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book lists

20 Dec 2009

Best Reads of 2009 – Part I

Here is the first installment

of the books I read this year

that I liked the best.

Unlike previous lists,

these are in order.

(Suspense!)

10. It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita by Heather Armstrong

My husband has great hair, but even more impressive than that, he has impeccable taste in socks.

I am the creepy stalker lady who will flip back through the archives of a stranger’s blog, if that stranger is the right combination of Talented, Interesting, and usually Funny. You probably don’t need me to tell you that Armstrong, the writer of Dooce.com, is all of those things. And reading this book, a memoir of her first child and subsequent mental breakdown, is exactly like taking a long trip down Dooce’s archives, except it’s narrative, which makes it better, and it’s paper and has two covers.

I’m not even 25, but I have to smother my biological clock with a pillow at least once a week so the tick-tick-tick-babies-babies-babies won’t drive me insane. Reading tell-all Mommy Memoirs is a consequence free way to indulge my urges. So in essence, this book = interesting, funny, indulgent. Another book you’ll want to drink down from start to finish as soon as your hold comes in from the library.

9. The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry

Once upon a time there was a family named Willoughby: an old-fashioned type of family, with four children.

This book charmed me. It was my second to last book off the syllabus, and I had this big stack of shiny new books waiting for me… oh, I could taste them, they were sitting on the shelf, taunting me, all the books I hadn’t had time to read for three months… but I forgot all about them. This book was so completely charming.

I think that’s one of those buzz words you’re supposed to avoid in book reviews, or so says one of my esteemed professors, who has done her time as a professional reviewer. Charming. So let me be a little more specific.

The Willoughbys are an old-fashioned family. Old-fashioned things happen to the four Willoughby children, like when a baby is left on their doorstep. Or like when their parents decide they no long want children, so they run off to Europe and leave their children in the care of a tough-minded, kind hearted nanny named Mary Poppins. Oh wait, her name is just Nanny. They leave the baby in the care of the reclusive millionaire who lives in an impressive mansion, paid for by his successful candy business.

So really, “goofy” might be a good word. “Satirical,” would be another, but not really a fun word. “Clever.” “Hilarious.”

I really just like “charming,” though.

8. Love Is the Higher Law by David Levithan

My first thought is: My mother is dead.

I have already written a brief review of this book, so instead, I will tell you a little story.

Last summer, my mom and I took the bus down to Chicago to see the vendors at ALA’s national conference. It was free, it was a fun little library road trip. And mostly, I wanted to troll for ARCs. I found this one and read it on the bus ride back to Michigan. It took me a few hours. I put the book down and sighed. The lady across the aisle from me asked me how it was. I said something about it being good, being sad, or something. She read the back of the book, said something about how she didn’t know he had one out, and I said I didn’t know either. And then I told her to keep it, because we’d grabbed two – one for me, one for Caroline.

Fast forward a few months. It’s Cybils nomination time. I like the Cybils, in theory, but holy goodness why must we nominate EVERY BOOK WRITTEN IN AN ENTIRE YEAR, especially because the underdogs never seem to win. Oh, but that never stops me from joining in the fun. I took a brief glance through my Read Along At Home Guide and thought surely every book I’d read that I thought was halfway good was already nominated.

Until my eyes landed on Love is the Higher Law. Oh snap! Must nominate!

Fast forward some additional months. There’s an incoming link to my blog, from the Cybils blog. Oh, they’ve linked to me, because I’ve nominated a title. How nice. Oh, and they’ve started reviews. I wonder what the reviewer thought about the book? Does it really stand a chance?

So here’s what I found.

Just read the first paragraph.

I’m glad she liked it as much as I did.

7. & 6. The Hunger Games and Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games) by Suzanne Collins

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.

Don’t you love when a book gets loads of hype, and it’s actually a good read? I do.

For the 2% of the planet who hasn’t read these already, Katniss Everdeen is a 16-year-old girl living in District 12, the poorest of the “states” that now make up a post-disaster US. Most of the people here work in the mines, but the work is dangerous. Katniss’s father died there, leaving her to help provide for her mother and younger sister. When she can, she sneaks past the electric fences that surround District 12, leaving the community to hunt game in the woods. It’s illegal, but she’s good at it – her father taught her how to set traps, track prey, and shoot a bow and arrow – and it’s lucrative. But not always. One year, Katniss buys 20 tessera – extra rations of food and oil – from the government, but it’s at a high price. Every year, to remind the Districts of the dangers of rebellion, the government draws the name of one boy and one girl from each District to compete in an epic, televised battle to the death.

