Book Review: Other Words for Love by Lorraine Zago Rosenthal

Ari Mitchell has always felt overlooked in the midst of her more beautiful sister and best friend.  So when she transfers to a new school and meets a glam classmate who introduces her to her cute cousin, Ari falls for him hard.

Despite what it sounds like, I wouldn’t really classify this as a romance.  It’s much more about Ari discovering who she is, and not really liking what she discovers.  She doesn’t even meet her love interest until a third of the way through the book, so the beginning of the novel is all about Ari interacting with her friends and family.

What I really loved about this book was how achingly honest it felt. - from the way Ari steals a shirt from her sisters husband so she can breathe in his scent, to the very raw depiction of first love.  Even when the narrative veers into decidedly melodramatic overtones late in the book, Ari felt real.

I’m not really sure why this was set in the 1980s (a pet peeve of Kelly J. from Stacked blog), so I had to think of her when I was reading.  I guess it sort of added a sense of nostalgia – the kind you feel for a first love – that wouldn’t be there if it were a contemporary setting.  So there’s that.

OTHER WORDS FOR LOVE is available now.  Find out more about it at the author’s website.

Book Review: Awaken by Katie Kacvinsky

In 2060, most people don’t get out much.  They live their lives inside, turning to virtual reality for their entertainment, friendships and education.  17 year old Maddie, the daughter of one of the most powerful men in the US because he invented digital school (henceforth referred to as DS), lives a life of solitary luxury and has learned to accept it – that is until she meets anti-DS activist Justin who slowly awakens her to the real world.

There are many things to admire about AWAKEN, chief among them the message that we shouldn’t let our digital addictions stunt our connections to the physical world. There are some really well-done scenes that show how empty a virtual life is in comparison to a real life – for example when Maddie hears live music for the first time and dances in a crowded club juxtaposed with the sterile DS benefit she attends with her parents featuring canned music and virtual dancing.  I also enjoyed seeing normal things – like a sunset and a bonfire – through Maddie’s eyes as she experiences them for the first time.  It really makes you wonder how an entire culture would voluntarily sacrifice life’s pleasures and become hermits.

And that’s sort of my main problem with the novel – that I don’t really believe its premise.  It has a lot to do with the spotty and oftentimes contradictory futuristic worldbuilding.  Kacvinsky introduces a few neat gadgets here and there, tells us most real trees have been replaced with plastic ones, and writes of a mass of large-scale school shootings and bombings that ushered in an era of hyper-fear of social settings and the outdoors and mandatory distance education.  There is public transportation (almost no cars) but it’s practically empty whenever Maddie rides it.  How do people get to work? I know a lot of office-type jobs can be done virtually – but what about plumbers? Construction workers? Electricians? Etc?

Also, as a love interest for Maddie, Justin rubbed me the wrong way.  Sure, he brings chocolate cake into her life, but most of their conversations involve him preaching to her about the evils of computers.  It’s also clear that Justin is using Maddie for her connections to further his own aims, and the way he makes her depend on him against her better judgment is akin to brainwashing. All that makes him fascinating as a character, but because I disliked Justin so much in his role of romantic hero/ideal, I could never get into their building romance - a shame since it is a big focus of the novel.

AWAKEN is available now. A sequel, MIDDLE GROUND, is planned for Fall 2012.  Find out more about the series at the author’s website.

Zombie chickens say: A mixed bag, but most definitely ripe for discussion.

Song for the Ultimate Dystopian Playlist: Digital Ghost by Tori Amos. Sample lyrics: “Hands lay them on my keys, Let me play you again, I am not immune to your net, Find me there in it.”

See index of all reviews on Presenting Lenore 

Book Review: Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich

Irene finds out that her possessive husband Gil is reading her diary. She decides to start a “true” diary and uses the “fake” diary to manipulate him. See, Irene has decided that she wants to leave Gil, but Gil insists he’ll never let her go, at least not with their three children. What follows is a family descent into some very dark places…


I’ve been hearing that I should read Erdrich for years (and in fact, have two of her other books unread on my shelves) and I was so incredibly impressed by this novel, I am wondering why I waited so long.

