Spring/Summer Book Review

I have not been doing a great job with my blog lately. Sorry. In an effort to reinvigorate my writing efforts, I've been going through old drafts that I never published. Here's a book review list that I found from earlier this year:

***1/2 Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson - Classic BranSan fantasy, so delightfully different but always with a hint of the divine.

***** No Great Mischief by Alistair Macleod - I've said it before and I'll say it again, if I ever get a tattoo it will be of a quote from this man.  I want his words to be with me, a part of me, always.  I loved this book so much that I went straight to the library and checked out a 'How to Learn Gaelic' program. I also now visit this site frequently.

**1/2 The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss - Meh. The first one was way better, it's slowly becoming much more of a "boy" story with pages dedicated to the physics of things as well as teenage romance. Blech.

****1/2 Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson - I'd been hearing about this book for years, read the first chapter excerpt at least three times, and finally broke down and read it.  I loved it. It made me want to pay more attention to honor and duty and love. I recommended it to Alison's book group, they all came away depressed from reading it. To each his own I guess.

***1/2 The End of the Alphabet by CS Richardson  - This is a short, painfully sweet read about a man who learns he has only months to live.  Ever since he was a boy, he has been obsessed with alphabet lists and traveling.  So him and his wife set out to visit a city beginning with each letter of the alphabet before he dies.  I told my friend Rachel about this book and this is the conversation that followed:
R: "Sounds like you two would be friends."
Me: "Why? Because he's so adventurous?"
R: "No, you know, because of all your weird goals."

**** The Tales of Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling - Like everything this woman does, I loved it. The tales were as enchanting as any fairytale I grew up with.

**** 32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny: Life Lessons from Teaching by Phillip Done - Hilarious. Pretty sure everyone, teacher or not, would love this book.

****1/2 Zeitoon by Dave Eggers - I can't say enough good about this book. I've never read a book that has made me want to work so much harder at life. It makes me want to throw a broken bike on my back and run to work just so I won't be late. That might not make sense but it will after you read it. Read it. Now.

*** At Home with Flowers by Jane Packer - I want to put flowers everywhere.

*** Down to the Wire by Robert Shoop - A history of every Triple Crown winner. It's a book written in a style that makes you feel like you're listening to an announcer at the races. Kind of jumpy and quick. But I liked it.

*** The Best American Sports Writing edited by Jane Leavy - Fascinating tales of prodigy surfers,  NFL video games, and free divers who dive deep without oxygen tanks. Loved it.

**** Don't Throw It, Grow It! by Deborah Peterson and Millicent Selsam - Pretty sure I saved every avocado pit this summer in the hopes of planting them and never did. A girl can still dream, right?

** Surprised by Joy by CS Lewis - I was actually surprised by how little joy this book brought me. I was expecting a beautiful recounting of Mr. Lewis' changing faith but instead it was almost an entire book composed of his rational reactions to books on his life's reading list.  I exaggerate, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't understand half the things he wrote because I had never read the books to which he was consistently referring.

**** Persuasion by Jane Austen - Whenever I read an Austen novel I am always surprised by how emotional I become over basically nothing. I mean, nothing ever happens in any of her books and yet it becomes physically painful to put them down while reading - I just have to find out what happens or my heart will burst...over nothing really.

The Hunger Games

For almost two weeks after reading the final book in the Hunger Games series, I had trouble sleeping - often lying in bed with scenes and emotions from the book filling my head to the point of sleepless anxiety. Weird, right? Especially coming from a girl who as soon as the last page of any book (good or bad) is turned has already forgotten half of the scenes in the book. 


So why the dramatic emotional angst over the Hunger Games? Why do I feel slightly angry and betrayed by the time I gave to that story? Why do I cringe whenever I hear people talking about how much they love it?


It's taken me quite awhile to find the right words to explain, even to myself, why I dislike this book so much.  I have found myself relying on four specific quotes that truly help me pinpoint my struggle.