Every child gets one entry, but every tessera costs you one more.

But when it comes time for The Reaping, Katniss isn’t selected – it’s her little sister Prim.

Gah!

Okay, is that enough to get you to want to read the book?

How about this:

My mom listened to it on audio, brought it home and said “Read This.” I gave it to Lance, my 24-year-old boyfriend. He listened to it and said “READ THIS NOW!”I read it: I thought the first 50 pages or so were slow, but after that I couldn’t put it down. Then my 13-year-old sister read it while my family was vacationing at my grandpa’s house. By the time they all came home, Caroline, my 16-year-old sister had read it and so had my DAD. My dad who once told me that YA was just “stories about teenagers where you throw in a swear once in awhile to get a rise,” or something to that effect.

So if you fit into any of those categories, you will like these two books. The sequel, in my opinion, was just as good as the first installment. Thanks to my CHL buddy, Elena, I got to read it before November (that’s how long my hold took to come in). And yes, we both have the release of number 3 on our calendars.

8.24.2010. You might as well write it down too.

Come back tomorrow for THE TOP FIVE!

books

22 Oct 2009

Phillip Hoose

Phillip Hoose is a nonfiction author of eight books for children and adults. He lived in Indiana, has a degree in Forestry and Environmental Science from Yale, is a founding member of the Children’s Music Network, and now lives in Portland, Maine. He just got married and bought a house with a view of the Atlantic. He is also National Book Award nominee for 2009- his second time being honored.

Mr. Hoose spoke to my class yesterday, after we’d read all of his books, and it was really great to chat with him about his books, about writing, and about what it’s like to be a career writer in such a rapidly changing world. His editor also joined our conversation.

Some things I learned:

Although a sensational story might seem like an easy path toward a successful book, topics such as racial injustice and other “finger-pointing” stories are shyed away from in the publishing world. This was the case with his book Necessities, which was a commercial failure, but an AWESOME, saddening book about racial issues in sports.
Mr. Hoose chooses his books based on the story he can tell – it has to be personally compelling, important to children, and fairly untold. For his latest title, he learned about Claudette Colvin and was immediately interested in her story – she was a teenager when she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus, was sent to jail, and later testified in the seminal Supreme Court case, Browder vs. Gayle. But she’s not a hero. In fact, nobody had heard of her. According to history, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, not Claudette Colvin. Hoose was interested in the woman’s bravery as a teenager and how her story was lost over the years, from her point of view.
The tenets of writing great nonfiction is the same as writing great fiction, in Mr. Hoose’s eyes. Strong characters, interesting problems, and important relationships. His editor agreed. When asked if, when researching stories for his history text, We Were There, Too!, he chose some stories over others, he answered, “I am only interested in narrative tension.”
His writing process starts a little like this: What is my thesis and what kind of stories and format can sell this thesis? His first book, Hoosiers, started off dry and journalistic, but when he decided to tell his story in stories, anecdotes, and narratives instead of essays, he managed to convince even some of our sports-hating classmates that yes, Indiana basketball is crazy and amazing.
He emphasized writing about topics you are passionate about, but from our discussion, I interpreted this comment a little differently than you might think. I don’t think you – or Mr. Hoose – should write only about things you love in your life. I don’t need to write a book about baking or reading or Arrested Development or whatever. It seems that Mr. Hoose chose a topic that touched his life in some way, and sometimes the research inspired the passion. Or sometimes, the passion lies in the book’s larger implications in the world – he admitted that We Were There, Too! was a very difficult book to write but he was passionate about providing a historical narrative for young people in society, which is why he wrote it. You can be passionate about a person’s story, passionate about conservation, or just passionate about opening discourse on a certain topic. Yes, you need passion, but it need not be something you are ALREADY passionate about.
It’s hard to get ahead writing nonfiction for children. All of chidren’s literature is very award-driven. If only 10 or so books can be awarded any large honor in a year, hundreds of other books then go under the radar. And nonfiction is even worse. At the National Book Award ceremony in 2001, Hoose said he met his nominators and they acted as if nominating his book was a very bold move on their part. His reaction? It was a great book, whether or not they were ‘bold’ enough to nominate it, and why didn’t it stand a chance of winning.
His most commercially successful book is his only picture book, Hey, Little Ant!. He wrote it in an hour with his nine-year-old daughter, Hannah, and it has sold over a million copies.