Erdrich gets to the emotional truth of her scenes - of the dysfunctional marriage that is also an artist/muse relationship. Neither character is particularly likeable, and all signs point to a tragic ending, but I was riveted. For me, this was one of those rare treasures, a deep literary fiction novel that is also a page turner.

I read this as part of a TLC tour.  Check out the other stops!
 

Book Review: Those That Wake by Jesse Karp

After an event known as the Big Black plunges NYC into darkness for two weeks, people in the city prefer to keep their heads down and communicate via technology. Mal is a foster kid. Laura has been raised by loving parents in the suburbs. Circumstances throw them together as they face off with a nameless corporate evil that is trying to erase them from the memories of everyone they’ve ever known.


This novel got off to a very promising start. I was fascinated with the concept and the characters were well developed right off the bat. Near the end of part 1 one, though, things took a turn for the paranormal and baffling. To be honest, I am still not quite sure what actually happened! So I’ll just chalk this one up as not for me.

2 Zombie Chickens – Entertaining but not essential

THOSE THAT WAKE comes out next month on March 21, 2011. Find out more about it at goodreads.

See index of all dystopian reviews at Presenting Lenore

Audio Book Review: Zombies Vs Unicorns by Justine Larbalestier and Holly Black

My track record with audio books is not very good. I fell asleep while listening to Hamlet in the car in my college years (bad because I was driving) and I fell asleep in the bathtub while listening to All The Pretty Horses (despite Brad Pitt’s narration – or maybe because of it?). In any case, I did want to give audio another try, and short stories seemed like just the thing. And it did work out well. I listened to some in the car and others while cleaning or doing menial tasks.

Justine and Holly are fun to listen to as they make their cases for their respective teams. And though I didn’t expect to side with team unicorn, standout unicorn stories from Diana Peterfreund (The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Unicorn), Meg Cabot (Princess Prettypants) and Garth Nix (The Highest Justice) slightly edged out the count of standout zombie stories from Alaya Dawn Johnson (Love Will Tear Us Apart) and Carrie Ryan (Bougainvillea). I’ll consider it my first audio book success!


Find out more about Zombies Vs Unicorns on the official website!

Book Review: The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney

Alex wakes up naked in a stranger’s bed after drinking too much the night before. The boy, Carter, claims they had sex. Twice. And Alex is horrified because she can’t remember anything, and she thinks she should remember her first time. When she confesses to her roommate, her roommate insists that she’s been date-raped and that they need to go to their boarding school’s secret society, The Mockingbirds, in order get justice.


Good things first. I am thrilled that this novel brings up the subject of date-rape in a sensitive, discussion worthy way. There is no victim blaming and the idea of YES means YES vs NO means NO brilliantly brings across that if you don’t specifically agree to having sex, then you are being taken advantage of and are a victim of a crime.

Author Whitney, a date-rape victim herself, also deftly shows how Alex’s trauma effects her relationships and her day to day life and sets up a tender romance with a fellow student, Martin, to underscore the difference of consensual “hooking-up” and non-consensual date-rape.

However, I was extremely frustrated with Alex for taking action against her alleged rapist based solely on circumstantial evidence. She can’t remember if she had sex or not (question: especially as a virgin, wouldn’t she feel some physical effects of forced entry?), so simply takes Carter’s word for it (a boy who is known to make false claims) and sees two empty condom wrappers as proof that something MUST have happened.

Now I can see why she wouldn’t necessarily think of doing a rape-kit and why she wouldn’t want to go to the police, but why not see a doctor for some tangible evidence before making a very serious claim against someone that could severely damage their reputation?

