The Story of Edgar Sawtelle : A Book Club Review

Asian Fun:

I both loved and hated The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. Had I known that the novel was loosely based on Hamlet prior to reading it, perhaps I could have braced myself better for the tragic ending. However, I was not aware of this and I'm one that gets completely enveloped into good books so that when it became blatantly clear, I still did not pick up on the clues making the ending a spiral of despair for me. More so than even the original Hamlet.

What made me love this book was that the story was one of pure beauty. I, as most people who know me know, am obsessed with dogs and so the eloquence and grace that Wroblewski writes about the dogs in this book was touching and truly beautiful. He creates an idyllic life at the beginning of the novel. Not perfect, of course Edgar Sawtelle is mute with no explanation and must live a life of somewhat isolation, if it weren't for his dogs. However, there is peace and love in the story that is both satisfying and enviable.

Of course this has to end, and so it does with the entrance of Clyde, the troubled uncle of Edgar. The events that follow lead Edgar deeper into isolation and his family down to a dark path. The ending, while again, could have been anticipated if I'd known any better, was too bitter for me to completely love the book. I didn't expect a big red bow or anything, but to give us something so beautiful and then to crush it into tiny little pieces, that just didn't leave me with a fuzzy feeling at the end of the book. I was crushed and did not feel any hope at the end. Sure, the dogs survived, but survived to what? What was their fate to be? Wandering around as stray dogs, the line ultimately forever lost? I suppose they were free and could do as they pleased, but in our world today, stray animals just don't survive like wild dogs used to. In the end it felt as if all was lost and only because of that I cannot give this really beautifully told story five stars.

4*

Puerto Rican Pecan:

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, written by David Wroblewski is a beautiful allusion to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It’s a love story, a story for animal lovers, and a tale of the intricate interweaving of family dynamics. As I read this book, my main thought was that I wish that I had this book while I was in high school, struggling to understand Hamlet. While it only loosely follows Shakespeare’s story line, Wroblewski deftly portrays the emotions and complex relationships that the Sawtelle family have with each other, and the dogs that they breed. In the author’s interview in the back of the book, he talked a little about how he used his childhood home as the backdrop for his novel. He uses powerful metaphors, really capturing the scene’s beauty and yet, casting a mist around it that almost makes it seem like a magical place.

One of the gems of this book is the story of the dogs, and how they play into Edgar’s life. I especially loved the relationship between Edgar and his best dog, Almondine. She is Edgar’s voice, his emotional compass, and his very best friend. She seems to be the eyes and ears of what is not said on the Sawtelle farm, giving a “voice” to the ghosts and mystery of the place. Wroblewski takes his time in the novel to explain the breeding and development of the extraordinary Sawtelle dogs, a dog that was actually bred for personality, not appearance. This provided a welcome place to dwell within the novel when it became too tragic. Like the characters in the novel, the dogs are the focus when all goes wrong. It binds the family together, for good and bad.

On the downside, this book is a tragedy. If you’ve read Hamlet, then you know that the book cannot possibly end happily. *If you haven’t read it, then skip this last bit.* However, unlike Shakespeare’s masterpiece, we get to know more about the mental state of Edgar when he dies. I felt a sense of serenity about him, and really felt happy for him. It was as though all the trouble and the drama were forgotten; he could be at peace with those he loved best.

This book may not be a beachside read, but it is a beautiful retelling of a timeless classic. It is definitely worth picking up.

Let the Great World Spin: A Book Club Review

Asian Fun:

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann won the National Book Award for Fiction 2009 for good reason. In a series of interconnected short stories, McCann paints a diverse picture of New York City in the 70s. McCann has the magical ability to capture the heart of both a rich woman grieving the loss of her son and a prostitute grieving the loss of her daughter. He is able to present each character with brutal honesty but at the same time extreme compassion.

I found some of his stories so beautiful and moving, McCann's language is fluid and he finds a beautiful and unique way to describe connection, loss and love. I also appreciate McCann's style, he "shines a light on the dark corners of the world" (well, New York City anyways) but without compromising the integrity of the story. Having worked in social work, I've seen some of the darker sides of humanity and as painful as it is to face, McCann does not exaggerate the suffering that some people are forced to continuously endure. I felt that McCann handled these darker sides of humanity with a grace and honesty that's difficult to balance. Its a credit to his talent that he was able to balance these two forces beautifully.

If you're looking for a unique and beautiful American novel, then dive into this literary masterpiece and know that even in the deepest despair of any story, you'll be rewarded with hope and the beauty of language by the end of this book.