Mr. Hoose is remarkably grounded and humble for his recent success, but not afraid to challenge the book-world, discussing how it sometimes fails many authors. He is anti-Kindle. He is a mix of creative and business-saavy that is probably a marker of a successful author. Even though we imagine authors as dreamy and devoted, offering pithy sentiments about stories and characters and blah-blah-blah. He wasn’t like that at all. He didn’t have answers to some of our questions, because he’s too busy writing and researching to sit around and analyze his own work.

Phillip Hoose’s website

It’s Our World, Too is a collection of true-life child activists, both from history and today. It also includes a handbook for how young people can start a revolution social change themselves.

We Were There, Too! is almost an alternative history text, covering Christopher Columbus all the way to the present, featuring so many interesting stories about kids. It was spurred by a girl telling Hoose that she felt like she wouldn’t even be a person until she turned 20, or so, because anything she did would never be in a history book. This is almost a reference text, and would be a great gift for a brainy elementary schooler who is a budding history buff – or just one you’d like to persuade into becoming a history buff. This was a National Book Award nominee and featured a blurb from Studs Terkel.

The Race to Save the Lord God Bird is a book about extinction – in particular, the extinction of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. The book follows the bird’s history back to our nation’s start, and slowly unfolds the various ways that humans revered and abused the bird to its probable extinction. Really good book, even for those not interested in birds or conservation. A Boston Globe – Horn Book Award winner.

Phillip Hoose is the cousin, once removed, of Don Larsen, who pitched a perfect game in the 1956 World Series. Perfect, Once Removed is Hoose’s memoir of his childhood as a baseball addict who was crappy at baseball, an admirer of his distant cousin, and growing up in suburban Indianapolis. Think A Christmas Story, with the humor but not bawdy humor, and if the movie was called A Baseball Story.

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice is a biography of an unsung civil rights hero – a teenage girl who was thrown in jail for refusing to give up her bus seat, but who fell out of history books all together. Although civil rights books have been done and done again, this book gives a fresh perspective by including actual commentary by Colvin herself, presenting her teenage-girl perspective, and really showing both sides of Jim Crow in a way that gives the civil rights leaders a respect I never saw, even reading more seminal texts on the historical period. A National Book Award Nominee for 2009.

book reviews

08 Sep 2009

Liar by Justine Larbalestier

Okay, this book messed with my head. I thought I had it figured out, had Micah, the narrator, figured out. And then on page 200 or so, I really did not, and just lost more and more of my grasp on this book’s reality as the pages flew by. And yes, they flew. I should have known with a story told my an admitted compulsive liar… IN A BOOK ENTITLED LIAR! But no, this book was too smart for even me.

I do NOT want to tell you much about this, so I will reccomend you pick up this book if:

– It’s been awhile since someone REALLY screwed with your mind

– You’re into a little grit: dirty, NYC streets, whodunitmurdermystery grit

– You liked Twilight but not in a 13-year-old-girl oooohI’minLovewithEdwardCullengoshILoveRomance kind of way, but just… a different kind off way. I can’t explain it.

– Unreliable narrators turn your crank

– You have a day or two at your disposal to carry a book around with you and read at traffic lights and bus stops and while you sit in the car in the rain and wait for AAA to come jump your car. Again.

This book knocked my socks off.

Justine Larbalestier online {fun fact that everyone knows: she’s married to Scott Westerfeld of Pretties&Uglies&Specials fame} | Buy it on Amazon

P.S. Some more stuff everyone knows: This book’s cover has caused a big fat hubbub. The original cover (the one on my ARC) had a girl who looked kind of Asian, or white, with long straight hair. Micah is definitely African American, so everyone was like “Oh, no! Racism!” and then they got a new cover! And I’m not sure what I think about that. It’s upsetting that you can’t put a black young lady on the cover of a book if you want it to appeal to those who aren’t black, but it might be true, so maybe the false cover would have done the greater good of putting a book about a black young lady in the hands of those who aren’t black? However, why didn’t they just take the bitchin’ Australian cover instead?

Maybe I’m culturally biased. I did just have some tasty Australian-style yogurt this morning.

book reviews

21 Apr 2009

me & jessica d

The year is 2001. I am a newly minted high school junior. I have a driver’s liscence and a car. I have two inseparable best friends. I have just quit my oppressive library shelving job as well as the tennis team. After seeing a book cover in a few magazines of choice – I am REALLY into magazines – I hunt it down and read it.

