Tutor Girl Reads

In Which Trai Reviews 'The Thorn and The Blossom'

2012-01-17T12:20:00.000-05:00

The Book: The Thorn and The Blossom: A Two-Sided Love Story

The Author: Theodora Goss

How I Found It: Quirk Books was kind enough to provide me and other bloggers with an advance copy; thanks muchly! The book is officially out today!

The Review: This book has to be seen to be believed, really: it's a book without a spine. Seriously. I will direct you to this Youtube video to show you how it works (but be sure to come back here!). This way, you can choose whose side of the two lovers' story you want to read first: Brendan's or Evelyn's. I always love the innovations Quirk Books and their authors come up with, and this one had me seriously intrigued. I mentioned it to several friends out of excitement when I first got the email calling for interested bloggers, and all of them were curious--a book without a spine? How would that work? Could I show it to them once it was in my possession? I can't know for sure if this book will spread to the masses and fascinate them as it did my friends, but I certainly hope it will. It's genius.

I've mentioned before that I'm a big fan of books about books and reading, as well as a shameless Anglophile. One of my all-time favorite books is A.S. Byatt's Possession, a story of two poetry scholars seeking the truth behind an affair that may or may not have happened between their respective poets, all through lost love letters and clues hidden in poems and stories. Another book about books I'd read was 84, Charing Cross Road (review here), where two book lovers kept up a correspondence for many years, learning more about each other all the while. I think fans of either would really enjoy this story. There's an enduring and eternal love, like in Possession, and a modern day couple of scholars seeking the truth behind that love in their own individual ways. The relationship between individuals here is romantic, unlike the relationship in Charing Cross, but there's still that sense of distance, chronologically and geographically, a gap that's eventually bridged by books and stories.

I won't spoil the occurences unique to each side of the story, but the basic premise is this: Evelyn is a student visiting the town of Clews, in Cornwall, England, for the first time. Brendan is a native of Clews, the son of a local book merchant. Both are poets in their own way: Evelyn likes writing about fairies and other fantastical creatures, something her thesis adviser at Oxford highly discourages; Brendan has an intense interest in an old Cornish poem, the tale of Gawan and Elowen, a possible basis for the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as we know it today. When Evelyn walks into Thorne and Son, Brendan offers to show her around Clews, and tells her the story of Gawan and Elowen, lovers whose connection could not be thwarted even by death--if not for the curse of an evil sorceress, who doomed their love to a wait of a thousand years...

Evelyn and Brendan might just be falling in love themselves, but mutual secrets threaten their relationship and might even sink it before it begins. Brendan hasn't revealed to Evelyn that he's a student of poetry as well; a dark secret from Evelyn's troubled past threatens to surface in the woods of Cornwall. Will their relationship be doomed to time and distance, like Gawan and Elowen's, or will these lovers fight their way back to each other and craft a new story of their own?

I started with Brendan's story first, because I wanted to shake it up a little: in most of the romances I've read, you start out in the woman's point of view, rarely if ever getting the guy's first or at all. I wanted to see what the story would be like through his eyes, and it turned out that his eyes were very much like my own. He's an English literature scholar, and while I have no strict focus, I'm an English major; he loves books and bookstores, like me; he always felt a little out of place in his hometown due to his interest in literature, something I also felt, as an English-loving, disinterested-in-sports girl who grew up in an athletic town. Brendan's viewpoint resonated with me, and it drew me in immediately. When I flipped to Evelyn, I knew her through Brendan's eyes, which you think would have taken some of the interest away, but it didn't. Evelyn remembers things differently than Brendan at times. She has a past Brendan never quite learns about. Their separation is compellingly played on both ends, and I give Goss credit for making a tale with two very distinct sides that form one cohesive whole.

This book was a really magical experience for me. I always have an intense interest in how academics do things, and there were just enough details about the researching, publishing, etc. process to keep me interested, but not enough that others not interested in such processes would get bogged down. That aside, this book was really a love letter to the stories that bring us together and the stories that last for generations. The story of Gawan and Elowen is the story that Brendan's father told him; it is the story that comes to link Brendan and Elowen together in their academic careers and onwards. Who wouldn't love a story of a love that lasts a thousand years?

The book wasn't without a fault or two; it's only 82 pages total, so naturally, it does feel like some of the loose ends aren't quite tied up. Were Brendan and Elowen perhaps meant to be reincarnations of Gawan and Elowen, as I thought? Did other characters figure into the tale as well--was one, as I'd thought, the reincarnation of the evil sorceress? What was the import of Evelyn's secret, and did it mean what I thought it did? I wanted these questions to be answered, but as I usually do with novellas, I handwaved them away with the knowledge that the author had done the best she could in a short space. Although that being said, I certainly wouldn't mind a longer book in this vein from Goss. She knows how to write a romance, she knows how to write a literary mystery... I'd buy it, for sure.

This is a book I can recommend on the merits of both its presentation and its content. The book itself is brilliantly made and a great conversation piece, as I learned, and it's really a testament to why we still need physical books. As much as I love my eReader TARDIS, books like this remind me of why I still buy physical books. And never mind the presentation, this is a brilliant story of love lost and found again, and of the stories that bring us all together. Highly recommended!

In Which Trai Reviews 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'

2011-12-31T21:02:00.000-05:00

** A word before the review: happy almost 2012, all! Sometime soon, I'll post the full list of what I read in 2011, as well as highlighting some of my favorite reads. **

The Book: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (The Karla Trilogy, #1)

The Author: John le Carre

How I Found It: The movie had quite a few British actors I love; there was no way I wasn't seeing it! I decided, as I almost always do, to read the book first.

The Review: George Smiley is retired from MI6, known here as "the Circus." He worked on the top floor, the right hand man of the eternally and unfortunately paranoid Control. Control, as it turns out, was right to be suspicious: one of five men could be a mole for the Soviets, and all of those men are on the top floor. There's Percy Alleline, Control's successor ("Tinker"); Bill Haydon, charming and duplicitous ("Tailor"); Roy Bland and Toby Esterhase, always together ("Soldier" and "Poor Man") . Even Smiley ("Beggar Man") is not above Control's suspicions.

No one's supposed to know about the potential mole, but as it turns out, someone does: a woman in Russia named Irina, a woman Circus agent Ricki Tarr wants to protect. He returns to England to reveal what he knows, the explosive truth that Irina has told him. Smiley, as a retiree, is well-placed to look into the conspiracy, whether or not he wants to, and recruits a fellow retiree named Mendel and a younger agent, Peter Guillam, to help him.

As Smiley digs deeper and deeper into the mystery, he learns that Control wasn't the only one with suspicions--a now-retired researcher, Connie, had grown suspicious of a supposed Russian cultural attache and subsequently got harshly warned off his tail; Jerry Westerby, a reporter, learned some suspicious truths about the shooting of Jim Prideaux, another Circus agent; and Prideaux's shooting might not be as unconnected to the search for the mole as it may seem. Smiley and his associates are treading on dangerous ground, looking into something some people would really prefer they not look into. If they find the mole, the security of an entire nation will once more be safe--but what will happen to the Circus, and to all the men involved?

When I started reading this one, I got the feeling that I was out of my depth just a bit. I don't know overmuch about the Cold War; I don't know much about British intelligence agencies (I don't even have that much of an acquaintance with James Bond); and I don't believe I'd ever read a proper spy novel. The jargon confused me (bless my mother for finding a promotional thing for the movie that gave pictures, names, and biographies of all the important characters and a glossary for said jargon!) and some of the period language was lost on me. Even with all of those difficulties, though, I found myself with a feeling I hadn't had in a while. I read the first chapter and I started wondering about how it would fit in with the rest of the book. What did a schoolteacher at a boys' school have to do with a book about spies? These days, as can be seen here, I tend to stick with books like Jane Austen or Doctor Who, where I know the characters and can usually guess where the plot is going, but I had no idea here. I was drawn in by that mystery, and I think that helped me stick it out even past the confusion.

Though the book took me longer than average to get through, and I found that I had to take it slowly in order to comprehend it and not get frustrated, I found that I really did enjoy it, and since I finished it and have started reading other things, I've found myself missing le Carre's style of language and plotting! What first made me like it was the characters. I instantly fell for Jim Prideaux; his kindnesses to the boys at the school he works at endeared him to me, and I was curious to know more about him. George Smiley won my sympathies right off; his philandering wife and the descriptions of his day-to-day routine made him feel real to me, and I wanted to see if he was indeed as good as Control had believed.

I was stunned, as I read it, that this had been made into a successful miniseries and a then-pending release film. There's really no action sequences in the book at all, and the majority of the information we get comes from flashbacks and reading files. I couldn't imagine how such a cerebral, silent story would transition to film. This wasn't like any spy story that I could think of, although I'll reiterate that my experience with that field is narrow. There's no gadgets; there's not a huge amount of shooting guns and other dirty work. This felt realistic, and I know that was le Carre's goal. (As I write this review, I've been back for a few hours from a viewing of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, and I walked out grumbling that it felt too unrealistic so soon after I read and saw Tinker, Tailor.) Even if I was stunned by how little action there was, I was amazed at how well the suspense worked. I'm pretty sure I jumped and mumbled a few curses during a tense scene where Peter Guillam steals a file for Smiley, and there's a fantastically eerie sequence where Prideaux recounts the realization that he was being followed while on a mission. Like I said, there's no true action sequences, but damn if I wasn't sold by le Carre's mastery of suspense.

I realized, after all, that I really did like the way le Carre did it--the reader comes to know about each suspect as Smiley digs into their pasts, serving as a reminder to him and an introduction to us. Information is given to the reader naturally--for example, as Smiley reads the files, or as he tells the story of his prior encounters with Karla to Guillam, who's younger and thus doesn't know the story--and it never felt clunky or like it was just a ton of exposition that had to be gotten out of the way. I'm planning on reading the rest of the trilogy, and possibly other classics by le Carre, based solely on how expertly he relayed the information and how he kept me guessing (I thought for sure I'd figured out who the mole was; I was half-right, in a way, but surprised ultimately at who it turned out to be!). The book was well-structured and certainly different than any other mystery or suspense novel I'd read before.

As for the movie, I was pleasantly surprised, even with my misgivings about how the story would transition to film. I've not yet seen the miniseries (that is coming in future), but I was lucky enough to see the film. Like the book, it is very slowly paced (something many British critics had a problem with, and a few people in my theater fell asleep), but if you're willing to stick it out, it's an adaptation that, while not entirely faithful (spoilers ahoy, but if you want a point-by-point list written by a very brutal reviewer, go here), is really worth seeing for the talent involved and to see how such an internalized story made its way on screen.

The men who brought the story to life were all known to me from prior productions, and all of them were outstanding. Gary Oldman managed to convey so much with his silences and calm, contemplative stares; one critic was keen to point out that he doesn't even speak a word until eighteen minutes in. His confrontations and oddly calm interrogations were almost chilling to watch--Smiley is so very mild-mannered, but he has a way of being quietly forceful that Oldman played brilliantly. Colin Firth, as Bill Haydon, was appropriately charismatic and shifty; the other three men (Toby Jones, Ciaran Hinds, David Dencik) were threatening shadows in the background.

After Atonement and Sherlock, I didn't need to be convinced about Benedict Cumberbatch's abilities, but his interpretation of Peter Guillam was probably my favorite performance to watch. I felt the same tension during the file stealing scene that I did in the book, and the filmmakers made one crucial change to his character that made me feel really deeply for him. Just behind Cumberbatch's Guillam in my estimation was Mark Strong's take on Prideaux. I worried about him in this role, as I've mostly seen him in villainous roles (and, oddly, as Mr. Knightley in Emma) and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to believe him as a decent guy. But he played his scenes with Bill Roach, the young boy he takes under his wing, exceptionally well, bringing to life the Prideaux from the book that I'd loved right away, and flashbacks to his ordeals and certain subtexts the filmmakers added made me feel very sad for him indeed.

Some things are definitely trimmed (we don't get much of anything about the backstories of any of the suspects, unlike in the book; some characters become composites due to time constraints), but I felt the adaptation hit all the important points of the story, and there was nothing I greatly missed, something I can't say about most adaptations of books I loved. The score was excellent and added a sense of foreboding to the narrative, and the gorgeous locales and snippets of different languages (Russian! Hungarian!) added the foreign flavor that was sometimes difficult for me to visualize as I read, not having much familiarity with those areas. The film certainly helped me make sense of some of the more labyrinthine aspects of the story, and if the book gets to be too much for a person to follow, I would recommend perhaps giving the film a shot beforehand.

This book and the accompanying film was an entirely new experience for me, and one I greatly enjoyed. I'm definitely sold on reading more le Carre (one of my holiday giftcards is going towards The Honourable Schoolboy, the second book of the trilogy), and I'd really like to see if other film(s) in the series come to fruition. If you're curious to read a classic of the spy genre or you just want to see what story has attracted so many talented British men, give this one a try!

In Which Trai Reviews 'A Darcy Christmas'

2011-12-21T12:12:00.000-05:00

The Book: A Darcy Christmas

The Authors: Carolyn Eberhart, Amanda Grange, and Sharon Lathan

How I Found It: This was last year's Christmas-themed Austen release from Sourcebooks; this year, I decided it was time to check it out from my local library.

The Review: I'm not normally one for seasonal reads, due to how crunched I am for time between finals and shopping season, but this book was my break from cooking, studying, shopping, and packing, and it did make the time pass a little faster! While I think I'm not quite suited to seeing Austen characters in novella form--I always want more time with them!--I did enjoy this book for what it was: a sweet, holiday-themed glimpse into the lives of Lizzy and Darcy. As I do with short story collections, I'll review each novella individually.

"Mr. Darcy's Christmas Carol" by Carolyn Eberhart: This anthology was Ms. Eberhart's debut, and I believe that as of yet she's still not come out with a full-length novel. I wish she would! This story was really delightful and, while there was a bit of hyperbole I wasn't sure worked, I enjoyed the clever twists and seeing how characters from Pride & Prejudice fit in the beloved tale of A Christmas Carol.

This story deviates from canon a slight bit by having Darcy alone the Christmas after he's resolved the Wickham/Lydia affair and Jane and Bingley have said their vows and gotten married. Since then, he and Elizabeth have only had an awkward encounter when they stood up together as best man and maid of honor at the wedding, and on Christmas Eve, Darcy is alone save for Georgiana, and not in a very festive mood. When he goes out to join some friends at a club, Darcy gets uncharacteristically drunk--and, upon his return, sees the ghost of his dead father!

Old Mr. Darcy has a message for his son: he must change his ways and overcome his pride, or he will have a restless afterlife where he will observe the spirits of people he could have helped and didn't. His goodwill towards the citizens of Pemberley has him standing in some good stead, but it won't be enough to save him. If he wants a chance at true salvation, he will have to look at Christmases of past, present, and future... and reexamine his feelings for Elizabeth, before it's too late.

I'll confess that I've not read the original A Christmas Carol (and that is loaded onto TARDIS, waiting to be read), but I've seen numerous adaptations enough times to recognize the dialogue and important scenes from the original, and everything that mattered was present here. The choices for the spirits--key players in Darcy's life--were inspired, and it was touching to see Darcy's remembrances of childhood Christmases, for the past, and Christmases abroad for the present (including a delightful appearance from another Austen couple, though I won't say who!). The Christmas future was a bit... unbelievable, I will say that. I highly doubt that Elizabeth's rejection would be the path to Darcy making a supremely loveless marriage, basically disowning Georgiana and leaving her son to grow up in poverty, and then dying alone. But the rest of the tale was superb, so I'll let it slide.

There's not too much of Darcy and Elizabeth interacting, as the tale is focused heavily on Darcy's self-improvement, but his reconciliation scene with Elizabeth was a clever reworking of their final scenes in the original, and probably my favorite rendering of that reconciliation in any variation thus far (the snow! the mistletoe!). This story was my favorite of the three, and I hope that Ms. Eberhart comes out with a full-length novel in the future: I'd read it!

"Christmas Present" by Amanda Grange: The shortest of the three novellas, more of a short story, this story involves Darcy and Elizabeth expecting their first child, and Darcy's anxieties about the process of childbirth. Bingley and Jane have just had their own child, and Elizabeth wishes to see the child and the Bingleys' new home. Darcy is worried the journey will be too much for her, as she is close to giving birth, but Elizabeth assures him she'll be fine, and they make the trip.

Upon arriving at the new house, they find Bingley and Jane quite happy with their new arrival--and Caroline Bingley quite happy with running the household while Jane is indisposed. She has arranged a ball, and the Bennets are to come, as are Lady Catherine and Mr. Collins--and, Mrs. Bennet has heard, Mr. Collins' brother. Mrs. Bennet has a scheme: marrying Kitty off to said brother so that when both Mr. Bennet and Mr. Collins die, Longbourn will be theirs again. This Christmas will be marked by matchmaking and new arrivals, and no one will ever forget it.

This one definitely made me laugh the most: it's hard not to laugh when you've got the Bennets, Lady Catherine, and Caroline Bingley in one household. Caroline would invite herself and take on the planning for parties and house-buying Charles and Jane aren't even sure they want. Mr. Bennet would be snarking in the background. And Lady Catherine's complaining from outside upon her arrival would be audible indoors.

I think I liked this one for the insight into Darcy's anxieties. Georgiana's birth years earlier and his mother's subsequent decline has left him with a great fear of childbirth and what it might do to Elizabeth, and it was almost heartbreaking to see him agonizing about how childbirth might deprive Elizabeth of her favorite activities, like walking and dancing. I'm also a great fan of Darcy and Bingley's friendship, and it was sweet to see them commiserating over their fears. (An amusing passage recounts Bingley's reaction upon hearing his child cry for the first time, and it was certainly true to form.)

I wish Ms. Grange would follow this one up with a full novel or another story or two: I want to learn more about Kitty's delightful suitor! This was a sweet story that could have done with just a few extra pages, but otherwise, it was a nice glimpse into a holiday with the whole clan.

"A Darcy Christmas" by Sharon Lathan: This was the most wide-ranging of all the stories: Ms. Lathan shows us several Christmases with the Darcy family, over a period of about twenty-five years. It begins with Darcy reflecting on his loneliness at Christmas and wondering if he has indeed fallen for Elizabeth Bennet, before showing their honeymoon and, later, subsequent Christmases as their family grows and, once, loses a beloved member. We see the children receiving their gifts, engaging in sibling rivalry, getting stuck away from home as a result of a carriage accident, and eventually, establishing new traditions. Through it all, Darcy and Elizabeth endure together.

I wasn't expecting the Darcys to have quite so many children--I had to keep flipping back to keep track of them--but it was cute to see the differences in their personalities and, eventually for a few of them, their rapport with their chosen matches. Their antics on various Christmases--listening to Darcy read various holiday stories, receiving tons of presents, and overall just antagonizing each other as siblings should--were fun to read about and just what I expected of the Darcy children. My favorite chapter, though, was the most somber of all, when the resurfacing of a childhood memento causes Elizabeth to finally grieve for a recent loss, and needs Darcy for emotional support. It was true to form for Elizabeth--not wanting her grief to drag down the holiday for the others--and for Darcy, who waits for the dam to break with concern and, eventually, a tender sharing of his own experiences with loss and how to get past it.

Some details did become slightly repetitive--Elizabeth's numerous pregnancies, the number of times some characters grunt in assent to some statement--and the descriptions were sometimes too lavish, but it was nice, overall, to have a picture of the Darcys as their married life advanced and their family grew in number.

While the anthology was a sweet holiday treat, I did find that it lacked the balance customary in a full-length novel: it is, like Pride & Prejudice, "light, bright, and sparkling," and I found that I wanted a bit more conflict and a bit more drama. As a diversion, however, the stories were a nice seasonal treat, and I did enjoy them for the short glimpses into the lives of one of my favorite literary couples. Recommended for those who want a glimpse at the Darcy family holidays, or even those who might want a taste of winter when it's out of season!

In Which Trai Reviews 'Doctor Who: Touched by an Angel'

2011-12-18T13:44:00.000-05:00

The Book: Doctor Who: Touched by an Angel

The Author: Jonathan Morris

How I Found It: I was really curious to see how a book featuring the Weeping Angels would go, as they're such visual monsters that I wasn't sure they'd come across on a page. A fellow Whovian was kind enough to loan it to me; many thanks!

For those who don't know (although I can't imagine this review is going to mean much to you if you don't know Doctor Who!), the Weeping Angels are one of the more well-known creations of the newest incarnation of Doctor Who. They can only move when you're not looking at them, but they move fast, and if they touch you, you get sent very far back in the past. Basically, don't blink. More information can be found here.

The Review: In 2003, Rebecca Whitaker, married to her husband Mark for only two years, dies in a car accident. In 2011, her husband Mark is still grieving, still stuck, and... being pursued by the image of an angel statue in whichever TVs he passes. Mark is starting to get freaked out, but that's nothing compared to how freaked out he'll be when a man in a tweed suit and a bowtie shows up with his two companions and a device that helps him detect when time's gone "wibbly."

Mark, as it turns out, can't stick around long--because soon enough he's been touched by a Weeping Angel, and off he goes into the past (1994, to be precise), never to return to his present. But wait--only 1994? That isn't right. The Weeping Angels are supposed to send you to a point much further back in time, so they can feed off of hundreds of years worth of potential energy, and why would they send you back on your own timeline... oh. This means the Doctor, Amy, and Rory are fighting a new brand of Weeping Angel, smarter and more dangerous than before.

As the Doctor, Amy, and Rory scramble to stop Mark from interfering in his own timeline and thus causing the collapse of the universe, Mark has an agenda of his own. He's in 1994 and still carrying a letter he received before he got zapped. It's in his own handwriting, and it's an entire list of instructions for the next seven years, 1994 to 2001. And the last line of the letter? You can save her. Mark would do anything to save Rebecca's life... and he's going to try.

This book really surprised me, I have to say. I'd heard it was good, but I truly wasn't expecting it to be this good. Of all the Who novels I've read this far, I think this one is the best, hands down--and that's saying something, considering the ones I've read to this point have been really excellent. But Morris got it all down: characterization, plot, side characters, emotional impact, everything.

I really wish this could have been a two or even three-parter for the show proper: it's brilliantly done, and Morris has made the Weeping Angels and their dastardly new plan scarier than what we saw on TV. When I realized what the deal was with sending someone back to a time they'd actually lived in, I had a mini-freakout and then just had to keep turning the pages. It's brilliant. Many people didn't like the "improvements" made to the Angels in the two-parter, feeling that they eliminated the scare factor, and while I had to agree there, this development truly was scary. The Weeping Angels are the ultimate chessmasters. They don't really have to pursue Mark. They just have to send him back to 1994 and wait for him to run into himself and screw up. They just have to wait for him to blink.

I had an inkling that I would like this book early on, the minute the Doctor showed up. Eleven's really becoming my favorite Doctor, and I really hoped Morris would get his characterization right. And the kicker with Doctor Who is that you don't only have to get the Doctor right: you have to get how he works with the companions right alongside that. I needn't have feared. I knew right off that I had a winner when I reached this exchange:

The Doctor dusted down his jacket and trousers. ‘Or maybe this is a new type of Weeping Angel.’

‘You mean they come in different varieties now? Oh, great!’ [Amy said.]

‘It must’ve been drawn to its prey… like a moth to a flame.’ The Doctor’s eyes widened in delight. ‘Hang on! That analogy made sense! My analogies never make sense! I must write it down. Rory, write it down for me!’

‘I’m not your secretary, Doctor,’ said Rory patiently.

‘No? Only there is a vacancy, yours if you want it.’ (28-9)

I had to giggle here: there it was. The Doctor being excited, in the midst of all the danger, that one of his analogies finally made sense (he would). Amy not losing sight of the danger and really just being annoyed that even after facing the Weeping Angels and nearly losing her life to them, they've not seen it all. Rory being endlessly patient and giving the Doctor a reminder that no, he's not his secretary (again, the Doctor would assume Rory's his secretary). I read with eagerness from there on, and the book didn't disappoint. Morris clearly knows his Who even past the characterizations: there's fun nods to each of the Weeping Angels episodes (Series 3's "Blink" and Series 5's "The Time of Angels" / "Flesh and Stone") and even a sly reference to one of the Tenth Doctor's companions (I won't spoil who, but it was wonderful to see).

The most affecting thing here, I felt, was how well Morris developed Mark and Rebecca's story. Theirs is a not-quite-linear love story, since really, for us, it starts after Rebecca is dead. We get the story through a series of flashbacks to both the good and the bad, which really conveys a sense of Mark having thought these memories over endlessly since Rebecca's death. Morris developed a completely convincing and absorbing love story in very little space, and for that, I applaud him. I was crying at the end because I could feel Mark's devotion--I could feel how badly he wanted to save Rebecca, and I was rooting for him. I like the side characters in Doctor Who, but I don't usually find myself feeling strongly for them save for a few rare exceptions. So it stunned me that I felt so deeply for this one.

The pacing was fast, which pleased me: some of the other Who books I've read have been a teensy bit slow to start and really get into the meat of things, but here we knew right off that the Weeping Angels were after Mark, that these Weeping Angels were a new and more dangerous kind, and that Mark had a goal he wanted to achieve. I read this one in two protracted sittings and never wanted to put it down. It hurtles right along to a surprising and emotional ending, and I'd gladly take the ride again sometime.

For anyone who finds themselves missing the most recent Team TARDIS, this book is a winner. You've got the Doctor at his brilliant but occasionally manipulative best, you've got Amy following right alongside and ready for action, and you've got Rory getting to be gloriously competent and having actual things to do (joy of all joys!). New and improved monsters, great pacing, a well-told love story, and an emotional ending all add up to a wonderful book. Recommended to Whovians who want to see a different take on certain tropes (a paradoxical love story, the scare factor of the Weeping Angels) that they might have felt weren't done right in the recent two series, and really, anyone who just wants to spend more time with the Doctor.

In Which Trai Reviews 'A Wife for Mr. Darcy'

2011-12-18T13:34:00.000-05:00

The Book: A Wife for Mr. Darcy

The Author: Mary Lydon Simonsen

How I Found It: I have an interest in Pride & Prejudice variations, and this one's plot summary intrigued me. As a sidenote, this was one of the last purchases I made at my late, lamented local Borders.

The Review: Fitzwilliam Darcy has come to Longbourn to do something he has never done before: apologize to a lady. Upon realizing that his "tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me" remark was overheard by more than a few people in attendance at the local ball, Darcy goes to apologize in person to Elizabeth Bennet. Elizabeth accepts his apology, but then lightly spars with him, engaging him in conversation and teasing like no other woman has done before.

Despite his growing interest in Elizabeth Bennet, Darcy has other matters to think of--mostly, his family title. The Darcys are a line stretching back to the Conquerors and Darcy must make an advantageous match with a rich woman if Georgiana is to have any future prospects at all. Elizabeth is far below his station; she would never be a suitable match for him. So Darcy embarks on a courtship with Letitia Montford, who might not be quite so well-suited for him as Georgiana and others believe. Soon enough, Darcy is entangled in a courtship with one woman and in love with another, with seemingly no way of getting out of either. And that's only the beginning of his troubles.

I have to say I was a little intimidated by this one at first--the lengthy discussions of Darcy's ancestors and their respective positions in society baffled me just a bit (can I get a diagram, please?) and I found myself wondering a few times if we hadn't already been over this issue in enough depth. Once I got past that obstacle of understanding, I found that this variation worked on several levels, that it didn't ignore the side characters just because they're not Lizzy and Darcy, and that I was laughing aloud and in public at several parts I particularly enjoyed. This variation did one better on the others I've read, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it in the end.

One thing many reviewers take issue with in variations is the tendency to work in passages from Austen's original, which some think feels forced or just off (we've read the original; we know how it goes), but I found myself smiling at how Simonsen worked in the bits I most remembered, often with a sort of clever twist. I remember smiling at my book when I read Darcy and Lizzy's first conversation in the Bennet parlor:

"Whether it be Meryton or London, I hear the same conversations. A lady will comment on the number of couples in attendance at a dance, and the gentleman will respond by mentioning the size of the ballroom. And what, pray tell, do we learn from that exchange? One party is good with measurements, and the other can count."

Now Lizzy laughed openly. "Sir, you mistake the purpose of such an exchange. It is certainly not about the dimensions of the room or the number of couples. The parties are merely trying to sketch each other's character so that they might discover if this is a person they would like to get to know better..." (3)

This was a funny variation on Lizzy and Darcy's conversation whilst dancing at the Netherfield ball in the original ("It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy--I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples."). I have occasionally found myself wincing at the forced inclusion of the original's dialogue in some variations, but this was a clever twist on a well-known conversation, and it never felt as though Simonsen were forcing words into Lizzy and Darcy's mouths just to get in that little nod to the text.

As I said above, one of the things I liked most about the book was the inclusion of the side characters. Jane gets a fun subplot as she tries to wrangle Bingley's unruly young nieces and nephews into submission, and it's even shown that Jane has more of a backbone than outsides think, an angle that I loved. Darcy's family quickly recognizes what a predicament Darcy is in and how much he loves Elizabeth, and the entire cavalry works together to solve his problem (an especial tip of the hat to Lord Fitzwilliam, who was outrageously funny and who deserves a book all his own). Darcy and Georgiana's relationship especially was explored to my satisfaction; Darcy is shown to be dealing with Georgiana being older and able to express opinions of her own to him now that she is almost out in society, and they have a teasing, fun relationship that was fun to read about. One of the things I liked best about the 2005 film adaptation of P&P was the attention given to Darcy and Georgiana's bond, and that was definitely carried off here. I had to snicker when Darcy figures out a plot of Georgiana's and she casually tells him it's not as bad as he thinks and to "please unfurrow [his] brow." Atta girl.

As many side characters as there are, they never take away from Lizzy and Darcy, who remain as the main thrust of the book. As many complications as their courtship is fraught with, Lizzy and Darcy still maintain a fun, somewhat flirty dynamic, and there's several entertaining scenes where they realize the difficulty of getting a moment alone in so many overcrowded households. I really looked forward to those fun scenes, but as much as I knew there'd probably be a happy ending for my beloved couple, I found myself really feeling for the pair in the more dramatic scenes. I knew exactly why Darcy couldn't explain much of anything, but I also knew why Lizzy was so frustrated and wanted answers. If I occasionally want to give either of them a frustrated shake or a comforting hug through the book, that's a good sign.

There was one level to the variation I was sometimes slightly uncomfortable with: yes, this is an Austen variation written in 2011, and yes, there's talk of sex. (My usual buyer beware goes out to parents who might be shopping for young Austen enthusiasts; there's no explicit scenes, but there is frank talk.) It did make sense that Lizzy would be slightly more open about talk of a sexual nature, and that she'd talk about those things with Jane, but there's still that feeling that "oh, God, you're Elizabeth Bennet; you're not supposed to know those things!" It did add some humor to the book, though, and not in an explicit way, so it fit in somewhat gracefully with the rest of the tone.

Overall, this was a many-layered but still very interesting variation on the familiar story, and definitely a standout of the crop I've read so far. The various subplots--and the main plot of how Darcy will manage to get out of his courtship with Miss Montford--were handled with grace, humor, and just a touch of drama, and I cheered as ever for the characters I love so well. For someone who wants a variation they can really sink their teeth into, one that's got a bit of everything, go for it!

In Which Trai Reviews 'Ultimate Daredevil & Elektra'

2011-12-12T11:56:00.000-05:00

The Book: Ultimate Daredevil & Elektra

The Author and The Artists: Greg Rucka (author); Salvador Larroca, Danny Miki, etc. (artists)

How I Found It: Spider-Man may have been the great superhero love of my childhood, but Daredevil was the movie that got me loving superheroes in the first place, and the Daredevil/Elektra love story was always one of my favorite parts. Once browsing Daredevil comics told me this existed, I had to go for it.

The Review: Elektra Natchios is 17 and arriving at Colombia University for her freshman year of college. Her father is a businessman who owns a small dry cleaning chain in Queens; her mother died of breast cancer when she was young. Elektra's a normal girl in all but one respect: she's been extensively trained in martial arts, and she can defend herself quite well if need be--which is a good thing, considering the events of the year to come.

There's good and there's bad: good, she hits it off with Phoebe, her roommate, and a fellow student, Melissa. Bad, Melissa has attracted the negative attention of Calvin Langstrom the Third, known around campus as "Trey." Good, Elektra's set her sights on Matt Murdock, an attractive pre-law student whose physical abilities rival her own, and who also happens to be blind. Bad... Trey rapes Melissa. Even more bad: the police won't take action, due to Trey's family's status. Elektra might have to take matters into her own hands--except that Matt, who has a secret or two of his own, might not let her get away with it.

I really like the conceit behind Ultimate Marvel--younger, more contemporary reimaginings of Marvel heroes and heroines. This is my first acquaintance with the line, and I'm definitely curious now to try more--I like that the line reworks characters and storylines from the originals and doesn't try to confuse new readers with the complex history of the original imprint. I know just enough of the original Daredevil and Elektra characters to make sense of what's been changed here: Elektra's family is more middle-class, rather than rich; Elektra's mother's death was pinned down to a specific cause rather than left negligible; Matt and Elektra meet in college, instead of when they're older. I liked this idea of Matt and Elektra as college students: reading about kids my age, in an environment like the one I live in now, made this story easy to relate to, current, and compelling.