SPOILER (invisio text! highlight with your curser to read): I realize this becomes a moot point once Alex regains her memories – still it really bothered me through most of the novel.
I also wasn’t thrilled with the idea of The Mockingbirds’ brand of justice. It’s clever, sure, but it also smacks of the very bullying it is trying to combat.

It is for those reasons that I recommend this novel, but with some reservations.

THE MOCKINGBIRDS is available now in hardcover. Find out more about it at the author’s website.

Book Review: I'd Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman

Eliza has recently moved back to her native Maryland from England with her successful husband and two bright children. She’s finally feeling reasonably secure in her life when she gets an unexpected letter from Walter, the man who kidnapped her when she was 15 and is now scheduled for execution for murders he committed with her as a witness. Does her kidnapper finally want to talk to her so he can confess to other crimes? To explain why he left her alive when he killed the others? Or is he still toying with her, just because he can?

Lippman is one of my go-to authors for intelligently written literary thrillers, and I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE was such a great read, it even surpassed WHAT THE DEAD KNOW as my favorite of hers.

For the first part of the book, Lippman alternates chapters between the present and 1985, giving us a complete picture of Eliza now and as a teen and showing how the person Eliza is today was greatly affected by her harrowing experience with Walter.

Walter is a very fascinating kind of killer. He’s not your typical evil mastermind, just a confused sort of guy who stumbles into murder because he’s bad with women.

Later on in the book, we get insight into a couple of other characters – an anti-death penalty activist who has befriended Walter and hopes Eliza can deliver some sort of testimony that will stay his execution and the mother of one of the girls Walter killed (Holly) who blames Eliza for not doing more to help her daughter.

And that brings me to one of the book’s central questions: Could Eliza have done more? There are people who believe by not fighting back, Eliza was an accomplice in Holly’s death. But there are also those who believe not fighting back is what kept Eliza alive. Should she feel guilty for that? It’s all very thought provoking.

I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE is out now in hardcover. Find out more about it at the author’s website.

Book Review: This World We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer

THIS WORLD WE LIVE IN is not the follow-up of LIFE AS WE KNEW IT that I was hoping for.


I think the root of the problem is that the diary format just doesn’t work for this installment. In book one, it was interesting enough to follow Miranda’s personal journey via her written thoughts. She goes from a girl who has the whole world open to her to a girl trapped in a dark, cold room with only her starving family (and, yes, the family cat). However, this time around, Miranda’s character arc is so scant that it can’t sustain 256 pages of her whining.

The diary format also makes the creation of three-dimensional supporting characters difficult. I do recall caring about the fate of Miranda’s family in the first book, but here all we see through Miranda’s eyes is mom being an agoraphobic shrew, older brother Matt being a selfish jerk, and everyone else just kind of existing.

Unfortunately, the romance between Miranda and Alex (the “hero” of book 2) is dead in the water. These two have so little chemistry together, I cringed when they touched. And c’mon Miranda – I know you don’t have a lot of options for romance, but Alex is NOT boyfriend material. He wants to be monk. He’s super controlling and stubborn. And he’s obsessed with his sister. (Good at finding food though. I’ll give him that.)

And what’s up with everyone just moping around the entire novel until a tragic event (in the last 20 pages) forces them into action? Why couldn’t we have gotten more exploration of the “safe town” idea for instance?

My advice? Read LIFE AS WE KNEW IT and stop there (unless you are just totally in love with it and would read anything with the same characters, no matter what).
My rating: 1 Zombie Chicken - For Dystopian completists only.

Series Order:
LIFE AS WE KNEW IT (read my review)
THE DEAD AND THE GONE (skipped it!)
THIS WORLD WE LIVE IN (available in hardcover)

Find out more about the series at the official website.

See index of all Dystopian reviews on Presenting Lenore

Book Review: Nomansland by Lesley Hauge

Keller lives in a future society closed off from men and deformed deviants. Where girls growing up are told that it was men who caused the destruction of the planet and are therefore the enemy. And where friendships are discouraged and strict adherence to rules is the only way to survive.