4*

Puerto Rican Pecan:

Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann, is a book about NYC in the 1970’s that centers around one day in the life of several characters, and a moment that brings them together in unpredictable ways. While well written, this book was a seriously depressing book for me. People abused drugs, experienced poverty and unfair treatment from those around them, were killed, abused and were abused. And through it all, there was almost nothing at the end to inspire hope. I was happy to have finished it.

This book, while not my cup of tea, did have some good parts to point out. McCann’s character, Corrigan, was an interesting person to follow in this book. I loved his embodiment of God’s word, truly giving of all that he had in mind, body, and worldly possessions. I loved watching his internal struggle of trying to decide whom he loved more, Christ or Adelita. And what’s more, I appreciated his ability to look past wanting to do what he liked, and instead liked what he did. I also enjoyed reading from the perspective of the tight rope walker. McCann created a conflict within me through this character because, though the majority of the book is doom and gloom, the tightrope walker casts the light of beauty and optimism over the mayhem that ensues below him. I wanted to stop reading, and yet even I was drawn to see more of the book through his eyes.

*Spoiler*

In the end though, the doom and gloom of Tillie Henderson’s story caught up with me. It was as if McCann chose every bad thing that could ever happen to a person, and then acted them out on Tillie. It felt overdone and overplayed, and by the time Tillie hung herself, I could only feel glad to have her out of the story so we could all finally have a little peace.

Here’s the bottom line – if you like melodrama and want something to make you feel better about your own life, then this book is for you. Otherwise, take a pass on this one.

Say You're One of Them: A Book Club Review

Asian Fun:

Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan is a series of short stories told through various African children's eyes. It's a book that captures multiple interests of mine - Africa and children. The stories are unflinching in the face of the cruelty the children in the stories are faced with whether its a twelve-year-old hooker, child slavery or fleeing violence.

I'm torn about this book. On the one hand, it speaks exactly to my deepest and most passionate interests. Also, as a writer, I tend to be unflinching and blunt as well, and so in theory this book should have been right up my ally, but in fact, I had a difficult time getting into this book. The most glaring thing that annoyed me was the dialogue. This may be a style preference, but in my creative writing class my professor advised us to avoid being overly literal when trying to convey accents, using the Southern accent as an example. He explained, and I totally agree, that it gets distracting if you use half spelled words or incorrectly spelled words in order to convey an accent and that it was better to do so subtly. Unfortunately this book is riddled with distracting and bad dialogue. By the end of the first story I wanted to tear my hair out reading that dialogue and this kept me from getting into the story.

I've been known to be a blunt and unflinching writer about the cruelty children have to endure. I've written about abuse, rape and neglect. In writing about these harsh subjects, I've learned that the most essential component is handling these subject matters with the right balance. Its important to not lose the story in your effort to shine a light on the dark corners of the world. Sometimes when people are passionate about a certain subject matter and they write a fictional story about it, they lose the essence of the story in trying to expose certain realities. I certainly understand the impulse, sometimes you want to shove certain realities in people's faces because it is That important for people to understand, but if in doing so you forget to honor the story then you shouldn't be writing fiction but non-fiction. When writing fiction, the story always comes first before any other agenda. This is something that I feel Akpan struggled with, and while I appreciate his sincere passion for the children of his stories, I also felt the sacrifice to the story itself he made due to this passion.

While both of these factors kept me from truly getting into the stories, I could appreciate the intimate information on the conditions of children in Africa. And for this reason I find this book invaluable for me personally. However, while I find this book valuable for my own personal and academic interests, I have to rate it as a work of fiction.

3*

Puerto Rican Pecan:

Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan is a collection of short stories written about several African populations, from the point of the child. I think that Akpan summed up his novel well, so I’m going to quote him. He said, “I think fiction allows us to sit for a while with people we would rather not meet.” This is exactly how I feel about his novel. What do any of us in America really know about people living in Africa? Sure, if you get up early on the weekends, there are telethons to “help the starving children of Africa.” There are news stories about the wars, the starvation, the AIDS crisis, complete with pictures of children with distended bellies and dirty, tear-streaked faces. This is the Africa we know. And it’s G-rated in comparison to Akpan’s novel. You would rather not read it, but for the sake of the reality in which Akpan depicts.