The art was really excellent; I think this is the most impressed I've been with any of the Marvel comics I've read so far. Sometimes Marvel women--even women like Aunt May!--look too much like supermodels for me to take them seriously, but Elektra, Phoebe, and Mel looked like normal girls, the type of girls I would see around my campus. Elektra's outfit was made into something more practical, the type of thing that a teenage girl--yes, even a teenage girl taking up secret vigliante work--would wear. Same with Matt's costume, although like many reviewers, yes, I did find it hard to believe that all Matt needed was a strip of cloth over his eyes and the top of his head to keep Elektra and others from realizing it was him.

Admittedly, part of the reason I found this story so compelling was that yes, I like to occasionally read something where a rapist gets what's coming to them. When I assembled my list of Top 10 Villians last year, I realized that most of mine were rapists. It's one of those crimes I can't forgive. So when Lisbeth Salander tattoos Bjurman, or when Tess Durbeyfield slams Alec's hand in a window casement, yep, I cheer. Rape on college campuses is a sad reality, and I was glad to see it addressed here and taken seriously--it wasn't sensationalized just because it was part of a superhero comic. Harsh reality is presented here--the police being hesitant to press charges, because of how prominent Trey's family is; Elektra being not-so-subtly told that Melissa might have to stay silent; Trey's family exerting pressure on the legal system and taking revenge on Elektra and her father.

Matt and Elektra's romance is intertwined with the vigilante subplot, and although it moves a bit too fast, I blame that on the arc only being four issues. The story skips ahead months at a time, at least in the beginning. It basically ends up being love after a few dates, which I'm never too fond of in fiction. But I liked their dynamic nonetheless. Matt tries desperately to keep Elektra from heading down the dark path of revenge and even murder. Elektra gets the feeling she doesn't know quite as much about him as she thought she did. Despite all the deceit and desperation, Matt and Elektra are still, when it comes down to it, a teenage couple--they get physical at some slightly inappropriate times, Elektra dishes with Phoebe once the date ends, and so on. The romance was fairly light compared to the darker themes of sexual crimes and dirty politics, and provided a nice contrast. I do think that the story could have been expanded and fleshed out--we don't get to see much of Matt outside his scenes with Elektra, and his backstory is left out entirely--but nonetheless, I enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to checking out the sequel, Ultimate Elektra: Devil's Due.

Overall, this was a graphic novel that wowed me visually and one that was easy for me to relate to, and I was willing to overlook the minor flaws in pacing and character development because of that. Recommended for older teenagers (15 and up, I'd say), especially girls who liked the movies and might be intimidated about where to start in trying the comics.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Doctor Who: The Stone Rose'

2011-12-12T11:55:00.000-05:00

The Book: The Stone Rose

The Author: Jacqueline Rayner

How I Found It: The Doctor and Rose's dynamic was my first and my favorite, and this was allegedly the best book featuring them, according to several people whose opinions I trusted. Thanks, girls! :) This was also the first book I read in my first-ever readathon, sponsored by Reading the Chunksters over at Goodreads. Yay!

The Review: Mickey has called the Doctor and Rose back to Earth with a surprise: he's found a statue in the British Museum, something that wouldn't normally be odd... except that this statue is an exact replica of Rose. In order to prevent a paradox, the Doctor and Rose have to rush off to ancient Rome, wanting to learn the truth about the statue and Rose's potential future as an artist's model.

Upon their arrival in Rome, they run into Gracilis, a local nobleman whose son has recently gone missing. A supposed psychic named Vanessa could help the Doctor, Rose, and Gracilis find the boy--but is she really psychic, or is there more to her than meets the eye? Why do the statues that proliferate Rome, all the work of one fledgling sculptor, so closely resemble their real life counterparts? Most importantly, when the air has cleared following a nearly fatal conflict, where, exactly, is Rose?

This was a wonderfully fast read for a Saturday morning, and it was just what I wanted from a book involving my favorite characters: some laughter, some tears, and the overall feeling that I'd just gotten to spend a bit more time with the dearly departed. I even got a little bit of insight into a character I'd previously written off a tad. All in all, it was a great bargain.

To start with: if you like timey wimey, gosh, is this the book for you. There's lots of paradoxical comings and goings, and a lot of things that don't quite make sense until the very end. It can be tough to figure out, but reading it straight through seemed to help me keep the timeline straight. I saw some reviewers that criticized the book for being too hard to follow on this front, but I had to just laugh the shenanigans off after a time: it was funny to see the Doctor and others have to work out how exactly not to cause a paradox.

Jacqueline Rayner's characterizations were spot-on. Jackie only makes a brief appearance in the beginning, but it matches up to what we see of her in early Series 2. Mickey's a bit more prominent, and he was the one I got insight into. I'd previously felt Mickey and Rose's relationship was predominantly sexual (given the number of innuendos Mickey makes in the pilot, and the subsequent instance in "Boomtown" when he suggests they could get a hotel room), but here it's suggested that Mickey does genuinely care for and love Rose, in a moving speech that had me reevaluating my previous opinions.

'... I mean, I was angry when she went off with you. Angry with you, but angry with her too, angry that she'd seen through me at last. Realised I was a loser and she was a winner. But I didn't mind, not in the end. Because she deserved more than me. She deserved someone who could give her the whole universe.' The sorrow in his voice turned to anger. 'But you got her killed.'

'I know,' said the Doctor, and it was as if he hated himself.

[...]

Mickey stood up and yelled, 'You should have taken better care of her!'

The Doctor shouted back, 'I know!' (152)

That exchange encapsulated so powerfully the dichotomy that was always present between the Doctor and Rose's family: they recognized what a great thing it was for Rose to see the universe, while at the same time remaining extremely worried for her well-being and unsure if they could trust this brilliant man who'd whisked her away. Rayner had it down pat.

Now, the most important thing for me is how well the dynamic between the Doctor and the companion is captured. I do so love the chemistry between the Doctor and Rose, that humorous banter with a hint of sexual tension, and I love to see them enjoying themselves. There were plenty of funny moments like this one:

‘Way to go for the detective work,’ she said.

‘Hercule Poirot could solve any case just by sitting back and thinking,’ he told her.

‘You with a twirly moustache!’ She laughed. ‘Go with the sideburns, that would.’

‘I expect it would make me look even more sophisticated,’ he said haughtily.

Rose grinned. ‘Go on, then. Grow a twirly moustache. I dare you.’

‘Fine!’ he said, gesturing at his upper lip. ‘I’m growing one now. Look!’

She peered closely, pretending to believe him, but collapsed in a gale of laughter after a moment, and the Doctor joined her. ‘Maybe not,’ he said. (37)

There were some sweet moments, too, like the Doctor calling Rose his equivalent of a good luck charm, or telling a statue of the figure Rose is supposed to be modeling for that Rose is prettier. It was a bit more overtly romantic than the show, but in my eyes, that wasn't a bad thing; it more clearly illustrated the feelings the Doctor and Rose clearly had for each other. All the while as I read it, I could hear the voices of the characters in my head, and that added to my enjoyment greatly. All the dynamics were there, well-represented.

There were some hilarious action sequences I would have loved to see on screen, including the Doctor facing off against various wild animals armed only with the sonic screwdriver (and quickly realizing that he probably doesn't know as many of those helpful settings as he should). I don't normally read these books for the plot, but this one's plot was fun and kept me guessing: where were the characters going? Who was behind everything? Yes, the eventual sci-fi explanation was a tiny bit juvenile, but Doctor Who is a family show (or was, until recently).

Not only was the book fun to read, it was also slightly educational: I definitely learned some things about ancient Rome that were new to me! (From what I understand, Rayner has a degree in ancient history; it shows.) For someone that might want to learn a little something whilst reading a funny, fairly romantic story about the Doctor and Rose, this one's definitely recommended!

In Which Trai Reviews 'Ethan Frome'

2011-12-12T11:51:00.000-05:00

The Book: Ethan Frome

The Author: Edith Wharton

How I Found It: I quickly became a Wharton fan following this summer's reading of The House of Mirth, and wanted to read this short book after becoming curious about the premise. This was my second experiment with Dailylit.

The Review: An unnamed visitor arrives in Starkfield, Massachusetts, and finds his otherwise chatty neighbors oddly reticent about one subject--the past of Ethan Frome, a badly disfigured man who interacts with few and who the townspeople interact with even less. When the visitor hires Frome as his driver for a time, he realizes that Ethan has dreams even he wouldn't have guessed--he's interested in science, for one, and once had an opportunity to leave oppressively wintry Starkfield behind and go to Florida. So why didn't he take it?

Eventually, the visitor has the story "bit by bit, from various people," and the reader learns said story through an extended flashback. Years earlier, Ethan was a healthy young man living in a house with two women: his sickly wife, Zeena, and Zeena's cousin, Mattie Silver, who's been acting as the hired help Zeena needs. Ethan has long since grown weary of Zeena's perhaps faked ailments, and is fighting an attraction to Mattie--one that Mattie apparently reciprocates. When Zeena announces that she will leave for a night to see a new doctor in an adjacent town, Ethan and Mattie are faced with a night alone that might see them acknowledging their feelings--or that could set the course for a great tragedy.

Edith Wharton is one of those writers who simultaneously makes me want to worship her skills and cry at my lack of talent. Just like The House of Mirth, so many passages here arrested me with their beauty and romanticism. I loved this one in particular: "Ethan felt confusedly that there were many things he ought to think about, but through his tingling veins and tired brain only one sensation throbbed: the warmth of Mattie's shoulder against his. Why had he not kissed her when he held her there? A few hours earlier he would not have asked himself the question. Even a few minutes earlier, when they had stood alone outside the house, he would not have dared to think of kissing her. But since he had seen her lips in the lamplight he felt that they were his." There's so much restrained desire there, just in those little images--Mattie's shoulder pressing against his, or the glimpse of her lips in the lamplight. There's passion here, sure, but it's controlled and nothing overtly steamy. Needless to say, I doubt something like this would get written today.

Like in The House of Mirth, I really felt for Wharton's characters and wanted to see them succeed or, alternatively, fail. I was excited for Ethan and Mattie to get a night together without Zeena. I may or may not have been hoping for some terrible fate to befall the frigid Zeena. I wished the townspeople could help out Ethan somehow, even knowing they couldn't. It was amazing to me that in such a short book, Wharton gave every major character a backstory and developed them fully. I knew how Ethan, Zeena, and Mattie got from Point A to Point B. I'm sure that for most this makes the book slow-moving--the plot is often intercut with backstory--but I tend to enjoy quiet, character-driven stories, and this was one of them.

I was actually surprised this was by the same woman who wrote Mirth, while simultaneously not surprised at all. This isn't a book like that one, where there's a great overarching plot held together by many tiny details and instances. This is a fairly slight book that mainly follows only a few days in the life of three people. There's no glamorous parties on yachts or gambling at cards; there is bad snow and harder times than even Lily Bart would know. There might not be all that much of a plot--it's a character study more than anything--but there's the same depth of feeling and character that made me love The House of Mirth, and that was exactly what didn't surprise me.

I watched the 1993 film adaptation on the merits of its stellar cast--Liam Neeson (Ethan), Patricia Arquette (Mattie), Joan Allen (Zeena), and Tate Donovan (the visitor, here named Rev. Smith). I've really liked their work in other things, and I was curious to see them all together.

While the film does some things for the sake of what it presumes the audience would want (hi, sex scene, mildly confused to see you here), it did other things quite well. The smash-up was bloodier than I anticipated and pretty horrific, all told, and actually seeing how badly Ethan's body was wrecked (well-played by Liam Neeson) made the story even more heartbreaking. Patricia Arquette and Liam Neeson were believable as Ethan and Mattie, even if the accents got a little distracting at times! Certain things did get overdramatic (I think I understood Mattie's desperation towards the end well enough without her trying to poison herself), but most other elements of the core Ethan/Mattie plot were nicely done.

Joan Allen and Tate Donovan both did well with smaller roles (Zeena's actually not too small a role, but it's still not much compared to Ethan or Mattie). I liked the choice to show bits and pieces of Ethan and Zeena's younger days, before Zeena's illnesses set in; that was clever and a good way to show what Ethan once saw in her. Tate Donovan didn't have much to do other than righteous indignation at the treatment of the Fromes, but he and Katharine Houghton made the final scene really chilling and sad.

The film was overall a pretty good adaptation, but I don't think it quite matches the book in my mind. It's a nice supplement, but not an absolute must-see. The book, on the other hand, is marvelous, if depressing. Best not to be read in winter! If you want to give Edith Wharton a spin, this one is short and easy to read. See you on the other side!

In Which Trai Lists Some Books That Have Been Sitting On Her Shelves

2011-11-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

I haven't done one of these in nearly a year! I like the topic for this one: Top Ten Books That Have Been On My Shelf For The Longest But I've Never Read. Maybe listing them out will finally motivate me to get around to them! :)

1) The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen, Syrie James: I've had this one for at least a few years now and I've never gotten around to it despite the great reviews I've seen! I'm saving it for a rainy, Jane-craving day, I suppose.

2) Rebecca, Daphne duMaurier: It's been so long since I got this one that I honestly don't even remember what prompted me to want to read it! I think I probably got it around the time I read Jane Eyre.

3) The Book Thief, Markus Zusak: A ton of people have told me to read this one, ever since my sophomore year of high school, but I've shied away from it knowing how upsetting it apparently is!

4) The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte: I'm really, really interested in this one--one of the first novels to deal with domestic abuse and alcoholism, I believe--but I think I've let it sit because I liked Agnes Grey so much that Anne became my favorite of the Bronte women, and I'm reluctant to read the second and last of Anne's novels!

5) Mr. Darcy's Diary, Amanda Grange: There's actually a few Darcy-centric books I'd like to get around to, but I'd have to space them out. I've read another Grange book (Colonel Brandon's Diary, two summers ago), but none of her others just yet.

6) Skin Deep, et. al., Christopher Golden: I loved the Jenna Blake books when I was in high school! Jenna is a mildly squeamish college student who works as an assistant for the local medical examiner, and I really liked her personality and how she and the team at the morgue responded to all kinds of suspicious deaths. I have a feeling I could relate to them a bit more now that I'm in college myself, and I'll have to pick up the remaining half or so of the series soon.

7) Wives & Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell: Gaskell in general is one I've been trying to acquaint myself with slowly. I got sidetracked on this one during high school and never managed to pick it up again, and I'm wending my way back towards North & South, which I was reading prior to moving in this semester. Gaskell and I will meet someday!

8) The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood: One of my favorite high school teachers recommended this to me, and I know it's one of those dystopians I just need to read!

9) Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides: The Virgin Suicides is one of my favorite books, and I've always been curious about Eugenides' second book. It's been staring at me for at least four years now.

10) Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins: So... yeah. I read Catching Fire in September of last year, bought Mockingjay shortly after... and haven't touched it since, probably because I've heard how depressing it is. Oops. I have, however, remained unspoiled.

In Which Trai Reviews 'The Left Bank Gang'

2011-11-10T10:52:00.000-05:00

The Book: The Left Bank Gang

The Author and Artist: Jason (colored by Hubert)

How I Found It: My Graphic Lit professor passed it around in class and was kind enough to let me borrow it when I expressed interest. Thanks!

The Review: In the world Jason presents, the most valuable art isn't books--it's comics. In Paris' Latin Quarter in the 1920s, struggling artists F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingay, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce are fighting against artistic blocks and marital problems.

Scott is trying to deal with Zelda's fits of instability and infidelity. Ernest doesn't have the money to support his family. With this in mind, Ernest proposes a radical scheme for how they can get money. The scheme doesn't exactly go off without a hitch, and it's only seeing it from everyone's perspectives that helps the reader come to understand what really happened.

Having just finished discussing Pound, Stein, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway in my American Lit survey, I thought this would be an interesting read. What did it have to say about art, and what did it have to say about the artists? How would the artists, real people of the period, come across on page? I'd seen fictional representations of these people before (this summer's Midnight in Paris was lovely), and though I only have a passing acquaintance with the work of most of these artists, I'm very much interested in them. After reading this, I'm certainly curious to finally dig in to Tender is the Night and A Moveable Feast, to get glimpses of the truth behind their lives.

The choices Jason made were really interesting to me. I can't say I think I fully understand it all, but I'm certainly willing to think about it. The characters are represented by anthropomorphized dogs, which I see now is a trademark of Jason's style. I don't think he does it for the same reasons as Spiegelman did in Maus, say, but I found myself thinking about the reasons anyway. Each character is only distinguished by a color--Fitzgerald is a white dog in a red suit; Hemingway wears orange; Pound wears green. By having the protagonists look so similar, was Jason raising a point--were the members of the Lost Generation really all treading the same path, essentially the same person? (Given what I've read of hers, I think Gertrude Stein would say they were.)

I found myself taking particular notice of the silent panels. Silent panels are probably one of the things I've most enjoyed learning about in the course of my studies this semester, and there are several that have really made me think (a tragic escape from an illegal party in Persepolis, a closeup on a Rorschach inkblot that resembles an abyss in Watchmen), and this book added several more. Scott, alone and devastated, sits contemplating the bottle of alcohol next to him. Hemingway feeds a pigeon and then stealthily kills it, desperate for food for his family. Pound draws a fellow customer at the coffee shop and seems to wonder about her. Often, these sequences carried on for several panels, with characters whose capacity for emotional expression was limited by how they were represented, but I never lost sight of what their thoughts were or what was going on. I give Jason a lot of credit for that.

I really appreciated and enjoyed the commentary on the writers-turned-artists--Tolstoy is criticized because all his characters "look the same." Zelda used to help Scott with his artwork; from what I can remember, Zelda helped him with his writing at times. Gertrude Stein offers the young Hemingway some harsh but helpful advice. The choice to have everyone be comic book artists rather than writers was another thing that made me think. Was Jason positing the idea that comics are something to be valued as highly as we value novels? Was he being ironic?

Perhaps my favorite part of the book was the shifting perspectives towards the end. I've said before that I'm a sucker for multiple narrators or perspective shifts (only when done well, though), and it worked perfectly here. Nothing truly fits together until you see that final piece, and even if parts of what went on were obvious, I was captivated by how minute shifts of perspective made all the difference.

I couldn't find anything at all to dislike in this book, and I'd even like to own a copy someday. It's a fast read, but one subtle enough that I'd like to return to it a few more times--knowing more about Jason, about Fitzgerald and Hemingway, about the other artists mentioned, or just to appreciate the craft and skill that went into it. Recommended to fans of the Lost Generation!

In Which Trai Reviews 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles'

2011-11-10T00:52:00.002-05:00

The Book: Tess of the d'Urbervilles

The Author: Thomas Hardy

How I Found It: Years ago, when I was but a junior in high school studying for the English Literature AP exam, I had this one down as a possible choice to read in preparation for the exam, in time for the miniseries to air on Masterpiece Theatre. I never did get there and instead read it this year. This was my first book read via Dailylit.

The Review: "O mother, my mother!" cried the agonized girl, turning passionately upon her parent as if her poor heart would break. "How could I be expected to know? I was a child when I left this house four months ago. Why didn't you tell me there was danger in men-folk? Why didn't you warn me?"

There are some books you read only to wish you'd read them earlier. Me, I'm quite glad I read this one exactly when I did, at nearly 21, instead of at 17, as was the initial plan. I think I would have sworn off men for life.

One night in Marlott, an English village, the local parson tells Jack Durbeyfield something interesting--he is not just "plain Jack Durbeyfield, the haggler" as he believes, but the descendant of one of the greatest old families, the d'Urbervilles. Jack gets it in his head that this means something grand, and he and his wife hatch a plot to "claim kin" with a wealthy d'Urberville living not far from Marlott. Tess, the beautiful eldest Durbeyfield child, has far more sense than her parents and would prefer they not get wrapped up in such nonsense. Circumstances soon necessitate it when a horrific accident--partly Tess' fault--fells Prince, the family horse, leaving the Durbeyfields on the edge of poverty, and Tess finally agrees to go and claim kin.

This acquaints Tess with the charming, but conniving Alec d'Urberville, her alleged cousin, who is really anything but. Alec is perhaps a bit too interested in Tess, and takes advantage when he sees the chance. This event and its tragic outcome will define Tess for the rest of her life, haunting her subsequent associations with nearly everyone she meets--including, a few years later, Angel Clare, a kindly farmer and scholar who becomes smitten with Tess. Will Tess finally find happiness with Alec, or will she end up paying for a sin that was never her own?

Entirely unintentionally, this year has become the "Trai acquaints herself with the great female protagonists of literature" year. First Moll, now Tess. I wonder that some of the frankest portrayals of female sexuality I've ever read were written by men! It's funny, too, that Moll and Tess were two completely opposite sides of the coin--Moll truly owns her sexuality and is unashamed of her crimes, whereas Tess is ashamed of a "sin not of [her] own seeking" and tries to swear off all contact with men because of it. Reading both novels within a month or two of each other was certainly interesting.

This is one hell of a depressing story--tears were shed at the last few chapters--but an important one. I think Hardy pushed a lot of boundaries by writing such a sexually-charged story, and by pointing out the flaws inherent in the "system" of religion, morality, what have you. That doesn't mean it wasn't still frustrating to read at times, from a modern perspective--when Alec kept going on about Tess tempting him just by looking the way she did, I wanted to shake him and yell at him that it's his fault for being tempted, not hers for having the body she does--but it did mean I could engage with the text more fully and find its views fascinating. These flaws and contradictions are still happening today--in the same vein of the Alec example I mentioned above are the recent hypocritical tweets by a hockey player that many took issue with. The player first asked women to cover up so that they wouldn't tempt their male brethren... and then went on to tell men that they've got nobody but themselves to blame if they are tempted. Huh?

I felt the three main characters--Tess, Alec, and Angel--and their relationships were well-drawn and convincing. I felt for Tess and hoped she would be able to find some happiness, or at least some gainful employment, during her difficulties. Alec made my skin crawl, but I could see why Tess would, at first, find him charming--the strawberry scene is going to stay with me for quite a while; I adore the Vintage cover (above) for evoking that so simply. Angel made me love him and then made me hate him, but I rooted for him nonetheless because of how tenderly he treated Tess as he fell in love with her--a marked contrast from Alec. (I think this book might have earned the distinction of one of my favorite kisses in literature--as Tess and Angel work together to break up curds for cheese-making, Angel leans down and kisses the underside of Tess' arm, despite its being covered in curds. That's love, folks.)

It was one of those books that had me appreciating the side characters as much as the leads--there's the early image of Jack Durbeyfield drunkenly riding along and chanting about his family vault at Kingsbere, Joan Durbeyfield worriedly realizing she should have ascertained if Alec was a good man before sending Tess to him, Marian eventually turning to drinking but still managing to stay quite pleasant and supportive of Tess. (Continuing my happiness at positive depictions of women in love triangles, this book had a lovely one--all the dairymaids are in love with Angel and resent Tess for a short time, but quickly become her steadfast friends once they realize Tess does not wish to be their rival.) The plot the characters were involved in was slow at times, undoubtedly, but slow enough that it made me think and have the time to really consider where things were going and how I felt about that.

I decided to watch the 2008 BBC miniseries adaptation on the strength of good reviews and its being the most recent adaptation, and because David Nicholls (One Day) was the screenwriter. I expected to like it, as I do most BBC adaptations--what I didn't expect was to love it, and for it to become my all-time favorite BBC adaptation. It was beautifully shot and incredibly well-acted.

Certain things really chilled me--the final shot of Tess that ends Part One, where the viewer is finally given the truth of what Alec's violation has left her with; Tess huddled in the rain, desperate and kissing her wedding ring; the choice to have Tess and Alec framed by the bars of a tomb during one confrontation, symbolizing how Tess is trapped with no other option but to obey him. The soundtrack was sorrowful and insistent, almost like a warning, and the echoing strains of "The snow, it melts the soonest..." were haunting.

Gemma Arterton really impressed me--I'd only ever seen her as a Bond girl and a goddess in Clash of the Titans, so I wasn't expecting her to pull it off, but she had me at the indignation Tess displays in her opening scene: who among us hasn't scoffed and rolled our eyes at embarrassing relatives? She perfectly played Tess' indifference and numbness in her goodbye to Alec in Part One, and her anger and sorrow at Angel in Part Three. Hans Matheson captured Alec exactly, the charm and the slime. Eddie Redmayne, Angel, was a bit flat at times, but I really felt the connection between him and Gemma's Tess, and the kiss I mentioned before was just as I imagined it. (A special shoutout to the woman who played Marian; she was all I'd imagined and more.) All the emotional scenes were well-played--I cried at the speech I opened this post with, and at the end--and Nicholls' screenplay was outstanding.

This story has left quite an impact on me, and I look forward to exploring it further both in my research for a paper and as I view two other adaptations: Roman Polanski's Tess, and an earlier miniseries version starring Justine Waddell of Wives & Daughters fame. Most definitely recommended to anyone who'd like to read a classic or to anyone interested in portrayals of female sexuality in literature.

(I mentioned above that I read this via Dailylit; I highly recommend it! The site delivers small installments [the length of your average email] of public domain books into your inbox on a schedule of your choosing, and it worked quite splendidly for me.)

In Which Trai Reviews 'The Complete Persepolis'

2011-11-07T12:14:00.000-05:00

The Book: The Complete Persepolis

The Author and Artist: Marjane Satrapi

How I Found It: I saw the film in theatres upon its release, but didn't get to read the graphic novel until it was assigned for my course.

The Review: I'm sure I'm not the only one to have seen a movie long ago, not having read the book first, only to read the book years later, realize it's amazing, and then find the movie doesn't quite measure up to it. I had that experience with this book and its movie. I vividly remembered loving the movie and being outraged that it didn't win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature that year, even when I knew that as an animated film, Ratatouille far outclassed it. I loved the book just as much as I remembered loving the film, fortunately, and was more than pleased to talk about it in class.

Persepolis is the story of Marjane Satrapi's girlhood and then her teenage years, all taking place during the tumultuous years of the Islamic revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. Her parents are somewhat more modern than their countrymen, and Marjane grows up surrounded by rock music, forbidden parties, and a certain knowledge about what's really going on in the country, contrary to the filtered version given to her by teachers and even the television.

Marjane grows up among the horrors of war; before she is even fourteen, she will see her friend's dead body following an explosion, learn some painful truths about class differences, and eventually have to leave Iran to live in Austria, when her parents decide she could have a better and brighter life ahead of her. In Austria, Marjane is faced with unraveling the complexities of her identity: in Austria, she is too Iranian; in Iran, she is too Western. Not only that, but she must begin to make sense of boys, politics, and her emerging artistic sense.

There are just certain things, I've realized now, that can only be conveyed by a graphic novel, by words and images combined. Silent panels, as I will mention in a forthcoming review of another graphic novel, have been the thing that most captivated me thus far in my coursework. There's a few here that really strike me: Marjane's horror upon seeing her friend's body in the rubble, or the silent chaos of a party interrupted by the guardians of the revolution. There's nothing that can match a series of wordless panels, frozen images of terror or nothingness, in emotional power or intellectual stimulation. Satrapi uses the graphic novel format to great effect.

It's one thing to have a recurring motif in a novel; it's another to have a visual motif in a graphic novel, so that the reader can see the repetition of certain images and how they change over time. The raised fist, the all-seeing eye, a farewell at an airport--all of these images are repeated more than once, and the meaning is different each time. That was another thing I found worked better in a graphic novel than straight prose. Even the color scheme was effective--the black and white color scheme meant, to me, not to get hung up on the details of what someone looked like, what that might mean for their nationality, and to instead look at the characters as people.

Technical considerations aside, Marjane's story was an emotional ride and an eye opener, one I'm not sorry to have read. Marjane's parents explain the truth behind the Shah's rule to her, but it also serves as an insight for Western readers, a look into what went on "behind the scenes," so to speak, the things that occurred in Iran that didn't make it to the Western news-watching public. This isn't always about the grand narrative of the revolution--it's about the lives of the individual people caught up in it. Marjane's parents, who risk their lives several times by protesting. Marjane's grandmother, full of wisdom and often helping the young Marjane on her path to self-discovery. Marjane's Uncle Anoosh, a former political prisoner Marjane becomes attached to. It's clear how much Marjane cares about these people, and how much we should care, and as a reader, I became emotionally invested fast. I cried several times as Marjane lost friends and family members, or came to some sort of revelation about herself or her country.

There are several incidents that will really stay with me--Marjane learning about class differences as she sees that poor young men are being sent to war (99-100), her grandmother's life advice (150), Marjane telling off some guardians (301), Marjane's mother's reaction to her impending marriage (317). Even if the story was painful at times, it was still an unflinching look at growing up, one that I could even relate to at times, despite not having gone through nearly as much as Marjane had. I'll certainly want to reread this in the future.

The movie was a good representation of the story, for sure, but so much was condensed or cut out entirely that it just didn't stack up in my mind. There's none of the graphic novel's insight into the ideology of the veil, and we barely see anything of Marjane evolving into an artist, which perhaps the most fascinating section, to me. Moments like the lineup in the second volume, where we see the hair and clothes each girl has under her veil, highlighting her individuality, are gone, and I felt that a good portion of the story's meaning went with it.

This graphic novel is an especially good choice for teenage girls as well as older women, and educational to boot. If someone is hesitant to read it, I'd say show them the movie first and see how they react--if they like it, be sure they read the graphic novel to get the full story. If there's a teenage girl in your life who might not appreciate graphic novels just yet (or a boy who's interested in history, or vice versa!), I'd say give them this one and see what happens.

In Which Trai Mini-Reviews 'Spider-Man: The Death of Captain Stacy' and 'Spider-Man: Reign'

2011-10-29T17:57:00.000-04:00

Hi, all! I'm short on time and still have a backlog to get through, so in the interest of time, I'm doing two Spider-Man mini-reviews in one post! This month has been a bit graphic novel-heavy due to my coursework and slight obsession with Spider-Man, but there will be more diversity on this blog soon, I promise!

The Amazing Spider-Man: The Death of Captain Stacy, by Stan Lee (author), Gil Kane with John Romita (artists): Before Gwen Stacy met her demise at the hands of the Green Goblin, her father was killed trying to save a child in the path of a battle between Doctor Octopus and Spider-Man. Unbeknownst to Peter, Captain Stacy had known for quite some time that Peter was Spider-Man, and, with his dying breath, made Peter swear to protect Gwen. Peter swears he will, but that might be a problem--believing the accounts of the passerby who thought Spider-Man taking Stacy's body away from the crowd meant he went to finish him off, and with Peter unable to tell her his side of the story, Gwen swears that she hates Spider-Man, and joins forces with a corrupt D.A. candidate who wants to stop Spider-Man for good.

Having read the Gwen's death story arc earlier this year (review here), I wanted to read the issues where her father died, to see a bit more of Peter and Gwen's relationship as well as Peter's mentor/mentoree relationship with Stacy. I don't think this arc did as much for me, emotionally and as a story, as that arc did, but it was still touching, and still had some very worthy moments. One of them: Doctor Octopus is a very menacing villain; I can see why he was picked for the second film adaptation. It's tough to beat titanium tentacles that basically keep fighting no matter what. It was nice to see a glimpse of one of Spidey's most famous foes.

Another: Stacy's death scene is very touching. "Be good to her, son! Be good to her... she loves you--so very much..." Knowing Gwen's eventual fate compounded the emotional impact. There wasn't as much direct interaction between Peter and the Stacys as I thought there would be, but there's a cute scene where Peter collapses from overexhaustion and Stacy has Gwen take care of him at their home. The art was somber when it needed to be, like when Peter is cradling Stacy's body, but bright and colorful during the battle scenes.

The subplot involving the smear campaign against Spider-Man by the D.A. candidate just didn't do it for me. I didn't care about the guy's political maneuverings. I did, however, like seeing more of Robbie, Peter's only ally at the Daily Bugle--he gets a lot to do, and it was so awesome to see who my research tells me was the first major supporting black characters in comics. I also really enjoyed the last issue, where the X-Men's Iceman first thinks that Spider-Man is the enemy, but then comes to realize he's the good guy, leading to their teamup. The two of them taking down the bad guys together was fun to see.

I'm going to be interested to see how the Stacy family dynamic is handled in the 2012 reboot, and to see if Stacy's death will make it on screen. I was a bit bored by the smear campaign subplot and didn't see enough of Stacy to get too attached to him, but this one is worth reading if you want to see some of Doctor Octopus, or if you want to learn a little more about Peter and the Stacys.

***

Spider-Man: Reign, by Kaare Andrews (author and artist) with Jose Villarrubia (artist): In the future, New York City has outlawed vigilante activities. Masks are forbidden and citizens are cowed and controlled by a brutal police force known as the Reign. Print media is tightly regulated. Peter Parker is an aging man working as a flower seller and haunted by the ghost of Mary Jane, deceased for quite some time.