Keller is being trained as a tracker – a defender of the society. It’s one of the most prestigious assignments because it means likely avoiding the burden of being impregnated and used as a breeder. Every day is the same monotonous brainwashing and chores, until one day, a fellow tracker trainee, Laing, takes Keller to a hidden stash of objects from “before”. Laing’s growing obsession with the fashion magazines and make-up she finds there causes her to become increasingly rebellious. And Keller has to make up her mind – is her loyalty to individuals or does she have a greater responsibility to the collective?

As far the plot goes, I definitely get the sense that the girls were going to get caught at some point, but other than that, I really had no idea what to expect. That suspense kept me glued to the page despite there being more far more introspection than action.

Although I did appreciate the careful world building, a lot of it felt stereotypically dystopian and therefore not too surprising. More surprising is Keller, who really is quite an atypical choice for main character in a YA dystopia. Keller’s personality and attitudes have been shaped by her warped society far more than she’d care to admit. She’s hard and rough, and she’s the go-to girl when it comes to the difficult jobs like shooting animals that have outlived their usefulness. In fact, she does seem to have prominent similarities to the society’s tyrannical leader, Ms. Windsor. She is conflicted about her role in the events of the story to a degree, but it felt to me that circumstances rather than her own choices were what dictated her actions and their consequences. Considering where she ends up at the end, it’s a fair question to ask which side Keller is really on, and that’s pretty unusual and thought-provoking.

I did feel that the gender role issues brought up could have been explored in more depth. Some of the scenes seemed to be saying that if you give a pretty girl a dress and some make-up, she’s going to turn into a bitchy queen bee, which fell flat for me.

All in all, a novel well worth reading, so I bestow upon it 3 Zombie Chickens. I’m definitely looking forward to the possible sequel.

Come back later today when I have an interview with Lesley about the novel!
 
See an index of all dystopian reviews at Presenting Lenore

Book Review: Still Missing by Chevy Stevens

Annie O’Sullivan was a successful realtor until the day a man abducted her and kept her captive in a remote mountain cabin for a year. Now Annie’s so traumatized, she sleeps in her closet and can’t work. In 26 sessions with her therapist, the whole twisted story comes out.

Through most of this novel, I wasn’t sure I liked it. It’s riveting reading, yes, but it is also extremely disturbing and not for the faint of heart (or young teens). But then, once the big twist was revealed, I was blown away by how well the whole story was crafted.

Annie’s nickname for her abductor is The Freak, and it is apt. He is a terrifying guy with deep psychological issues and very strict rules. Crossing him by say, using the bathroom at a non-scheduled time, can lead to bizarre punishments such as having to drink from the toilet. What puzzles her is just how much he seems to know about her and her family, leading her to think that his crime was not random and that even if she escapes him, there may be someone else out to get her…

Annie’s experience changes her a lot – so much so that I almost couldn’t recognize the broken woman swearing at her shrink and shrinking away from her friends and family as the same independent woman we see in her “flashbacks”. Not only is this a fascinating character study, it is also a very satisfying thriller with a shock ending. Highly recommended!

STILL MISSING is coming out in hardcover 0n July 6, 2010. My copy was courtesy of the Amazon Vine program. Find out more about the book at the author's website.

Book Review: The Clearing by Heather Davis

Moving to her Aunt Mae’s farm after escaping an abusive relationship, Amy finds herself attracted to a clearing surrounded by a deep fog where she meets Henry. It soon becomes apparent that Henry is stuck in the past – 1944 to be exact – reliving the same summer over and over. Amy and Henry form a bond that puts them both on the path to accepting life as it comes.

I’m a sucker for a good time travel story, and this one – with its simple yet believable logic and undeniably clever storyline – really delivered on its premise. I’m also a sucker for impossible, bittersweet love affairs – the ones that sneak up on me and make me sigh when closing the last page.

