Honey and Dream

Bone Gap by Laura Ruby
New York, NY : Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2015.
345 p. ; 22 cm.

What a fine and unusual novel this is.  In some ways I think I should end my review here and say, "Just read it for yourself, and see."

I read Bone Gap after seeing it come up several times - a finalist for the National Book Award and a Printz Prize winner this year.  As you can see on the author's website, the book has received a great deal of high praise - and I'd have to concur.  The author both employs - and cleverly does away with - realistic narrative.  Several reviews acknowledged "magical realism," but it is more than that - dreamy, psychological and mythical.

I love that the novel is set in a town that actually exists in my home state, and yet it really only exists between the covers of the book. I also appreciate that the novel could well be a lovely little adult novel and not just a young adult novel.  It tells the story (stories) of two brothers, the likeable and unlikable characters of the town, a Polish immigrant, a kidnapping, a romance (two romances?) and the magic of love and imagination.  What more could you want from a simple, and not so simple, coming of age story.

The novel made me think a bit of Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, Master's Spoon River Anthology, and even works of Günter Grass.  If you like well written novels, with a touch of romance, mystery, magic and danger, then Bone Gap should definitely be on your to-read list.

Like _________ on Steroids

Red Rising by Pierce Brown
New York : Del Rey Trade Paperbacks, 2014.
400 p. : ill., maps ; 21 cm.

I don't know if I would have read Pierce Brown's Red Rising but for a student who recommended it to me.  This student is an exceptional reader who comes to the library, checks out a trilogy of novels (such as the Red Rising trilogy) and brings them back in three or four days - having read them all! Yes, as a middling-fast reader I am jealous.

So I had to jump into the Red Rising series when this student returned them saying, "These are the best."  Did I have a choice?

I'm glad I read Red Rising.  It is a satisfying read.  As Booklist and Library Journal note, it is in the tradition of The Hunger Games, and should appeal to fans of that series.  I especially liked the opening of the novel, where the underground mining world of the main character, Darrow, is developed.  It is a grueling and brutal world of miners on Mars, laboring to harvest an element necessary for the terraforming of the planet. The miners are the Reds, and as the novel develops we learn that world (solar system) they live in is a hierarchy of genetically modified colors dominated by the beautiful and ruthless Golds - with Reds occupying the lowest rung.

The novel quickly moves from the realm of the Reds to a story of rebellion as Darrow is secreted out of his miserable (but meaningful life) and quickly inserted into a shadowy rebellion that aims to overthrow the entire order of the Golds.  From the paced opening, the novel rushes pell-mell into high-tech, high-combat mode with genetically modified beings and a deadly competition among the young adult Golds which will allow Darrow to gain access to the highest realms of power.  And how did Darrow a Red gain access to this elite competition?  Sorry, you'll have to read the novel to find out.

There is a lot of battle violence, romance, intrigue and tight plotting that holds everything together.  But for me, I found it a bit over-the-top, reminding me of how I feel with many contemporary movies--yes, the special effects are awesome and compelling to watch, but I want more finesse and subtlety.  That criticism aside, I would definitely recommend this series to dystopian, survival, science fiction, and thriller novel fans.  It delivers.

Admit It, You Loved It

Confessions by Kanae Minato
New York : Mulholland Books/Little, Brown and Co., 2014.
234 p. ; 21 cm.

Ok, maybe I didn't love it, but it is a good read.  It's funny to see a book praised as "a nasty little masterpiece" or "the most delightfully evil book you will read this year" - but that is the verdict on this well received first-book phenom of Japanese author, Kanae Minato.    

I found the opening of the book to be slightly disorienting - the avenging teacher at the heart of this novel is addressing her students in a way that no middle school teacher would in the US, but once you get past the slightly different mannerisms of the opening, the novel quickly pulls you in and doesn't let go. The novel opens with a punch, a teacher knows that two of her young students have killed her child, and she is leaving the school - but will get even.

The novel has been compared favorably to Gone Girl, and like that novel, it presents a really nasty view of human relationships - in this case between parents and children, children and children, and teachers and children.  There's really no redeeming characters in the book, but that doesn't stop it from being well plotted and compelling.  Part of Minato's success is the shifting narrative viewpoint.  We hear the story from about six different characters' perspectives - and from each come disturbing and/or shocking revelations.

I would definitely recommend this to a student who wants to read a good murder-thriller, revenge novel.  After all it's a vile little read that you just can't put down.