J. Jonah Jameson shows up on Peter's doorstep on the eve of a new program, the Webb, being initiated that would contain the City in a sort of electrified bubble, preventing the intrusion of criminals from other areas. He wants Peter to become Spider-Man again and fight the government, but Peter refuses. One spark, though, is all that's needed to light a fire, and when Peter dons the costume again, he becomes the City's only chance at salvation.

There was some influence from Watchmen here, with the outlawed superheroes and the perpetual night, and I've heard that this is apparently heavily influenced by the classic Batman graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, which I've not yet read. I was curious to read this because I've never really seen the concept of a very elderly superhero played with before, and because I wanted to see how the impact of Mary Jane's death on Peter would be handled.

In that regard, this book made me weep. Not as hard as Gwen's death, not as hard as Blue, but it made me realize how much Mary Jane means to Peter in a way I hadn't before considered, even when I read the major points in their history. Sebastian Mercer over at SpiderFan puts it eloquently: "Peter's religion is his wife." Mary Jane's death is the big symbol here; losing her makes Peter lose his faith, and it symbolizes the downfall of the City. Yeah, there were things I could have done without, and Peter cradling Mary Jane's long-dead corpse was one of them, but there are some truly beautiful scenes where Peter imagines conversations with Mary Jane, or when he remembers sitting by her bedside as she died, that really touched me. "I remember the day we met. You already knew it and you told me. I hit the jackpot. Your face was so beautiful… the sky cracked like ice. And I could feel the sun pour down on me like rain. It was all I could do to stop staring. You were so… my chest was too small for what you did to my heart. I wanted to tell you so much, but words didn’t have enough. So I tried to show you. But just when you meant the most. Just when I thought I could do it. I screwed up." That passage alone really made me feel how badly Peter needed the faith and love Mary Jane gave him.

As for the elderly superhero angle... well. I was a bit nonplussed. Elderly Peter fights with far too much ease. I kept expecting the scene from Up where Carl and the villain duke it out, only to be thwarted by their backs going out. Instead I got a Peter who basically had every bit of strength and agility the young Peter had, with wrinkles. I guess you could chalk that up to super strength, but I don't know if it should work like that. If you're in your sixties or seventies and haven't been a superhero for quite some time, I don't think it should come as easily as it did here. I'm also not quite sure how Jonah was still kicking, but he had an awesome role here and he was probably my favorite of all the side characters. He can be a jerk in the original continuity, sure, but there seems to be some good in him.

I admittedly don't think I knew quite enough about old Spidey villains to keep track of what was going on here. The art was a bit dark and it made me muddled at times. I was deeply confused and wondering what the hell was going on at one point; that might have been because I hadn't paid enough attention to some things, as reading the recaps on SpiderFan cleared me up. (In one of the few parts I could keep track of, Peter's joint taking down of Hydro-Man and Electro is priceless, and his knocking out Mysterio was applause-worthy.) I've seen people say there's some post-9/11 commentary in here, what with the panopticism going on and the control on the press. I don't really look for politics in what I read, so I couldn't say, but having just reread Watchmen recently, I caught a hint of that same political commentary and that who watches the watchmen? attitude.

Overall, as a Peter/Mary Jane fan, it was touching and exactly what I wanted to see of a graphic novel exploring the impact of her death on Peter. On the other hand, without as much knowledge of Spider-Man villains as I'd thought, I was often confused and needed a plot synopsis to help me keep track of the action. Despite that, I was really moved and haunted by some of the imagery of a city in chaos and the people who rise up to try and fight that, and I'm glad I read it.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Daredevil: Yellow'

2011-10-29T17:55:00.002-04:00

The Book: Daredevil: Yellow

The Author and The Artist: Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale

How I Found It: My love for Spider-Man: Blue (review here) and a nostalgic fondness for Daredevil made me seek this one out; big ups as ever to my local library.

The Review: "Dear Karen, I'm afraid... Just when I think it is all going to get easier, I close my eyes and I see you in my arms. It's as if a hole were torn open in the center of my chest. After a while, it starts to close up and... something has a laugh that sounds like you or wears a perfume that smells like you and... it tears the hole wide open again."

Matt Murdock is a man defined by loss. The loss of his father spurred the creation of his vigilante persona Daredevil, and as this volume posits, Karen Page is the one who inspired Matt to change his costume from yellow to red. These two losses have shaped Matt into a deeply remorseful man, and it is this remorse we get a glimpse of in this chronicle of Daredevil's early outings.

Matt's father, Battling Jack Murdock, was a boxer seeking to regain some of his former glory. It's just unfortunate he went to the wrong man looking for it--a manager whose name is Sweeney but whose nickname is "The Fixer." As Matt says in his voiceover, "A fight manager named 'The Fixer' and my Dad, over the hill when he was forty, kept winning. I can't imagine which one of us was more blind." When Jack is murdered by the Fixer and his associate Slade after he refuses to throw a fixed fight, a crime they get away with, Matt sews his father's old yellow boxing robe into a costume and takes on the nickname childhood bullies used to taunt him with--"Daredevil". He "had seen how the law--which [he] still steadfastly believed in--wasn't always the same as justice." So justice he became.

Even as Matt is busy seeking justice for his father's murder, his professional life is beginning to shape up. His best friend and partner, Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, has established a law office and is looking for a secretary. Just when the search seems fruitless, in walks Karen Page--young, blonde, and beautiful, understanding exactly what the rigors of the job will be. Foggy's smitten. Soon enough, so is Matt. But there's nothing New York's villains love more than a pretty girl, and when Karen is drawn into danger, protecting her becomes Matt's job.

I will admit that I preferred Spider-Man: Blue to this volume, although this one does still have its merits. Blue was more of a romance, the story of Peter, Gwen, and Mary Jane. Yellow, to my surprise, seemed to lean far more on Matt's relationship with his father, despite the framing device of Matt's letters to the now-deceased Karen. It was an interesting change, but given that I went into this expecting what I got in Blue--a better understanding of Matt and Karen, like the one I attained for Peter and Gwen--a tiny bit disappointing.

I did, however, like that this comic focused on Matt's relationship with his father as well. I felt the scenes immediately following Matt's father's death were the best, the most affecting. I teared up as Matt says a belated "I love you" to his father's corpse. You can feel Matt's desperation as he tears down the fire escape and runs through the city blocks all the way to the site of his father's murder--no mean feat, as Matt is blind, and this one act could expose his abilities (every other sense is extremely heightened, to compensate for his blindness). You can practically smell the aftershave and talcum powder as he digs Jack's robe out from his footlocker. You can hear the subway approaching as Matt contemplates how to kill the Fixer. Atmospheric is the word here.

Matt's relationship with Karen, as well as his friendship with Foggy, were perhaps not quite as fleshed out as Peter's relationships with Gwen, Mary Jane, and Harry were in Blue, but there were scenes here I found more memorable. My particular favorite was Matt, Foggy, and Karen's night out at a local bar. Foggy challenges some college kids to a game of pool, and the kids make a few ill-advised cracks about Matt being blind, including one of those ever-popular Helen Keller jokes. Matt tells Foggy to rack the balls--and proceeds to win the entire game with just a shot or two due to his heightened senses, cracking Helen Keller jokes all the while because, as Foggy says, he's "heard them all in Braille before." I was delighted by this scene and even surprised at the fairly subtle condemnation of ableism.

Another striking scene is Matt's rescue of Karen after she's abducted by a client of theirs known as the Owl. Tim Sale gives us a stunning, almost full-page panel wherein Daredevil stands atop a spire on a city skyscraper, looking out over the entire city and listening for Karen's voice. Not even the bright yellow of Daredevil's costume is visible; the choice to have Daredevil in shadow against such a dark night, in front of such a landscape, made the panel breathtaking. The colors really pop off the page here. When Matt tries to drown the Owl, when he attacks the Purple Man who's abducted Karen, the colors are so vivid and gorgeous to look at.

The "voiceover," as it were, here is our main insight into Matt's relationship with Karen. The love triangle between Matt, Karen, and Foggy never felt overdone and was done so subtly; I really do applaud Jeph Loeb's skill at writing things like this (I gushed over his handling of the Gwen/Peter/Mary Jane triangle last time). That one scene where Foggy quietly turns around and throws out the bouquet he had in hand is entirely silent on Foggy's part, but gets the point across so eloquently. And it really is easy to see why both Foggy and Matt fall for Karen. She's hard-working (taking down dictation even while distracted), lively (she's thrilled by Daredevil's antics), and very beautiful. Her banter with Daredevil during one of his rescues of her, while she's unaware he's her boss, was so much fun to read. I'd like to see more of their relationship, for sure--a gripe I had with this volume was that it cuts off so abruptly. In Blue, it was made pretty clear what and who led to Gwen's death. Here, there's an oblique reference or two and that's it. If I hadn't read up about Karen on the Marvel wiki, I would've had no idea what led to her death or how her and Matt's relationship ultimately ended up.

Overall, though the story didn't have the focus I was expecting and the villains seemed to take a sideline to the story of Matt, his father, and Karen (there's only the Fixer, Slade, the Owl, and the Purple Man), I did enjoy the graphic novel and felt it was a good companion piece to Blue, if not quite its equal. It certainly reminded me what I loved about Daredevil, whose film adaptation was the movie that got me loving superheroes. Matt is an unconventional superhero--a blind man, a man with a great deal of faith... but what makes him a superhero is his unyielding search for justice. If you'd like a glimpse into the life and loved ones of the Man Without Fear, I feel this is a good place to start.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Spider-Man/Mary Jane: ... You Just Hit the Jackpot!'

2011-10-29T17:52:00.000-04:00

The Book: Spider-Man/Mary Jane... You Just Hit the Jackpot!

The Author: Stan Lee, et al.

How I Found It: As I've said in my other Spider-Man reviews, I've been a fan of Peter and Mary Jane since childhood, thanks to the movies. I found out earlier this year about this compilation of their finest moments as a couple and had to buy it so I could see their courtship and marriage as it was in the comics.

The Review: Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson were married in 1987, after an often turbulent courtship. Before they finally met, they'd both steadfastly avoided their aunts' attempts at setting them up. Eventually, Peter started dating Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane, the perpetual party girl, started dating Harry Osborn. Peter only started to realize Mary Jane had depth beyond her party girl personality when she stayed with him the night of Gwen Stacy's funeral, despite his efforts to make her leave. Their romance wasn't all roses--Mary Jane was commitment-shy, and Peter's duties as Spider-Man left her in constant danger. An infamous and widely hated storyline in 2007 finally erased Peter and Mary Jane's marriage in a deal with the devil to save Aunt May's life. But before then, Peter and Mary Jane were a sometimes troubled but very much in love married couple.

This book compiles some pivotal moments in Peter and Mary Jane's relationship, both before their marriage and after. (Oddly, the issue where the actual marriage takes place isn't included, but it's shown in the included full graphic novel Parallel Lives.) There are people like me that choose to believe that Peter and Mary Jane's marriage was never erased. I might not have read the comics to see that storyline for myself, but from what I've heard, I don't want to. I prefer to dwell in the continuities where Peter is a loving husband and not a basement dweller in Aunt May's house, and Mary Jane is the girl who matured and fought her way past her emotional issues to become Peter's wife. This book was great for giving me insight into the story behind Peter and Mary Jane's relationship, and I loved seeing how they worked through various conflicts on their way to a life together.

The Amazing Spider-Man #43: The issue before this ends on Peter finally meeting Mary Jane, after years of trying to avoid her (having only heard from Aunt May that she has a "great personality," and he knew what that was supposed to mean). She's a red-headed bombshell who walks into his life with the famous words "Face it, Tiger... you just hit the jackpot!" When we open, Peter is already dazzled by Mary Jane. When they see on TV that one of Spider-Man's nemeses, The Rhino, has broken out of prison and is rampaging through the City, Mary Jane suggests they go and check it out--helpfully supplying Peter with an excuse to head down there and defeat the Rhino. This was a fun story that I'd seen recounted in Spider-Man: Blue, so it was nice to see the original story of Peter and Mary Jane's first date, and to fill in what that story illuminated. You get a real glimpse of the surface aspects of Mary Jane--that party-loving personality Peter sometimes condemns her for--that later issues reveal is all just a front. The issue ends on a touching scene when Peter realizes that he's been so wrapped up in himself that Aunt May has been quietly suffering, and a bit of that age-old conflict between the duties of Spider-Man and the duties of Peter Parker emerges.

Untold Tales of Spider-Man #16: This story reveals something pivotal to Peter and MJ's relationship--that Mary Jane knew Peter was Spider-Man even before she met him. Staying with her Aunt Anna the night Ben Parker was killed, she witnessed Peter going into the house... and Spider-Man subsequently climbing out a window. It suggests that the reason Mary Jane avoided meeting him was an inability to reconcile her love for Spider-Man's dashing antics with the reality of him being a kid with responsibilities just as huge as her own. "He's science-geek Peter Parker. He's a laughing, joking adventurer. He's the boy next door. He's a hero who saved the city. I just--I just don't know..." It was interesting to see some light shed on why MJ might have really wanted to avoid Peter, besides her insistence about not wanting a date with a geek who couldn't get one on his own (hence the aunts' set-up). There was also a look into Peter's love life before Gwen and Mary Jane--his friendship with Liz Allan complicates his budding relationship with Betty Brant. Oops.

The Amazing Spider-Man #259: Just after Mary Jane reveals that she's known Peter's secret identity all along, Peter hedges, wondering whether or not it's safe to own up to it--he only knows Mary Jane as the irresponsible party girl, after all. Since Mary Jane knows Peter's most painful secret, she decides to confess hers: her childhood growing up with constantly fighting parents, how her sister's unhappy marriage to her high school sweetheart gave her a glimpse of harsh reality, and her escape to her aunt's after her mother's death. The art in this issue really wowed me. There's a glimpse of who Peter used to be that transitions into who he is now. There are heartbreaking tableaux of Mary Jane's passionate but doomed parents. There's despair on Mary Jane's face as she sees her sister's young husband and realizes that how trapped he feels isn't how she wants to feel in a few more years. I'm sure that for readers back in the day, the revelation of Mary Jane's inner life was a shock, but it couldn't have been better done, and Peter and Mary Jane's final conclusion--that they care for each other, but aren't in love quite yet--is touching and true to form. Mary Jane still has commitment issues; Peter is still Spider-Man. Let's see how long it takes for things to change...

The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #19: Through a mishap with a hat bearing a tracking device from a local supervillain (... yeah), Mary Jane ends up caught in the snare of a supervillain, Smythe and his robotic Spider-Slayer, who thinks she's Spider-Man! Fearing for her life and her aunt's, Mary Jane has to rely on her own wits to mislead Smythe, even as she quietly tries to signal the real Spider-Man for the help she so desperately needs. It was so fun to see Mary Jane take action and actually manage to hold her own against Smythe, for a time. She might not be a match for him physically, but she's quick-witted enough to hold her own in the crisis and figure things out. She finally recognizes how much Peter has to go through when he fights supervillains, but she's got a fight of her own ahead of her: not long afterwards, Peter spontaneously proposes. Uh oh.

The Amazing Spider-Man #291-2: This two-part arc was sweet and even a little heartbreaking. It was nice to include it just after the Annual, because it marks the return of Smythe, who follows Peter and Mary Jane all the way to Pittsburgh (supervillainry gets you mileage, you know that?). Mary Jane has declined Peter's proposal and taken off to visit her long-lost father and sister, only to get caught up in a criminal plot perpetuated by her father. When Peter joins her, he and Mary Jane have to figure out what the line is between having to help family and having to do what's right--and they just might have to figure out whether Mary Jane really meant it when she said she wouldn't marry him. Mary Jane gets a pretty substantial amount of growth here, and we get more insight into her family. (Peter's confrontation with Gayle, her sister, is a real plus.) Mary Jane gets to help fight Smythe, and it's the thought of MJ in danger that gives Peter the strength to keep fighting. How awesome is that? Very.

The Amazing Spider-Man: Parallel Lives: Oddly enough, the issue where Peter and Mary Jane got married (Annual #21) wasn't included, but Peter and Mary Jane's wedding is recounted here. Really, this was a bit of a rehash of what we'd learned in the Untold Tales issue and #259--that Peter and Mary Jane had a lot more in common than they initially thought. But seeing it laid out side-by-side was really stunning. Aunt May cradling baby Peter, just dropped off by Richard and Mary Parker before their final, fatal departure, mirrors Gayle holding Mary Jane and begging her to be quiet in the midst of their parents' fighting. Peter's aunt and uncle don't understand just how much is going on with him, just as Mary Jane's friends don't see under her carefree exterior. The section that takes place after the marriage offers a sweet glimpse into Mary Jane coming to terms with her husband's propensity for getting into dangerous situations, and how it's possible to calmly and maturely hash that out. I could've done without the recapping of all we'd already learned, but it was really interesting to see it side-by-side, so I let it go and enjoyed the different perspective.

The Amazing Spider-Man #309: This was the only story I could have done without, although I could see why it was put in: more reason for Mary Jane to be badass. In this one, she's been held captive by a deranged stalker who's obsessed with the character she plays on TV. She was undeniably clever in how she handled things and I appreciated seeing that resourcefulness, but it seemed like an excuse to have her running around doing badass things in a skimpy outfit, to cater to that male fantasy. The art style was also jarring, compared to the other issues--very faintly drawn, very muted. I got so used to the bright colors of the other issues that I almost had to squint to see this one. Bit not good.

The Amazing Spider-Man #491: I'm enough of a sap that this one had me crying! It was the perfect place to end the collection. Peter and Mary Jane are reuniting after a painful estrangement, but their reunion is marred by an attack on the life of Dr. Doom, who is acting as a foreign diplomat. Peter and Mary Jane are shown to have the same quibbles as any other couple ("You never introduce me to your friends!") , as well as more serious issues, mainly seated in Mary Jane's long-held fear of ending up like her parents or her sister. Their final reunion, in which Peter admits just how much he not only loves Mary Jane, but needs her, was beautifully done and perhaps my favorite moment for them so far.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this one to anyone who's interested in the history of what was once a great comic book marriage, or to someone who needs convincing as to how marriage can work in a comic book. Fans of the Peter/Mary Jane relationship on film are encouraged to check it out as well; I know that I've been enriched and enlightened by acquainting myself with the source material for the couple that was a substantial part of my childhood. Go get 'em, tiger!

In Which Trai Reviews 'Doctor Who: Shining Darkness'

2011-10-09T20:45:00.000-04:00

The Book: Doctor Who: Shining Darkness

The Author: Mark Michalowski

How I Found It: Before making the decision to buy a Doctor Who novel, I usually check Amazon and Goodreads reviews by avid Whovians who can comment on characterization (which I care about more than plot when it comes to tie-ins, because if it doesn't sound like the characters I know and love, I'm not going to buy into it). This one had strong reviews.

The Review: The Doctor has taken Donna to an art gallery millions of light years away. If only he'd picked a better day. He's intrigued by a piece of art that gives odd readings when he scans it with the sonic screwdriver. Unfortunately, a group of art thieves is also intrigued--and Donna ends accidentally teleported with them as they steal the piece of art.

The art thieves are robot envoys of the Cult of Shining Darkness. The Cult are "organic supremacists"--they believe in the superiority of organic beings over robots, or "mechanicals," and the only robots they allow to work with them are ones with almost no sentience. They refuse to believe that robots can feel emotion or pain, that anything they do is a mimickry of humanity. And they would really like it if Donna could think as they do.

Meanwhile, the Doctor, in his desperate search for Donna, finds himself captured as well. The crew of The Sword of Justice is very interested in what the Cultists want with that piece of art, and if the piece the Cultists stole could be but one part of a whole. If the Doctor wants to find Donna, if he wants to learn what the Cult is up to, he's going to have to go along with the crew's pursuit.

I knew I was going to like this book from the opening scene. The Doctor and Donna, when I watched Series 4, quickly became my favorite TV friendship. They had such a fun dynamic (although it could certainly become a serious one at times), and Michalowski got that down with this exchange alone:

'Two and a half billion light years,’ said Donna Noble, her eyebrows raised and a gentle smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, ‘and you’ve brought me to an art gallery?’

‘Two and a half million light years,’ corrected the Doctor, pulling Donna out of the path of something that resembled an upright anteater, studded with drawing pins, trundling down the street, ‘and it’s not just an art gallery.’ He sounded almost hurt.

‘If you’re going to tell me it’s “not just an art gallery” because it’s got a shop that sells fridge magnets…’

‘It might,’ replied the Doctor, glancing away guiltily and tugging at his earlobe. (8)

Everything about that one exchange struck me as the Doctor and Donna. The Doctor's sounding hurt at Donna slighting the art gallery, and that guilty, almost childish glance away at the end--that's him. Donna's mock-threatening tone and her indignation that of all the places they could go, the Doctor chooses a lowly art gallery--that's her. I knew right then that the author had their dynamic down, and it's really a shame that the Doctor and Donna spend almost the entirety of the book separated. Still, even if they're separated, their friendship is palpable. At one point, the Doctor talks about the Cultists stealing a valuable treasure, and when a museum worker remarks that what was stolen was hardly valuable, the Doctor glares at him and says, "I was talking about Donna." (15) It was little things like that that made me feel like Michalowski really got it.

As I said above, I read these books for the characters, not the plot. The plot has never been why I watch the show; I watch the show to see how everyday people react to (a) this brilliant alien they find themselves traveling with and (b) the absolutely ridiculous shenanigans said brilliant alien gets them into. But I was surprised at how much I liked the plot here, and the message it sent. Sometimes the didacticism was a bit over the top, but the book actually had a very touching message about racism and discrimination. Characters such as Mother, the Sword of Justice's helper robot, had depth and backstory. Mother was perhaps the most integral character in the story, the one who imparts said lesson and who the Doctor and Donna both learn from. This exchange with Donna was surprisingly profound:

[Donna] shook her head again. 'It's only natural to see something that doesn't look human and doesn't act human and to assume it doesn't think human, isn't it?'

> IT IS UNDERSTANDABLE, agreed Mother.

There was a long silence.

'It doesn't make it right, though.' Donna said quietly. 'Does it?'

> NO. BUT WE ARE ONLY AS IGNORANT AS WE CHOOSE TO BE.

Donna gave a bitter little laugh. At herself. (109)

Given that Doctor Who is a show aimed at family viewing, or at least was before this current series got into more adult territory, the message was subtle enough that kids wouldn't feel preached to, but obvious enough that parents who might read this with their children could use it as a talking point. I like those sneaky bits of education for the kiddies in the tie-ins, and to be honest, this exchange made me think, and I'm twenty!

The novel's message aside, this book was just funny at certain points. Michalowski had a good handle on balancing the humor with the dramatic bits. One review I read compared the book's humorous parts to Douglas Adams, and I can agree with that. The Cult hides another piece of the puzzle with a civilization that changes what they worship like they change their underwear, just for fun. When you've got a character whose subtitle is the High Priest of What We Believe Today, and the culture is currently worshiping an apocalyptic chicken--well, yeah, there's a bit of satire there. It wasn't offensive, though, and seemed more a gentle mockery of people too willing to believe anything rather than of religion itself. (There's even a perpetually bickering gay robot couple. It was kind of awesome.)

Even if the plot separates the Doctor and Donna, it was still fun to see their efforts at helping (or being forced to help) their respective captors. Donna learns a bit about robots and has to rethink her opinions about sentience and how she views nonhuman lifeforms, and she ends up being an instrumental part of facing the Jaftee, they of the ever-changing religion, in one of the best, most hilarious scenes. The Doctor's interactions with Mother give him a new respect for robots, and he gets to try his damnedest to stop another war. He has a beautifully in-character speech that ends on ‘Bad business, war. No one comes out of it unscathed.’ He paused. ‘Believe me.’ (128)

My biggest complaint was how the plot kept the Doctor and Donna separated, but Michalowski had just as good a handle on the Doctor and Donna separately as he did on the few scenes the reader sees them together. There's a subtle but profound message about racism, as well as some fun humor. As Doctor Who stories go, I found this to be a really entertaining one. Recommended to all fans!

In Which Trai Reviews 'Moll Flanders'

2011-10-09T17:22:00.000-04:00

The Book: Moll Flanders

The Author: Daniel Defoe

How I Found It: I was very much interested in the BBC miniseries starring Alex Kingston and Daniel Craig, and felt the need to read a banned book for Banned Books Week! My thanks to Project Gutenberg.

The Review: I can give you a plot summary, but to be quite honest, I think Daniel Defoe took care of that with his original title. There is no other way to describe this title without defaulting to the phrase "long-ass." I shall reproduce it here:

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, etc. Who was Born in Newgate, and during a Life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest, and died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums.

See what I mean? Defoe must be the king of the Spoiler Title.

To flesh out the summary a bit: Moll is born in Newgate Prison, after her mother, a prostitute slated for execution, "pleads her belly," appealing to the practice of staying the executions of pregnant criminals. She is granted a reprieve and later is transported to the United States to work on the plantations in Virginia, and Moll is taken from her and left to shift for herself. When Moll escapes the gypsies who take her in, she is given to a woman who raises children orphaned by the law.

Moll's great ambition in life is to be a "gentlewoman" and to earn her own money to live on, like one of the ladies in the town. If only Moll knew what that little euphemism meant, but she doesn't. Soon enough, Moll's dignified nature catches the eye of an upstanding family in the town, and she is taken in and raised as one of their maids, while really treated as one of the family. She grows up to be beautiful, and even becomes more accomplished than the family's daughters. However, it is here that Moll gets into her first romantic entanglement: she becomes the mistress of the elder brother, but the younger brother is in love with her.

When Moll's first husband (one of the brothers--I'm not going to say which!) dies, Moll is free to marry again. And so she does--many times. There's the draper, a rich man who'd like to spend his inheritance on a wife. There's her own brother, entirely on accident and much to Moll's grief. There's Jemy, a dishonest rogue who nonetheless becomes the love of Moll's life, no matter how financial circumstances conspire to separate them. There's the banker, trustworthy and loving. There's any number of lovers. And when Moll runs the gamut of her husbands, she finds herself with no other options before her but to be a thief or to starve. Well, then, what's a girl to do?

So really, the book is exactly what it says on the tin--the romances and adventures of the indomitable Moll. I've heard her described variously as the first great female character in literature (a statement I am fully prepared to agree with) and the Wife of Bath's spiritual successor (which, having read her tale in English Lit this semester, I can also agree with). Moll is many things, but above them all, she is perhaps as liberated a woman as it is possible to be. She knows what she wants and she will take it, even if she has to steal it. And I love her.

I had heard this book was a slog, so I approached it with trepidation. One Friday afternoon I picked up TARDIS and selected Moll Flanders, figuring I'd have a go at the first few pages and see what happened. Though people have said this work makes Defoe the father of the modern novel, the man hadn't quite worked out that chapter breaks are beneficial. I figured I'd get bogged down in this mass of a tale--literally a life story, uninterrupted. I think that what helped me along at first was the standardized, modernized spelling and punctuation. I thank Project Gutenberg for that. I know there are critics who hate this movement--that they feel it dumbs down the text, or that it takes away from the original spirit of the work--but to be so very honest, I much prefer it this way, because otherwise my inner grammarian cries and proceeds to hide in her corner and refuse to help me parse things. (As much as I love Jane Austen, reading the Penguin edition of Mansfield Park a few years back made me wince at the state of pre-standardization spelling and grammar.) For anyone who might approach this book with trepidation, I recommend the Gutenberg e-text, or a print edition which standardizes the text (the pictured Collins Classics edition does, for example).

The modernized spelling and grammar helped me to understand the book better than I had anticipated, but what really drove me along was Moll herself. I'm still in awe that a man wrote this book. Sure, certain parts of it can be seen as less than empowering today, but Moll is every bit her own woman and I was cheering for her from the beginning. Defoe's observations about society were dead on. The passage that made me love the book comes early on, when Moll is a servant in the household of that noble family, under the name of "Miss Betty" (we never do know her true name, and she doesn't take on the name Moll until fairly late in her life). Both brothers are in love with Moll, and the younger insists he would have Moll even if she didn't have a fortune. His sister fires back with this observation:

'I wonder at you, brother,’ says the sister. ‘Betty wants but one thing, but she has as good want everything, for the market is against our sex just now; and if a young woman have beauty, birth, breeding, wit, sense, manners, modesty, and all these to an extreme, yet if she have not money, she’s nobody, she had as good want them all for nothing but money now recommends a woman; the men play the game all into their own hands.’

It was that "yet if she have not money, she's nobody" that sold me. Defoe clearly knew exactly what a woman's position in society was at that point, and seems to have written this novel to show just how few options were available to women. What else can a woman do but marry? And if she cannot marry--if she is too old or has too little money--isn't she as good as a beggar?

Moll's refusal to accept society's norms made me love her. She marries plenty of times, sure, but she never loses her independence. She might prostitute herself to live, but she clearly enjoys sex and feels shame only when she repents in the face of her impending execution. As I said before, the empowerment is a bit warped these days, but Moll's impassioned speech to her first lover had me cheering despite that: 'If, then, I have yielded to the importunities of my affection, and if I have been persuaded to believe that I am really, and in the essence of the thing, your wife, shall I now give the lie to all those arguments and call myself your whore, or mistress, which is the same thing? And will you transfer me to your brother? Can you transfer my affection? Can you bid me cease loving you, and bid me love him? It is in my power, think you, to make such a change at demand? No, sir,’ said I, ‘depend upon it ‘tis impossible, and whatever the change of your side may be, I will ever be true; and I had much rather, since it is come that unhappy length, be your whore than your brother’s wife.’

See that? Moll takes a stand. She doesn't let a man rule her desires or her prospects. She even advocates that women not settle, saying that it is the propensity women of the day had of marrying too soon that traps so many of them in unhappy marriages, that if only women waited just a bit more to find a man with good character, or until the fear of not being immediately married has passed, they would fare somewhat better. I was stunned at Defoe's insight into the plight of women in the era, and now I'm mightily curious to check out Roxana, his other work, as well as John Cleland's Fanny Hill, which came twenty years after Moll and was a bit more scandalous. (Cleland wrote his tale from prison and thus had nothing to fear. Defoe presented the tale initially as Moll's autobiography, rather than fiction, so he could keep out of jail!)

The thing I loved most about Defoe's method of telling the story, keeping us in Moll's head all the while, was that I could see exactly why she fell for each husband or lover. I was particularly sold by the initial scenes depicting her courtship with the man she doesn't know is her brother. As she tries to snare him into admitting that he'd marry her even if she were penniless, they write back and forth on a piece of glass with his diamond ring, as he tries to win her over with flowery statements and Moll refutes every one. I was entirely sold on their relationship, and thus understood entirely Moll's revulsion when he turned out to be her brother. Similarly, it was clear why Moll fell so hard for Jemy, and even after their initial assignation was cut short, I was rooting for them. Sure, it's difficult to sympathize with her at times--she has twelve children and entrusts them all to the care of others, with varying degrees of involvement in the care and keeping of each--but it's always easy to see that Moll does what she does because she has to.

I did feel one part of the novel dragged on perhaps too long--I started to become slightly bored with Moll's life as a thief. So many scrapes and methods of stealing are recounted that it becomes difficult to keep track of them all, and Moll has quite a few near-misses with the law, nearly all of which are accounted for. Though it was fascinating to realize how expensive things were back then (fabric cost more than some women had to live on for a year!) and how harsh the law was (the simplest of crimes merited "the steps and the string," as Moll so eloquently puts it), I eventually wanted to tell Moll to get on with it, already, and tell me how she got thrown in Newgate! That section was the only one that bored me, though, and it was towards the end of the novel, so it wasn't hard to get past.

I wasn't expecting it at all, but Moll's story kept me captivated and had me turning pages at every opportunity (TARDIS got the most mileage of her lifetime so far; she was in my bag and ready to be whipped out at any opportunity). She has become probably my favorite female character in all of literature, and I'm even looking to getting a physical copy of the book for rereading purposes. I was delighted to read one of the most notorious books in all of literature, and though this isn't one for the kiddies (probably not for anyone below fifteen!), I'd really recommend it to anyone who feels up to the task. I especially recommend the novel to anyone who has an interest in great portrayals of women in literature. Meet Moll. I think you'll like her.

Coming soon: my reviews of three film adaptations of Moll's story--the aforementioned Alex Kingston miniseries, an extremely loose American adaptation starring Morgan Freeman and Robin Wright Penn, and the 1965 adaptation starring Kim Novak.

In Which Trai Reviews 'The Complete Maus'

2011-10-09T16:22:00.000-04:00

The Book: The Complete Maus

The Author/Artist: Art Spiegelman

How I Found It: This is the first of the new-to-me books assigned in my Graphic Literature course at college. Before then, it had been recommended to me by a friend or two.

The Review: This is one of the most difficult-to-classify books I have ever seen. We had a long discussion about it during one of my classes. I found this, along with Persepolis (one of the future texts), at a Borders closing sale, but not without agonizing over where to look. First, my mother and I checked the graphic novel section. No dice, although surely it should be there. I go to check nonfiction. No luck. History. Nada. Finally it dawns on me: memoir! And there they were. Look at the tags for this post, and you'll see my dilemma still. How many categories does this work fit in? A whole lot.