My favorite story was the one entitled, “Luxurious Hearses.” In it, a Muslim teenager is trying to escape from his war-torn city in the north to his father’s Born-Again Christian home in the south. I loved seeing how all the different religions converged on this bus, and how old traditions collided with new ideas. **Spoiler Alert** Akpan skillfully lured us into loving Jubril, the extremist Muslim hero, by showing his human side to us. Most of us know about biracial children, but Akpan shows a different version of this in his story. Jubril is bi-religious, his mother being Muslim and his father being Christian. Akpan shows how we all hide parts of ourselves that might make people loathe us. Though he hides his Muslim self, he struggles to try to understand the Christian self he is portraying. He feels much of the same struggle that biracial children feel in the U.S.; never being fully accepted into any one race. Because he is baptized, his Muslims friends can only see him as an evil Christian, and because he is missing his right hand, the bus full of Christians cannot see anything but an evil Muslim before them. Akpan shows us the similarity in the two religions, which really focus on finding salvation in doing right by others, and yet, their hatred of each other. When he is killed at the end of the story, I felt true shock. I think I was expecting the happy ending, even though I couldn’t fathom what he would do when he got to his fatherland. So beautiful was Akpan’s writing, I could really feel Jubril’s peace in his acceptance of himself before his death.

Everyone should read this book, because though the stories may be fictional, the people in them are not. Akpan’s children are real children. This book is depressing, painful, gut-wrenching, and it is also the responsibility of people to know.

The Horse Whisperer: A Review

The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans is a book of loss, pain, love and healing. It's a book that I had read as a teenager and wept at the end of the book and that left me bewildered and devastated by what seemed to be an anti-love-conquers-all message. On a whim, I had seen the DVD while looking for a movie to watch with my hubby this weekend and talked him into watching it with me since I hadn't seen the movie or read the book since I was in high school. He grudgingly relented and fell asleep near the end of this surprisingly long movie. After watching the movie I remembered how moved I'd been by the book and decided to revisit it to see if it still would affect me in the same way. In many ways it did and in other ways it fell flat.

The Horse Whisperer is about the many different relationships that intertwine in people's lives. It starts with a horrific accident that causes the death of a girl and her horse, and leaves her friend and her horse maimed. The girl, Grace, loses a leg, and her horse, Pilgrim, loses all confidence in himself and the world around him. Grace's mother, Annie, is blunt and fierce. She is an ask-questions-later type of woman who acts when she feels helpless, and so when she sees that she's losing her daughter to a deep depression, she focuses her attention on a problem that seems easier to fix, Pilgrim. Her research leads her to a man named Tom Booker, a horse whisperer famous for being able to calm crazy horses. In a decision that permanently changes all lives involved, she leaves her husband behind, whose relationship with her was already strained after the many painful miscarriages they'd suffered together when trying for a second child, and drives Grace and Pilgrim from New York to Montana to have Tom do his magic on Pilgrim.

What remained as powerful as my memory of the book were the strength of the characters and your attachment to them, as well as the complexity of their relationships to each other. I enjoyed the characters and felt intimate with them, as if they were my friends, and other than one antagonizing character whose only purpose seems to be to set the climatical ending into motion, I liked all the characters in the book. The romance that begins between Tom and Annie was sweetly done, though sometimes corny and overdone, but it was enjoyable to read.

However, I was surprised at how subpar the writing was. I know I was only in high school when I read it, but I don't remember even noticing the writing, good or bad. This reading, however, sometimes I was distracted by the writing. Evans seemed to try too hard sometimes to be profound and it came off confusing or just plain corny sometimes:

And Annie leaned back her head and closed her eyes and thought, there is nothing but this. No other time nor place nor being than now and here and him and us. And no earthly point in calculating consequence or permanence or right or wrong, for all, all else, was as nothing to the act. It had to be and would be and was. (pp 386-387, mass paperback)

I mean, seriously? What is that paragraph? It was just too much. Also, while I'm not totally opposed to being blunt about sex, sometimes Evans was so graphic that I felt like I was reading a cheesy romance novel, which I do think this book is more than that.

My last quip about that book is that I thought the ending (the same one that had devastated my poor, over-romantic, over-emotional heart as a teenager) was just horrible - both in the movie and in the book. Neither worked at all with the characters! In the movie, Annie leaves Tom behind even though he made her feel "home" for the first time and she couldn't live without him. Bullshit, if their love was that profound then there is no way she could exist, even across the country, and not be with him. She would have gone back to him.