Rough Cotton

The Half Has Never Been Told by Edward E. Baptist
New York : Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group, [2014]
xxvii, 498 p. : ill., maps ; 25 cm.

Read this book!  If you love history, read this book. If you want to see US history in a very new way, read this book.  If you want to have many of your assumptions about slavery and the Civil War turned on their heads, read this book.  The Half Has Never Been Told is long, complicated, riveting, and incredibly well written - read it!  For me this book brought to mind the books - Slavery by Another Name and Guns Germs and Steel - for it's power to tilt one's understanding of history and how power works.

I can't say enough about what an important and interesting book this is.  I'll be recommending it to any students who love history, and to any teachers interested in history.

Lastly, I'd be remiss not to note that I first heard of this book on a list of recommended books from Ta-Nehisi Coates who's book Between the World and Me is another book to recommend again and again!  

No Solution for X

Acceptance by Jeff Vandermeer
New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.
341 p. ; 19 cm.

This is a funny review to write.  I've written two reviews to cover book one and book two of the Southern Reach trilogy, and though I didn't love this final installment in the trilogy, there is a lot to admire and respect in the writing of the book.

In general, reviews of Acceptance have been very good, but I have to join the minority of readers who ultimately found it lacking.

As I wrote before, I really liked book one, and found book two not as compelling.  For me, book three just jumps around too much - each chapter shifts point of view to one of the characters.  I like the idea of the book ending without tying everything up, but I found myself thinking there were just too many unanswered mysteries.  Is Area X a creation of an extraterrestrial alien of some kind?  I think so... How does is transform humans into strange creatures, or clone them, or develop living words and sentences?

I think the strongest elements of Vandermeer's writing is his uncanny ability to convey the breakdown of rational thought and convey the feeling and texture of strange phenomena.  His writing about setting and emotional/psychic states can also be quite lovely.

The title of Vandermeer's last entry in the Southern Reach series seems very much aimed at his readers.  There is much about the mysterious Area X that defies reason, understanding, and answers - and we readers will just have to accept it.

Whether to recommend Acceptance to students or not, I think I will stick with my conclusion to book two.  I will let students know that I really loved book one, but that they will have to decide how far into the series to proceed.

    

Slow Creep

Authority by Jeff Vandermeer
New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.
341 p. ; 19 cm.     

Last month I reviewed Annihilation, the first book in the Southern Reach trilogy, and now I'm posting a short review of book two - Authority.

I really enjoyed the first book in this series, but I found that book two - though good - was not quite as enjoyable to me. In this novel, the pace is much slower, as we follow an investigator sent in to head up and straighten up Southern Reach, the thirty-year old research/military/intelligence installation that borders Area X - the bizarre and threatening bio-zone that featured in book one.

In spite of not finding it as compelling as the first book, it is still good and has managed to do something that few other trilogies have managed to do for me - I'm really curious to read the third and final book in the series.  If it is a great conclusion, then book two's slower pace will be well worth it, and I will recommend the whole series to students.  If book three is a disappointment, then I'll still recommend book one, but let students decide whether plowing on through to the end was worth it.

Making His World a Little Colder

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
New York : Signet Classic, [1999]
xv, 428 p. : map ; 18 cm.   

I have a soft spot in my heart for Hardy, and I've wanted to re-read Jude the Obscure for a long time - for over thirty years in fact! With some time off this winter break and a bit of travelling to do, I took Jude along with me and read it. It is a masterful novel, but incredibly bleak and depressing.  Did I mention that it is really depressing?

The plot revolves around the tragedies that strike two individuals who dare to break with the conventions of marriage and class in 19th century England. Jude of the title is a young man who is seduced by and marries a woman to whom he is physically attracted, but with whom he has nothing in common, and then falls desperately in love with a cousin who shares his passions for learning, thinking, and defying convention.  Jude is also in love with the intellectual life of the university, but finds it closed to him because of his rural, working-class status.  Throw in another marriage, an unwanted child, another lifeless marriage, and the censure of community and you have all the elements for a disastrous tragedy - and that is what Hardy gives us.

As bleak as the novel is, it really is stunningly modern, and is considered by many to be one of the great novels in the English canon.  Though Hardy is very circumspect about sexual matters - sometimes you have to re-read a section to realize that two people have been intimate with each other - he is ruthless in his dissection of the hypocrisies of religion and marriage.  They are both shown as institutions that offer little but constraint and unhappiness to individuals.

I enjoyed reading Jude again after all these years, but I'm not sure high school students would enjoy it so much, unless they are already fans of Hardy - like me!