Maus: A Survivor's Tale, a two-volume comic (Volume I: My Father Bleeds History and Volume II: And Here My Troubles Began), is the story of Art Spiegelman's father and mother, Vladek and Anja, and how they survived the Holocaust. Vladek was in Auschwitz; Anja was in Birkenau. Often, their survival was a matter of luck. Though Vladek and Anja survived, their family was torn apart, and Vladek and Anja are forever changed. Vladek, to Art's dismay, becomes a cantankerous caricature of the Jewish miser; Anja commits suicide when Art is twenty.

It is Art's idea to write his father's story, to make it a graphic novel. Here is where the story differs from other tales of Holocaust survivors--not only is it a graphic novel, the central metaphor is to equate the people involved with animals. The French are frogs. The Americans are dogs. Germans, particularly the Nazis, are cats. And no matter where they are from, the Jews are mice--they are vermin, just as Hitler sees them.

Maus is the only graphic novel to ever receive a Pulitzer Prize--it was so rare an event that a special Pulitzer Prize had to be created. Undoubtedly, the work has a complex history. The work went through many forms (its earliest appeared in 1972) and there was a five-year gap between the first volume and the second (1986 to 1991). Vladek died in 1982, and so probably never saw the work as it came to be. The history behind the book is so complex that Spiegelman has just released a book about its creative process, MetaMaus. I went into this work with only a vague idea of the conceit behind it, and came out staggered by just how complex it was. This is so much more than a Holocaust story--not only is it a rumination on a man's complex relationship with his father, it is a commentary on the process of creating art and how taxing it is for the artist.

Vladek's story is framed by what went into the book's creation. We see Art coming home for the first time in years, wanting to ask his father about his story and Anja's, allegedly recorded in her diaries. The book is transcribed from Art's notes and, later, his tapes of Vladek talking--almost all of it is in Vladek's own words. It's so hard to describe the effect this has, when coupled with how Art chose to represent the story in drawings. For example, Vladek's story as he tells it to Art is in somewhat broken English, but whenever Vladek is shown in his younger days--when he would be speaking a language he knew fluently and did not have to learn later in life, like English--he is very eloquent, as he would be. It's something you barely notice until it's been pointed out to you, but when it is pointed out, it's something that makes you pause and really consider how much thought and time Art had to put into his representation.

One of the most interesting parts of the book, for me, was how hard Art struggled to put down his father's experiences. At one point, he even goes to his therapist with his agonies over getting every detail right (eventually, he settles on a few compromises when his father's account contradicts documented facts about the camps). A favorite exchange of mine is early in Volume II, when Art talks to his wife about his difficulties:

Art: There's so much I'll never be able to understand or visualize. I mean, reality is too complex for comics... so much has to be left out or distorted.
Francoise: Just keep it honest, honey.
Art: See what I mean? In real life you've never have let me talk this long without interrupting.

Spiegelman's art is done in stark black and white, and though it seems cartoonish and rudimentary (though not nearly as much as his early drafts did), he really did make some fascinating artistic choices. One panel shows Vladek and Anja at a crossroads, looking for a place to seek refuge--and they stand in the center of a road that forks outwards like a swastika, symbolizing that no matter what path they take, the Nazis will be waiting. Another shows Vladek and Anja trying desperately to disguise themselves so they won't be recognized as Jews--they were pig masks, trying to pass as Poles. Vladek has no problem, but Anja's physical appearance hews more closely to traditional Jewish features, and it's easier for her to be recognized. Spiegelman represents this by having her mouse tail sticking out of her coat. Often, the choices he made were clever and really interesting to think about; I certainly found myself poring over different panels.

Vladek himself is a complicated, flawed person. He is highly prejudiced, for one thing, though Art tries to point out to him that he is essentially harboring the same attitudes towards other races that the Nazis held against Jews. He is cheap enough that it infuriates his second wife--he even returns a half-used box of cornflakes to the local supermarket so that the food doesn't have to be wasted. What he chose to do with Anja's diaries, when it is revealed, is a shock. It is often easy to see why Art had such a difficult relationship with him, but despite that, Vladek's story of survival and of his love for Anja is truly amazing.

While I was fascinated by the book's insight into its own artistic process, and by the insight into Art's relationship with Vladek, I think that what ended up dampening my appreciation of the book just a bit was its central conceit. Having the characters pictured as animals, as brilliant an idea as it was, left me feeling perhaps a bit too distant from them, and I couldn't feel as much emotion as I should have. There were definitely some emotional moments still--the first time Vladek and Anja see a swastika on display, when Anja makes the conscious choice to go to the camps since Vladek will be there, when Vladek hears in Auschwitz that Anja is still alive: these moments had me crying. I just wish there could have been more emotion towards the end, for me.

Though I felt the book was not as emotional as it could have been, I still really appreciated the story it told, and it did move me. The way Spiegelman chose to tell his father's tale reminded me at first, in the best way, of my favorite song from my favorite musical, Cabaret. By portraying the Jews as mice, Spiegelman makes the reader confront not only how the Nazis saw the Jews, but how the Jews still see themselves. He strips the story of the Holocaust down to its most human elements and does so in a way I don't think I'll forget anytime soon. Recommended for someone with an interest in a seminal work of graphic literature or in Holocaust stories.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Spider-Man: Blue'

2011-09-28T13:29:00.001-04:00

Yet another delayed review--this semester doesn't like me! In the interest of time (and because it's been more than a month since I've seen it, by now), I'm delaying my review of One Day until the DVD comes out, so that I can watch it again and have it fresh in my mind, rather than go by the muddled memories I have of what I liked and disliked. Sorry, all!

The Book: Spider-Man: Blue

The Author and The Artist: Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale

How I Found It: My interest in the relationship between Peter and Gwen Stacy, soon to be portrayed in 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man, led me to this.

The Review: "So, it's Valentine's Day and there's a place I stop by once a year... It's about remembering someone who was so important to me I was going to spend the rest of my life with her. I didn't know that meant she would only get to spend the rest of her life with me."

Even years later, Peter Parker still mourns the loss of his first love, Gwen Stacy (I reviewed the original issues of that storyline here). The first few pages depict Spider-Man going to the bridge where Gwen was killed and leaving a single rose in the water, and the "voiceover" in the panels lets us know that Peter is recording a sort of love letter to Gwen, wanting to tell their story for posterity's sake.

Peter has realized, with hindsight being what it is, that in his life, things have to get very bad before they can get very good. His courtship with Gwen Stacy was one of those times. When our flashbacks begin, Peter is being held captive by the Green Goblin--who just so happens to be his best friend's father, although the man himself is unaware of that. There's a dilemma: how do you protect yourself from an archvillain who knows who you are but who's near and dear to your best friend? You can't kill him. So Peter does the best he can: knocks the Goblin out, triggering the amnesia that acts as Norman's safeguard, and saves Norman from a fire. Maybe, Peter reflects, if he'd left him for dead, Gwen would still be alive.

With the Goblin neutralized, other foes want a piece of Peter--the Rhino, the Lizard, two Vultures, and Kraven the Hunter. Our hero has enough on his mind already... and that's not even counting the two women vying for his attention. One is Gwen Stacy. The other is Mary Jane Watson. Peter is going to have to pull off one complicated balancing act.

Given how invested I'd become in the love story of Peter and Gwen, as well as in Peter as a character, I expected to like this graphic novel, to appreciate the story it told, to get a small glimpse of the romance between the two of them. I reminded myself, however, that this was a romance written by men for a predominantly male audience. In The Death of Gwen Stacy, I took note of and often enjoyed the cheeky little remarks about Peter and Gwen's romantic monologues being tiring for a young male audience. I expected more of the same here.

I was so glad to be proven wrong. What I got was a very moving, very human meditation on lost love, on memory, and on what impact a death can have on those left behind. When I saw those first few pages, where Spider-Man drops a rose off the bridge to commemorate his fallen love, I already had tears in my eyes. Jeph Loeb's writing is beautifully done, but Tim Sale's artwork works with it perfectly. There's so much vivid color (showing the liveliness of the girls as well as the garishness of the villains) but also such subdued tones, reflecting Peter's mental state. I thought I understood Peter as a character well before I read this, but there was a layer revealed to me here that I'd never anticipated. Peter is many things--a geek, a hero, a son without parents, a loving nephew--but here I came to appreciate him as a man in love.

It's Peter's relationships that are important here. We get to see him with Aunt May, the cornerstone of his life and someone who always looks out for him. (There's a touching scene where both she and Peter contemplate moving in with friends of theirs, and neither one wants to go first, not wanting to hurt the other's feelings--only to realize what they've been withholding, and to be fully supportive of the other's decision.) We get to see him with Harry Osborn, who's more appreciative of Peter after he rescues his father, and who starts becoming a good friend to him. We get to see him with Flash Thompson, his biggest bully, who, ironically, worships Spider-Man. We get to see him with Curt Connors, otherwise known as The Lizard, a tragic villain in every sense of the word (his efforts to regrow his amputated arm are what causes him to turn into the Lizard, isolating him from his wife and young son).

Most importantly, we see why Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane become the two great loves of Peter's life. I was so pleased with the handling of the love triangle; I wish more material involving the trope worked like this. Neither side is villified, as is so common in romances involving a love triangle. Heck, Gwen and Mary Jane are actually pretty good friends. When both of them come to nurse Peter as he lies ill, there's a bit of tension there, but it doesn't turn into a cliched catfight--it's more of a friendly rivalry. Peter is attracted to Gwen because she matches his personality; she is into science just as he is, and he likes making her happy (indeed, he buys the aforementioned motorcycle to impress her). He's attracted to Mary Jane because she's the life of the party, a counterpoint to his own personality (I love the scene where she helps Peter get past the police blockade so he can take his pictures).

His relationship with Gwen is portrayed through a lot of longing and a lot of inner monologue. Like any young man, Peter worries about how he'll measure up to Gwen's expectations. He worries about money that he doesn't have, that he'd need to go on dates. He worries about what she'll think of him becoming friends with Mary Jane. Through all this worry, though, Peter truly appreciates Gwen as a person, so much so that he can remember so much so vividly even years later. He loves her smile and her kindness, and Gwen loves how daring he is, which intrigues her enough to finally take the jump and ask him to be her Valentine. And just as Peter says, that's when she had him--all of him.

My favorite scene in the entire graphic novel comes towards the end, when we get a glimpse into Peter's married life post-Gwen. Mary Jane finds the visibly upset Peter in their attic, having heard a good part of his monologue for Gwen, and she just wants to make sure he's all right. Before she leaves, she makes a request: "Will you do me a favor, Peter? Say 'hello' for me... and tell Gwen I miss her, too." I saw at least a few reviews that couldn't understand Peter's desire to remember Gwen, viewing it as "cheating on Mary Jane with a memory." I think this scene proves that it wasn't that at all. Gwen's death is what changed Mary Jane, what got her to realize that life wasn't always a party and that everything must come to an end. Peter recognizes this, and so does she. For me, someone who's recently come to love Peter and Gwen's relationship, but who's always been a fan of Peter and Mary Jane, this scene was everything I'd wanted to see. It proves that when moving on after a loss, one doesn't necessarily have to forget the person who passed away. You can remember that person and love them all the same, and so can your loved ones, and it doesn't mean you love your current partner any less.

All in all, the graphic novel was a compelling exploration of Peter's psychology, as well as a touching account of his relationships with Gwen and Mary Jane. I'd most definitely recommend it to readers who want to know more about Spider-Man's early history, as well as someone like me who's interested in both of the major romantic relationships in Peter's life. This was a deeper and more romantic graphic novel than I expected, and I anticipate turning to it often over the next few years.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Black and Blue'

2011-09-10T16:41:00.000-04:00

Hello to my reading public, small as it is--have a review that's at least two or three weeks late! My semester starting was marred by the wonderful hurricane weather, and I've been swamped in efforts to catch up. I have at least two other reviews to get to you this weekend (the film adaptation of One Day, as well as one of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's Spider-Man: Blue), so stay tuned!

The Book: Black and Blue: A Novel

The Author: Anna Quindlen

How I Found It: It came up as a recommendation as I browsed Amazon. This was apparently an Oprah's Book Club selection in 1998. My thanks to my local library.

The Review: The first time Fran is abused by her boyfriend, later husband, is when she's nineteen. He grabs her a little too hard after she talks to a friend's brother, leaves her with bruises--and appears perfectly contrite and apologetic when he next sees them.

Bobby's remorse doesn't always last. When they marry, Fran is trapped in a cycle of abuse and attempted atonement that will last almost twenty years, until a night when Bobby breaks her nose and she can no longer hide her abuse from the world--and, most importantly, their son, Robert. Fearing for her life and Robert's welfare, Fran makes the decision to flee, enlisting the help of Patty Bancroft, a woman who specializes in relocating abused women, claiming to be even better than the witness protection program.

Fran and Robert settle in Florida, living new lives as Elizabeth and Robert Crenshaw. Fran cannot forget what Bobby did to her, but she can try and forge a new life. It might not be so easy, since Robert's bond with his father is strong, and she knows that Bobby will always be looking for them. Nothing, not even the protection of a local gym teacher and a new best friend, can keep Fran feeling safe.

I've never read anything by Anna Quindlen before, unless I've read an article of hers without remembering, and now I think I'm curious enough to check out one of her other novels. I really enjoyed the writing style here--it was poetic, but somehow managed to convey the horrors of abuse in a way that felt realistic. Quindlen tells the story of Fran's escape linearly, but weaves it through with flashbacks to the various abuses Fran suffered. This, to me, made it feel as though Fran had escaped, but was constantly flashing back to life with Bobby, in a PTSD sort of way. This passage was perhaps my favorite in the novel:

"Or maybe Bobby had been having an argument with me in his head all day long--on the job in the car, while he was banging around the kitchen. Maybe it was an argument made of saved string, a big, brightly colored ball of an argument, the synthesis of all the arguments we'd ever had before. Why the fuck do you baby the boy go to your sister's ignore my mother wear that skirt work so many hours look at me like that fuck my friends your friends strangers doctors everyone anyone the man in the moon?" (171)

The attention to little details made the novel for me, and certain images will stick with me. The hem of Fran's wedding dress getting snagged on a nail on her wedding day, a sign of bad things to come. The first bruises Fran gave her being dark as a tattoo on her skin.

The content of the book never felt overly graphic, although it is disturbing, if true to life. The depiction of the hold Bobby has over Robert, even when they're miles away from him, is truly terrifying, and it really made me feel for women who must have had to deal with this situation in real life. What is it like when the child you've tried so desperately to protect from a monster still loves that monster, because it's his parent? What do you do in that situation, especially when the other parent can lie to the child and be believed without question?

The novel made me consider the reality of a battered woman's situation in a way I'd only barely done before, what with a Gender Violence class I took two semesters ago. I'd already known from that class that restraining orders and divorces are often ineffective at keeping an abusive husband or partner from his wife/girlfriend and/or children, but I hadn't even thought about how many must have to relocate completely and live new lives. I don't know if a program like Patty Bancroft's exists in real life, but if it does, I could see it being a real help for real women like the fictional Fran. Fran's situation is especially difficult because, as an ER nurse, she often sees the results of domestic abuse up close, as though she were looking in a mirror, seeing how horrifying the reflection truly is. If not for Patty Bancroft's network of volunteers, Fran might well have ended up in her own ER, dead or dying.

While Quindlen's novel was often unnerving and upsetting, especially towards the end, when the full scope of Fran's situation is revealed, I appreciated it for the perspective it gave me and the compelling way the story was told. Bobby and Fran are both nuanced characters and it's almost easy for the reader to understand why Fran kept returning to Bobby, despite his abuse. Quindlen's method of interspersing the flashbacks with the narrative, pulling the reader along to see what exactly happened in the past, was enough to keep me engaged in the narrative, and I recommend this novel to someone who might want a better understanding of the reality of a battered woman's situation. (Perhaps not to anyone younger than 15 or 16 or so--the violent content is disturbing, clearly, and there is some fairly frank sexual imagery and discussion.)

In Which Trai Reviews 'The Amazing Spider-Man: The Death of Gwen Stacy'

2011-08-06T13:44:00.000-04:00

The Book: The Amazing Spider-Man: The Death of Gwen Stacy

The Author: Gerry Conway (and a whole team of writers and artists)

How I Found It: I'd heard for years about this immortal story arc--the death of Spider-Man's first true love--and finally decided to go for broke and read it once it became apparent that Gwen will be Peter's love interest in the impending franchise reboot. As ever, big ups to my local library.

The Review: I was perhaps not the ideal reader for this volume. I have little experience with the Spider-Man comics, if any; my only knowledge has been gleaned from the films, Wikipedia article-skimming, and a novelization of, I'm given to understand, the Peter/Mary Jane plotline in the Ultimate comics. (Mary Jane by Judith O'Brien, for anyone wondering--it actually remains a favorite novel of mine to this day, because it so accurately reflected high school life, and because it made me an eternal lover of Peter/Mary Jane.) Since I've been a devout Peter/Mary Jane shipper since childhood--they're one of the first fictional couples I remember really loving, before even Roswell's Max and Liz or The X-Files' Mulder and Scully--I just wasn't expecting to get so wrapped up in the death of Peter's first love. After all, he moved on and found happiness eventually with Mary Jane, so I knew it would be okay. That would negate the emotional impact, I thought.

Except that it really didn't. Even knowing next to nothing about Peter and Gwen's history together, next to nothing about the storyline in the comics up until then, I was still emotionally devastated by the story and surprised by how effective it was even years later. I can see now why this is such a landmark story, not only for Spider-Man but for comics in general. It's truly a feat.

At first, I admit, I got a good laugh at the artwork. One of my favorite Doctor Who episodes has a moment where the Doctor's former companion reveals K9, the old robot dog that used to assist her and the Doctor in the classic series, now worn out and broken. Rose, the current companion, looks at the very out-of-date robot and says, "Why does he look so... disco?" That was pretty much my reaction. When Peter's walking around wearing gold chains and painfully Technicolor suits, and Harry looks closer to thirty than college age... yeah. Stack that on top of Peter's habit of exclaiming that old-school expression of annoyance, "Nuts!", and calling Gwen "Gwendy" and I was... well, there was a lot of cheese apparent in some parts of the story. As a modern reader, it was a little hard to get past some of the more dated aspects.

That said, though, the plot itself still felt relevant. From what I understand, from context and Wikipedia readings, Peter begins the story broken up from Gwen, who has fled to Europe after the death of her police captain father. He was killed trying to save a child from a falling building cornice, and Gwen blamed Spider-Man. Her grief pushed her and Peter apart and led to her going overseas, and now Peter is left alone in New York with his best friend and roommate, Harry Osborn.

Peter's day is about to get pretty eventful. His Aunt May, at least, seems to be recovering well from the death of his Uncle Ben, going out on the town with Anna Watson. On his walk through the City, Peter, as Spider-Man, follows speeding cop cars to the site of a building where a man, stoned on LSD, is about to jump off. Spider-Man saves the jumper, but drugs are about to hit much closer to home. Harry, seething with jealousy over the way Mary Jane's been flirting with Peter (ostensibly to make Harry jealous), decides that LSD and pill-popping would be a great solution to his problems, a way to forget about Mary Jane.

Though Peter worries about his friend's seeming pill addiction, he's got bigger problems. Harry's father, Norman, is the Green Goblin--unknowingly. When he's Norman, his memories of being the Goblin are safely buried, but could be triggered at any time of undue stress... which would lead to him remembering that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, something Peter can't risk. Unfortunately, over the course of the next few months, Norman is about to remember, and when he does, the Goblin will rob Peter of the love of his life... and maybe even Peter's own principles.

To start with, I'd read a bit about the anti-drugs angle in this story, but I was surprised at just how strongly it was present. I will give the writers credit for knowing that they were in a position to reach many, many kids, and that they probably did so admirably. In 1973, drugs were still as big an issue as they are today, apparently. Yes, it gets a bit soapbox-y, but Spider-Man saving the jumper was admirable, and seeing Harry's spiral into schizophrenia as the result of his taking LSD was heartbreaking.

Reading this, never having had much experience with "old school" comics, I was surprised at how knowing the creators were, occasionally throwing in little metafictional notes (reminders to the reader about certain things from issues past, for one thing). I got a giggle out of the third issue, where Peter and Gwen separately philosophize about missing the other, and when we finally get back to the action, the panel notes, "And now that the longest soliloquies since Hamlet have come to an end..." It was fun to see the writers really knowing their audience, probably thinking that the young (predominantly male, I'd assume) audience reading the comics just wouldn't care about Peter Parker's romantic life. I haven't read many comics at all today, so I don't know if those little nods still exist. Somehow I get the feeling they don't, that these are charming remnants of a bygone era. For one thing, the cutesy, knowing tone is at an end by the time Peter arrives in his apartment to find Gwen's purse and a weapon of the Green Goblin's.

What a confrontation it is. What a death scene. What aftermath. I knew the outcome, of course I did, but I was holding my breath as soon as Peter swung up to the bridge to see the Goblin with an unconscious Gwen. There's so much at play here that it stunned me, and the pages immediately following Gwen's death left me sobbing.

"I saved you, honey. Don't you see?... I saved you." These are Peter's denial-ridden words when he realizes his beloved has died... and sadly, that it might have been his fault. No one will ever confirm or deny, it seems, as it's been debated in the decades since the storyline wrapped, but it might have been Peter's heroic actions that caused Gwen's death. He caught her by the ankle with his webbing, and the telltale SNAP! effect by her head seems to indicate that whiplash killed her, although the Goblin says a fall from that height would have killed anyone.

Was Peter at fault, for more reasons than one: because the Goblin knowing his real identity put Gwen in danger for associating with him, because his catching her might have killed her after all? Was he at as much fault as the Goblin? That's the question that seems to drive his downward spiral. The fifth issue chronicles Spider-Man's vengeful pursuit of the Goblin, and it's just breathtaking. That's the only way I can describe it. Even not knowing much of Spider-Man outside of these few issues, I could see just how much he'd been driven off the deep end by Gwen's death.

"'No?' Do I hear you begging, Goblin? Don't make me sick, friend--why should I show you any mercy? What mercy did you show Gwen? Answer me that, Green Goblin--ANSWER ME THAT!"

Those are Peter's words as he attacks the Goblin, tormented with grief. It's the same standard thing you see in nearly any TV show or movie that features this sort of a confrontation after the hero's loved one has died at the hands of the villain, but what astonished me is that all of the emotion is conveyed through words, not even so much the artwork. We don't see much of Peter with his mask off after the death happens. He's in the suit nearly all the time, leaving us blind to his facial expressions. A medium which can use art to show emotion chose not to, instead leaving nearly all the weight on Peter's anguished words--that was incredibly brave, and perhaps made it even more moving to me, someone who's touched by words more than anything.

After the confrontation is finished and Peter's still standing, the groundwork is seemingly laid for the future. Mary Jane is profoundly affected by the death of her good friend, and stays to comfort Peter. I think it was a wise choice to include a small snippet, after the close of the final issue, of a recently-penned Peter/Gwen story. A glimpse into one of the last nights Peter and Gwen would ever share, it's a moving meditation on regret and remembrance after loss.

"How many moments in our lives go by like that? 'We'll do it tomorrow,' we say. 'No, I don't feel like it... you go without me.' 'Maybe some other time.' But those tomorrows we take for granted... don't always come."

I don't think that many comics can claim to have made their readers think so much, to feel so deeply, as this one did. With a still-timely anti-drug message, a moral struggle for the ages, and a landmark death in the history of comics, this volume, scarcely over 100 pages, still packs a powerful punch over thirty years later. I've emerged from this reading experience with a better appreciation of the Spider-Man mythos as well as the history of comics, and for that I'm grateful. For any Spider-Man lovers or even doubters, for anyone who wants a glimpse into comic book history, see if you can find this one--if you can, it's well worth a read. Peter loves and misses you, Gwen. I think I will, too.

In Which Trai Reviews 'The House of Mirth'

2011-08-06T13:41:00.000-04:00

The Book: The House of Mirth

The Author: Edith Wharton

How I Found It: Some time ago, I was flipping channels when I noticed the film adaptation of the novel starred Gillian Anderson and Eric Stoltz, who I loved in The X-Files and Little Women, respectively. I picked up a copy of the book the next time I was in a bookstore, and finally decided to take the jump and read it this summer.

The Review: Oh, this book. It made me think. It made me wonder. It made me feel.

As ever, I was reading as my mother and I were driving one day, and my mom, having never read the book, asked me how it was, what I thought. I had just finished the first chapter and hadn't had much time to formulate my thoughts, but I told her it made me feel lucky. It made me feel glad. We no longer live in a society where reputation is quite so important. Gossip might taint a person's reputation, but it's not quite so damaging as it was back in Wharton's time. A woman has the ability to work and choose a husband for herself, rather than going by social convention.

Lily Bart, our heroine, does not possess these freedoms. Published in 1905, it is the first of Wharton's novels to feature Old New York, and the portrait of New York society was enough to evoke the feelings I mentioned above. Lily is nearly 30, beautiful but unmarried. Each time she has gotten close to an engagement, she has either shied away or done something that necessitates the breaking off of the relationship, and this is leading to complications. Lily is part of a social circle where women and men wear fine clothes, gamble, and flirt outrageously, even if they're married. Living with her stern Aunt Julia, Lily is in desperate need of money to support these habits, and marriage is looking like her only way out of debt.

It's a shame that her marriage prospects are so confused. There's Percy Gryce, a stuffy bore who collects Americana. There's the vulgar Rosedale, a Jewish man looking for entry into high society (more on Wharton's portrayal of him later). And above everyone is Lawrence Selden, an old acquaintance of Lily's. A chance meeting at a train station renews their friendship, and throughout the novel, Lily and Selden are repeatedly drawn together only to be pulled apart, whether by their own feelings or by the scandals that surround them.

For no matter where she goes, scandal seems to follow Lily. She is getting a bit too old to be on the marriage market still, for one thing. For another, she is beautiful. For a third, she's naive enough to not realize the danger in inadvertently ending up alone with other women's husbands. Circumstances, both personal and financial, continue to worsen, and no matter how hard Lily fights, she might end up being her own downfall.

I love Edith Wharton. I think I came to this conclusion after the third chapter. The things I love about writing, whether it's a novel or film/television, are characterization and dialogue. The plot and descriptions can be nonexistent for me as long as there's introspection, as long as there's believable interactions between the characters. This book fortunately had a plot and descriptions as well as dialogue and characterization, and it was just a truly affecting experience for me.

Lily, for one thing, was so easy to relate to that it stunned me. As a college student with little money (although, unlike her, I have the means to earn it), I felt for her. This passage is the one that struck me, the one that converted me to a Wharton lover:

But of course she had lost—she who needed every penny, while Bertha Dorset, whose husband showered money on her, must have pocketed at least five hundred, and Judy Trenor, who could have afforded to lose a thousand a night, had left the table clutching such a heap of bills that she had been unable to shake hands with her guests when they bade her good night.

A world in which such things could be seemed a miserable place to Lily Bart; but then she had never been able to understand the laws of a universe which was so ready to leave her out of its calculations.

She began to undress without ringing for her maid, whom she had sent to bed. She had been long enough in bondage to other people's pleasure to be considerate of those who depended on hers, and in her bitter moods it sometimes struck her that she and her maid were in the same position, except that the latter received her wages more regularly. (24-5)

Who among us hasn't felt that sense of bad luck, of the universe being utterly against us (especially, I should say, in today's job market)? That last line, about she and her maid, of two different social classes entirely, being in the exact same financial position, had me thinking for days. It was how absorbed I became in Lily's struggles, how much I felt for her, that really made me love the book at first.

Then--oh, and then. Lily and Selden are now one of my favorite relationships in all of literature. I practically held my breath during every encounter of theirs, waiting to see what would happen next, who would speak, what they would say to each other. Their relationship was beautifully drawn. Selden might criticize Lily and her set, but he does it to try and better her, to make her realize the painful truths of her society. Lily, for her part, does the same. When he criticizes the people she chooses to associate with, she rightly points out that he moves in the same circles himself, spends a lot of time in the element he so loves to criticize. Every encounter they have is emotionally charged and, surprisingly, romantic, such as this one:

But suddenly she turned on him with a kind of vehemence. "Why do you do this to me?" she cried. "Why do you make the things I have chosen seem hateful to me, if you have nothing to give me instead?"

The words roused Selden from the musing fit into which he had fallen. He himself did not know why he had led their talk along such lines; it was the last use he would have imagined himself making of an afternoon's solitude with Miss Bart. But it was one of those moments when neither seemed to speak deliberately, when an indwelling voice in each called to the other across unsounded depths of feeling.

"No, I have nothing to give you instead," he said, sitting up and turning so that he faced her. "If I had, it should be yours, you know." (63)

Lily's complicated relationships with the men in her life, and how those relationships influence her interactions in society, were built up slowly, satisfyingly. Admittedly, the portrayal of Rosedale is problematic these days (as with many classics, the anti-Semitism is a product of the times, but no less cringeworthy because of that). But even if he is painted slightly as the villain, Rosedale does genuinely care for Lily. So does Selden. So do, arguably, the married men Lily inadvertently finds herself with.

The thing I loved the most about the characters was that they all seemed believable. All of them were people I could imagine still existing today. Lily's financial struggles were all too easy to relate to. Rosedale, the social climber, surely has modern day compatriots. And most easy to imagine of all is Bertha Dorset, the master manipulator, both of her husband and of the society gossip mill. Bertha was villainous in the worst way: she made herself, even with all her indiscretions, look innocent while she crucified others around her. Actually, as I read the book, it struck me how easily the story could have been modernized and placed in, say, a high school. There were certain things that reminded me of, say, Josh Schwartz's series The OC and Gossip Girl. Given the glamorous settings and rich teens in both series (and the nods to The Age of Innocence in an episode of Gossip Girl), I had to wonder if Schwartz is a Wharton fan. It wouldn't surprise me.

The plot, I'd say, isn't so much a plot as it is an examination of Lily's society and its social obligations, all of which involve her in some way. I agree with the assessment that the New York Times gave on the novel's original publication: "... the discriminating reader who has completed the whole story in a protracted sitting or two must rise from it with the conviction that there are no parts of it which do not properly and essentially belong to the whole." Thinking back on the plot myself, I can't think of a single episode which could have been spared, and I enjoyed every part of it.

Having seen the film adaptation, I was left with the same feelings that I had as I came out of the recent Jane Eyre--it was a good enough adaptation, but certain things I loved about both novels will just never come across on screen. For Jane Eyre, it's the sheer joy of reading "Reader, I married him." for the first time. For The House of Mirth, it's those vivid, detailed descriptions of Wharton's--of the places, sure, but more important, of her characters' thoughts and actions. Selden's nigh-scientific observations of Lily as he tries to master his feelings, Lily's constant musings on her place in society... it's just not something suited for film. And that said, that very point the New York Times made about how integral each portion of the plot is? That's a drawback, when you have to fit an entire book into two hours.

The cast did an admirable job, for the most part. I had a bit of difficulty believing Anderson (Lily) and Stoltz (Selden) together at first--Anderson was a mite too loud and Stoltz a bit too quiet--but by "Ah, love me, love me--but don't tell me so!", I started to see it. My favorite scene between them was undoubtedly the confrontation at the Emporium Hotel, when Selden begs her to leave and save herself from scandal. It was well-played to the point of being electrifying; the anger as well as the depth of their feelings for each other was just palpable.

Laura Linney (Bertha Dorset) and Anthony LaPaglia (Rosedale) really shined. I've been a fan of Laura Linney for some time but had never seen her in a real villainous role, and she played it off well here. LaPaglia made Rosedale more sympathetic and less conniving, I felt; it was very believable and tender towards the end when you see his genuine concern for Lily. The only one who hit some false notes, in my eyes, was Dan Akroyd; I think he was too much of a comedic actor for the role. I cringed my way through most of the scene where he corners Lily; it was one of the only things I felt was poorly done.

There were some things that were utterly baffling--the very obvious "this is symbolism!" decision to have Lily in a red dress, as opposed to the muted shades of the other women, when she attends the opera with Trenor and Rosedale; the really odd decision to make Gerty Farish and Grace Stepney into a composite character--but it did a decent job at squeezing the entire plot in, and its only fault was, well, that it wasn't the book. Still, it's worth checking out.

The House of Mirth has become one of my favorite reads of the past few years, and I'd recommend it in a heartbeat. Even 106 years later, it still manages to be relevant, relateable, and moving. I can't wait to read more of Edith Wharton, although I'm sure I'll return to this one over the years, as well!

In Which Trai Reviews 'I Have Found It (Kandukondain Kandukondain)'

2011-08-04T15:31:00.000-04:00

Early this year, I announced my intention to take part in the Austenprose Sense and Sensibility Bicentenary Challenge. Published in 1811, Sense and Sensibility is my favorite Austen, but it's also one that polarizes fans due to the resolution of the romantic subplots. I happen to love the ending, and I was so pleased that Laurel Ann decided to put together a challenge that would allow me to explore sequels, modernizations, and adaptations of my favorite Austen. This is my first completed item (yay!).