In the book it was much worse (spoiler alert for anyone who wants to read the book), after Grace finds out about her mother and Tom's affair, she rides off in a craze, only to have to be saved by Tom (of course!) where Tom lets himself be killed because he knows Annie could never leave her husband because she couldn't tell Grace what she was doing after all she'd been through. So since he can't live without Annie, he just lets himself be killed by a wild horse, in front of Grace who they're all trying to emotionally protect supposedly, even though now Grace already knows about the affair so half the battle of telling her and of Annie leaving her husband is already conveniently taken care of. What I don't buy is that its not in Tom's character at all to let himself be killed, more so, he purposefully puts himself in the line of the horse's hooves trying to be killed. It wasn't like the horse was killing him and he just gave up, no, he basically was committing suicide, which doesn't go with Tom's go with the flow, let things happen as they should philosophy. And how was that sacrifice helpful to anybody? Instead of dealing with her parents divorcing, but still having them both and since she already had loved Tom once, giving her the chance to love him again as a father figure, Grace now has to deal with the guilt that her reckless actions caused Tom's death, which will forever leave her mother's heart maimed and all the people that his death hurt. Hmm, yeah, that seems sooo much better for Grace's emotional well-being. Bullshit. At first I thought it was just the romantic in me that thought it made more sense for Tom to get injured enough that Grace feels guilt for her actions and is able to step back and look at the situation more objectively and is more accepting, and that Annie and Tom end up together because that's what was meant to be. Not that there wouldn't be pain to contend with, but it'd be manageable and it'd pass. But the more I thought about it, the book was leading up to that conclusion and with the characters as they are, its the natural progression of what would happen. What seemed to happen was that Nicholas Evan's leaned towards the over-dramatic (which seems to be his nature) and had to go for the big death to play with his readers' emotions. And his explanation of this ending?

Well, although Tom Booker is, in every respect, a real character, there is an important mythological aspect to him and to the story. He is, if you like, an immortal, the redemptive angel, the man in the white hat. There is a rule about such characters: when their work is done, they have to move on. They cannot hang around and 'mix it' with the mortals. For Annie and Grace to be free to get on with their lives, for the healing process to be properly complete, the healer-angel figure has to move on. Of course, he will live on forever in their hearts -- and in the new child that is born at the end of the story.

First of all, I can see how he was set up to be a bit mystical before Annie met him, but it definitely didn't come off that way in the book. You get to be in his head too much to see how human he is and see his past mistakes and his feelings, so whatever Evans was trying to do just didn't work out and therefore the ending didn't work at all, which is a shame. Overall I found the book enjoyable, though far less so then when I was younger and now I can see the many holes in the story. The characters do stay with you and how could you not love calm and confident Tom Booker. In an embarrassing way, I also find Robert Redford sexy, even if he's old as fuck. Its that same calm confidence that you love about Tom... guess Redford cast himself pretty well for the role of Tom Booker.

I was tempted to give this book 4 stars for sentimental reasons, but I just can't do it, so 3 stars it gets.

3*

Olive Kitteridge: A Book Club Review

The first of our Book Club Reviews:

Asian Fun:

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is a novel that cuts directly to the heart of what it is to be human. You quickly realize as you're reading that this novel will be taught in schools for generations, in other words, it will be a classic and a staple of our literary education. Why? Not just because of the beautiful, concise and flawless prose. Or because of the unique structure of the novel - the book consists of a series of short stories that all in some way involve the title character, Olive Kitteridge. Its the human element and the heart in the stories that make it a classic. Its the honesty of what love and life are really like while still finding beauty in every character, no matter how flawed. Strout has a deeply empathetic and sensitive eye that translates into characters that are hard to forget.

Olive Kitteridge is a retired school teacher. She is blunt and direct while having a big heart. She struggles with her temper and pride, but is willing to reach out to those in need without a thought. Olive is a character that pops off the pages and perhaps that while she is a suitable driving force for this novel. In a series of short stories with sometimes no connection at all other than Olive's presence (sometimes consisting of only two sentences mentioning Olive) you learn the entire range of the human experience in Crosby, Maine. You learn about love, lost and pain. And through it all you see Olive grow and evolve as a character, sometimes through her point of view and other times through other character's eyes. What this novel structure does is give you a more multi-layered view of Olive as a character, and hell, you like her as much as you cringe at her sometimes. She makes plenty of mistakes and sometimes doesn't see herself very clearly at all, but other times she surprises you.

I don't know how to explain this novel other than to say that its a journey through the human experience, its sad, its funny, its touching and its heartbreaking. Can I say anything else to convince you to read it? Because I command everyone to go out and read it right now! Hey, it didn't win the Pulitzer for no reason!