And am face to face with myself.

Jessica Darling lives in rural New Jersey.

I lived in rural New Jersey for thirteen years!

Jessica Darling is positively DISTRAUGHT when her best friend moves and leaves her, connected by letters.

I was left by my best friend, and we corresponded for years.

Jessica Darling is sarcastic, witty, and such a cynic.

I am sarcastic, occasionally witty, and despite my best efforts, remain a cynic!!

Jessica Darling is a Brain in a school full of idiots.

I am going to graduate valedictorian, and have been referred to by more than one classmate as That Smart Girl!!!!

Jessica Darling’s middle name is Lynn.

SO IS MINE!!asdkrjek!!!!!

Sloppy Firsts is about Jessica Darling, a high school sophomore whose best friend, Hope, has moved to the Midwest after her brother dies of a heroin overdose. Jessica is left alone, friendless except for a crew of bubbly, backstabbing cheerleaders and Scotty, her two-week-8th-grade boyfriend who still holds a candle. Her parents wish she was more like her older – and more vapid – sister, she hates the track team but runs every night to fend off insomnia, and she’s so stressed her period has left the building. Only a strange relationship with the class druggie/man-whore – and best friend to Hope’s deceased brother – soothes her nerves, while simultaneously threatening any life-balance Jessica has left.

I fell in love with the book hard and fast. I had my own copy by Christmas. I could tell you the publication date for the second book. When I stumbled across Megan McCafferty’s professional bio on her website, I was stunned to find a snippet from my own, imagined CV: a high achieving student, working as a magazine editor and writer for YM ( I think), Cosmo, until she decided to write crossover books for teens and adults.

So I did what any fan-girl at the cusp of the Internet-era would do: I sent her an email expressing my admiration for her work, my uncanny similarities to her book’s heroine, and asking her career advice.

I was stunned when I got a personal response. The author of my Newfound Favorite Book wrote ME an email! She gave me sound career advice that I did not take (go to New York to get into publishing, or whatever city will support your job choice – much more important than your particular major), and although I am GLAD I did not pursue my high school career fantasies of Being Megan McCafferty, I still remember that email fondly.

Fast forward to the summer of 2003. Jessica (me, not Darling), is about to graduate. She has one less best friend, a long distance boyfriend, a college scholarship, a minor part in her school musical and enough stress to sink a few ships. Instead of waiting for the library to stock the sequel, Jessica drives herself to the bookstore and secures her very own copy of Second Helpings, and digs right in.

Second Helpings: Having determined that her ill-fated “relationship” with Marcus was a Huge Effing Mistake, Jessica Darling hopes to spend the rest of her life avoiding him – starting with a summer writing program and ending when he fails to show up to the first day of Senior Year. Instead, Jessica struggles to make her college choice – go with her parent’s wishes to keep her out of a post 9-11 NYC or sneak into Columbia? But when Marcus returns just in time to make friends with her new boyfriend, she can’t avoid Marcus – or her feelings – any more.

One thing I love about this series is the intentional throw-back feel of the narrative. Ms. McCafferty has stated that she wanted to write a book that felt like a John Hughes movie, and guess what? This girl likes John Hughes movies. The ending of Second Helpings is just as magical as any 80’s classic in a way that is so-romantic, it can only be found in teenage life.

There was a long haul between books 2 and 3, but worth the wait. Jessica was finishing her final week of her third collegiate year, hanging on by the slightest of threads. There were two concerts to perform at. There were papers to stay up all night writing. There were exams to kill her off. She would be leaving for a weeklong writing course on an island in the middle of Lake Michigan. And there was a boyfriend she had broken up with, but hadn’t left behind. Somewhere in there was the release date for Charmed Thirds. Shortly before this whole debacle, Jessica and her soon-to-be-estranged boyfriend went to her local independent bookseller to procure a copy, only to find out they’d never heard of the series and of course had not purchased any copies.

Uhhhhh……

So exams happened. She made it until Thursday afternoon, where she sat at her desk at work and made plans for the evening – it was a gorgeous day, and she was DONE! There would be drinking, she thought. She would be going out to the bar for one last night with her ex-boyfriend and some mutual friends. He was not returning to school the next year. Of course she would go out with him.

She emailed him about the plans, and he showed up fifteen minutes before the end of her shift.

“Wanna go to Midland?” he said.

“What for?” she asked.

“So you can go to Barnes and Noble and get that book you wanted.”

