreme loneliness and fear that gnaws at her.  In addition to being young and vulnerable, she is thousands of miles away from family and friends and surroundings of her hometown of London, and in an intensely isolated and unforgiving environment.

For me the weakness of this novel is that it wants to be both a thriller/survival tale and also a love story - as the victim comes to deeply care for and admire her captor.  I just don't think the transition works.  The shift in the main character's attitude toward her kidnapper is fairly abrupt.  Around about 2/3s of the way through the book - right after her keeper saves her from dying of exposure in the desert sun during an attempted escape, she suddenly starts being easy with him.  Waking him from a wildly screaming dream he's having about being taken himself as a child into foster care - Gemma suddenly starts chatting with him about the stars, and is entranced with his glorious painting project that fills one of the outbuildings he has constructed.  The novel then rapidly unwinds and concludes with an ending that has Gemma getting back to her family ( I don't want to give too much away).

I couldn't help thinking how it would have been fascinating if this were actually two novels.  One, a story of survival with an abductor who Gemma has to figure out in order to outwit and outsmart - and maybe doesn't triumph.  I picture the other novel being a romance between a Gemmalike character and a quirky, artistic, iron-willed man who she runs away with - only to find herself increasingly cut off and isolated, yet also coming to admire and love his wild determination... Instead, I felt a bit like I was reading a Harlequinesque seduction fantasy where the handsome, misunderstood, dark stranger really does sweep the heroine off her feet (and into a trunk and into a rustic prison in the outback...oooh, soooo romantic - not.)

Clearly I'm in the minority in not thinking this was an absolutely fantastic novel - after all it was a Printz honor book, and a short glance at reviews on Goodreads will reveal how well-loved Stolen is (including this rave review by YA author, Maggie Stiefvater

Ka-Boom!

Ashfall by Mike Mullin
Terre Haute, IN : Tanglewood, c2010.
466 p. ; 22 cm.

The picture at the top of this post should give you pause.  Yellowstone Park [shaded in green], the US national treasure of hot springs, geysers, mountains, lakes and wildlife is basically the crater - or caldera [large red boundary] of an incredibly massive supervolcano that last had a major eruption about 640,000 years ago.  Ok, 640,000 years ago is a long time, but the problem is that it will erupt again in the future - probably not in our lifetimes (but it could).   It is the unlikely, but theoretically possible event of such a nation-shattering (about 2/3 of the US would be significantly damaged) and world-altering volcanic event that starts Mike Mullin's first novel off with a bang.

The novel is set far away (hundreds of miles) from Yellowstone,  - in Iowa - but not far enough away to escape the devastating noise, ash and ejecta of the eruption.  The event creates a cataclysmic environment through which the hero of the novel - 17 year old Alex - seeks to survive as he heads east toward Illinois where his family is.  His ordeal through this landscape - one that brings to mind Cormac McCarthy's The Road -  forms the plot of this thrilling novel.

As you might imagine this new, altered world brings out the best and definitely the worst in people and institutions that Alex is exposed to.  A bright spot is his joining forces with a remarkable young woman, Darla, whose skills and courage help Alex survive.  Not surprisingly the two eventually fall in love, in a rather believable, and touching way. 

The novel should appeal to all kinds of readers.  There is disaster, survival, action, romance, and some gritty violence and tragedy.  I really appreciated how Mullin allows his novel to really delve into the complex ways that individuals and institutions can trend toward good - and definitely toward evil in situations of grave social disruption.  I could easily recommend this book.  We also recently acquired the sequel - Ashen Winter.