The first quote is from one of my all time favorite plays, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead: "Audiences know what they expect and that is all they are prepared to believe in." I connect this quote to one from the movie, Shadowlands: "We read to know we are not alone." As a reader, I expect a book to tell me something about the human experience, which in turn will help me know that I am not alone in this world. That is, I guess, all I am prepared to believe in. Yet when I finished the Hunger Games, I felt as if it was trying to tell me that the human experience was one without hope - a never-ending cycle of violence and corruption and loss of love - and I have never felt more alone after finishing a book.


The third quote is a dooesy, but it's one of the most beautiful dooesies ever written.  It's from William Faulkner's Nobel prize acceptance speech:


     "Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat…I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."

I believe that Suzanne Collins is an excellent writer. But I believe she used her gift to make a weird political statement and completely lost the truth of the immortal soul of man. She sounded the last dingdong of doom and left a puny inexhaustible voice, still talking –one that had simply endured, not prevailed. Katniss was left enduring through her repetitive game of listing the goodness she saw in others, a game that could not prevail over her lasting fears.

The final quote is from, of course, Sam and Mr. Frodo:

*Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.
*Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
*Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
*Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.

The Hunger Games did not show anything good worth fighting for.  Instead, it showed a world that would eventually fall back into killing each other, broken heroes who lost the only thing they were fighting for, unrepentant characters who never found hope.  Gale got a fancy job in the district he hated, Haymitch was still a drunk, Katniss and her mother never mended their relationship, Plutarch still wanted power, Effie still lived on schedule, Katniss had children she did not want, she feared bringing them into the world and feared telling them about the world. I cannot find a glimmer of hope in any of these outcomes – not even the light of the dandelion(Peeta) to bring her(Katniss) through the fire – because Peeta had no light because he wasn’t really Peeta anymore but rather a hollowed shell of what he once was. Perhaps the good worth fighting for then is that the world may be a hopeless, evil, chaotic place but we can still live quiet lives as ghosts of our former selves?

I do not know what life experiences Ms. Collins has had - I do not know the depths of her sorrows or her joys, but I am left wondering why she chose to write this book the way she did. I know some people have been able to dig deeper into this book and find a glimmer of hope, a moment of peace. I admit that I have tried as well, however my efforts must be unsuccessful seeing as how it's been almost a year since reading it and whenever I hear it mentioned or see it, I feel an immediate wave of depression and sadness. Does anyone really want to write a book that has that effect on people? I am not trying to suggest that every book needs to be rainbows and roses, I actually enjoy sad books but perhaps it is because the hope I find in them shines all the brighter. In The Hunger Games I wanted a prevailing bright hope, but was left with a puny, enduring voice.

Where was my prevailing bright hope? Where was my Sam to carry me to the top of Mount Mordor when all was lost? Where was my unknown narrator who reassured me that in this life, this heart of darkness, I was not alone? Where was my forgiveness between brothers who killed each others fathers? Where was my Sonia who brought me food in prison? Where was my conquering of giant windmills for the sake of honor? Where was my Mr. Darcy who found the power of humility?  Where was Asher's loyalty to truth and his efforts to balance the world? Where was good ol' Huck who could not pray a lie? Where was little Sydney who made the ultimate sacrifice? Where was my Boo who came out of a life of isolation to save two young children? Where was the Count and his ultimate realization to trust in God?  Where was my Scarlett who never broke, never gave up, just like her beloved land?  Where was the compassion that led Ender to save, destroy, and begin again?  Where was the professor that offered a simple umbrella?  Where were the Joads, who suffered tragically not from physical nature or economic misfortune but from their fellow human beings and yet still chose to reach out and save one of them? Where is my John Proctor who would not compromise his name, even at the point of death? Where was Liesel's book full of tales of compassion and courage that haunted Death itself? And where, may I ask, was my little scarred wizard who was saved by his choice to love?

Well, Ashley, you might say, these are all fictional stories and The Hunger Games was trying to be truly realistic because life doesn't always have a happy ending full of shining hope. Okay, well then how about some "realistic" questions. Where was my Viktor Frankl, who in the horror of the Holocaust and losing everyone he cared for still found salvation in love? Where was my mom and dad, who have found hope and happiness every day amid the difficult battles of life? Where was my William Wilberforce who fought for over 26 years to abolish slavery?  Where were my handcart pioneers who felt the angels pushing them along? Where was my Chilean miner who stopped in a dark tunnel to admire a white butterfly which saved his life?  Where was my George Washington who gave up unmatched power for the good of all? Where was my Tim Tebow who just keeps giving back? Where was my Clark family who adopted 21 children no one else wanted?