Well that’s certainly one way to a girl’s heart.

It was all a charming ploy to get back into her good graces, she realized later, as he suggested they also take in a matinee showing of Stick It, but it worked. She had her book. She read it mostly while on Beaver Island, when she wasn’t busy mulling over her boyfriend dilemmas, writing short-short stories about lighthouses, or napping with her forehead up against a van’s window. When she went back for a re-read, long after reuniting with the boy, she counted 5 dead gnats squished upon the pages.

Charmed Thirds is probably my favorite volume of Jessica Darling’s life. Marking a departure from the usual format – Jessica only writes during her school-breaks – as well as the familiar high school landscape, this is a book about growing up and finding your own way. Her collegiate adventures are varied – an internship that seemed perfect but turns out to turn her stomach, how to be a long-distance girlfriend to someone who doesn’t have a history of keeping it in his pants, and how to find friends and security in a city that would rather you have neither? Can you come out of college ahead, even if you’ve lost everything you thought you wanted?

The last chapter of this book brought me to tears. Granted, I was going through a similar College Relationship Struggle, but when I read it again, when the waters had cleared somewhat, I cried again.

August 2007. Jessica is a newly minted college graduate, and has just found a Real World Job (albeit part time). Things with her boyfriend are getting rocky again – oh, the differences between a Type-A-Female-College-Grad and a Free-Wheeling-Male-Still-In-College – and she is more than ready to sit down with her literary friend, Jessica Darling, for a reunion.

In Fourth Comings, Jessica is living The Life – she’s working (albeit struggling to pay rent) in The City, living with her best friend, Hope, and Marcus is back in the same time zone. But maybe their relationship isn’t quite in synch – when Marcus proposes, Jessica finds herself at a loss. Can she be a wife when her life feels so far from Settled Down? Shouldn’t she be jumping for joy at this point? Can her life in the city slow down enough to be committed to a 20-something who’s just NOW starting college?

Needless to say, I was feeling JD’s pain. But was so happy to find out that even though Ms. McCafferty threatened every book to be the last – and it seemed that she wrote books 3 AND 4 with this in mind – there would be a fifth.

Which brings us to the present. Not much has changed for Jessica-Me in the past year and a half, including my desire to run out and buy The Next Jessica Darling book on Day One. Jessica has finally surpassed me in age and experience. I have been the high school brainiac. I have felt far from my friend even when I am near them. I have been the long distance girlfriend, the confused collegiate, the surly friend.

Perfect Fifths: After a long separation, Jessica and Marcus are reunited in the most inopportune way – Jessica is late for a plane, Marcus is on his way home, and neither of them have spoken or seen each other for ages. They are far from the teenagers they were when they met, but the anxiety upon meeting brings it all rolling back, to both of them.

This book was Out There in terms of format – Third Person?? Inside Marcus Flutie’s head??!!??? Haikus???!!

But I loved it.

I didn’t think I would love knowing Marcus from the inside out. But I loved it.

I didn’t think I was much of a Jessica-Marcus fangirl. Maybe my descriptions haven’t made it clear, but these books are about A LOT more than just Jessica and Marcus and their tangled relationship. It’s about Jessica and her parents and how they fight to communicate and understand one another. It’s about how even Hope, her best friend, can surprise and sadden her. It’s about how the girl you never thought you would really like – Bridget, the pretty, popular one – is really a complex human being and it’s YOUR fault for not adequately realizing her. It’s about what happens to all of Jessica’s high school friends. It’s about Jessica’s sister, the ditzy, blonde Bethany. It’s about Len Levy, the nerd turned Jessica’s first real boyfriend turned spurned lover. It’s about how your whole life unravels in front of you, and only makes sense looking back. And did I mention THEY ARE LAUGH OUT LOUD HILARIOUS!??

It’s not just about Jessica and Marcus and OhMyGodWillTheyGetTogether?!?

But I didn’t realize how much I’d invested in the two of them until Perfect Fifths.

I didn’t know how cool it would be to see my name in the Acknowledgments section in the back of the book either 😛

I’m sad that there will never be another Jessica Darling book, but I’m happy I got to see her on into adulthood. I’m happy that, unlike me who is still stuck between Book Four Jessica and Book Five Jessica, our heroine finally found a place for herself in the world. I’m happy I’m free to read and reread and reread until I get cataracts and can’t see.

This series will always be one I emulate, one I aspire to, and one I hold near and dear.

Thanks, Megan. It’s been a fun ride.