To start with, I picked the film I Have Found It (aka Kandukondain Kandukondain), which was available through my local library. I'd been meaning to see it for years, but never had a real impetus until now. My research (and the back of the DVD case) tells me that this isn't, as I was led to believe, a Bollywood film, but rather a "Kollywood" film, as it's in the Tamil language rather than Hindi. I don't know much about the distinctions, but I'm given to understand that both the language and the style of music are different. Whatever the case, I greatly enjoyed this bright, colorful musical modernization of Sense and Sensibility.

Sowmya (Tabu) and Meenakshi (Aishwarya Rai) are two wealthy sisters, living in luxury and only wanting for men they can marry. Sowmya's previous suitor committed suicide on a trip to the United States, which has led to potential suitors believing she's jinxed. Meenakshi, meanwhile, doesn't understand how Sowmya can stand for a marriage their mother would arrange; she longs for a man who will come for her like a storm, passionate and poetic. Their grandfather's health is failing and they don't have much time to lose--fortunately, three men soon enter their lives as potential suitors.

For Sowmya, there is Manohar (Ajith), a young filmmaker recently returned from studying in the United States. He is attracted to Sowmya after a memorable misunderstanding, and eventually swears that he will return and marry her after he has completed his first film. Meenakshi, meanwhile, attracts two men: Commando Major Bala (Mammootty), an embittered, drunken ex-soldier who lost part of one leg in a war, and Srikanth (Abbas), a young businessman who can quote the poetry Meenakshi loves so much. Even as both girls try to navigate these romances, a reversal of fortune leaves them nearly bankrupt, leaving them with no choice but to seek employment--and perhaps to leave any chance of romance behind.

To start with, let me say that I'd never seen a Bollywood or Kollywood film before. I've seen Slumdog Millionaire, but that was a fairly Americanized film and the only dancing and singing that I can remember came at the end, as a sort of homage. I was expecting singing and dancing here, but not so much of it as there was, and nothing so elaborate--at first, I was much like Patrick Dempsey's character in Enchanted ("He's singing? He knows the song, too? But I've never heard this song before!"). When I got over that, I ended up really enjoying the musical numbers. The two best, I felt, were the title song (a duet between Meenakshi and Srikanth) and, surprisingly, a song sung by Manohar to express his feelings to Sowmya. I was really pleased with the slight changes to the modern "Edward" character--Manohar isn't shy and reserved, just young and inexperienced when it comes to his filmmaking, and perhaps not quite sure how he can romance Sowmya.

I actually really enjoyed the characters and the setting/time period update in general. I was surprised at how well certain elements of the story still worked, and how easy it was to translate the setting to India. It was nice to see, in a modern adaptation of the story, the girls getting gainful employment (Sowmya is a skilled computer programmer; Meenakshi is, like Marianne before her, a singer). Instead of a threat of disinheritance from his aunt, the struggle that takes Srikanth away is the threat of his company's financial collapse. Even the scene where the older brother and his wife (John Dashwood and Fanny, in the original) argue over what they should pay the girls is there. I was truly surprised at how well the story still worked; it was such fun to see all the recognizable scenes, just with little tweaks.

Perhaps my favorite of the characters was Bala. It might be because I'm a Brandon fan to begin with, but he made the movie for me. His and Meenakshi's relationship grows into something tender and caring, but even before then, it's a pleasure to watch how much he cares for her. He comes up with a clever ploy to find out Srikanth's address just so she can see him; he even holds the equivalent of the Delaford picnic on his orchid farm. The scenes where he interacted with his uncle were alternately funny and touching. Mammootty's performance was funny and sweet, and I'd rank him with Alan Rickman as a charming, lovable "Brandon." (Watch for the scene near the end in the record store and tell me that does not make you go "awww!")

The other performances were spot-on, I felt. Aishwarya Rai gets the bulk of the movie, and I believed her "Marianne"-ness right off--that opening scene in the pool when she talks about the type of man she wants, that's it, right there. Tabu gave a great performance as the reserved Sowmya; a lot of her emotion was conveyed in her eyes or her face, not an easy task. I already mentioned how much I liked the Manohar character; Ajith made him the right mix of inexperience and assurance, especially during the scenes where he struggles to get his movie made. Lastly, Abbas' performance as the "Willoughby" of the story was well-played, and he was more sympathetic here than in the original story. I actually felt for him somewhat during the equivalent of the "Good God, Willoughby!" scene.

Though I started the film with reservations, I ended up really loving it: the opportunity to see the cultural differences between India and the United States, to see how well the story would work in another setting, and most of all, to see how the characters would translate from the 1800s to 2000. I'm pleased to say that the film was well-done, funny, and even touching at times, and I wouldn't hesitate to watch it again. At two and a half-hours, with many of the musical numbers lasting at least four or five minutes, I'd say, it does feel slightly overlong, but I understand that this is the norm for Indian films. With this film in mind, I'm eager to check out its successor, Bride and Prejudice, which I've heard about for so long. For anyone who's a Sense and Sensibility fan or even just curious about Kollywood films, check this one out! It was such an interesting experience and I loved it.

In Which Trai Reviews 'So Much Closer'

2011-07-30T15:42:00.001-04:00

** This review will contain minor spoilers. **

The Book: So Much Closer

The Author: Susane Colasanti

How I Found It: I read another of Colasanti's novels last year. When I heard about this one coming out, the premise sounded interesting enough that I put it on my list. Thanks to my local library!

The Review: Brooke Greene knows that Scott Abrams is the love of her life. She has what she calls the Knowing, absolute convictions about her future liable to come over her on the cusp of life-changing moments. At the end of their junior year of high school, she's finally worked up the courage to tell him she thinks they're meant to be together... only for him to tell her he's moving to New York City before she can say much of anything.

Brooke has been slacking academically for quite some time, not feeling challenged enough by her high school's curriculum. So when she lies to her mother and says she wants to move to New York for a better education, she's telling the truth. Partly. Following Scott and spending her senior year in NYC might be her last chance to be with him, and she'll go even if it means having to live with her estranged father.

Brooke soon realizes that New York might not be everything she thought it was. Her classes are more challenging, which may or may not be a good thing. Her friends at home aren't as supportive of her decision as she thought. Her father isn't around like he said he'd be. Worst of all, it looks like Scott is taken. Brooke might have changed her entire life around because of a boy, but as she struggles to make Scott realize that they're meant to be together, she realizes that the person who really matters is herself.

I was in the middle of the road on Something Like Fate, the other novel of Colasanti's I read, and when I decide to give a middling author another try, I usually hope for something better. I'm sad to say that I felt pretty much the same about So Much Closer--that there were some things I really liked and some things I really didn't. The more I think about it, I think the bad outweighed the good for me. I might give Colasanti one more shot--some of her premises sound interesting, I have to say--but I'm not sure if she's the author for me. I might just end up sticking with Sarah Dessen.

To start with, Colasanti improved on something I wasn't too keen on when I read Something Like Fate. She still used teenage colloquialisms in the characters' speech, which is great, but cut down on them in the narration. There's still the occasional "and she was like," "and he goes," etc., instead of "and he said" or similar conventions, but it's not nearly as grating as it was in Fate. One professional review I saw of a Colasanti novel said that usages like the above mark the demise of modern literature, but I disagree. As an English major, I'm highly critical of the use of colloquialisms, but Colasanti has no great pretensions towards literature here; she's merely trying to speak to teens today. I'm barely out of my teens and, yes, in informal settings, among my friends, I'm liable to speak in just the way the story is narrated. If I'm remembering right, Colasanti was once a high school teacher, and it does show--she captures current teenage speech patterns perfectly.

I think, however, that Colasanti being a teacher ended up doing this novel a disservice. I was more than a bit blindsided by what seemed like public education reform politics that snuck in halfway through the book. The reason for Brooke's lack of motivation is revealed to be the result of her beyond genius IQ, which makes it hard for her to feel challenged in school, and which has resulted in her less-than-stellar grades. When a teacher confronts her about the problem, Brooke gives this speech: "Schools teach to the test and then they make these sweeping judgments about students based on their answers to a few pointless questions... They're doing it wrong. How is force-feeding us stuff we don't care about making us smarter? And why should I be forced to become part of something I don't believe in?" (112)

There's more to the speech, but when I read that, it was a ... what? moment for me. To be quite honest, I picked a YA book to read because it was something fluffy, not to suddenly be confronted with a vaguely political rant. And even if Brooke is a genius, I wasn't quite sure the speech rang true to the concerns of today's teens. I saw some truth in it, but I don't know if the younger readers Colasanti is presumably courting are going to care. Brooke was so arrogant about her superiority to the system that I really didn't, to be honest. I agreed more with the speech her friend made a few pages later: "You want to hear something simple? You could have had straight As with like no effort. You could have been valedictorian. But you threw it all away, and for what? To make some kind of political statement no one's listening to? To prove some point no one's benefiting from? Wake up, Brooke. No one cares." (117)

It's definitely harsh, but in the end, no one really does seem to care. Brooke's thinking outside the box helps when she peer tutors a fellow student, John, who's dysgraphic, but it doesn't seem to figure much else in the long run. Even the passion she ultimately decides on pursuing has nothing to do with educational reform. That speech seemed incredibly jarring and too close to a soapbox moment for me to feel comfortable with it, and it definitely threw me out of the book.

The teen characters were believable, even if I did have difficulty sympathizing with Brooke, who just came off like she was throwing her life away. I could believe that a teenager would be impulsive enough to, given the opportunity, move to another state just for a boy (hey, if it worked on Felicity, why not here?). Scott, though, didn't have much depth besides one solitary family issue, which did seem to be the point in the end. I was much more intrigued by Brooke's new friends, Sadie and John. Sadie was funny and sweet, a good counterpoint to Brooke's friends back home. John in particular was well-done, I felt, because he reminded me very much of one of my guy friends in high school. If I can look at a character and pinpoint someone like that I've seen in real life, I count them as a success.

The pacing felt off towards the end; I think certain conclusions were rushed for the sake of the word count Colasanti probably had to work within. I kept looking at the book going, "... but there are only thirty pages left? There's so much to resolve still!" And therein lies the rub. You see, Brooke says at one point that she doesn't like novels where all the loose ends are tied up with a bow. And... they were here, sorry to say. The easiest possible resolution seems tacked on just to wrap up the storyline. Brooke's mom apologizes for making her feel devalued. Brooke's dad lays down the ground rules they'd been lacking. The romantic relationships work out as well as they could have given the revelations in the text. Brooke's old friends drift away (and that's it) and her new ones will presumably be in her life for as long as she's in New York. Really? It's all just a bit too perfect, especially for the life of a high school senior. I was only there two years ago--I know.

The novel's drawbacks (a strong anti-public education bent, a verging-on-unlikable protagonist) outweighed the novel's strengths (believable diction and some interesting characters) by a fair amount. I might recommend it to teens who, like Brooke, feel directionless, but even that's with reservations. If you're a die-hard fan of Colasanti's, or want something featuring characters a bit older than her other novels, go for it. If not, I think this one's a skip.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Heist Society'

2011-07-27T22:34:00.000-04:00

The Book: Heist Society (Heist Society, Book 1)

The Author: Ally Carter

How I Found It: This post piqued my interest.

The Review: Katarina 'Kat' Bishop has walked away from the life she had as a child and straight into Colgan School, a prestigious boarding school. Kat is a skilled con artist and art thief, thanks to her father and makeshift family's teachings, but now she just wants to be normal. When she gets framed and expelled for an elaborate prank involving the headmaster's Porsche, her chances at a normal life abruptly slip away.

As she packs her bags and leaves Colgan, she's met by a fellow member of the con artist clan: Hale, a boy her age who she might have feelings for. Hale has a message for her: her father might have stolen a few priceless paintings from mobster Arturo Taccone, and Taccone is demanding that he give them back. Bobby Bishop swears he didn't take them, but that makes no difference to Taccone. He gives Kat two weeks to find and retrieve the stolen paintings, and it's up to Kat to assemble a team of teen con artists like her to steal the paintings back from one of the most secure museums in the world, a place that's never before been robbed.

This book is paced like a speeding freight train, let me start by saying that. Carter certainly has skill. I started reading the book shortly before a car trip that lasted maybe three hours, and the only time my eReader left my hand was when we stopped at a convenience store for food. I was immediately drawn into Kat's plans to assemble the team and to figure out just why the paintings were so valuable to Taccone. Maybe a team of teenage con artists breaking into the most secure museum in the world is unbelievable, but damn if it's not compelling to read about. Sure, it's a bit standard at times--the constant focus on Kat and how she walked away from "the life" has been done in almost every con artist story--but I didn't feel bored even by the cliched parts.

Oddly, I felt the book started to drag as the gang got closer to pulling off the con. I started to lose interest in the group's dynamic and in what they had to do. I got interested again once the heist hit (and the heist itself was brilliantly done), but I think the preparations section could have been trimmed down. That was the only part of the book that I felt was too slow; the other sections were right on.

One element of the book I questioned was the inclusion of a love triangle between Kat, Hale, and a new team member named Nick. Love triangles are a staple of young adult literature these days (Twilight, The Hunger Games, The Vampire Diaries, etc.) and I'd like to see a YA novel without one, to be honest! I know it's an essential ingredient of a romantic plot, but it's usually painfully obvious how the resolution will shake out, and that was what I felt here. I would have been more intrigued by Kat, say, having walked away from an established relationship and having to build back the trust of her former boyfriend, instead of a love triangle. I hold out hope for the brave YA author who would choose not to include a love triangle, although I doubt it would happen any time soon.

I liked that Carter included names of common cons, often in dialogue, without stopping to explain at length what each one was. Usually the names ("Smokey the Bear", "Mary Poppins", etc.) made it obvious what the method would be, but Carter still could have underestimated her readers and explained each and every reference. She doesn't, instead letting the references fly fast and free in snappy, fun dialogue. I ended up looking up some of the cons myself when I was done to see if they were real (and yep, "dog in a bar," one of the many mentioned, is apparently a common street con). It's rare that a YA book has me looking something up, given that I'm past the age range and hopefully know a bit more than the average YA reader, so I considered this one a success when it came to getting me thinking!

I felt some things should have been tightened up or expanded upon, but since this is the first novel in a series, I gave most things a pass, since future books can improve on a first novel's faults (and, looking at reviews for the second book, I see that Carter made the effort to). There were a few too many times where Carter ended a scene on a cliffhanger involving a person walking into a room and saying either Kat's name or the "last thing a person expected them to say"--things of that nature. I wished for a bit more variety in the scene breaks and chapter closings because of that. And I never really got all that emotionally invested in the characters themselves--I found their methods fascinating, but didn't know a lot about them as people. Even Taccone was a bit of a stock villain. Apparently, the sequel improves upon this, and I look forward to seeing what comes next for Kat and her merry band of thieves.

I'd definitely recommend this one to teen and adult fans of heist movies like Ocean's Eleven or TV shows like USA Network's White Collar (indeed, my love for the latter is what made me pay attention when I heard about a YA novel involving an art heist). These teen thieves will have you on the edge of your seat!

In Which Trai Reviews 'The Lover's Dictionary'

2011-07-07T19:56:00.000-04:00

The Book: The Lover's Dictionary

The Author: David Levithan

How I Found It: This review by Jamie highly recommended it. Thanks, Jamie! And as ever this summer, big thanks to my local library.

The Review: I've only ever been disappointed by one of David Levithan's books (Boy Meets Boy, which was too utopian for me and skirted around what I felt were some very important issues), but have sincerely enjoyed others I've read: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Realm of Possibility, and now this one. Nick and Norah was a really fun exploration of one wild night for a couple thrown into knowing each other, and Realm of Possibility was a funny and varied look at the love lives of a whole bunch of teenagers. The Lover's Dictionary is Mr. Levithan's first foray into adult fiction, and older readers of his great YA offerings can rest assured knowing that this book is just as good, if not better, as those.

When I first heard about this book, the concept really intrigued me. It's a portrait of a relationship told in a nonlinear fashion, and a particularly interesting one at that: it's a series of words chosen by the narrator, arranged alphabetically into a dictionary that defines their relationship in all its beauty and messiness. Some definitions are less than a sentence; others are whole paragraphs. It's the story of a man loving a woman who might not love him as much, who drinks more than she should, who had an unhappy family as a child. Through the narrator's loving and sometimes not-so-loving definitions, we learn how their relationship came to be, how it stayed there, and maybe even how it fell apart. We see him struggling to cope both with this newfound love and with how to piece together this girl he doesn't quite understand at times.

Some passages were just beautiful evocations of what it feels like to accept someone, flaws and all. Some were funny slices of life that anyone could identify with. Others were heartwrenching snippets of a couple trying to make something work that might be best not working after all. No matter what emotion Levithan was writing, he captured it well, and I just kept marveling at his prose. I couldn't decide which passages were my favorites, because they all made me feel something. Some of the ones that most struck me:

beguile, v. - It's when you walk around the apartment in my boxers when you don't know I'm awake. And then that grin, when you do know I'm awake. You spend so much time in the morning making sure every hair is in place. But I have to tell you: I like it most like this, haphazard, sleep-strewn, disarrayed. (29)

buffonery, n. - You were drunk, and I made the mistake of mentioning Showgirls in a near-empty subway car. The pole had no idea what it was about to endure. (42)

flagrant, adj. - I would be standing right there, and you would walk out of the bathroom without putting the cap back on the toothpaste. (95)

only, adj. - That's the dilemma, isn't it? When you're single, there's the sadness and joy of only me. And when you're paired, there's the sadness and joy of only you. (154)

It's a short read, but the minimal word count doesn't reduce the book's power. Levithan has done an admirable job of capturing the intricacies of a relationship, and even if it's about a heterosexual couple, it could just as easily be applied to any same-sex couple, or just any couple, period. The nonlinear storytelling gave it an extra punch (one entry would be exuberant and happy; the next would be dwelling on a regret or a fight), and I tore through it so fast that I want to reread it just to savor anything I might have missed the first time around.

I'd recommend this one to fans of other nonlinear love stories, such as the musical The Last 5 Years or the movie (500) Days of Summer. Any adult looking for a nontraditional romantic read would probably love it, too, and I imagine it would be entertaining for a couple to share with each other. Highly recommended!

In Which Trai Reviews 'My Name Is Memory'

2011-07-07T19:23:00.000-04:00

The Book: My Name Is Memory

The Author: Ann Brashares

How I Found It: I saw a passing mention of it somewhere and looked up a synopsis. Thanks to my local library, I soon had it on TARDIS, ready to be read.

The Review: "I’ve never had a child, and I’ve never gotten old. I don’t know why. I have seen beauty in countless things. I have fallen in love, and she is the one who endures. I killed her once and died for her many times and I still have nothing to show for it. I always search for her; I always remember her. I carry the hope that someday she will remember me." (11)

These are the words of Daniel Gray, who is blessed--or cursed--with "the memory," the ability to recall his past lives. His first life was in 541, where he was a warrior in North Africa. He is ordered to burn what he thinks is an enemy camp, but turns out to be a village full of civilians. A young girl dies in a fire Daniel, then called something else, started. He's ashamed and saddened to have killed someone so young, so beautiful, and his view of the world is altered forever.

When Daniel realizes he can recognize other souls from his past lives in his current one, he is stunned to see the girl from North Africa once more. Sophia, as she is now called, is married to his abusive brother. Daniel and Sophia might be meant for each other, but circumstances will always conspire to keep them apart: "From that moment, as I look back, I can trace the beginning of a few unlucky themes that would carry on for centuries. Our lives being mismatched in time. Her being someone else's wife. Her forgetting me." (54)

In the present day, Daniel has found Sophia: they are both students at a Virginia high school, and Sophia is now known as Lucy. When he approaches her the night of a school dance and tries to tell her they once knew each other, Lucy is unnerved and leaves. Over the next few years, however, she begins to realize that what Daniel said might be true after all--that their love has endured through many lives and many losses, and that she must find him in this life, despite another force that threatens to keep them apart.

This book wasn't perfect, but Ann Brashares wrote a compelling love story that had me tearing through the pages. The idea of a love that endures through the ages was gorgeous, although I actually laughed at times due to some striking similarities to Doctor Who (purely coincidental, I'm more than certain, but Daniel had so much in common with Rory that I couldn't help picturing Arthur Darvill as I read). Daniel's love for Sophia is palpable, everlasting, and the real force behind the story. His recollections of his past lives with Sophia were the most fascinating segments.

That was both a strength and a problem, though. Daniel's segments were interesting; the variations in his lives were fun to pick up on, and even if Brashares didn't seem to put much research into the historical periods (up until the WWI segments, she seemed to pick periods and places that are much lesser known), the bits and pieces of history were intriguing. Lucy's segments, however, were considerably less interesting at times. She spends a good chunk of the book wondering how to feel about Daniel and then trying to find him again, and it just wasn't interesting to read about. Some things never really came together: she sleeps with her roommate's brother a few times, seemingly just to feel something for someone, but it's never mentioned more than three times, and doesn't have any meaning in the end. Compared to Daniel, with the richness of his many lives, she just didn't have enough of a personality outside of her confused feelings for him, and I wish Brashares had done more to develop her character.

Other things about the book felt a bit questionable. For example, Daniel and Lucy's first meeting in the present day. It's at a school-thrown party; Lucy finds him in a back room after having watched him for years. They drink some bourbon and kiss, and when Daniel tries to tell Lucy who he is, she pulls away, which leads to her dress ripping. Prior to this, they were sitting so close that her knee was between his legs, and vice versa. There were a lot of really sketchy things about the encounter (the insta-sexual attraction, the drinking, him ripping her dress ripping even if it was unintentional) that it turned me off at first, and it took me a week or two to get back to the book. In the end, though, no matter how suspicious Daniel's actions come off at times, he's ultimately trying to protect Lucy from harm (and not in a creepy, Edward Cullen sort of way), so it was easier for me to overlook those odd occurrences.

I also wished that Brashares had explored the implications of her system of reincarnation. Daniel's friend Ben, a man when Daniel first meets him, is shown to reincarnate into female forms as well as male ones. Yet this never happens to Daniel and Sophia; they stay the same over generations. For Daniel, it's probably the sheer force of his will that keeps him male, but why not have Sophia be a man in an incarnation or two, just to shake things up? How would that change their dynamic? What would be different; what would be the same? I felt at times like Brashares was too hesitant to explore her system, and I would have liked her to be a bit more daring.

The book really picked up speed for me during the World War I segment, where Daniel is a dying soldier and Sophia is a nurse named Constance who is charged with taking care of him. This section was one that made me cry, as Daniel tells Constance their story and tries desperately to get her to remember him in their next lives. (I do wish Brashares hadn't gone the direction of having Constance be nigh-suicidal after his death, because that's a romance stereotype that needs to go, but it was for plot purposes, so it was hard to discount it.) Even if their romance is only given seventeen days, a trope I normally hate, it's easy to see how Constance and Daniel build such an intense emotional connection, why Constance believes him, and why she's so determined to remember him in her next lives.

I wasn't expecting the book to have a real message, but it did, and it was carried off well. Brashares makes a point of showing the flaws in the way Daniel chooses to live his life, dwelling obsessively in the past and not making emotional connections in each life, instead focusing his energy on finding Sophia. It's an exhortation to her readers to slow down and consider the relationships in their own lives, to love not just one person but many. It also encouraged Daniel to not be so singleminded, and it was nice to see some character growth there. Even if Daniel was 1500 or so years old, he still had things to learn.

A common complaint about the book is the loose ends it leaves dangling, particularly the open ending. Brashares is apparently still up in the air about writing a sequel, but if she does, it will apparently be a trilogy. There's a lot she still needs to explore--how their enemy does what he does, for one, and I'd personally love to learn more about Daniel's friend Ben--and I hope she does decide to write another book, because I'd be curious to read more about Daniel and Lucy's tragic but ultimately beautiful story. Recommended to fans of The Time Traveler's Wife, with a caveat about the open ending!

In Which Trai Reviews 'A Jane Austen Education'

2011-06-25T21:13:00.000-04:00

The Book: A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter

The Author: William Deresiewicz

How I Found It: As ever, the book received several glowing reviews from Janeite bloggers whose opinions I trust.

The Review: Oftentimes, men aren't Austen fans. It's just hard for them to see what's so great about stories primarily about young girls finding their way in the world. Oh, there are exceptions. There are men like the ones that frequent the same Austen sites I do, and there are men like my stepdad, willing to sit patiently through every Austen adaptation I could find a few years back. But there are also men like my prom date, who forged valiantly through half of Pride and Prejudice on my recommendation before he confessed to me that it just wasn't for him.

William Deresiewicz was one of those men. He was twenty-six and being forced to read Emma for one of his graduate school classes, determined not to like it. He was sarcastic and sullen, a rebel who often spoke or acted without regarding the feelings of his friends. He was the youngest of three kids and infantilized by both parents, to the point that he knew almost nothing about living on his own. After Emma brought him to a painful revelation about how he treated others and how he should view the world, Jane Austen was the one who showed him the light and helped him grow up.

Emma - Everyday Matters: Deresiewicz starts his book with an examination of the book that made him love Austen. I'll admit that Emma is my least favorite of the six novels, mostly because I find Emma to be an insufferable snob, but it was enlightening to read about how Emma's snobbishness is exactly what made Deresiewicz realize how he was treating others. "Emma's life finally became real to her, and in reading about her life I felt mine finally becoming real to me. ... Reading Emma, being asked to take the lives of characters like Harriet Smith and Jane Fairfax as seriously as they did themselves... made me finally begin to take my own life seriously." (33) It was sad but somehow uplifting to read about Deresiewicz coming to the painful revelation that he wasn't connecting with others the way he'd thought. The good thing is, he realized he had to change and actually took the initiative to do so.

Pride and Prejudice - Growing Up: It's really an eye-opening experience to see Jane Austen through the eyes of a man. Now that I think about it, I read a book two summers ago (Two Guys Read Jane Austen) that tried to give a man's point of view on the subject, but it was written by two older men reading Jane, men who'd already done their growing up and figuring out who they wanted to be. Deresiewicz might be writing as an older man, but he's sharing the experience of his younger self, and it's truly fantastic to read about.

I had to laugh when he talks about being in love with Elizabeth Bennet, about wanting to wring Darcy's neck for hurting her and Jane. Men are just as susceptible to crushing on Austen's characters! That was nice to know. I could really relate to Deresiewicz's depiction of university life (reading while brushing your teeth, eating ramen, walking down the street--all of which I've done), and his examination of what Austen had to say about growing up really hit home with me. “… my father was wrong: you can’t learn from other people’s mistakes; you can only learn from your own. Austen was making her beloved Elizabeth miserable because she knew that that’s what growing up requires. For it is never enough to know that you have done wrong: you also have to feel it.” (60) I cheered for him as he made the decision to move to Brooklyn, away from his father's attempts to do everything for him.

Northanger Abbey - Learning to Learn: Here, Deresiewicz examines Austen as a teacher, helping readers to form their own opinions by expanding their horizons, not telling them what to think. His emphasis is on Mr. Tilney and his relationship with Catherine, and can I just say that I now have a newfound appreciation for Mr. Tilney? Northanger Abbey is so slight and sometimes silly that often it's just the one I think of when I think of being amused, but now I realize how profound it really is at times, and how Mr. Tilney is just awesome. (My friends at Austenblog realized that some time before I did, however.) "Now he was inciting her to speak, then pretending to misunderstand her, even at the risk of looking like a dunce, in order to force her to fight her way back to what she really meant--and thus, to figure out what she really thought in the first place." (90) Deresiewicz compares Tilney to his most-loved professor, imparting a sense of how effective teaching can be if a professor is doing more than just imposing their own ideas onto a student.

As a college student, wow, could I see what he was talking about. (And he is spot on; I had a good laugh at his bit about college students hunting for symbolism and foreshadowing and Christ figures, as that was exactly what I was taught in high school by How to Read Literature Like a Professor.) He also examines Austen as an aunt and mentor to her young nieces and nephews, and it was touching to see how active a role she took in helping them make decisions and become better writers. Again, I'm impressed at Deresiewicz's willingness to recognize his own flaws and make the effort to change. This was certainly a useful insight into the world of being a professor, and it makes me appreciate the efforts of all the wonderful professors I've had thus far.

Mansfield Park - Being Good: It's no secret that I am an unashamed fan of Mansfield Park. I love Fanny, I love Edmund, I love the whole entire story. I champion this book like nobody else. So it was nice to see Deresiewicz gradually coming to appreciate it and recognize the very things I find wrong with most pro-Crawford arguments I see: that the Crawfords are master manipulators, with very few genuine feelings about Fanny and Edmund. Indeed, it was the Crawfords who made Deresiewicz realize that people in his social circle were not people he should have wanted to spend time with.

Deresiewicz compares Fanny's life at Mansfield Park to his own experiences as the less-privileged friend among the rich Manhattan socialites he met during graduate school. He was the friend that was looked to for funny stories, to be a constant source of entertainment for people like the Crawfords, people with no inner lives, no ability to be entertained by intellectual pursuits, and above all, little ability to understand those without their privileges. "Mary was not just advertising her wealth, she was displaying an ostentatiously metropolitan insouciance in the way she handled it. People in London, she was saying, don't dirty their hands with the details. They snap their fingers, and the world jumps." (134)

With experience, Deresiewicz came to recognize how flawed the Crawfords truly were and how really listening to others, just as Edmund listened to young Fanny, is key. I didn't quite agree with all of his sentiments at the end of the segment (I don't think Austen meant us to dislike Fanny as he asserts, and can't quite see why he'd say that given the pains he takes to point out that Austen has much in common with Fanny), but I really appreciated his take on the novel and how it helped him recognize he was being used.

Persuasion - True Friends: This chapter and the next were more about Austen's side of things than Deresiewicz's, but the book was still worth reading for the insight in his statements and his perspective on the novels. I especially enjoyed this chapter because it gave me an opportunity to revisit Persuasion--the second of Austen's novels I read, and one whose adaptations I've only seen once or twice apiece, so one that's definitely fuzzy in my memory. Deresiewicz discusses the revelation that true friends are ones who are honest, ones who point out your mistakes even if that might hurt your feelings. He examines the relationships between Anne and Lady Russell, Anne and Mrs. Smith, and Anne and the naval officers, in particular.

I hadn't really considered, when I first read it, that by having Anne seek the company of the naval officers instead of her own family, Austen was putting forth the idea of a family of one's own choosing. It was certainly an idea that's come up in my college literature courses, but mainly in discussions of newer novels, so it was surprising to look at Persuasion from this angle. Then there is Deresiewicz's examination of Austen's idea of true friendship--that the best friends are the ones who are honest. "True friends do not shield you from your mistakes, they tell you about them: even at the risk of losing your friendship--which means, even at the risk of being unhappy themselves." (194) It's definitely a lesson worth keeping in mind, given how many of us undoubtedly hesitate to tell our friends the truth for fear of hurting their feelings. Perhaps, Deresiewicz is telling us, we should consider how much more those feelings would be hurt if we were to witness them making mistakes without saying anything.

Sense and Sensibility - Falling In Love: Lastly, Deresiewicz discusses his experiences with dating in his late twenties to early thirties, and how he learned what a relationship really consists of: not perfect harmony, but occasional disagreements; not a perfect match of interests, but enough differences to be able to teach each other something. It's entertaining for me to read this now, when a few months ago, I watched the 2008 Sense and Sensibility with a friend and ended up giving a discourse on just why I felt Marianne and Willoughby wouldn't have lasted if they had gotten married: they were too similar, with little else in common besides loving fun and poetry, whereas Brandon could better understand Marianne's depth of feeling, and had experience and culture that Marianne could learn from. My friend looked at me a little while later and said, "You know, I'd never thought of it that way before."

"True love, for Austen, means a never-ending clash of opinions and perspectives. If your lover's already just like you, then neither of you has anywhere to go." (237) It was really nice to see Deresiewicz coming to recognize that conflict was necessary in a relationship, that a whirlwind romance wasn't the ideal match he thought it was, that the supposedly unromantic Sense and Sensibility actually had some reasonable points to make about love. I was a bit disappointed he didn't dwell more on Marianne's relationship with Brandon (it gets barely a few mentions), but given that this was the final chapter, it was basically a culmination of all of Austen's lessons, not just the ones to be gleaned from Sense and Sensibility.

This review is already far too long, so I will close it by saying that this book is just perfect for seasoned Janeites and newcomers to Jane alike. It was everything I hoped it would be, and I came out of it really charmed by Deresiewicz's perspective on Austen and how he had taken her lessons to heart. I got this from the library, but as soon as it comes out in paperback, I'll surely be getting a copy of my own to read again. It's a fast read and one I will definitely be recommending to my Jane-loving friends!

In Which Trai Reviews 'True Grit'

2011-06-22T22:33:00.000-04:00

The Book: True Grit

The Author: Charles Portis

How I Found It: I saw the 2010 film version and became curious about the source material.