And where was my Second Coming (all of our very realistic ending) where every knee shall bow and every tongue confess?  This, after all, is why we are drawn to stories of good and evil, stories of hope and heroes and happily ever after. Because we know despite all odds that good will eventually and irrevocably win. We sense that same truth in the happily ever after stories, and frankly, I do not want to waste my time on any other kind.

Book Review - Tinkers by Paul Harding

Continuing in my quest to read all past Pulitzer prize novels, I decided to read Tinkers by Paul Harding. Anyone brave enough to title their book, Tinkers, deserves to win a prize. The word tinkers is apparently a difficult word to read, say, and hear which often inspires many interesting jokes as I quickly discovered while reading and discussing this book. But I digress, back to the review.

I like things that are a little "out there."  You know, things that are philosophical or mystical or require deep analysis - things like dreams and Sundance films and...people.  Well, this book was "out there."  Actually, it was a couple blocks north of the neighborhood of "out there."  If "out there" was Mr. Rodgers' Neighborhood, then this book would be the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, or maybe more like a story of a dream had by King Friday the XIII while napping in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.  This review is starting to get a little "out there," so I'll try to rein it in a little.

This book is about a lot of things, but it is first about a man dying.  The narration takes you through various memories of the man's life and then before you know it, the book is also about the man's father dying.  The narration bounces back and forth between the man and his father's memories and then just when you think you might be close to figuring it out, the book is also about the man's father's father dying.  Then you realize it's actually not about dying at all.  It's a book about a man who fixes clocks (tinker), a man who sells products from a handcart (tinker), and a man who clumsily preaches to save souls (tinker).  I guess you could say it's about tinkers.  Why didn't it just say so in the first place?

I'm going to go a little "out there" and say that this book is a masterful story that captures the delicate balance of joy and sorrow that is life.  Between every paragraph, I could almost hear the echo of Ms. Harrison, my AP English teacher, saying "Tell me more about what this book says about the human experience."  Well, I really really liked what this book had to say about the human experience and how it made me more aware of mine. 

Well done, Mr. Harding.  I give you my stamp of Pulitzer Prize approval.  You had it even before I read this paragraph, but I would have given it to you for this paragraph alone:

"Your cold mornings are filled with the heartache about the fact that although we are not at ease in this world, it is all we have, that it is ours but that it is full of strife, so that all we can call our own is strife; but even that is better than nothing at all, isn't it? And as you split frost-laced wood with numb hands, rejoice that your uncertainty is God's will and His grace toward you and that that is beautiful, and part of a greater certainty, as your own father always said in his sermons and to you at home. And as the ax bites into the wood, be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it." p. 72

Will someone please read this book so you can discuss it with me?  It's very short and clean, very award-winny, kind of sweet, kind of sad, and very out there.  Please?!  It would be so much fun!

Book Review - The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

(Yes, while reading this book in public I did try to hide the cover.  I know I'm a nerd, but sometimes I don't need everyone else to know that as well.)

Despite what the cover of this book might entice you to believe, it is not just another romance novel starring a redheaded Fabio who seduces women with his lute and his love of reading, all while walking in a whirlwind of leaves.  It's much more than that.

It's a book about a legend.  But more importantly, it's a book about a legendary hero telling the story of how a legend became a legend.  And therein lies the secret to the magic of this book.  

I feel like most great fantasy novels are about legends in the making - Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, the Shanara series, Ender's Game, Elantris - you read these books and you are right there with the heroes, right there in the action in the middle of the story watching the heroes become legends.  But in The Name of the Wind, you are outside the story because you are reading a story about someone telling a story.  You know the hero is already a legend, so you're not necessarily coming to the story to find out how he became a legend (although that is definitely a thrilling tale).  You come to the story because you want to find out why the hero is telling the story of the legend instead of being in the middle of being the legend, and it's fascinating. 