Megan McCafferty Online | Retroblog | Indiebound Link

book reviews

15 Apr 2009

A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg

This book is part of the fairly new phenomenon of Bloggers Writing Books. I’ve long been an advocate of Blogs By Book Writers (meaning they wrote the books first) I’m not sure how I feel about this new clashing of media. I read Gluten-Free Girl by Shauna James-Ahern because I liked her blog, particularly, this story. The book I found good, but not transcendent. A very foodie book, which is probably transcendent for those who suffer from Celiac Disease, but despite my interest in food, I am not interested in the differences between Amaranth flour and Rice flour, nor will I go into debt over a bottle of olive oil. THAT BEING SAID, I did finish Gluten-Free Girl in less than a day – very engaging, well-written, and interesting – even to a non-foodie, non-gluten-free girl 🙂

Anyway. The point I’m trying to make is, I picked up Gluten-Free Girl because of Shauna’s blog.

But I picked up A Homemade Life because it was chilling on the table at Barnes and Noble, and I brought it home later from the library because I’d heard many-a-good word about it. Only after I read a few chapters, got sucked in, and hid it from myself until vacation did I notice the ornate red text running under the author’s name:

“The creator of Orangette”

I’d never read Orangette before this book, but I have definitely added it to my blog reading list (which recently warranted the creation a Foodie category, btw). This book is a treat. It’s a great example of how blogging can beget good writing – it’s full of personal essays that lead the reader toward a recipe, a recipe that played a role in the author’s life. The recipes aren’t fancy – nothing so strange that you’d need a picture to ease you into eating it. Riffs on home-cooking, mostly. Banana-bread with chocolate chips and candied ginger. Her late father’s potato salad. But really, the recipes were second billing to the stories. Scoops of the author’s life, some amusing, some tragic, some romantic, some fanciful, some heart-wrenchingly sad. It’s a book about food for people who like life more than they like food, really.

Loved every page of it, and handed it directly to my mother. It’s just that kind of book.

Kind of makes me wish every one of my favorite bloggers had a book like this to show off with.

Author’s Blog |Amazon Link

book reviews

25 Feb 2009

The Smile by Donna Jo Napoli

Am I the only one who hated historical fiction as a child? I had plenty of friends who were obsessed with American Girl books, with Little House on the Prairie, and my next-youngest sister still drools over Tracy Chevalier and A Great And Terrible Beauty.

Me? I associated the genre with school. Being a grown up now, I totally understand the whole cross-curricular benefits for teaching historical fiction novels, but DAMN did we really have to read My Brother Sam Is Dead? Wasn\’t there something cooler than The Sign of the Beaver, or my least favorite, Island of the Blue Dolphins?

Anyway. So almost-24-year-long-story short, I don\’t jump for joy over historical fiction. Unless it\’s Octavian Nothing, although that\’s less jumping for joy and more puzzling and muddling for joy.

I digress again. Dammit. What I\’m trying to say is that I am mostly uninitiated to the sub-genre that is Young Adult Historical Fiction, but apparently there is one lady who is. That lady is Donna Jo Napoli. And because my mother procured me a signed copy of this attractively covered book, I deigned to read it.

This book takes place in Rennaissance Italy, in Florence – a city run by the wealthy and extravagent Medici family, patrons of arts and leisure of all sorts – and in the surrounding countryside. Our heroine, Elisabetta, is a noble, but since she lives in the country on her father\’s silk farm, she mingles with the peasants and prides herself in being helpful with the family business, even if a truly Noble Lady wouldn\’t go near a smelly silkworm if somebody paid her. But despite her countrified ways, Elisabetta still hopes that her fifteenth year will be the year she is betrothed – to a wealthy, young man from a good family, not to some old widower. To hedge her bets, Elisabetta decides she needs a coming out party in the city, not in the country, but just as she convinces her parents of her idea, tragedy strikes. And when political turmoil mounts in Florence, it seems all of Elisabetta\’s carefully laid plans will go to crap.

That description reads exactly like you\’d expect it, huh? Girl wants something. Tragedy strikes, complications ensue. But what really drew me into the book was the depiction of what being a young woman at this time and place really meant. Elisabetta is obviously outspoken and liberal for her time, but even so, she is tied to the decisions of her parents, and the politics of a city she doesn\’t even want to associate with. This inner conflict, between her heady desires and her simple resignation to a life isn\’t fully her own, paints the historic landscape better than Napoli\’s lush descriptions and observations of the near-feudal caste system. While I didn\’t find this book as compelling as Octavian or as tension-filled as Laurie Halse Anderson\’s Chains, and the story didn\’t make me carry the book in my hip pocket, anxious to finish, I was still surprised and pleased whenever I did pick it up. Would she ever get betrothed? Would she be reunited with her true love…. and what does any of this have to do with the Mona Lisa?