The Review: It's funny to read this so soon after The Ruby in the Smoke. Mattie and Sally would get on well, I think. They're both girls ahead of their time, with good heads for numbers. They're both out to avenge their fathers' blood, despite their ages (Mattie's 14, Sally's 16). They both face down their fathers' killers, pistols in hand, with unflinching bravery. They've both got some pretty firm ideas on men and marriage, and a certain kind of nerve. In the great pantheon of kickass young heroines, I'm sure that Mattie and Sally are getting on like a house on fire.

"People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say that it did not happen every day." (11)

Ain't that the truth? Mattie Ross is out to find Tom Chaney, the coward who shot and killed her father and robbed him of his mare and two gold pieces. In Fort Smith, Arkansas, she is told that Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn is the meanest marshal around, pitiless but also a slightly pistol-happy drunkard. Before long, an arrogant Texas ranger named LaBoeuf has showed up, telling Mattie that he is looking to apprehend Chaney as well. Mattie is determined to punish Chaney for his crime and does not want LaBoeuf interfering, but she is left with little choice. Soon, she, Rooster, and LaBoeuf are pursuing Chaney, who has taken up with Lucky Ned Pepper's gang, through the Indian Territory.

Dialogue. I've said it before and I will say it until the end of time: dialogue makes or breaks a story for me. If I can't hear a person actually saying something, I lose faith in the story's ability to be realistic. On the other hand, if I can hear it perfectly in my head, I'll likely end up really enjoying the book. Maybe it was because the 2010 film version hewed so close to the book's dialogue, but I could really hear it, even if Portis rarely indicated who was speaking, even when the conversations went on for pages. Each character had a very distinct voice and even a sense of humor. A gem I really loved:

[When we first meet Rooster, he is being questioned by a prosecutor about his role in the death of several criminals.]

Goudy: The gun was pulled and ready in your hand?

Cogburn: Yes sir.

Goudy: Loaded and cocked?

Cogburn: If it ain't loaded and cocked it will not shoot.

Goudy: Just answer my questions if you please.

Cogburn: That one does not make any sense. (53)

Not to mention that Rooster and LaBoeuf were comedy gold. LaBoeuf's arrogance about his role as a Texas Ranger is priceless. This exchange was a favorite of mine:

LaBoeuf said, "I reckon I must have the wrong man. Do you let little girls hooraw you, Cogburn?"

Rooster turned his cold right eye on the Texan. "Did you just say hooraw?"

"Hooraw," said LaBoeuf. "That was the word."

"Maybe you would like to see some real hoorawing." (95)

Humor, as evidenced in the two examples above, wasn't something I was really expecting, even though I'd laughed at the film, and it came as a pleasant surprise. Not to pun on the title, but the story is often gritty--I've not read many other books where someone has their fingers chopped off and then gets stabbed in short order--and the moments of humor were welcome and often had me laughing out loud.

The characters were very distinctive and I wanted to see them succeed. I've already waxed a bit about Mattie, but she's definitely one to remember, whether as a young girl or as the adult narrating the tale. She's determined, prickly, and maybe childish at times, but certainly braver than most adults, witnessing violence without flinching and haggling successfully with a horse trader who makes every effort to rook her. Cogburn is, of course, a drunk and morally ambiguous, but he respects Mattie as the one paying him and even shows some affection for her once or twice, making him not such a bad guy. LaBoeuf is just hilarious, as I said above, going on about lapping water from hoofprints and other tactics of the Texas Rangers.

I'm surprised as ever at the pacing, but in the end, I think it worked well. When I saw the 2010 film, I was surprised at how Chaney and the gang didn't really come in until maybe half an hour to the end. Reading the book, it takes half the novel to settle affairs in Fort Smith and actually go on the road to find Chaney. In the end, though, it's more about Mattie than the hunt for Chaney. We're meant to see that this is a girl ahead of her time, a girl who's the exact opposite of both her parents: she's proactive and has business sense, the opposite of her mother, prostrate with grief and hardly able to spell 'cat,' but also the opposite of her father, a pushover whose kindness leads to his death.

The 2010 film (I've yet to see the John Wayne version--sacrilege, I know) stuck very close to the book in terms of dialogue and characterizations, and only added a scene or two extra. Hailee Steinfeld is absolutely perfect as Mattie, and it's duly impressive for being her first performance (I hold firm about her being robbed of the Oscar). Matt Damon managed to project LaBoeuf's cockiness exceedingly well, just as he should have. Jeff Bridges mumbles a bit too much as Cogburn, but he embodied the morally ambiguous, frequently drunk Cogburn really nicely. His lines led to the biggest laughs (the cornbread scene is a standout).

Overall, the book is well-plotted, well-characterized, and well-paced, and I'm definitely glad to have read an apparent classic of American literature, with a heroine who deserves to be widely known. I think this is a great pick for high schoolers and adults alike, a good, action-filled summer read.

In Which Trai Reviews 'The Violets of March'

2011-06-20T23:40:00.000-04:00

** This review will contain spoilers. **

The Book: The Violets of March

The Author: Sarah Jio

How I Found It: The cover and synopsis caught my eye as I browsed Borders, and my local library happened to have a copy.

The Review: I wanted to like this book. Really, I did. The cover was so pretty, and it hit two of the stock tropes I really love: stories taking place partially or entirely in the 1940s, and a mystery surrounding an old book, letter, or diary. I was powerless to resist it. I guess now I'm wishing I had. This book didn't irritate me quite so badly as Willow, but it left me with the same feelings I had about Water for Elephants: standard prose, characters with no personality, and no real emotional attachment to the story.

Emily Wilson has just gotten divorced from Joel, her husband. She's been suffering from terminal writer's block ever since she wrote her first novel, a smash hit. Seeking a place to heal, she decides to head to Bainbridge Island, the home of her eccentric great aunt, Bee. While staying in Bee's house, she comes across a mysterious red leather diary dated 1943, a diary that contains the story of a love triangle between Esther, the diary's author; Bobby, her husband; and Elliot, her ex-fiance, the man she still loved even while married to Bobby.

Emily doesn't know who wrote the diary, but it seems to be the key to figuring out why Bee and her best friend Evelyn won't talk about Esther, or why Bee is uncomfortable with Henry, another resident of the island, and Jack, the man Emily is beginning to be interested in. As Emily begins to dig deeper into the mystery of the diary, she realizes its contents may have more bearing on her own life and family history than she thought.

To start with, Jio had a problem with not giving details. There are things I like to know about my protagonists. A little about their lives would be nice. We know that Emily has a best friend named Annabelle, but not how or why they became friends. We know that Emily wrote the bestselling Calling Ali Larson, that it was turned into a movie, but absolutely nothing about the book's plot. (That just seemed silly, since Larson is obviously Bee's last name as well, so it seems there would be some relation there. Alas, no clarification is ever given.) We know she keeps writing paragraphs of an allegedly sucky second novel, but not what that novel's about.

Then there's the flashbacks. Emily remembers Evelyn because when she was younger, Evelyn arranged a shopping trip for Emily to get the shoes she so desperately wanted. That was sweet and fun to read about--except that the flashback stopped as soon as Evelyn told Emily they were going shopping, and the event and its outcome were never mentioned again. Did she get those shoes after all? I want to know! Often, a lack of details like this could have been solved with an extra sentence or two, but Jio never did that.

Besides that, Emily really didn't have a personality. Her old boyfriend tells her at one point that any guy would be lucky to have her, but I just couldn't see why, and that's not exactly a good thing. Much is made of her mother preferring her sister over her, but honestly, that's the only distinct thing I remember of a character I just spent 293 pages with. Emily was so bland that she faded into the wallpaper. Actually, I had the same problem with Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook; his supporting characters in early days were little more than cardboard cutouts. Luckily, he seemed to have rectified that in the later books of his I'd read, so hopefully Jio will be able to do the same in the future.

The story of the past was painfully predictable. I kept reading because I wanted to see if I was genre savvy enough to pin it down successfully, and I was. During their engagement, Esther sees Elliot with another woman in Seattle, a woman who hands him an apartment key. Esther bets lover; I bet real estate agent. I was close--it was a friend selling him the apartment. One for one. Esther sleeps with Elliot after she's married to Bobby. I bet she'd get pregnant. She did. Two for two.

Not only is the story predictable, but Emily is incredibly dense for not recognizing that it's about her own grandmother. It doesn't occur to her to ask someone Bee's real name, which would have made it obvious who the Frances in the diary was. Plus, once she asked Evelyn who Esther was, Evelyn started going off about how Emily's grandmother used to love starfish. Gee, I wonder what the connection is between Emily's grandmother and Esther!

In the end, the story sank under the weight of its own contrivances. Esther "somehow" escapes the car wreck that supposedly claimed her life; the fact that it's not clearly defined how makes it obvious that it's manufactured so as not to be too much of a downer. Emily's copy of the book Years of Grace, scrounged from a free book bin at a Tahitian hotel, turns out to be Esther's. Really? Is there only one copy of this book in the world? The last twenty pages or so left me shaking my head at how obvious the story's construction was.

To top it all off, Jio's writing style was a weird mix of plain prose, words no one would use when a plainer alternative was available, and repetition. There's this passage, which taught me an awesome word, but a word that was entirely replaceable: "I walked up the creaky steps that led to his front porch. I hadn't noticed the cobwebs in the windows, or the catawampus doorframe, so jagged and splintered" (259). I looked up catawampus wondering if it was some kind of obscure wood or flower or something, only to find that it's a synonym for askew. So why didn't Jio just say "askew," instead of using a word that's so obscure my browser is telling me it's not a word? Then there's page 277, where Jio uses variations of the word "grin" four times in one page. There are shiny things called thesauruses out there. I think Jio should probably invest in one.

Overall, this book was cliched, poorly characterized, and badly written. The plain prose makes it a fast read, I'll give it that, but the story just wasn't worth it. I can't say I recommend it all, really, just that I'm grateful it's a library book and not something I spent my money on.

In Which Trai Reviews 'The Shadow in the North'

2011-06-13T10:32:00.000-04:00

The Book: The Shadow in the North (The Sally Lockhart Mysteries, Book 2)

The Author: Philip Pullman

How I Found It: My interest in the film adaptations of The Ruby in the Smoke and this book, the second novel of the quartet, led me to read the books.

The Review: Philip Pullman. Oh, Philip Pullman, damn to the depths your ability to get me invested in your fictional characters, only to throw some heartwrenching twist in that makes me cry even as I'm turning the pages. As I said in my review of Ruby, I love how I can read these books now, at 20, and be taken right back to my fascination with Pullman's works that I had at age 12. He is truly an author whose works transcend whichever age they were meant for.

It is the year 1878, and Sally Lockhart has defied Victorian sensibilities and gone into business for herself, working as a financial consultant and a partner in Garland and Lockhart, the photographic business introduced in the first book. Sally is faced with two dilemmas: a visit from a client who has lost all her money after Sally told her to invest in shipping, and the pertinacity of Frederick Garland, who would like Sally to marry him.

Each problem has thrown Sally off balance. The first is a true puzzle, as Sally believes that the firm her client invested in might have sank its ships deliberately--but why, since there's no evidence of insurance fraud? As for the latter problem, Sally simply cannot say yes. The law states that a married woman would have to give over her money and property to her husband, and Sally is not ready to cede any control over to a man, not even one she trusts as much as Frederick.

Meanwhile, Sally's friend and Frederick's partner in the detective business, Jim Taylor, has come across a puzzle of his own. The magician Alistair Mackinnon is being pursued by murderous thugs, and he claims to have witnessed, via his psychic powers, a murder. A medium, Nellie Budd, seems to confirm this in a trance. Somehow, the sinking of the Anglo-Baltic ships and the murder are related, and both trails seem to lead back to one person: the powerful industrialist Axel Bellman. Sally, Frederick, and Jim are determined to reach the core of the mystery, but Bellman is an intimidating foe, and before the case is over, Sally will have endured losses greater than ever before.

To begin with, I can say that my, is this book complicated. I was reading part of it while driving with my mother, and I had to recite the connections and clues aloud just to straighten them out in my mind. It got a little easier towards the end, when everyone's motives became clear, but it was a real headache at times! I can see how young readers would probably get lost in the maze of names and motivations.

But oh, if it's not absolutely worth it for the characters. Sally is an amazing heroine, self-assured and thoroughly modern, and she is not quailed by threats to her reputation and even threats from hitmen. One of my favorite scenes in the book as well as the movie is when Axel Bellman tries to threaten her by spreading subtle hints that she might be a prostitute. Sally never caves, and even tells her landlord shame on him when he believes it. Having a ruined reputation in Victorian times would be a disaster, but Sally never lets that stand in the way of her pursuit for justice.

The other three important characters here are Frederick Garland, Jim Taylor, and Axel Bellman. Frederick gets more screentime than he did in the first book, and his relationship with Sally teeters on the edge of something more. The relationship between them is really well done; in my opinion, it's just as or maybe even more emotionally involving than that of Will and Lyra, the lovers from Pullman's The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. He is shown to be a competent detective with compassion for the people who end up involved in his cases, as well as someone who, though he might fight with Sally and say the wrong thing in the heat of the moment, loves her dearly. Jim, my favorite from The Ruby in the Smoke, is even more hilariously endearing here. He grumbles darkly about the Lyceum Theatre not accepting his melodramas for production, carries around brass knuckles to beat the villains with, and displays a tender attachment to Frederick and Sally that's really on display in the last fifty pages or so. And there's Bellman, our villain. He is not as outright dastardly as the last book's Mrs. Holland, but he raises the stakes so much higher.

(An extra special shoutout to Chaka, Sally's massive dog. Chaka pretty much made the book for me! Sally believes him to be one of the only people she really loves in the world, and Chaka proves himself to be truly devoted to his mistress. He is the most badass dog I have seen in most of my literary experience!)

I think I liked this blend of Victorian potboiler and modern sensibilities even more than the last one. Sally is older now and dealing with more adult problems--running a business, receiving marriage proposals, and defending everything she loves. It's even easier to relate to this Sally than the first book's, at least to me, someone who's just about her age. Philip Pullman's choice to incorporate modern issues in a Victorian context makes the reader better able to understand and invest in the situations, and it certainly worked for me!

The movie version was just as good, and I can't decide if I liked it better than the first. (I will say, however, that apparently one crucial scene was cut by PBS, and it was a bit irritating. The Sherlock DVDs restore the cuts made by PBS, but apparently they hadn't implemented this practice a few years ago. Oh, well, off to scour Youtube.) Billie Piper gets a bit more to do, action-wise, as Sally, and she's really dazzling in the final confrontation with Bellman. She's the perfect mix of self-assurance and emotional vulnerability; as odd as it sounds, her connection to Chaka gives us one of the first glimpses behind her mask of confidence is someone who feels very deeply. Jared Harris, as Bellman, was a good match for her strong will. He reminded me (granted, in a substantially less creepy way) of Bjurman in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Harris struck a nice balance between affable and outright evil.

JJ Feild and Matt Smith played off their partnership well, and there were little touches that made the movie for me. Feild's facial expressions as he hooked up Nellie Budd to the wires of the camera in an early scene perfectly captured Fred from the book. He and Billie Piper played their confrontations and love scene exccllently; I could buy into both completely. (Look at one of the opening scenes, when Frederick calls out Sally for leaving Rosa's wedding to meet with a client. Doesn't it sound like a modern quarrel?) And I laughed out loud when Mackinnon turns to leave the office after telling his story and Jim is scoffing in the background and mockingly wiggling his fingers in a parody of spiritualism. Matt Smith can be a goof, but it worked so well here. I especially liked the movie's choice to have Jim be active in the final confrontation at the factory; his leg is broken in the books, but here he is the one who goes after Sally and makes sure to get her out alive.

Some changes and cuts were made to the material, but not that many, and besides the utterly baffling choice to remove that one crucial scene (saying which scene would spoil it), the adaptation was very well-done and one I'd definitely watch again in the future. I wish the BBC would have adapted the other two books; the plans appear to have fallen through, but I would have loved to see more of the cast embodying these adventures. As it is, I'm taking a short break from Sally, but I'll be getting to The Tiger in the Well and The Tin Princess soon enough, I'm sure! The book and film adaptation earn another set of high recommendations from me!

In Which Trai Mini-Reviews 'Lyra's Oxford' and 'Doctor Who: Dead Air'

2011-06-06T22:58:00.003-04:00

Time for some mini-reviewing! These two works were very short--one was a novella Pullman wrote for His Dark Materials fans; the other was an exclusive-to-audio Doctor Who story narrated by David Tennant. Basically, they both qualify as novellas, not substantial enough to warrant a full review.

Lyra's Oxford, by Philip Pullman: When we last saw Lyra Silvertongue and her daemon Pantalaimon, they were back at Oxford after being separated from the love of Lyra's life, Will Parry, a boy from our world. (It's a long and complicated story involving parallel universes. In short, Lyra's is a steampunk version of ours.) Lyra is at Oxford to learn once more how to read the alethiometer, since she lost the grace that enabled her to read it before, and she is older but still the same impulsive, adventurous girl she was at twelve or so.

Lyra and Pan are on the roof at Oxford when they witness Rani, a witch's bird-formed daemon, being attacked by a flock of starlings. They shoo the starlings off and learn from Rani why he has been sent to find them. His witch is ill and the cure can only be obtained from a local alchemist, and Lyra and Pan must bring him there.

This novella will really only make sense if you've read the His Dark Materials trilogy, but you don't need to remember much about it in order to enjoy the story. I read the books eight years ago (eesh) and I pretty much caught on fine with what I remembered.

There's really not much to say about it, I suppose. It was short and sweet but nothing really substantial. It's got a small adventure for our heroes to go on and it's a nice reassurance that Lyra is getting on fine even after losing Will to the whims of the walls between the worlds. It's a slight story and everything is wrapped up nice and tidy in, say, 25 or so pages. The bonus material is cute (a postcard from the past of The Amber Spyglass' Mary Malone, a time table for a cruise that's supposedly drifted through the walls between universes) and little more. Since there's not much substance, there's not much else to say other than that fans of the trilogy will enjoy it, but do what I did and get it from the library. Unless you're a real completist, I don't really think it's necessary to shell out the cash for this one.

***

Doctor Who: Dead Air, by James Goss: For my first Doctor Who audiobook, I decided to start small. It's only an hour long, and I figured I'd listen to it to see if I could handle an audiobook (the other times I've listened to them have usually involved me losing focus) and if I'd actually like the feeling of the story being read to me, instead of reading it myself. I can say now that I really enjoyed the experience; David Tennant is a good reader and it just really felt like the Doctor was telling a story.

"Hello, I'm the Doctor, and if you can hear this, then one of us is going to die. If I'm lucky, you're listening to this on the boat ... Of course, if I'm not lucky, you're listening to this somewhere else, perhaps even at home, in which case it's too late. It's already escaped. And it's the end of the world."

The Doctor has landed on the boat Radio Bravo, a pirate radio station in the 1960s. It is staffed by Layla, Jasper, and Tom-O (not sure of the spelling on that last, given the format; I'm assuming it's spelled as it sounds), and they are in deadly danger. The Doctor is tracking the Hush, a weapon implied to have been made by the Time Lords during the Last Great Time War in order to defeat the Daleks. The Hush silences and devours any source of noise, and it just needs the boat's transmitter in order to escape and be beamed all across the world to bring destruction. The Doctor can't stop it alone, and it's up to him and Layla to track and defeat the Hush before it kills them and the rest of the world.

Given the nature of the monster, this story was perfectly suited to audio. The creepiness amps up as the sound distorts at various points in the tale, usually as the Hush has done something dreadful. I kept flinching whenever it happened, so it certainly worked on me! (Keep in mind I was listening to this while walking in broad daylight, so it wasn't like I was listening in the dead of night!) It's a loving ode to pirate radio and good ol' cassette tapes. Think Pirate Radio (aka The Boat That Rocked in the UK) if the Doctor were on board.

The Doctor himself felt perfectly in character, something that was probably helped along by it being narrated in the first person by David Tennant. I particularly loved the instance where Layla and the Doctor have been reunited after the Hush's attempt to mimic the Doctor and manipulate Layla into fixing the transmitter, and Layla observes upon their reunion that she should have known it wasn't him, because the Doctor is so full of himself and the Hush's mimicry wasn't. That's the Doctor I know: conceited, yeah, but sweet and brilliant besides. We really get all of him here. The side of him that's sorry, so sorry when someone dies. The side of him that's a thrill seeker and really finds the hunt for the Hush fun, even when he shouldn't. And then, at the very end, the Oncoming Storm, the very dangerous, threatening side of him that only tends to come out when his companions are threatened. Oh, we do not want to have that.

The other characters were well-done if a bit flat; I excuse most of my normal concerns about this due to the fact that the story was only an hour long. Layla is given the most to do, and she was quite fun--I loved her easy acceptance of the Doctor's reveal that he's an alien, and how it caused the Doctor to reflect that he really should give medals for that sort of thing. I really enjoyed and chuckled through the early banter between her and the Doctor. Jasper and Tom-O were basically there to give us Red Shirts to worry about, but I did get the sense that the crew of Radio Bravo was a family and could see why the Doctor would really care about keeping them safe. Since the story was so short, I liked that it skipped over the expository bits about the TARDIS, the Time War, etc.--the Doctor just handwaves it away by assuming the listener would already know it. The little bits of metafiction made me giggle, although it takes a creepy turn at the end, as the Doctor is sure that no one would listen to the tape all the way through to the end (thus ruining his plans) after his warnings, and if they did, they're just stupid, aren't they? Well, mark me down as happily Too Dumb to Live!

It was a little story, but I enjoyed how it slotted into the Whoniverse. It takes place in Ten's final year, when he's traveling alone after the events of "Journey's End", but the previous companions weren't ignored; there were some sweet remembrances of Donna and another (presumably classic series) companion whose name I didn't quite catch. The implication that the Hush was a weapon in the Time War gave me chills and really lent credence to the fact that yeah, the other Time Lords aren't exactly good guys when it comes to winning the war. I really recommend this one to Who fans who just want a little more of the Tenth Doctor, or who want a deliciously creepy listen. It's fun but still scary: what more could you want?

In Which Trai Reviews 'The Ruby in the Smoke'

2011-05-31T23:56:00.001-04:00

One more book/movie review!

The Book: The Ruby in the Smoke (The Sally Lockhart Mysteries, Book 1)

The Author: Philip Pullman

How I Found It: Pullman was a favorite of mine when I was younger; I was enthralled by the His Dark Materials trilogy but never got around to these. Once I saw that the Masterpiece Theatre adaptation starred Billie Piper (after her run on Doctor Who), Matt Smith (pre-Doctor Who), JJ Feild (Northanger Abbey), and Julie Walters (Harry Potter's Mrs. Weasley), I just had to sign up!

The Review: In Victorian England, Sally Lockhart has been drawn into circumstances beyond her control. She has received a note telling her to "beware the Seven Blessings," and goes to her late father's office to ask a coworker what he might know about them. He drops dead of fear as soon as she utters the words.

Sally is no ordinary sixteen-year-old girl. Raised solely by her unconventional father, she possesses a great head for figures and the stock market, has a working knowledge of Hindustani, and is a crack shot with a pistol. She's great under pressure, and the perfect person to unravel the mystery of her father's death, the Seven Blessings, and the mythical Ruby of Agrapur, which is supposedly being left to her. That is, it would be left to her if someone else didn't have her eyes on it--the diabolical Mrs. Holland and her murderous henchmen will stop at nothing to get the ruby, and the welfare of Sally and her close friends is being threatened. It's up to a penny dreadful-reading porter named Jim, a photographer named Frederick, his sister Rosa, their worker Trembler, and a young girl named Adelaide to band together and help Sally find the ruby and thwart Mrs. Holland.

As I read this, I could remember exactly why I'd loved Philip Pullman's books back in middle school. Wow, can this guy write heroines. I loved Lyra so much, and now I've come to love Sally just the same. I might not be great at math like she is, but there's so much to admire in her courage and self-reliance that I was taken with her from the first page. From what I've read, Pullman wrote these to try and give potboiler stories modern sensibilities, and it worked perfectly, in my eyes. Sally is a modern woman, and Frederick's clan, the bohemian Garland family, treat everyone with equality. It was marvelous to read about these thoroughly modern characters in such an enchanting time period. I never felt like the characters were too out of step with the times, and the period details were delightful. (I especially loved Jim and his inside-and-out knowledge of penny dreadfuls.)

And the villain! Oh, Mrs. Holland was dastardly and menacing, and while it was a bit of a caricature, it was also extraordinarily effective. She's a complete monster who has absolutely no scruples about harming little Adelaide! It was pretty chilling to read about this woman who has absolutely no morals. Most villains have at least one or two spots of good, but Mrs. Holland didn't, even when it came to children. It reminds me of that bit in The Incredibles when Helen tells Violet and Dash that real villains aren't like the ones on TV, that they wouldn't hesitate to kill children. Mrs. Holland certainly wouldn't, and that was darned scary.

Characterizations aside, the pacing was excellent; I tore through most of this one in a day. There's two mysteries going on here, but they do tie together in the end and it's fairly easy to keep track of which clues are for which, although the cast of characters gets a bit massive. I managed through judicious flipping back, although I could see where less patient readers or readers who dislike large casts of characters could get bogged down. This is far shorter than a Dickens novel, but has about as large a cast of characters.

Normally I would find the potboiler style overwrought and silly, but Pullman must know his stuff, because it kept me turning the pages to see how it all tied together. The man reading the newspaper, Mrs. Holland, the sailor seeking lodgings at Mrs. Holland's place--in one of the opening chapters, we're shown these three characters, told that they fit into the web of mystery Sally has shaken, and what choice do we have but to read on and figure out how they all fit together? The movie adaptation was clever in this regard by interspersing bits of narration from Jim, since he's the enthusiastic penny dreadful reader.

I so loved the movie adaptation, and I'm diving headlong into The Shadow of the North and watching that as well just as soon as I'm done. I was curious to see Billie Piper in a period piece besides Mansfield Park (which wasn't quite the best representation of the book, though it tried to do as much as it could in ninety minutes). I think she was well-matched to her character here. I particularly liked how she handled the scene in the beginning when Mr. Higgs drops dead in front of her--she nails Sally's attitude from the book perfectly. Pullman describes her as being able to cry on command in order to make others think she's weak, the typical simpering woman, while she is steady and in control all the while. Piper got that perfectly, as she went from sobbing into a handkerchief to being dry-eyed and level-headed as soon as she left the room.

JJ Feild, Matt Smith, and Julie Walters were all wonderful to watch. I always loved JJ Feild's Mr. Tilney, and he brings the same kind of knowledge and guidance of the heroine to this role. I really enjoyed Sally and Frederick's interactions on the page, and while they're cut down here (not enough time), Piper and Feild were sweet together and I'd really like to see more of that in Shadow. Matt Smith is just a sweetheart no matter what he's in, and I adored him here as Jim. Reading the book, I thought it seemed perfectly suited to him, and I was pleased to see I was right. One of the things I most loved about the book was how fiercely Jim protected Adelaide, and that was really on display in the last quarter of the movie, as Jim tries to get her to safety. Julie Walters really surprised me--I'm used to her as the kindly Mrs. Weasley, but she couldn't have been more different here! She's just as evil and abusive as the novel's Mrs. Holland, and the makeup department did an outstanding job; she looked almost completely different than usual!

I really recommend this book and the movie to fans of Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, as Sally is just as endearing a heroine as Lyra. To others, fans of Victorian-style literature or potboiler-esque mysteries will love this one. One small warning, the book contains several instances of salty language, mainly from Mrs. Holland and Jim, and opium and its usage figures heavily into the plot, something some parents seemed to object to, so I wouldn't recommend this one to anyone below 14 or so. This is a perfect read for young girls who need a heroine to look up to!

In Which Trai Reviews 'Willow'

2011-05-31T16:13:00.001-04:00

** This review is going to be rife with spoilers, as there is no other way to fully express just what I felt was wrong with this book. **

The Book: Willow

The Author: Julia Hoban

How I Found It: Initially, through browsing the YA section at Borders. This was another library read on my beloved Kobo TARDIS.

The Review: I think I have officially found the worst book I have ever read. This book was even worse than the dreadful Prescription for Romance. TARDIS should be grateful that I love her dearly and would never harm an expensive possession of mine, because if this had been a physical book, I would've been hurling it at the wall.

Now that I've officially raised (lowered?) expectations, let's get on to the actual review, shall we?

Willow is struggling to cope after the death of her parents in a horrible car accident. To make things worse, she is the one who was driving the car--it was the worst rainstorm of the year, Willow only had a permit, and her parents were tipsy and asked her to drive. Now she is living with her older brother, contributing to the family finances in order to make ends meet... and secretly cutting to deal with the pain.

Through her job at the local university library, Willow meets Guy, a boy her age who shares her and her late parents' interest in obscure anthropological texts. Though Willow can barely stand the thought of emotional connections these days, she and Guy begin to talk, but when Guy learns her secret, he becomes convinced that she needs saving. He makes every effort possible to draw Willow out of her depression and stop her self-harming, but in the end, it is Willow who will have to take the initiative to fix things.

This book is a real wall-banger, with two of the most annoying characters I have ever encountered. Guy in particular is someone I would never, ever want to meet in real life based on the actions I will ennumerate below, and since this is at least partially meant to be a romance, I am more than a little certain the author would not want me to feel that way.

First off, we've got Willow herself. She is at least characterized realistically, but that realism made her really annoying to read about in third person limited perspective. Willow does not cut anybody slack. She believes that her tragedy outweighs the mediocre problems in everyone else's lives, that it invalidates everyone else's right to feel. When a girl breaks some lab equipment and cries over it, Willow condemns her mentally, basically saying to herself, what right does this girl have to cry over something so minor? I could really understand that perspective, but geez, it made me lose a lot of sympathy for Willow regardless.

Later on in the novel, Willow has a huge blowup with her brother, where she accuses him of not letting her take care of her young niece because he's afraid that she'll kill her like she did their parents. Her brother makes no effort to smooth things over at first, but his wife leaves Willow an extraordinarily kind and understanding note the next morning. Willow brushes it off with the thought that clearly if Cathy is being that nice, she just doesn't get it. Ugh. Willow was incredibly selfish and even if it was realistic, she was not a person I particularly cared about or wanted to spend time with.

Then there's Guy. I'm pretty sure Guy is the worst hero I have ever encountered in YA or any other literature, and I'm counting Edward Cullen, for whom I have absolutely no warm feelings, in there. How does Guy offend me? Let me count the ways.

* First, there's how he finds out that Willow cuts. They're sitting in a park and Guy invites her to get a cappuccino. Willow believes she can't be making a connection at this point, only seven months after her parents died, declines, and gets up. Guy proceeds to grab her wrist and then try to pull her back down and get her to stay with him. It's a pretense so that he can brush a scabbed-over cut, see the blood, and realize she's a cutter, but no. Just no. You do not grab a girl you've only just met, someone who clearly isn't interested in staying in your company, and beg her to stay with you. That was so creepy and awful.

* Second, the incident that made me realize Guy is dumber than a sack of rocks. Willow has bought some boxes of razors on sale. When they fall from her bag in public, Guy claims she bought them for him to help her save face. Later on, they get into a fight, and he proceeds to throw the box of razors back at her. Even if the razors are safety-wrapped, what genius thinks that's okay?

* Third, the wonderful homophobia and sexism Guy exhibits. He's just sensitive enough to love Shakespeare and the same obscure book that Willow loves, Tristes Tropiques, but just manly enough to call a coffee shop Willow brings him to a "girly place" and say that he wants to get out of there. When Willow says all the guys at her old school used to love it, he says something like, "What kind of guys went to your school, anyway?" Awesome. So the only guys that can like a coffee shop are not masculine enough to be considered men, and probably, by extension, gay, which is apparently a bad thing in your eyes? Seriously, Guy, I'm loving you.

* Fourth, and most egregious, the absolute worst message I have ever seen in a young adult novel: a romance you're not ready for will clearly solve every problem you have! Willow kisses Guy and freaks out, realizing that she's not ready for a relationship. Guy gets mad at her for that, which is a pretty jerky thing to do, considering he knows how difficult and confused a time she's having. Willow kisses him a second time maybe a few days later and is magically ready for... some kind of relationship, I suppose. But then comes the real kicker.

Willow goes back to her old house with Guy. She finally has her first emotional breakdown over the situation, after she realizes she'll never be anyone's daughter again. And then... wait! She's suddenly ready to have sex with a guy she's known barely a month! We get passages like this: “But you’re so shy.” Guy’s voice is soft against her throat as he continues to slide her bra off her shoulders. “And you’re so vulnerable. Please tell me that you’re sure.” So basically, what Guy is saying here is, I don't think you're ready for sex at all, but hey, let me keep taking off your bra!

So they're in the midst of foreplay and Willow asks if he has protection. He has a condom in his wallet, and Willow asks how long it's been there (thankfully). And here's his explanation. Ready? He put it in there very shortly after he met her, because he wanted to be ready for if she needed "protecting" in this way. So ~sexual healing~ is the answer to emotional issues? Really? No. This was the most disgustingly unromantic passage I have ever read. He barely knew her and yet decided to be perfectly prepared to have sex with her. Ew, ew, ew.