I believe every time I sat down to read the book, I giggled as I opened it.  I couldn't help myself, I felt like I was part of storytelling in its purest, most magical form.  Every time I opened it I felt like a little girl sitting on my dad's lap listening to him read me a fairy tale.  If you had a dad like mine (and for 90% of the people reading this blog, you do), you'll know what I mean.  He changed his voice and emotions at all the right places, grumbling for the bad guys, squeaking for the princesses, hissing for the dragons - it was magic.  And that's exactly what this book is.

Book Review - The Help by Kathryn Stockett

I don't know what to say about this book except that it was nice.  It wasn't bad or good or even great, it was just...nice.  Was it well written and insightful?  Yes.  Did one of the chapters make me openly cry?  Maybe.  Did it deserve to be on the NY Times bestseller list for over a year?  Sure.  Would I suggest other people read it?  I already have, several times.

I don't know what's stopping me from raving about it.  I really did enjoy the book and found it a fascinating perspective, especially since my dad's family had "help" while he was growing up and he speaks fondly of those memories.  But maybe it was just too predictable for me, the plots and characters and language just seemed too familiar.  I was touched without being awed, moved without being inspired.  I guess what I'm trying to say is...it's nice.  Read it.

2010 Book Review

Word to your mother, here are the books I read this year:

**1/2 The Moment It Clicks by Joe McNally, a nice book about photography - but doesn't really offer any technical help, just casual suggestions.  The pictures are cool though!

*1/2 Graceling by Kristin Cashore, a YA fantasy novel that had a really nice thing going for itself and then it just crashed and burned - like the Hindenburg.

**** Olive Kittridge by Elizabeth Strout, the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner.  The writing was really, really good - but in a haunting way.  I think this is the first book that I read that I enjoyed the writing more than the story.  Is that possible? 

*****Island by Alistair Macleod.  A collection of short stories.  If I were the kind of girl to get tattoos, I would tattoo quotes from this book all over my body - that is how much I love this book.  It is achingly beautiful. *Caution for those who would like to read it, not every story in the collection is rated with 5 stars.  I can tell you which ones to skip if you want.

Incarceron by Catherine Fisher, not even worth half a star.  I can barely remember what the book is about, but I can vividly remember how painfully boring it was to read.  I'm kind of surprised and disappointed I took the time to finish it.

****The Man Who Made Lists by Joshua Kendall, a biography about Peter M. Roget (of Roget Thesaurus fame).  I loved this book so much that I even used it in a Relief Society lesson.  This man had a fascinating life/family full of mental diseases, tragedy, depression, etc., and the thing that saved him was making lists.  Proving to me that I've been right all my life in thinking that finding the right word has a preternatural power (and yes, I did just use the thesaurus to find the word preternatural, thank you Peter).

***Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson, this was my introduction to Brandon Sanderson and the beginning of my status as a BranSanFan.  It was a little slow getting into it - but still a very awesome book.  Saying that makes me feel like a boy, but it is what it is.

****Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (I told you I was a BranSanFan - had I not started reading him at the end of the year, I would probably have 5 more of his books up here).  NERD ALERT: Yes I do find myself comparing my everyday life to the attitudes, powers, and circumstances of Elantrians, Duladens, and Aons.

1/2 star The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, winner of the 2008 Pulitzer.  In trying to read all past pulitzers, I stumbled my way through this one.  I would ask you to tell me how this won the prize, but that would mean you would have to read it - and I don't want to make anyone do that.  It gets half a star for somehow managing to trick people into giving it the prize.

*****Orange Pear Apple Bear by Emily Gravett.  She only uses four words the entire book.  She's a genius.

******The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.  Six stars is not a typo.  This book sparkles.

*Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins.  The one star is in honor of the first two books that preceded this one.  I read this book months ago and I still have nightmares about it.  In my opinion, it goes against everything I believe about literature.  I wrote a dramatic blog post about it right after I read it but never posted it.  Maybe I will soon.

**************************************************These Is My Words by Nancy E. Turner.  I think the stars speak for themselves.

Books on 2011's list: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, Tinkers by Paul Harding, Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell, The Help by Katheryn Stockett, the entire Fancy Nancy series, and the collected works of Brandon Sanderson.

Any suggestions?