(And don\’t tell my 6th grade English teacher…. but The Smile may have me jonesing justalittlebit for more, more, more historical fiction)

Donna Jo Napoli online | Indiebound Link

book reviews

17 Feb 2009

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

Oh, Ms. Sittenfeld. So many thoughts about you and your books, and so very little time to synthesize them. I’ve talked about her before, last year when I read Man of My Dreams and I don’t really want to repeat myself… so I’ll just quote myself instead.

“Curtis Sittenfeld wrote Prep a few years back, a pretty convincingly YA book marketed as Adult. Anyway, Prep was pretty succesfull, and everyone doted upon Sittenfeld for being a young, talented female writer of something other than TRASHY CHICK LIT. Sittenfeld wrote an article for the New York times, reviewing Melissa Banks’s The Wonder Spot and calling it the bane of female literature, and officially casting the term “Chick Lit” as a black mark of literary condescension usually reserved for the romance novel.”

So that’s that. American Wife is her newest book, and probably her most notable. Notable why? Because it’s even further away from that dreaded “Chick Lit” title (although that is debateabl)? Because it’s more ambitious than her previous works? Because it’s better written, more interesting, more insightful?

No, no, no.

Because the protagonist is a fictionalized Laura Bush.

Alice Lindgren is a wholesome, reserved Midwestern girl (subtract Wisconsin, add Texas) living with her conservative parents and a live-wire grandmother. Much like Sittenfeld’s other heroines, Alice doesn’t neccessarily do much to direct her fate. Life happens to her. She rolls with the punches. When her best friend steals her boyfriend in middle school, she forgives her. When she’s involved with the accidental death of a classmate, she mourns quietly. When a handsome, charming son of privilege begins to woo her, she allows herself to be wooed. And when he is eventually elected President, she is the First Lady.

So there are complaints:

1) A sensational topic for a novel. What a total ploy for readership! Would it be worth reading otherwise?

2) She claims to loathe Chick Lit, therefore her own books must transcend this moniker…. yet this book is still a Book About A Girl who is mostly concerned with her Relationships.

3) Why are her characters soooo very bland and unexciting? Can she write us a NEW protagonist already?

4) Is it cruel to Laura Bush to write a book that lifts so heavily from her own life? I don’t know.

So my feelings about Ms. Sittenfeld are mixed with a side of “I can’t stand her.” This, of course, is based on one tiny article (that happened to be published in the NYTimes, mind you. I’m sure she’s a perfectly nice person) And I can’t really read her books and, in good faith, declare them to be bastiens of Literature.

But I still like them.

I like her quiet characters – even though they rarely make a life-changing decision, and the ones they do make (Alice Lindgren especially) are so weak they are barely even symbolic of change, I still feel for them. I still want to be their friends. I still like to hear what they have to say.

I like Ms. Sittenfeld’s proclivity for the understated tone – there could not be a less assuming roman à clef out there. And I don’t mind that she lifted the idea from pop culture because, unlike some other authors, it’s an extremely interesting take on a pseudo-public figure.

And she can certainly tell a story.

And that’s all I really want from a book, when it comes down to it. Take me somewhere else and don’t let me go until I’m turning those last few pages, desperate to know what will happen to Alice, to The President, to their marriage….then spit me out.

I’ll be ready and waiting for her next book.

Curtis Sittenfeld online | NY Times Review | Indiebound Link

book reviews

03 Feb 2009

French Milk by Lucy Knisley

My first graphic novel of the year, although this book was not shelved in the graphic novel section (sneaking adult catalogers, at it again!) nor is it a novel in the most traditional sense of the word. But no matter what kind of an enigma this little paperback turned out to be, I did enjoy reading it (and so did my 15-year-old sister, I might add). Yes, despite the little discussion I’m about it have with myself, it was a pleasant read.

Let me first say that this book lacks a single lick of plot. There is no rising or falling action. Actually, the only action that goes on is eating, walking, and a little talking. This book is a travelogue – a diary – that Lucy kept while she and her mother lived in France for six weeks. And she doesn’t go out of her way to make those sweeping conclusions that almost define the travel-writing genre.