After this, we do get resolution on the situation between Willow and her brother, something I actually cared about. The thing that really annoyed me is that, even though Willow's brother realizes she had sex, he doesn't seem in the least bothered by the fact that she's jumping into a relationship she doesn't seem to be emotionally ready for. Their relationship gets no real closure, which was, again, realistic, but not what I look for in a novel.

And then the very end, where Guy is again proven to be the worst hero I've ever read about. He says that now that he's Willow's lover (seriously, have you ever heard a 16- or 17-year-old boy use that term? I'm 20 and I haven't), she has to pick between him or her razor blades. She throws her razor blades into the lake when he basically forces her to, and the end sentence is something about how it's a "beautiful beginning." Um, no, I would consider this a terrifying beginning. She's entered into casual sex she isn't emotionally ready for with a guy who's a perfect mess of stupidity and an utter inability to handle her emotional issues in a mature way. Fantastic!

As you can probably tell by now, I absolutely loathed this book, and feel it sends the worst possible message to teenagers. At the very least, it showed me that professional help is necessary in a situation such as this, because as noble as his intentions were, Guy handled the situation in the worst way, and the ultimate resolution reeked of unfortunate implications (sex solves your emotional problems!). Avoid at all costs.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Before I Fall'

2011-05-31T15:25:00.000-04:00

The Book: Before I Fall

The Author: Lauren Oliver

How I Found It: It was getting exceptional reviews for a YA book and I decided to make it the first library ebook I'd read on my wonderful Kobo TARDIS.

The Review: "The point is, we can do things like that. You know why? Because we're popular. And we're popular because we can get away with everything. So it's circular." (14)

Sam, Ally, Elody, and Lindsay are the best of friends... and the best of bullies at their high school. It's their senior year and their main concern on a Friday in February is Cupid Day, where students receive roses from their friends and admirers. Everybody knows that the ones who get the most roses are the most popular, and to Sam and her friends, popularity is paramount.

Everything comes to an end that night. Driving home from a party, Sam and her friends get into a hideous accident, and Sam is killed. No matter what kind of person she was, Sam tells us, surely we don't think she deserved to die that way? Maybe not, but it can't be denied that Sam has done some truly terrible things to people over the years.

Sam is dead... but then why is she waking up again, reliving the events of that Friday? It slowly becomes evident that Sam is in a Groundhog Day-style time loop, reliving that Friday seven times until she figures out why she has been given this last chance to right her wrongs. Is it so she can finally lose her virginity to her boyfriend Rob? Or is it because she's starting to realize that maybe she was wrong to ignore her childhood friend Kent McFuller? Is it because she has to mend her relationship with her family? And what part does a bullied girl named Juliet Sykes play in everything? Sam's seven final days will involve all these things, and in the end, she just might emerge from them a better person.

I've said before that I love ripple-effect stories: stories where we get to witness the effect one person's actions have on numerous other people. This was just what I wanted. Oliver does a great job with not being too repetitive as Sam repeats the day. Each day is almost completely different, and I loved those little variables that kept changing. For example, if Sam and her friends cut off a girl to get the last parking space, that girl is late to swim practice and not allowed to participate in a big competition, so the next time Sam lives that day, she purposely stalls her friend so that the girl can get the parking space. Or Sam and Lindsay's actions or inaction have the potential to expose a male classmate as a cheater to his girlfriend. I give Oliver credit for really keeping track of the characters and exploring different facets of their personalities on different days.

Of the four main girls, the two we get the most of are Sam and Lindsay. I think I remember reading something where Oliver said that she didn't expect, nor want, the reader to love Sam in the end, but to at least understand why Sam might've become a bully. As someone who was bullied myself in middle and high school, I didn't expect to like Sam, but I came to care about her redemption in the end, and I could at least see that it often wasn't Sam's actions that led to the bullying of others--it was her inaction, her refusal to do anything about her friends treating others poorly. It's not excusable, but the other three girls are so strong-willed that it's at least understandable that she wouldn't stand up to them, for fear of losing friends who were at least decent to her if nobody else.

Although the friendship between the four girls is admittedly based on some terrible things, I appreciated that Oliver showed how the girls genuinely did care for each other and protect each other's feelings. There are two sides to these girls: the intensely bitchy, bullying sides, and the vulnerable sides, the sides that hold the secrets they have promised to keep. Each girl has some kind of dark past, either with bullying or family issues, and it never felt overwrought, just realistic. These girls are all somehow damaged and, maybe because of that, seek to take their feelings out on others. As I said before, it doesn't excuse their actions in the least, but it at least made them seem human.

Sam's efforts to fix her actions and mend her relationships with both family and virtual strangers in her school were really well done. Of all the days, I think my favorite was when she skipped school to spend time with her little sister; as a little sister myself, I was really touched by that, and it made me admire Sam for showing enough growth to care about her family's feelings. Even so, Sam reaching out to her classmates showed how far her actions had reached, and how many people her and her friends' bullying had effected. Often, someone will ask Sam why she's talking to them when she bullied them in the past, and when they give her an example, Sam often won't remember it happening. Bullying is shown to be something thoughtless but pervasive, and I think this would be an important read for all teenagers. Though there is, of course, drinking and sexual content for the sake of realism, I think it would be a valuable addition to summer reading lists. A lot could be learned from Sam's path to redemption.

In the end, my main complaint with the book was that no explanation was given for how Sam was living the day over and over. We learn why--what the purpose for it was--but not how. I understand that this is not the type of book that would give the answer, that it would probably get too metaphysical with an explanation, but for a book that was otherwise entirely realistic, an unexplained fantastical element being the main premise left me a little confused.

I'd definitely recommend this one for both young adults and their parents. There is a lot of insight here into bullying and the high school experience, and I hope that others can take away some sort of lesson from Sam and her experiences.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Water for Elephants'

2011-05-31T11:32:00.000-04:00

I haven't done this in a while, but I'm reviewing the book and movie in tandem given that I saw the movie barely a day after finishing the book and it seems silly to review them separately!

The Book: Water for Elephants

The Author: Sara Gruen

How I Found It: I decided to act on my longstanding interest in reading the book after seeing Christoph Waltz would star in the movie adaptation (I will follow this man's career to the end after seeing Inglourious Basterds!).

The Review: Jacob Jankowski has ended up on the wrong side of fate. Just as he is about to sit his final exams for his veterinary science degree at Cornell, he is informed that his parents have been killed in a car crash--and that his father defaulted on the second mortgage he took out to pay Jacob's education. Left with nowhere to go, Jacob is wandering along the railroad tracks when a train passes, and he hops on without knowing just what he'll find.

What he does find is the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, a traveling circus run by the tyrannical Uncle Al, who is hell-bent on outperforming the Ringling Brothers. Jacob is tasked with looking after an ill liberty horse, told to fix the problem when it is clear the horse won't last much longer. The performer in the liberty horses act is Marlena, who has such a way with the horses that Jacob is taken with her immediately.

As Jacob begins to perform his duties as the show's official vet, he is drawn closer and closer to Marlena... and Marlena's volatile husband August. The situation isn't helped by the addition of the elephant Rosie to the show; Rosie is allegedly stupid and unable to be taught. Jacob finds himself in love with both Marlena and Rosie--and has to figure out how to protect them both from August's violence.

I don't think I was quite as taken with this book as others were. It rates about three stars for me--I liked it, but I can't say I thought it was anything too amazing, writing-wise. There's an impressive amount of period accuracy and Gruen clearly did her homework many times over, but the writing itself was just basic, nothing too elegant or worth remembering. I wasn't so sure how well the framing device worked for me, either: we open the book with the elderly Jacob in a nursing home, and keep returning to him periodically as the story goes on. The thing is, I start wondering if I can read these sections without laughing when phrases like "my ticker" and "dagnabbit" are thrown around in all seriousness. Towards the end, I did like the elderly Jacob sections, as they gave us a sense of the full life he'd led, but in the beginning, I found myself rolling my eyes a bit at the cheesy language.

My other gripe was about Jacob and Marlena, who were far too flat and uninteresting for my tastes. Jacob is this utter paragon of goodness, to the point that it becomes so boring to read about him! He's the defender of animals and abused women, the type of person who feels immediate shame at guarding the "cooch tent." (All of this would be interesting if he only had flaws. I just wanted the kid to do something wrong once in a while just to prove that he was human.) Marlena comes off as little more than a caricature of a female character of the era, and even her backstory was cliched. I couldn't buy into their romance because I honestly didn't see much substance to it. Jacob seems to fall in love with her because of her prowess with horses and the fact that he (a) can't have her and (b) wants to protect her from abuse. Wanting to protect her is noble, but it just fell flat for me when I couldn't see any other reason to want them to be together. I'm also not a fan of characters falling in love far too quickly (as in, a few days to a few weeks), and that was what happened here.

However, that's not to say the characterizations were all bad. On the contrary, I loved reading about August and Rosie, as well as Jacob's friends Kinko/Walter and Camel. (I think it says something when your villain and an animal character are more interesting than your two leads.) Jacob's friendships with Kinko/Walter and Camel were nicely handled and became touching at the end. August was twisted and sadistic, but that was much more interesting than Jacob's flawlessness. Rosie was amusing and noble, and it was great to read about how she was trained and all the things elephants are capable of. I had no idea they were as smart as they apparently are. This book left me with a newfound appreciation for animals who perform, as long as they're treated well.

That brings me to the issue of appropriateness--I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone younger than 15 or so, or at the very least, a mature 14. I was meant to read this book for my high school book club a few years ago, until the teacher we ran it with read up to the part with the cooch tent and realized it was inappropriate for our younger members! I'm not normally one to object to sexual content in books, but I think this one would be a little too much for younger readers. And then there's something that would really bother sensitive readers and/or animal lovers: the animal abuse. Those were the only parts of the book that had me crying. August beats Rosie on more than one occasion, and it's just hideous to read about. (Not to mention the slightly unorthodox methods of keeping the animals fed and housed, which were cruel.) The animal abuse is certainly period-correct, but it was tough for me to stomach and would definitely bother younger readers.

Overall, I felt the book was a good read, but nothing truly special, due to the flatness of Jacob and Marlena's characterizations and the plain writing style. I think it's a good beach read, something a person could race through in a day or two, but it's not much more substantial than that. However, in one of the only times I will say this, I felt the movie was much better than the book.

Because the characters and story were so outrageous, it just seemed like a story that needed to be seen, not read. All the description in the world can't match the actual sight of the circus acts, or the elephant herself. It was great to actually see the liberty horses, to see the elephant who played Rosie, Tai, get to do the things I was amazed at when I read them in the book.

Jacob and Marlena were played well enough by Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon, and their lack of flaws and bland personalities didn't seem to grate at me as much onscreen. I actually enjoyed watching them together and could buy into their physical chemistry. The final sequence of the film (which I won't spoil here) left me crying, and I realized that I felt more for the characters in the film than I did their novel counterparts, a sign that the movie was, in my eyes, better.

Christoph Waltz played August to skin-crawling perfection; the standout scene for me was when he directs Jacob and Marlena to touch each other in front of him under the pretense of dictating a circus act. There were times when I felt it was played a little too well--as I said before, the animal abuse is just too difficult to watch; I ended up crying so much before it even happened that I closed my eyes for the scene when he beats Rosie. Even the sounds of it were horrifying. Again, viewers sensitive to animal abuse should beware.

The movie is definitely worth seeing just for the sights and sounds of the circus, especially Tai the elephant. Towards the end, the film is touchingly handled, and I was able to connect with it emotionally in a way I hadn't for the book. I never thought I'd say this, but the movie was better than the book, in my opinion, and comes highly recommended from me!

In Which Trai Reviews 'Something Borrowed: The Movie'

2011-05-25T20:44:00.000-04:00

This is so, so late and I apologize, but the good news is that I'm done with my semester! Summer break is here and I have invited a new member into my reading family: my new Kobo, who I have christened TARDIS. With TARDIS on hand, I have access to tons of library eBooks, to say the least! Now onto the movie review!

I reviewed the novel Something Borrowed last June, and have since become a great fan of Giffin's writing. She explores very complex emotional situations with depth and sincerity, and I could easily identify with Giffin's protagonist, Rachel. I was really looking forward to seeing the movie after seeing the trailer, and the movie definitely didn't disappoint.

A brief recap of the plot: Rachel White met Dex Thaler in law school, and while she always had a crush on him, she never admitted it to Dex, and came to regret it when her always-one-better best friend, Darcy Rhone, claimed him for her own, beginning a relationship with him almost as soon as Rachel introduces them.

Fast forward to Rachel's thirtieth birthday. Darcy and Dex's wedding is fast approaching, and Rachel is the maid of honor. After one too many drinks, Rachel and Dex end up in a cab together after everyone else has gone home, and they kiss... and then find themselves in bed together the next morning. They could both put the incident behind them as a drunken mistake, except that they realize they weren't that drunk, and that they might, in fact, have feelings for each other. They begin an affair even as the wedding date approaches, but therein lies the rub: is Dex really going to cancel the wedding, or will Rachel end up brokenhearted?

I think I did end up having one problem here--while Rachel and Dex are likable people and well-played by Ginnifer Goodwin and Colin Egglesfield, I couldn't help remembering that, well, I liked Something Blue better just because I found Ethan (John Krasinski, the absolute highlight of the movie) and Darcy (Kate Hudson, convincingly bitchy) to be a more compelling pair. As I watched the movie, I couldn't help but remember that Rachel and Dex just weren't as vibrant and fun to read about as Ethan and Darcy. Some of that comes through on the screen. We don't quite get the same sense of their personalities as we do from the book, where we become more intimately familiar with Rachel's thoughts and feelings, and get a better sense of the time she spends with Dex.

With that aside, though, I loved almost everything about how the movie turned out. As I said above, I adored how Ethan was portrayed. John Krasinski does an absolutely hilarious job and I approved the filmmakers' choice to condense Hillary and Ethan into one character. It always did feel a little too unbelievable to me to have two people in Rachel's life know about and encourage the affair. Krasinski really did make the viewer see Ethan's concern for Rachel, and their friendship was played beautifully, except for one big divergence from the book.

** Spoilers Ahoy! **

Ethan admits fairly late in the movie that he has feelings for Rachel, or did in the past. It's meant to be a parallel to Rachel always being second to Darcy in people's affections--that in Rachel's, Ethan is second to Dex--but it just felt too forced to me. I totally believed him as her best friend, but not as someone who'd always been secretly in love with her. Then again, his confession scene made my mother cry, so your mileage may vary!

** End Spoilers. **

Arguably, the most important dynamic in the movie is between Darcy and Rachel, and I think the movie nailed it. The sleepover and dance routine scene from the novel was kept, and worked really well. We get that same sense of Rachel's conflicted loyalties--her love for Dex as well as her friendship with Darcy, despite how badly Darcy has treated her over the years. Their friendship was shown so effectively that I was crying during the confrontation scene, and felt truly sad at seeing the friendship end, because even though the friendship was toxic, Darcy and Rachel had still been friends, period. Kudos to Goodwin and Hudson.

There was definitely some comedy thrown in, to fit in with the genre, but I really did laugh at it. I loved Rachel pulling a muscle "near her vagina" in the club, and Ethan's remarks ("Shit! Why am I in this?!" at the slideshow in the beginning, his explanation to Claire on why he can't be with her) often made the scenes he was in. Romantic comedies can be silly and even stupid at times, but I actually did enjoy the humor in this one.

Overall, I really think that fans of Giffin's novel will be well pleased at the result, just as I was. If anything, see it to raise the chance that Something Blue gets made (and stay for the credits; there's a teaser there!), because after seeing their performances in this movie, I'm truly eager to see Krasinski and Hudson reunite as a romantic pair! Very much recommended to fans of the book.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Feed'

2011-04-26T23:55:00.001-04:00

** Spoilers ahoy: vague references to the ending and bleak tone overall. **

The Book: Feed

The Author: M.T. Anderson

How I Found It: It was always a title I heard bandied about in the world of YA scifi and fantasy, but I never picked it up until it was assigned to me this semester in Young Adult Lit.

The Review: I think Amazon.com knows a bit too much about me. It analyzes my trends and throws products at me that it thinks I'll like. I just clicked through to the site, and the front page is plastered with Doctor Who products for me to consider, as I'd been looking at the page for The Glamour Chase earlier as I composed my review.

Going over to the "My Amazon.com" section, I look at what's been recommended for me: a whole host of Disney movies (because I recently purchased Tangled), a reasonable chunk of Jane Austen paraliterature (because I've indicated that I own quite a few), more Doctor Who products (... I'm not in too deep; what're you talking about). They've pinned me and my current interests down fairly easily. I'm sure I'll be moseying on over to the page when I'm looking for something to read/watch, etc.

Then there's the slightly disconcerting emails I've been getting from Borders. As an example, two purchases I made there: Maggie Stiefvater's Linger and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. About a month after I made each purchase, I got an email inviting me to review the products. But not a generic email--oh, no. No, they included the exact editions I bought. I was a bit freaked out when I saw them. They're tracking my shopping habits? Why?

I give you this tangent because it's exactly what Feed is about. It's basically the precursor to the film Wall-E (which I've only seen once, because I consider it eminently depressing). It shows us a consumerist culture where everyone has a "feed" in their brains, putting everything at a person's fingertips. Shopping, TV and movies, a Wikipedia-esque access to facts and details, communications reminiscent of texting and instant messaging: all there inside your brain.

Titus and his friends are normal teenagers, almost slavishly obeying their feeds and never questioning. Everything changes when they take a trip to the moon, where they meet Violet--a girl who can write with pen and paper, who wants to resist the feed and the consumerism it promotes. While Titus, his friends, and Violet are partying at a club, their feeds are attacked by a politically active hacker who wants to spread his anti-feed message.

During a few days in the hospital where their feeds are offline, Titus and Violet find themselves growing closer. Once they emerge from the hospital with their feeds online, they decide to pursue a relationship--Violet wants to open Titus' eyes to the events in the outside world he chooses to ignore, whereas Titus' curiosity about Violet's ways rises. Even as disturbing events grip the two of them--Violet's feed begins to seriously malfunction, mysterious "lesions" cause citizens' skin to fall off--Titus and Violet push each other into unfamiliar territory, learning about each other all the while.

Feed paints a bleak, timely, and prescient look at our society, but one I didn't feel was original enough to interest me. As you can tell from my above tangent, I think Feed is an accurate representation of today's consumer culture. It also has some disturbing predictions about what might be on the horizon in the next couple decades: the President is hideously inarticulate and uses the word "thing" in lieu of the word he can't find. Titus' father tries to "chat" him (the equivalent of instant messaging) and is reluctant to talk to him face to face. A person can get a tattoo that forces them to say a company name in every sentence.

There is no happy ending here--how could there be? And sorry to say that I don't think I felt for any of the characters. Violet: her being educated and politically aware was revolutionary in itself, given the average level of knowledge among Titus and his friends (the scene where no one remembers the origins of the Kent State riots, among others--only that they're the namesake of an awesome "riot chic" clothing line... shudder!). But what else was she really doing to fight the feed? I wanted more rebellion, wanted her to be more like the hacker we see in the first part. Titus and his friends: ultimately, they're all jerks. You think Titus would be transformed by his experience, but he ricochets between that and that same old consumerism, so what the book leaves us with is the feeling that this can't be escaped. Cheery, ain't it?

Stylistically, the book is well put-together and well-written. Anderson intercuts his prose with jarring end-of-chapter blips from Titus' feed, never letting the reader ignore it, which is as it should be. The communication, and failure to do so, between the characters is accurately represented. All of this is wonderful, but what did the book really give us? A look at a terribly depressing society, with no chance of escape and no rebellion that's really succeeding all that much. I wanted there to be more rising up, and I didn't get that. It wasn't what I was expecting of a YA dystopian; I'll give it that much. So anyone who's looking for a real revolution-against-the-government dystopian story should look elsewhere, but anyone who's interested in an incredibly bleak but well-structured YA commentary on the consumer culture should look here. It's written well and comments on what it set out to comment on, but there's not much original about it and the characters aren't as sympathetic as they could have been. What it comes down to is that your mileage may vary!

In Which Trai Reviews 'Doctor Who: The Glamour Chase'

2011-04-26T21:42:00.001-04:00

The Book: Doctor Who: The Glamour Chase

The Author: Gary Russell

How I Found It: As I stated in my last review, I've become a tad enamored with Doctor Who. Really, just a bit. (*cough*)

The Review: The Doctor, Amy, and Rory have landed on Earth in 1936--a far cry from Rio, which is what they were aiming for. The TARDIS has picked up some kind of distress signal, and of course they'd like to help.

Just as it always does, the situation becomes more complicated for the Doctor and his companions. Rory realizes that Oliver Marks, a local man, is suffering from PTSD, which is poorly understood in 1936 and more than likely related to whatever extraterrestrial threat is approaching. The Doctor is certain something off about their host, Nathaniel Porter, and his two wives: the first Mrs. Porter, dead from mysterious circumstances, and the current, an archaeologist named Enola who's going to dig up the remains of an alien ship, the Exalted, which crashed in the town over four thousand years before.

And Amy? Well, Amy's not acting like herself. She knows perfectly well the Doctor isn't from Mars, so why does she say he is? Why does she know of Enola Porter, while the Doctor and Rory don't? The Doctor and Rory are running out of time to figure out what's going on, and if they fail, the entire town might fall to the threats of the malevolent Tahnn.

In order to decide which Doctor Who novels to read, I looked at reviews from various outlets. Without fail, the reviewers were (of course) avid Whovians who could comment on characterization (the most important part, to me; I've read some dreadful tie-in novels), plotting, and if it actually feels like an episode of the show. The reviews for this one were almost overwhelmingly positive, and all of them complimented the characterization of Rory, my current favorite character on the show and one who doesn't get quite enough love. He's mainly been second fiddle to the Doctor and Amy so far, something I'm hoping will change this series, so it was really nice to see a writer give him the spotlight.

Amy's not much of a figure here, but she felt pretty in character to me (and had more of an appreciation for Rory than she does in the show proper, which was nice). The characterizations of the Doctor (Eleven, in Whovian parlance) and Rory, individually and together, are the real standout of this novel. Rory gets some backstory (a touching anecdote about nursing a childhood friend, some light shed on his motivations for becoming a nurse, and a glimpse into his feelings during the years Amy was waiting for the Doctor). He is portrayed as a competent and caring nurse, and the Doctor learns to value and appreciate his insight. A favorite exchange of mine: "Rory, you are more magnificent than I thought you were before... I've said that a lot lately, like I expected you to be a bit dim. I'm sorry, I had no right to treat you that way" (185). They get several touching moments and Russell gave them a great dynamic; I'd like to see him do another novel with these characters.

The Doctor is almost entirely spot on; Russell captured his manic energy, impatience with humans, and more-than-occasional ridiculousness quite well. I loved an early scene that just about summed him up:

"Doctor?"

"Quiet, Rory, I'm talking to a sheep."

Baaaaa.

"All right, strictly speaking, I'm talking at a sheep, but I'm pretty sure I'm getting through." The Doctor sniffed. "Blimey, Mr. Sheep, you smell bad. No... wait... nope, you're all right, I smell bad. Wow. That is bad. Sorry."

Baaaaa.

"Absolutely." (48)

Russell also sneaks in a reference or two to the Doctor's previous incarnation (Ten, as played by David Tennant), and those made me very happy, since the Doctor's other incarnations aren't referenced much at all in the show itself now. There was one weak moment that distracted me: the Doctor having trouble remembering the name of Nathaniel Porter's cook. Really? The Doctor, who makes it his duty to know everyone's name, so much so that it was a plot point and defining character moment in "The Vampires of Venice"? I couldn't see it and it made me knock a few points of the characterization tally, but other than that, everything was fantastic.

Okay, so some of the aliens were a little bit silly. We've got the good, woolly aliens--the crew of the Exalted, known as the Weave--and the bad aliens, the Tahnn. The woolly aliens were a little bit much for me to take, and overall their concept seemed just a bit to similar to the Autons. Same function--duplicating a human host--but with wool instead of plastic. Really? That was something I think should have been tweaked and changed. One of the opening scenes where we see the Tahnn's reign of destruction on the little village is pretty horrific, as is their effect on Oliver Marks (whose PTSD is touchingly portrayed), so I give them good marks.

I'm not quite sure I caught every nuance of the plot--the names of the Weave, which were solely numbers, kept throwing me off, so by the end I was slightly muddled but catching on. This is one, though, that I definitely wouldn't mind rereading a time or two--it did some things better than the show did and was a quick read to boot. If you're a Whovian looking for something to while away the wait between an episode or a Rory fan like myself, I definitely recommend this one! (Not for non-Who fans; I'm betting they'd be a bit lost.)

In Which Trai Reviews 'Growing Pains'

2011-04-15T20:38:00.000-04:00

Again, as ever this year, my sincerest apologies for the lack of reviews lately. My time has been yet again monopolized by school, and things will slow down just a few weeks from now, so I'll hopefully be able to pick up my slack during the summer.

The Book: Growing Pains

The Author: Billie Piper

How I Found It: I'm now desperately in love with Doctor Who, and I loved Billie Piper's role on the show, Rose Tyler, and her acting in general.

The Review: Only my love for Billie Piper could have tempted me to read this. I don't normally go for nonfiction, but when I looked up Billie on Wikipedia, I was struck by how interesting and inspiring her early life sounded. She was only 23 when she released this book sometime in 2006 or so, and it sounds absurd--a 23-year-old having enough life experience to fill a book? But she had enough and more, and I was surprised at how much depth and relevance her story still has five or so years later.

At 15 years old, Billie was signed to Innocent Records, pushed to be an artist with the longevity of Madonna and the success of the Spice Girls. It was a pretty tall order for a 15-year-old, and you can't help but wonder what her team was thinking. Billie was more than game, looking forward to fame and money and with an endlessly positive attitude, but upon recording her first single, she started to feel like it wasn't what she wanted. She could sing, but not quite well enough to be a true performer, but she pushed on and decided to stay in the business for the sake of the people making their living off of her.

Billie had already been growing up far too young--she was an only child for the first seven years of her life, but then her mother had three children in three years, which lead to a nervous breakdown for Billie's mother and the responsibility of parenting her siblings for Billie. After loving acting classes as a child, Billie made it into the Sylvia Young Theatre School, and from there her singing career kicked off.

The pressures of her singing career and personal life ended up putting Billie into a destructive spiral. A television presenter's comment about her being fat sparked a two year battle with anorexia and laxative abuse, which led to many painful health problems. Her manager warned her not to date a member of a boy band, saying that it would make her core audience (young girls who would fantasize about dating that same boy band member) hate her. They dated anyway, and it quickly led to Billie receiving hate mail and being poorly received at her concerts.

All of that would change when she got married, at 18, to Chris Evans, a DJ and television host sixteen years her senior who literally saved her life. Billie left the music world in order to be a wife and, eventually, an actress, something she's kept doing ever since.

Just reading what I saw of her life story on Wikipedia had already endeared me to Billie, and I knew I'd probably really like the book, but I didn't expect to love her even more and find the book truly life-affirming. This one is a keeper and something I will be re-reading and recommending to friends of mine.

For one thing, I was stunned at how incredibly honest and candid Billie was about her struggles and mistakes. She is fully willing to talk about her struggles with anorexia and even an attempt at suicide, and admits freely that the way she treated her friends and family oftentimes was wrong. She was humble and totally honest about her shortcomings and feelings during what must have been incredibly turbulent times, and I was stunned at how much she'd had to go through.

What touched me the most were the details of her struggle with anorexia. Several people I knew in high school have struggled with eating disorders, and while I knew bits and pieces of what it was like for them, I'd never really read a true firsthand account until now. No detail is spared, and it's wrenching to read but painfully true. Billie doesn't divulge every detail, in order not to give anyone ideas, but she urges those who are struggling to get help, and the fact that she was able to recover from her eating disorder is ultimately hopeful. I certainly felt a little better about myself after reading it--she had the same insecurities about herself that I'd had when I was a bit younger, and it really made me realize that she's just a person, too.

The insight into the music industry was also interesting in a really twisted way. I liked that what Billie went through seems to have soured her team on putting another artist that young up to the rigors of the industry. It's truly sad how much she had to deal with on her own: "It had been eight months of non-stop work, I'd barely been home, I was tired, I'd split up with my boyfriend in Swindon and I'd had to deal with my first period with no one to confide in" (34). She was living in a hotel room on her own at 15, and I'm sure that this type of thing is still going on with the young Disney performers and such today. It was the lack of supervision that did her the most harm, something she admits. I'd never considered how quickly backlash could happen, either. Her manager's bit about not dating a boy band member and all the hate she received was really an eye-opener, considering the behavior of some of the tweenybopper fans that are around today.

Overall, I was truly surprised at how much I ended up loving this book. Billie went through a lot, but she managed to emerge from it a funny, kind, self-aware person who has a lot of love for the people she's worked for and a lot of advice to give. My favorite bit: "Then I thought, ‘You’ve got to sharpen up, girl, sort it out. Be more headstrong and believe in yourself more. Because if you don’t, why should anyone else?'" (286-7).

The story was emotional (I was crying when she recounted her almost attempt at suicide, and when she finally found happiness again on the set of Doctor Who) and I think that Doctor Who fans would enjoy it in particular, because it gives a ton of insight on what she has in common with Rose and why she was chosen for the role, which made me appreciate her work on the show all the more. It's a story of hope and figuring out what you love to do, and for that reason I'd recommend it to almost anyone, but in particular those who are struggling or have struggled with eating disorders, any young person thinking about going into a music career (there's some salty language and a bit of content, so perhaps no one younger than 15 or 16), or someone who loves Billie's work as an actress. This one's a keeper.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After'

2011-03-22T22:18:00.000-04:00

The Book: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After

The Author: Steve Hockensmith

How I Found It: Those of you who have been following this blog for a while know that I heartily support Quirk Books, and they've been awesome at letting bloggers in on their books. I participated in the blogsplosions for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls and Android Karenina, and here I am again! :) Thanks, as always, to Quirk for providing the advance copy.

The Review: As we all know, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was the unexpected hit of 2009. It was exactly what it said on the tin: Pride and Prejudice with the addition of zombies, ninjas, and gore. And as most of you who follow this blog know, hi, I'm Trai and I'm a helpless Janeite. As someone who has a twisted sense of humor and an appreciation for the macabre, I follow the mashup trend, and was more than happy to review this one for Quirk, especially after reading and enjoying the first two books. This is the conclusion to the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies trilogy, and for a man tasked with giving the story a beginning (Dawn of the Dreadfuls) and an end (this book), he's certainly done an admirable job.

When the book opens, Elizabeth and Darcy have been married for four years, although not quite as happily as we might have expected from PPZ's couple-who-slays-together-stays-together ending. Elizabeth, as a gentleman's wife, has been forced to retire her katana and stay idle, something that dampens her happiness at life with her husband. Having seen Jane through the birth of her newest child, Elizabeth is also beginning to realize that perhaps she doesn't want children. As she and Darcy are trying to talk through this matter, the unexpected occurs: Darcy is bitten by a zombie.

As Lady Catherine was the one who helped Charlotte Collins when she was bitten in the original novel, Elizabeth and Darcy are forced to turn to her for help. Darcy is taken to Rosings and Elizabeth is tasked with obtaining a cure--but not in a way she ever wanted. It is rumored that a Scottish physician working at the notorious Bethlem ("Bedlam") Hospital has made a successful cure, but to get it, Elizabeth must pose as a widow and seduce him. Failing that, her sister Kitty must go after the doctor's son. Throw in Mr. Bennet, Mary, a ninja named Nezu, and the mysterious man-in-a-box Mr. Quayle, and, well, we've got one hell of a time on our hands!

One thing I will say right off is that I think I enjoy Hockensmith's work a bit more than Grahame-Smith's original because there is no Austen to work off of. Hockensmith can use his own interpretations of the characters, which makes this no different than other types of Austen paraliterature (variations, sequels, retellings, etc.) other than the fact that it has zombies. Hockensmith is very funny and has a way with writing zombie literature, and it's just good fun if you're looking for action and gory zombie battles.

I found it easier to forgive, this time around, quibbles I'd had with Dawn of the Dreadfuls. The expressions used are sometimes modern and somewhat Americanized, but it's for the sake of humor, and I'm not sure anyone reading this is going to be really uptight about what's proper. There are a few editing mistakes (Jane is referred to a few times as "Mrs. Bingham"?) but that kind of thing happens.

People who come into this looking for Lizzy/Darcy interaction will, admittedly, be disappointed. They really do spend the majority of the book apart; they are only together at the very beginning and very end. What I liked most about this book, though, was that it focused on Kitty and Mary. One of the things I pointed out in my review of Dawn of the Dreadfuls was how much I liked the glimpses into Mary's thoughts, and I was very pleased to see that expanded upon greatly here. Other paraliterature authors focus on Elizabeth, Jane, and Lydia, as they're the three sisters that are most important in the original PPZ, so it was great to see Kitty and Mary get some screentime.