The atmosphere Davis creates in THE CLEARING is pitch perfect. It strikes me as a cross between TUCK EVERLASTING and THE OTHERS (the movie starring Nicole Kidman) – though the story itself is quite different. I might have liked to have seen the scenes between Amy and Henry fleshed out a bit more. I do like the restrained nature of the writing – it just that, though their relationship is tender and heartfelt, it never has the chance to soar to the lofty heights you might expect from a book that declares “True Love is Timeless” on the cover.

THE CLEARING just came out this week in paperback original. Find out more about it at the author’s website.

Book Review: Mathilda Savitch by Victor Lodato

Mathilda Savitch’s beautiful older sister Helene has been dead a year and she and her parents can’t get over it. Searching for some sort of closure, Mathilda breaks into Helene’s e-mail account and contacts one of Helene’s boyfriends, hoping he can provide answers to the mystery of Helene’s demise.

This novel is all about what grief can do to families. How it pulls them apart and shuts them down. Mathilda’s parents, especially her mother, can’t deal. They withdraw, and Mathilda resorts to acting out to get their attention – dropping plates, inviting boys over to spend the night in her basement, chopping off her hair.

Because the novel is from the limited viewpoint of a rather disturbed pre-teen, whether you enjoy the novel or not depends on how taken you are with the narrative voice. Mathilda has that particular self-absorption common to her girls her age (never explicitly mentioned, but likely 12) as well as a morbid curiosity and a tendency towards precocious observations that make her seem wise beyond her years.

“Sometimes I feel bad for the house as much as anything. Standing there completely stuck and having to put up with all of us. Do you ever think of the lives of houses? I mean the walls and the doors themselves, not the people inside. (…) The thing is, I don’t want to end up like Ma and Da. In a house with books and dust and all the love gone out of it. (…) I want something else, but the words for it haven’t been invented yet. At this point it’s just a bunch of mumbling in my stomach.” (p 218-219, ARC, may vary from final published version)

There’s really not much in the way of plot, and although the visit to Helene’s boyfriend yields a revelation of sorts, you aren’t entirely sure you can trust it, because Mathilda can be quite the unreliable narrator.

It’s ok, but there are any number of better books about grief and any number of wacked out characters that are more fun to spend time with than Mathilda.

MATHILDA SAVITCH was released in paperback this week. Find out more about it at the author’s website.

Book Review: Claim to Fame by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Lindsay Scott was a child star until a special talent to hear everything anyone said about her manifested when she was 11 and caused a nervous breakdown. Now, 5 years later, she is a virtual hermit in a “safe” house that somehow blocks her power and gives her peace. Until the day two fans kidnap her.

I was really intrigued by the concept of being able to hear what people say about you. I could imagine that being tough for a normal person, but for a celebrity? It would be a curse for sure. And Lindsay certainly has it hard – she is afraid to leave her safe house at all, but especially when reruns of her TV show are on because of the cacophony of voices inside her head, all talking about her.

But this novel was just weird. It’s a middle grade book, but it’s about a 16 year old girl and talks a lot about transcendentalism. It quotes Thoreau. There’s a kidnapping, a recently deceased father, a minor living alone, a mother in a mental hospital, a family secret, a plan to get rid of meddlesome busybodies, a convict slowly making his way towards “that sweet girl on the TV show,” and it’s too much – the narrative buckles under the weight of so many half-baked plot threads.

It’s not a terrible book. The writing flows well, and Lindsay’s voice is completely believable. There’s also the nice message hiding in there somewhere about learning not to care what others think about you because no matter how hard you try you’ll never please everyone. I just wish the story itself had been more coherent and concentrated on digging deeper into a couple of issues instead of introducing a bunch of subplots and wrapping them up in a big shiny bow at the end.

CLAIM TO FAME is out in hardcover now. Find out more about it at the author’s website.