Her deepest cultural observation? French has excellent milk.

Her biggest moral conflict? Whether or not she’s prepared to go from college-kid to real-live-adult.

And her most pressing personal problem? How to be nice to her mother while suffering from PMS.

One of my favorite quotes is by writer Anne Beattie:

“It seems to me that the problem with diaries, and the reason that most of them are so boring, is that every day we vacillate between examining our hangnails and speculating on cosmic order.”

Lucy chooses to focus on her hangnails in this book.

However.

Her hangnails happen to be in Paris.

And she draws them instead of writing about them.

So if you are looking for a page-turner, a sassy, poignant take on Paris or French culture, look elsewhere.

But if you want to see what Paris looked like to one 22-year-old girl – trying fancy food, taking shopping trips, and watching Arrested Development episodes on a laptop in bed with her mom – then you’ve found the single book in the world for you.

And, I don’t know about you, but I enjoy reading about other people’s hangnail examinations. 🙂

Lucy’s website | Author Blog

book reviews

04 Jan 2009

Tangled by Carolyn Mackler

Paradise sucked until I found the suicide note. And then it didn’t suck at all. It was so good, in fact, that I thought maybe my entire life was finally going to change.

Tangled is Carolyn Mackler’s latest, longest, and most ambitious book for young adults. Ambitious is obviously my commentary, and my comment attends mainly to the plot and story structure of the novel. Her previous four novels – Love is a Four Letter Word, The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things, Vegan Virgin Valentine, and Guyaholic – are single voiced narratives about girls. Very deft, interesting portrayals of high school girls of a certain economic class – I especially love Mackler’s charmingly powerless Virginia in The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things – but all books similar in thematic scope. Tangled is a novel in four parts, each a first-person narration from a different character’s point of view. What makes the book especially interesting is that the narratives are entirely separate – four novellas rather than one story told through four lenses – and that the characters and their relationships are largely unknown to the reader.

The first section is Jena’s, while the vacations in the Caribbean with her mother and her mother’s best friend and daughter, Skye. Jena’s voice reminded me of a slightly more self-possessed Virginia. She is preoccupied with her weight, her appearance, with looking good in front of glamorous Skye, and impressing the hot guy staying in their hotel. When their romance doesn’t go as Jena hoped, I wasn’t surprised, but I was surprised to be taken off the island for the next section and into the hot guy’s head for section two.

I found it an engaging read – I wanted to turn the pages and figure out how the four teenagers would end up relating, and to find out, after meeting all four on the Caribbean island, what their motivations and personal stories would be. However, a big point of interest in a book with multiple narrators is re-realizing some of the earlier characters when the new characters offer a new perspective. I thought Mackler could have been a little more bold in these moments. Jena’s first-person narrative is full of insecurity about her appearance, but when we hear her romantic interests memories of her, she was attractive. Later, Jena approaches another character with great confidence and self-esteem. These re-visiting of characters is interesting, but not unexpected.

So ambitious. But not a magnum opus. However, I will keep running out to see what Ms. Mackler is up to.

book reviews

17 Dec 2008

A Wreath For Emmett Till by Marilyn Nelson

XIV. A Wreath For Emmett Till by Marilyn Nelson

Poetry, like Juvenile fiction, self help books, and mass market romance novels, is something I just don’t find myself reading a lot of. However, I did come across a few notable books this year, all of which fall under the category of Young Adult. The first? A Wreath For Emmett Till.

History Refresher Course: Emmett Till was a fourteen-year-old African American boy from Chicago. On a vacation to visit relatives in the Deep South of Mississippi, he reportedly spoke inappropriately to a white woman in a store. Four days later, he was beaten and murdered, his body sunk into the Tallahatchie Rver.

This book is a collection of poems. To be specific, it is a heroic crown of sonnets in Petrarchan rhyme scheme. Maybe some of you know what that means, but it’s a complicated and highly structured form of poetry to be sure. The poems draw from Emmett Till’s life, the events that lead up to his murder, and the aftermath. His mother insisted on an open casket, to show the world the level of brutality that occured to her son, and this event helped to launch the Civil Rights movement. Needless to say, these poems warrant repeat readings, and will most likely move you. Don’t believe me? Ask the Prinz committee.

Buy this for: students of Civil Rights Movement classes or girls who read too many Shakesperean sonnets for their own good.

Amazon Link | NPR Interview & Excerpt