Actually, I think this one is worth it alone for the attention it gives Kitty and Mary. Kitty's characterization in particular felt very real and almost touching. With Lydia married off and no longer around to give Kitty purpose, Kitty feels very lost and is coming to the realization that others view her as frivolous. As the book goes on, she seeks to assert herself and prove that she's really worth something, and I found myself cheering her on. Mary, meanwhile, is obsessed with Mary Wollstonecraft's feminist texts and is seeking independence of her own. Both subplots felt very plausible and true to the characters they concerned, and I was really happy to find that, considering I went in expecting a novel about Lizzy. We do get a lot of Lizzy, too, but mainly it's her concern for Darcy and the situation she must put herself and her family in.

One thing I felt was a bit too distracting was the number of romance subplots. We have Kitty's attempts to seduce Bunny, the doctor's son, even as she begins to notice Nezu, the ninja who has been sent to accompany her, Lizzy, and Mr. Bennet. We have Mary and the mysterious Mr. Quayle, and then we have Darcy and Anne de Bourgh's attempts to snare him, even though he is married. The number of romances made the book a bit topheavy, and I could have done without the Darcy/Anne subplot, if I had to choose something to cut, although it did give Darcy something else to do. My judgment, though, is probably clouded by all the paralit I've read recently where Anne shows not a whit of interest in Darcy, who returns the favor by not loving her romantically, either. Lizzy's concerns about seducing Dr. Macfarquhar were addressed and suitably examined; she resigns herself to doing whatever she has to in order to save Darcy. Even if Lizzy and Darcy barely interact, their love for each other is still palpable here.

Besides all the romance and characterizations, we come to the other point: is the zombie stuff well-written? Are the fight scenes worth reading? Admittedly, I'm not the right one to ask--I'm never a huge fan of action scenes--but there is more than enough gore here to satisfy the interested reader. Zombie mayhem is abundant and it's always funny to read about the proper Bennet girls beheading and slicing their way through hordes of undead.

Overall, this book was really entertaining and fun, and one element had me wishing it had a book all to its own (the adventures of Quayle's dogs, Ell and Arr, please? I'd pay good money, seriously). Those who are looking for a fitting conclusion to the wonderfully fun Pride and Prejudice and Zombies series won't be disappointed, and I know I wasn't. Recommended to fans of the series (those who haven't read the previous two books are advised to start with those).

In Which Trai Reviews 'Only Mr. Darcy Will Do'

2011-03-21T19:44:00.001-04:00

The Book: Only Mr. Darcy Will Do (previously self-published as Something Like Regret in 2008)

The Author: Kara Louise

How I Found It: It was very highly regarded while it was out initially, and I decided to take the leap and read it once Sourcebooks reissued it earlier this month.

The Review: For the sake of being comprehensive, and because there will be a comparison or two later on, I'm going to link to my review of another P&P variation, Abigail Reynold's Mr. Darcy's Obsession, that had similar themes to this one.

Both Obsession and this book picked the same variable: what if Mr. Bennet had died, forcing Elizabeth and her family out of Longbourn, and Elizabeth into employment as a governess? While Obsession had a really strong take on the seamy underside of society at the time in addition to its romance, Only Mr. Darcy Will Do is more of a straight romance, and a very, very good one.

Shortly after she rejects Mr. Darcy's proposal and is given his letter of apology and explanations, Elizabeth receives word of her father's death and has to quit Rosings immediately. When we open, it is not yet a year since Mr. Bennet's passing, and Elizabeth is still in mourning as she works as governess for little Emily Willstone. Elizabeth is tormented by regret, wondering what her life could have been like if she had only said yes to Mr. Darcy and become mistress of Pemberley. With her social status even lower than it was before, she now has no hope of catching his eye again, even if their paths were to cross...

... and as it turns out, they do cross, because Mr. Bingley and Miss Georgiana Darcy move in the same circles as the Willstones. Elizabeth has not yet seen Mr. Darcy, but it is only a matter of time. Things are made even worse by the arrival of Mrs. Willstone's younger sister, Rosalyn Matthews, who has been carrying a torch for Mr. Darcy for some time. Once Rosalyn hears that Elizabeth has a previous acquaintance with Darcy, she begs Elizabeth for her help in figuring out how to capture his interest.

When the Willstones are invited to spend two weeks at Pemberley, Elizabeth has no choice but to go. She will have to stay at Pemberley, constantly running into the man who once admitted to loving her, walking the halls of the home that could have been hers. The two weeks will give her plenty of opportunities to see Darcy at his best, but there's no hope of a romance between them when class stands in their way...

First off, can I just say that I really, really wish Sourcebooks had kept the original title? Many Sourcebooks authors have expressed mild displeasure over the title changes (Sourcebooks has numbers that indicate that books with the word "Darcy" in the title sell more, hence the changes to many self-published titles that have been picked up). Not only is the phrase "something like regret" repeated at least a few times in the novel, regret itself is such an overwhelming theme that it just really would have been a better choice.

I had a bit of a bumpy start with this one. I just wasn't drawn into it right away--it wasn't until the gang arrived at Pemberley that I started turning the pages faster and faster. So for me, it had a slow start, but I can honestly say that this book had some of the best characterizations I've yet seen in P&P paraliterature.

It is the characterizations, particularly of Lizzy and Darcy, that were the real highlight of this novel. Louise didn't take the easy way out, either--the book is almost entirely third person limited to Lizzy, so we don't get Darcy's point of view almost the entire time (excepting the prologue, and a few brief paragraphs where other character's inner thoughts are gone into). We get to see Darcy grow in Lizzy's estimation right alongside her, instead of seeing things from Darcy's perspective and getting that view right off.

The interactions between Lizzy and Darcy were incredibly well done, especially a scene where the two duel at chess. Sure, it was laying it on a bit too thick at points that Darcy was awesome (saving a cat from a storm? It was sweet, yes, but a little trite). But darned if it wasn't incredibly romantic. This book actually reminded me why I loved Darcy four years ago when I first read P&P. I swear my allegiance primarily to Colonel Brandon and Edmund Bertram (though I'm not going to deny having an "I Love Mr. Darcy" t-shirt), and sometimes I can forget what makes Darcy awesome. This book served as a good reminder: he's a good big brother, a great landlord, and is willing to take another look at himself and change for the girl he loves. Ultimate romantic hero? I think so.

The plot could have been a bit more original--the portrait of Elizabeth's regret over turning down Darcy's proposal and the potentiality of his being in love with Rosalyn struck me as a little too Anne/Wentworth/Louisa, and Rosalyn and Elizabeth's interactions resembled those of Lucy Steele and Elinor Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility. A reader who is just familiar with P&P, however, won't notice these things. I will say that it is probably necessary to read P&P or at least have seen a movie version before picking this one up, because certain crucial events from that are referenced assuming that the reader has familiarity enough to get it.

For readers who really want more time with P&P, or to those who just want a look at what sequels and variations are like, this one is perfect. We get Lizzy/Darcy and a really good look at Lizzy as a character (her relationship to her father, her sisters, etc.). We get Jane/Bingley and a few glimpses of the rest of the Bennet family. We get a pretty good subplot about being a governess, and what that might mean to social standing. The romance, especially towards the end, gets a little too saccharine, but other than that, this is an expertly done, wonderfully romantic variation that earns my highest recommendations.

In Which Trai Reviews 'After You'

2011-03-14T15:55:00.001-04:00

The Book: After You: A Novel

The Author: Julie Buxbaum

How I Found It: I saw it in a bookstore one day and decided to pick it up sometime after I'd read The Secret Garden, the book part of the plot hinges on. Now that I've read it, I gave it a shot (thanks, inter-library loan!).

The Review: Ellie Lerner is in London, picking up the pieces after another family's tragedy. Her best friend, Lucy, was murdered only a few days before by a drug addict who wanted her jewelry, and all of it happened in front of Lucy's eight-year-old daughter, Sophie. Ellie, as godmother, flies straight over to help Greg, Lucy's husband, and a traumatized Sophie.

Sophie has stopped speaking, and Ellie is desperate to help her, turning to their mutual love of reading as a solution--they will read The Secret Garden together, a book that helped Ellie cope after a family tragedy years before. Ellie makes the decision to stay in London longer than she expected, both to look after Greg and Sophie and to try and make sense of her failing marriage, still reeling from a loss that took place two years before.

I've been lucky, thus far, to find "chick lit" that actually has surprising emotional depth. I don't like the term "chick lit" for precisely this reason. Emily Giffin has wrote some really intricate explorations of friendship and infidelity, Jennifer Weiner wrote about body image, Jodi Picoult wrote about family, and now I've found Julie Buxbaum's sad but hopeful book on grieving and moving on.

Many passages struck me as true to life, the type of thing I can remember thinking during similar experiences I've had. A particular favorite of mine, whose page number I can't recall: "Certainly she can’t be lost if there is still the matted diploma from the Columbia School of Journalism on her wall, a pair of her favorite flip-flops, solid pink, soles worn thin, still on the floor, a pile of research for an article still unwritten. Too many stills—an identity frozen by things—for the object they represent to be gone." There's so much in this book that I feel would ring true with anyone who has experienced a loss like Ellie's, but the book isn't just about loss. It also delves into a marriage that's falling apart, into how Greg and Sophie deal with their tragedy, into the lives of Ellie's slightly insane parents, and into the things Ellie is now learning about Lucy, things she wishes she never heard of.

Most reviews I've seen have found Ellie an unsympathetic character, mostly because of her not-entirely-selfless motivation for taking care of Sophie, but I felt that I could understand her pretty well. The passages dealing with her and her husband's personal tragedy were definitely plausible, at least to me. Her concern for Sophie was well-done, as were their interactions. Sophie is a bit too precocious at times, but it's not done to be precious or cute; it's actually touchingly used to show how much of an outcast Sophie is to her classmates. I didn't have it as bad as Sophie did as a kid, but I can certainly relate to being the girl on the playground who'd rather read than play. Greg, the widower, gets a few good scenes where we get to see the scope of his grief, even if he, like Ellie, is struggling to believe that Lucy wasn't always honest. The other characters don't get as much screentime, but their plots are at least entertaining--Ellie's brother Mikey gets a fun, sweet romance with Sophie's teacher, and Ellie's parents are trying yet again to reconcile.

I was expecting to get a book filled with flashbacks to Lucy, to her and Ellie's friendship, but I was surprised to get a pretty clear picture of their friendship without them. We get a picture of Lucy mainly through Ellie's thoughts about her, and I can only remember one or two flashbacks offhand. Buxbaum was able to craft our perception of Lucy through snippets of memories triggered for Ellie, and I was pleased by how well that worked. We get the same sense of Lucy that Ellie did--maybe we don't know her as well as we thought, but we still love her and feel sorry that she's gone.

I'll admit that certain plot devices were very predictable, and maybe in the end it doesn't have all that much that makes it stand out from any other book in the genre. All things considered, though, it gives a very clear, surprisingly hopeful look at a handful of people coping with tragedy, with some very true observations about the nature of grief and friendship. Recommended to anyone with an interest in well-written "chick lit."

In Which Trai Reviews 'The Phantom of Pemberley'

2011-03-06T19:38:00.000-05:00

You haven't gotten rid of me just yet; I'm still going! :) My last review for today, and that takes care of the backlog.

The Book: The Phantom of Pemberley: A Pride and Prejudice Murder Mystery

The Author: Regina Jeffers

How I Found It: I'd heard of it through the various Austen-related blogs I follow, but only picked it up on the emphatic recommendation of a friend. Thanks, Tori!

The Review: Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy have been married for just over a year, and their partnership is still going strong. Elizabeth has bonded well with Georgiana Darcy, she and Darcy are more in love than ever, and they've settled into a very comfortable routine when it comes to managing Pemberley.

All of this is upended fairly fast, once strange sightings of a phantom man begin occurring around the premises, and when several unexpected visitors end up housed at Pemberley, unable to leave. Lydia Wickham is coming to visit her sister, and when a horrible snowstorm hits, she invites some of her fellow travelers to come and stay at Pemberley. Elizabeth and Darcy are in a bind and can hardly refuse, and so they end up with an interesting mix of relations and strangers: Lady Catherine, Anne, and Anne's traveling companion Mrs. Jenkinson; Lord Stafford, a viscount and acquaintance of Darcy, and his mistress Cathleen; Mr. Worth, a solicitor with knowledge of George Wickham's destructive behavior; and Mrs. Williams, a naval widow.

So many unexpected guests would be a strain on any hosting pair, but Elizabeth and Darcy are left in an unpleasant situation when accidents and then murders begin to occur at Pemberley. There is a shadow man lurking around the estate, and he has some kind of grudge against Darcy. It could be one of the travelers, or it could be one of the household staff. Either way, Mr. and Mrs. Darcy find themselves with a difficult time ahead: they must race to find the murderer before more lives are lost, even as they struggle to protect their family from treachery.

I ended up liking this one more than I thought I would, even with its occasional flaw. Jeffers did a pretty good job at the characterizations and the pacing of the mystery, and even if the book felt the teensiest bit overlong at times, I don't regret reading it. Any attempt to turn Jane's work into something it never was (i.e., mysteries like this one, monster mashups, erotica) can fall very, very flat, but this one succeeded fairly well.

At 409 pages, I started to feel towards the end like the book could have been trimmed, but Jeffers really did a good job of unfurling the clues very slowly and drawing the reader further into the mystery. I'll admit that I did have (correct) suspicions about who the murderer was all along, but not every reader will guess (indeed, many reviews I can see report surprise at the reveal), and the solution is certainly an interesting one.

There are many things to like here. There's enough romance to satisfy someone interested in that aspect of paraliterature, and the secondary couples, even those comprised of the original characters, still managed to hold my interest. There's some social commentary; we get a glimpse into Stafford and Cathleen's relationship and the societal expectations for people like Stafford and Darcy. There's a mystery in a big sprawling house, deaths caused by different methods each time, and there could even be multiple murderers. The Regency language is fairly accurate for the most part (though there is the occasional modern term like "send him packing" and "all ears").

Whatever small quibbles I had came from the elements I felt were a tad overdone. Fans of the way Lizzy and Darcy's relationship is portrayed in the 2005 adaptation will definitely enjoy this one. There's a lot of... well, it's perfectly clear that Lizzy and Darcy love each other very much. I'm talking four (non-explicit) sex scenes in the first hundred or so pages, and a fair amount of them after that. I'm talking many terms of endearment for each other. I'm talking about fairly liberal quoting from P&P to the original characters who don't know the circumstances of how Lizzy and Darcy met. Yes, a lot of it was sweet, but in moderation. It started grating on me a bit after a while, because while the other characters in the novel didn't know, I'm a Janeite, so is most (if not all) of Jeffers' audience, and I did know, very well.

There are also a few touches in the Lizzy/Darcy relationship that seemed a smidge too modern, as well. I don't quite know if Darcy would compliment the way Lizzy's butt looks in breeches, or if Lizzy would delight in repeatedly saying the word "ass" during a household production of Much Ado About Nothing. Funny? Yes. Period-correct? Maybe not quite.

Despite the occasional slip-up, Jeffers manages the characters well, and we get nice glimpses into the happily-ever-afters (or lack thereof) of Lizzy and Darcy, Georgiana, Colonel Fitzwilliam, Lydia, and Lady Catherine and Anne. The supporting characters all had my attention; I was actually sad when the book ended, because I got pretty attached to one of the supporting characters and would've liked to see how his life turned out beyond this book! There's a lot of subplots stuffed all in one, but they all tie together somehow in a pretty well-paced plot. Overall, I'd recommend it to someone who doesn't mind the occasional false note and would like a really interesting, suspenseful take on the further lives of some beloved characters.

In Which Trai Mini-Reviews 'Fahrenheit 451' and 'Long Day's Journey into Night'

2011-03-06T17:39:00.000-05:00

Mini-Reviewing The Classics!

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury: You wanna hear about the ultimate lesson in irony? After I'd finished the book, on our last day of discussing it, I'm listening to one of my classmates read a selection aloud and coming to the realization that, you know, all those swear words aren't in my edition (granted, it was a very old one). Yeah. I had a censored edition of Fahrenheit 451, the ultimate anti-establishment book. I got a good laugh out of it, but now I really have to track down an unexpurgated edition.

This was one of those books that everyone read in high school but me. I somehow ended up in the classes that didn't read it, for some reason or other, and I never seemed to hear much about it from people I knew in the other classes. I'm glad I didn't, because I went into this one pretty blind, not knowing anything about it other than it being about book-burning, and it made reading this a really eye-opening experience.

I've stated before that I love books and movies about books and reading. It's a subgenre I've just come to adore, because reading is such a huge part of my life, and it's always interesting to see how other people put that experience into words and visuals. I expected to be horrified, reading about a world without books, and I was, but not in the way I expected to be. I was horrified by how prescient Bradbury's vision has turned out to be.

Guy Montag lives in a future where firemen have one purpose: not to put out fires, but to start them. Homes have long since been fireproofed, and the only threat to society now is books. Montag is fairly content with his profession, until a run-in with a very odd teenager, Clarisse, makes him take another look at his life. Clarisse makes him notice the things he's long since forgotten about: that there's dew on the grass in the mornings, that advertisements didn't always pervade every inch of society. Once Montag notices these things, he finds it difficult to revert back to his old way of thinking.

Things spiral fast, and Montag finds himself fighting back against the restrictions of his society--most particularly, the menace of his boss, the fire chief Beatty. A former English professor, Faber, becomes his only ally in a struggle against a system that has long since stopped caring about the welfare of humanity.

Stylistically, this book put me to sleep at first (the sentence structure was a bit too simple for me, although some passages were really striking), but I came to love it over time. Any one of us has the tendency to forget the little things, and Clarisse pointing them out to Montag was pretty poignant. It's not quite about the fight against censorship, though that's definitely part of it. A larger part of the book's message concerns how entertainment gradually replaced the printed word, how television and movies rendered it unnecessary. What was beginning to frighten my class was that so many of the inventions in the book are around today. The parlor walls are our flatscreen televisions. The "seashells" are our iPods or Bluetooth headsets. Paper books are disappearing due to the Kindle and Nook.

Even if how dead on it was scared me at times, I ended up loving the ending and all of this book stands for. I recommend it wholeheartedly to every person who didn't read it in high school, to any person who loves to read.

***

Long Day's Journey into Night, by Eugene O'Neill: Another one that played straight into my literary preferences: a nice, involved, slow-moving drama about a family and its problems. Wow, I was not expecting to feel as much as I did reading this one. I was expecting a story about a family that hated each other, and I ended up being proven wrong: these family members love each other very much indeed.

This was a semi-autobiographical effort by O'Neill, one he didn't want performed until fifty years after his death, but one that got performed before that anyway thanks to his wife. It concerns James Tyrone (mainly referred to by his surname), his wife Mary, and their two sons, Jamie and Edmund. James, Jamie, and Edmund are all alcoholics, and Mary has demons of her own. And the fun doesn't stop there: Jamie has been racking up debts due to his drinking and visits with prostitutes, Edmund might have consumption, and Tyrone's money--which could go a long way towards solving the family's problems--is all tied up in real estate. Hooboy. We get one day in the life of this family, as they fight their way towards some sort of understanding.

Like I said, this one surprised me. Just when I thought I knew something about a character, I'd find out I was wrong. I thought Tyrone felt nothing but disappointment for his sons, but then we get a scene or two where Edmund voices that assumption, only to be proven wrong by a very hurt Tyrone. As always, I'm a sucker for well-written dialogue and well-developed characters, and they were in full force here. I can see that O'Neill really did take this one from life. I'd love to see this one performed; as it is, I'm hoping to, someday soon, check out a few of the different film versions.

I'd like to read this one again, simply because the sheer amount of references to other works made me extremely curious to look them up, and because I was so enthralled by reading this that I just want to revisit it and get that experience again. I'd definitely recommend this one to fans of classic drama that haven't read it already, or to someone that just wants a really good, suprisingly dense and issue-filled play.

In Which Trai Mini-Reviews 'The Importance of Being Earnest', 'Peter Pan', and 'Pygmalion'

2011-03-06T16:15:00.002-05:00

Many apologies about the lack of reviews in February. My courseload this semester has a lot of reading, as in a few books a week, and while it's great to read so much, time for reading outside of class has been incredibly scarce. I'm hoping things will settle down, but for now, reviews might be few and far between.

Mini-Reviewing the Classics!

The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde: This was one of those times when I only knew vaguely about the plot, mostly through osmosis. All I could remember was that it had to do with leading a double life, and that it was, symbolically, the play that Peter tries to see Mary Jane starring in in Spider-Man 2.

So yes. There went the extent of my acquaintance with Oscar Wilde, besides a long-held resolution to read The Picture of Dorian Gray. Eventually. I was pleased to finally read this play, having wanted to ever since the Spider-Man thing, and I wasn't disappointed. I found it witty, ironic, and really fun to discuss.

We go into The Importance of Being Earnest knowing two men: "Ernest" and Algernon. Algernon is very confused as to why his friend "Ernest" has a cigarette case declaring him to be someone's "Uncle Jack." As it turns out, "Ernest" is an identity fabricated by Jack, one that helps him escape from his duties as a guardian to his ward and go out on the town. Jack is also very much in love with Gwendolen Fairfax, and wishes to propose to her. They are forbidden to marry by the formidable Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen's mother, but Gwendolen swears her allegiance to him anyway. Algernon, meanwhile, is determined to disguise himself as Ernest in order to meet Jack's pretty young ward, Cecily. All of this would be fine--if Cecily and Gwendolen were not both convinced that they're engaged to the same Ernest, and Jack has already decided to conveniently "kill off" his Ernest persona.

This play was a quick read and also a really hilarious one; I truly enjoyed it and will definitely read it again sometime. I got a good laugh out of the many ironic lines, and I'm surprised at how well it holds up today. I'm sure all of us are guilty of occasional "Bunburying"--inventing a sick relative to get out of some social obligation! This was a welcome break from my habit of reading dramas whenever I sit down to read a play, and I'd definitely recommend it for fun book club discussion or something of that sort.

***

Peter Pan, by J.M. Barrie: This was one book that I was returning to after a previous acquaintance--I'd gotten most of the way through it around the time the 2003 live action movie debuted, but never had the chance to finish it. I was excited to finally read the whole thing, and as I read it, I could remember exactly which parts had made my 12-year-old self happy and which parts had confounded me slightly.

We start, of course, with Wendy, John, and Michael, three children who are whisked off by Peter Pan to Neverland. Peter believes that the Lost Boys of Neverland could use a mother to tell them stories, and Wendy agrees. Once in Neverland, however, the siblings have to contend with a few different dangers: Peter's sometimes mercurial nature, for one, and for another, the threat of Captain Hook and his fellow pirates.

This was a really, really interesting book to discuss in a college classroom. Gender roles are huge here, in a way that younger readers might not pick up on. There's a lot of underlying messages about growing up into mature adults, and the ending, when it comes, is bittersweet. Most of my classmates were surprised at the violence of the story: there are several instances when the boys are really threatened by the pirates, and there's actual deaths, not the Disneyified kind. (In addition, Tinker Bell can sort of be a bitch sometimes.)

This is actually one that I'm glad I didn't fully read until now--I wouldn't have appreciated it as much eight years ago, and I'm now really curious to break out my DVD of the 2003 version and see how it stacks up (pretty closely, according to my memory). This can be read to kids pretty safely--they won't even notice the violence, as it isn't lingered on too much--but is also a really thought-provoking and emotional read for adults.

***

Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw: My only acquiantance with anything Pygmalion-esque had been seeing My Fair Lady a few years ago, a show I wasn't quite enamored with. (I had a tough time understanding the Cockney accents, for one thing, which isn't an issue now that I've become acquainted with several British TV shows and other works of literature whose characters have strong accents, such as Wuthering Heights.) With that in my memory, I fully expected to hate this play with a passion.

I really should learn by now that more often than not, when I expect to hate something, I end up at least liking it. Shock, shock, surprise, surprise: I loved this play with everything I have. It wasn't the conventionally romantic drama the musical is. It's a really well-written look into the hearts and minds of two strong-willed individuals, Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle, and I enjoyed every page.

I'm sure we all know the story, but to recap: Eliza Doolittle is a poor flower-seller who comes to Professor Henry Higgins seeking lessons in elocution. She has aspirations to rise from the gutter of her current life and start anew in a flower shop, and to do that, she must reform the way she speaks. Hugely confident in himself and viewing Eliza as an intriguing project, Higgins takes her on, making a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can pass her off as a duchess in a few months.

After that, we get a brief glimpse into Eliza's lessons, and then into her development into someone who can pass as an upper-class lady. I was really pleased with the depth of the play's characterizations and the range of issues it brought up. After all, don't we still judge people by the way they speak? Should we do as Higgins does, treating everyone exactly the same, or as Pickering does, treating Eliza with respect as he would a lady, even when she isn't one? What hold does a creator have over his creation?

Spoilers ahoy! What pleased me most about this one was the ending, as unpopular an opinion as that is. Shaw could have taken the easy way out and gone for the traditional romantic ending, but he didn't, and the play is so much the better for it, in my opinion. End spoilers.

All of these awesome classics can be found for free via Project Gutenberg. Go forth and read!

The Importance of Being Earnest: here.
Peter Pan: here.
Pygmalion: here. If anyone is looking for a print edition, I can't recommend this one enough. I'm a huge fan of the Enriched Classics line; their edition of Jane Eyre helped my understanding mightily, and this edition of Pygmalion had great notes and even some scenes that are normally excised.

In Which Trai Mini-Reviews 'A Doll's House' and 'The Secret Garden'

2011-01-29T23:58:00.000-05:00

Mini-Reviewing The Classics!

With the advent of my Modern Drama and Young Adult Literature classes this semester, I'm getting to read some classic works that I've never read before. Hopefully, this post will kick off a semi-regular feature, as I get further into my semester.

Sometimes I don't review the classics I read, because it's difficult for me to think of things that haven't been said before. Likewise, I don't always review required reading, because my opinion might be unfairly biased. However, I liked both of these books more than I thought I would, and thought it would be interesting to do quick capsule reviews of each.

A Doll's House, by Henrik Ibsen: This is a classic drama, and, as my professor tells me, the start of drama as we know it. Ibsen actually had characters interacting with each other onstage in a natural fashion. It's funny to think that someone actually had to realize that might be a good idea!

Nora is married to Torvald Helmer, a banker who has a habit of infantilizing her and not allowing her to spend money. We learn that Nora is keeping a secret from her husband--to protect his health, she secretly took out a loan that financed a getaway to Italy. The law forbids women from handling money in any capacity, and the unscrupulous banker Nora borrowed from attempts to blackmail her into making Torvald give him a better position. The lies running rampant in the Helmer household eventually threaten to break their marriage apart.

My response on finishing this one was along the lines of, "Geez, what is everyone complaining about?!" I really loved this play, and its message was really radical for the time. Ibsen didn't like being labeled as a feminist, preferring to think of it in terms of human rights, but with that in mind, Nora is still a very, very strong female character who takes matters into her own hands in some really powerful ways. I really enjoyed seeing her self-discovery, as she realizes that the men in her life have always treated her like property and that she wants to have a life of her own.

The translation I read (the above-pictured Dover Thrift edition) was a really readable and flowing translation of the Norwegian, or at least it seemed like it. The dialogue didn't sound stilted and seemed like it could have conceivably been English originally. In other words, it didn't read like it was translated! (Occasionally, with, say, Stieg Larsson's books, translated prose can get clunky.) All in all, I really enjoyed this play, and naysayers be darned--I thought Nora was awesome!

***

The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett: Author Julie Buxbaum writes, "It seems to me that some kids’ books begin with 'Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom' and some begin instead with a spoiled little girl orphaned by a cholera epidemic." And yeah, that seems to be the case, doesn't it? Having never read this as a child, not even knowing much about it, I was surprised by how charming I found this story.

Mary is living in India when she wakes up to learn that her parents and most of her household has died during the night of a cholera epidemic. (Yikes!) Sent to live with her always-absent uncle, Mary must finally learn to do things for herself, as she begins to look into the mysteries of the Manor and its gardens, one of which has not been entered for ten years.

I was surprised by how different this book was from standard children's literature. First off, waking up to dead parents is every kid's worst nightmare, and that's how this book starts! Second off, Mary is frequently called "spoiled" and "ugly" by the narrator, and it's no secret that we're not supposed to find her likable at all. It's really nice to see her mature and become someone more grounded and less spoiled, and I liked reading about her transformation.

My professor laughingly said that this is the type of book Michelle Obama would champion--it pretty much hits you over the head with the message, go outside! Exercise! But in that way, it's a nice book to give to kids, boy or girl alike (there's characters of each gender; either can enjoy!). I'd definitely recommend this one to kids who love nature, animals, and magic. It's not overly difficult to read and it's got a sweet message about how nature can be a healing force.

***

Hopefully, my journey with undiscovered classics will continue, and if you guys haven't picked up these before, either, why not? You can get them for free on Project Gutenberg!

A Doll's House: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2542
The Secret Garden: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/113

In Which Trai Reviews 'Here Comes the Groom'

2011-01-25T15:17:00.000-05:00

The Book: Here Comes the Groom

The Author: Karina Bliss

How I Found It: The nice cover and interesting blurb drew me in when I saw it on eHarlequin, and when Smart Bitches picked it as their book club selection this month, I decided to give it a shot. I'll be participating in the live chat they're having with the author at 11 PM EST (7 PM PST) tonight!

The Review: Dan Jansen and Jocelyn Swann, childhood best friends, are engaged. Well, not really. Their "engagement" consists of a joking contract signed drunkenly on a coaster three years before: if neither of them are married by thirty-three, they'll get married to each other, since they each want to settle and have a family.

Now, three years have passed, and Dan's calling in the contract, hell-bent on planning their wedding. There's only one problem: Jo's not willing to do it! Circumstances have changed for them both. Jo has her own, very valid reasons for not wanting to get married, while Dan has reasons of his own explaining why he does.

One thing's for sure: Jo's not sure if Dan's even in love with her, or if she's really in love with him. When she made a pass at him a year before, he rejected her, and now, he just seems to be using the wedding planning to distract himself from the grief of two comrades dying and several others being grieviously injured during his deployment with the SAS in Afghanistan. (That's the New Zealand Special Air Service.) Jo's convinced Dan needs to sort out his grief; Dan is convinced that he can change Jo's mind--but will either of them budge from their immovable positions?

To start, I'm really glad I decided to pick this one up after all. I don't think I've ever been disappointed by a pick from the Smart Bitches crew--I found Soulless and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that way, both of which I loved--and I ended up adoring this book. I think it's the best of the Superromance line that I've read thus far. Bliss created two very realistic characters with very real concerns, and she also wove in the family and friends of each (especially Dan's SAS family) in a way that never felt she was sequel-dropping. This is, allegedly, the first in a series about those guys--next up is Ross, a minor character here--and I'll be happy to read where she takes the story when that book debuts.

This book could have fallen so ridiculously flat. The amazing thing is that it didn't. From the summary, I was a little leery--it sure sounded like Dan was being stalkerish and manipulative. I'm really, really not a fan of the alpha male hero a lot of the time (I'm more of a nice-guy type of girl, apparently), and stalker-ish or forceful behavior in a fictional hero tends to really turn me off. Edward Cullen's behavior comes to mind. From the blurb, it sounded like Jo was going to be forced into something she didn't want to do, and BAM!, Stockholm Syndrome-esque "oh, look, I really do love him!" That's not what we get here.

Dan's reasons for wanting to marry rest in surviving the ambush that killed or injured every one of his men except him. Jo's reasons for not wanting to marry partly revolve around medical crises, and a facet of those is her grandmother's steadily-worsening dementia. Even if they don't agree with the other about the marriage, the good thing about Dan and Jo being best friends is that they really support each other. It was so nice to read about friends being supportive and, for the most part, really talking about their issues, not ignoring them. Dan and Jo each confess their reasons eventually, and they work past their problems like mature adults. The dialogue was clear and true to life, and the prose (beyond what looked like some missing commas and such, on occasion) was fun and lively.

Their problems were very realistic, and as characters, I really did like them. Jo is strong and self-assured, even running her late grandfather's newspaper business. Dan was endearing with his devotion to Jo, and his problems are definitely something that happens today. Nan, Jo's grandmother, is also an important part of the story, and her dementia and its emotional effects on Jo were touchingly portrayed. The romantic aspect between Jo and Dan had an extra emotional layer, due to something I won't spoil here, and their gradual progression to lovers and then, perhaps, to the altar was paced well. There's only two sex scenes, from what I can recall, and while they're spicy, I think I've seen more explicit out there, so it was never gratuitous or over-the-top.

I'd definitely recommend this one to someone who wants to read about real issues in a romance novel. Some serious medical conditions are touched on, but never in a heavy-handed way, just enough to make them feel real. Other issues, such as divorce or the death of a spouse, friend, or relative come up and are dealt with rather than shooed away. Overall, this was one of the best contemporary romances I've read, the best out of this line, and one I wouldn't hesitate to recommend. I will definitely be on the lookout for more of Ms. Bliss' books, and look forward to the chat with her tonight!