Book Review: Generation A by Douglas Coupland

Here’s a funny thing about Douglas Coupland: he’s one of my favorite authors because I adore his writing style, but I’ve never considered a novel of his worthy of a five star rating. They always make me laugh and ponder life’s big questions, but they also end up missing something that would solidify them as all-around satisfying reads.

Coupland excels at creating memorably quirky outlines of characters, but he seldom manages to dig deep enough to make us really believe that they are flesh and blood or to get us to really care about them*. In GENERATION A, he introduces 5 20-somethings from around the globe who are all stung by bees, years after bees were thought to be extinct. However, with the exception of Harj, an amusingly clever call center employee from Sri Lanka (and my favorite character by far), all of them speak in a near identical “Coupland” voice: witty, emotionally distant, and very self-aware.

Coupland is also known for his outlandish plots, liberal use of pop-culture references, and willingness to experiment with structure. This one strikes me as a mix of GIRLFRIEND IN A COMA (for the post-apocalyptic elements) and GENERATION X (for the inclusion of a bunch of loosely related short stories a la The Decameron in the second half). It comes together (sort of) in the end, and we learn how these seemingly random individuals are related and what it means for the future of the human race.

Ultimately, I enjoyed reading it - though once again, I didn’t love it. I’m still waiting on that elusive perfect Coupland novel…

GENERATION A is available in hardcover now. Find out more about it at the author's website.

*I most cared about Susan Colgate in MISS WYOMING and Cheryl, Jason and Heather in HEY NOSTRADAMUS! which is why those two are probably my favorite of Coupland's works.

Book Review: Swimming by Nicola Keegan

Philomena, nicknamed Pip by her competitive swimming teammates, shows talent in the pool but at little else. Beset by family tragedy, she throws herself into improving her times and catches the attention of legendary coach Ernest K. Mankovitz who trains her for Olympic gold. But what happens after the glory when she finally has to face her demons?

As someone who got my Red Cross advanced swimmer certification at 11 and who watches every swimming world championships and Olympics without fail, I thought I would love this story about a Kansas girl made good. I didn’t. In fact, I found myself getting very impatient and annoyed with the stream of consciousness first person narration and the heavily stylized, fragmented prose. Author Keegan never made me care about any of the characters besides Pip and dwelt way too long on Pip’s tragic childhood – there’s nearly 100 pages of irreverent but often incoherent musings on death, religion and not getting her period before Pip starts taking swimming seriously (although I did like the first chapter where Pip swims confidently at 9 months old).

And then Pip’s actual rise to greatness feels very muted. We do get a lot of training details and Pip’s struggle with sugar addiction (hey – I can relate), but the championships go by in haze. We don’t even know what races she competes in – a strange omission indeed. And I know this is fiction set in a fictional swimming universe, but the novel makes a big deal about the East German swimmers being gone by the 88 Seoul Olympics when in fact they dominated, getting 10 of the 15 available gold medals.

And don’t get me started on the downer of an ending. This one just wasn’t for me after all.

SWIMMING is now available in hardcover.

Book Review: Labor Day by Joyce Maynard

Henry recalls the Labor Day weekend in 1987 when he was 13 and escaped convict Frank stayed for awhile at his house with him and his agoraphobic mother Adele.

Though Frank is considered dangerous by the authorities and the general public, Henry sees him differently:

“The feeling I had, when I thought of Frank, contained no fear. More like anticipation and excitement. It was if I’d been in the middle of a book that I had put down when I got too tired to keep reading, or a video put on pause. I wanted to pick back up with the story and find out what happened to the characters, except that the characters were us.” (p 50 ARC, may vary from final published version)

Overall this is a moving story about the experiences and people that have a part in shaping your identity. Although Henry was certainly a capable narrator, he was rather detached from the emotional core of the story – the tender relationship that develops between the two broken adults. I would have loved to get inside Adele’s head and see at least some of the story from her point of view.

This gem of a novel is out in hardcover now. Find out more about it at the author’s website.