5*

Puerto Rican Pecan:

I found the book, Olive Kitteridge, to be a great read, but not necessarily an enjoyable one. The author, Elizabeth Strout, is an amazing author. The book’s format as a collection of short stories was a brilliant way to do a character study on one person. Instead of a story that reads from the beginning to end, you get to see what everyone else in the community thinks of Olive. I have to admit, this was confusing to me at first. I went into this book thinking that it was a regular novel, with one main story line and one set of characters. I kept thinking that some of these characters would reappear, and while some do, most do not. I liked this, as the titular character, Olive Kitteridge, is a little abrasive and can be overbearing to everything else about the novel. It offered me a break from her point of view and gave me a breather to see another perspective of her. I really enjoyed meeting other people in the community of Crosby, and getting to see a snapshot of their lives, while getting to see Olive in passing. However, it was realistic in a way that made it maybe just a little too real for me. People fought without resolution, people died of cancer, bad things happened to good people and characters didn’t end up better for it. Some of the stories made me feel like I was looking in on a private moment, like I shouldn’t have been privy to it, and yet, now that I’m there I have to watch the train wreck. And then there are so many stories of these older married couples and their disconnection with each other as they age. They live in the same house, do the same things together out of routine, but there’s no passion or spontaneity. The novel has such realistic portrayal of emotion that it feels like this must be what marriage becomes for couples, which as a newlywed, made it hard to read. However, the novel is so well written that you can’t help but want to read more, even when your instincts are telling you to look away.

I thought one of the most interesting parts of this book was the theme of love misunderstood. The one that stood out by far was the relationship between Olive and her son, Christopher. In Olive’s eyes, she’s been doing her best to love her son. She and her husband build him a house, they support him in his podiatry business, and are happy for him when he marries this woman after only knowing her for 6 weeks. However, in his eyes, you see a mother who was overbearing and yelled all the time. He felt smothered and pressured to be somebody that he wasn’t. How could she not know that she was smothering him? How is it that two people can have such a different view of the last 30 years? Was Christopher right that she denied any fault in herself, and that her “extreme capriciousness of moods” made him who he was? Or was Olive right that his childhood was fine, and that the therapist was putting words into his mouth to blame someone else for the way his life turned out? You’ll have to read and decide for yourself!

Movie Splurge.

Due to a coupon received in the mail that allowed us to rent all the movies we wanted in January for $1.99 at Blockbuster, my hubby and I have gone on a movie splurge. Thought I'd share a little taste with you all if you feel like making a couch potato out of yourself.

District 9 - A documentary style SyFy movie in which a group of aliens, stranded on Earth, are forced to live in a refugee camp on Earth. The camp is filled with trash and is a breeding ground for illegal activity, often involving taking advantage of the aliens. After twenty plus years, the population's interest and welcome of the aliens has deteriorated and they decide to ship them to a different camp with worse conditions, when things, of course, start to go wrong. With an interesting story line, the movie held my interest but didn't necessarily suck me in. The documentary style was a bit distracting and the personality of the aliens could have been better developed, especially in a movie trying to show how exploited the aliens are, I felt like their characters were very poorly developed. The main human character, Wilkus Van De Merwe, was extremely annoying for most of the movie. He was very much the anti-hero for much of it, only to come through at the very end, but by that time you're not even sure if you like him anymore. It's worth the time if it sounds interesting to you, but definitely not a must watch.

Star Trek -I'd never watched the original Star Trek, but I was a Next Generation fan. My hubby was not a Trekkie of any degree and was reluctant to watch this movie with me but he was the first to admit that this movie was awesome! With a great and complex plot, interesting characters, great scenes, this movie was the complete package whether or not you ever watched an episode of Star Trek in your life. Definitely worth a watch, you won't be disappointed.

The Hurt Locker - How can you go wrong with a war movie with a female Director? In a blunt and ballsy movie about the Iraq war, The Hurt Locker takes you to war disarming IEDs with a wild team leader who doesn't seem to care if he dies during the job, a strong-willed Sargent who likes to do things by the book and a soldier who's just a kid and terrified to fire his first shot in war. In a tense life and death game in the middle of a violent war, you get a terrifying look at the different type of soldiers in the war and how the death and cruelty of war affect each one of them in different and yet profound ways. This movie had me on the edge of my seat the entire time and was well shot with compelling characters. Definitely check it out!

Terminator Salvation - I've been a fan of the Terminator movies since I was a kid, except for the last Terminator movie. This movie redeemed the Terminator series. I'm also a big Christian Bale fan, so that was an added bonus. It was fun to finally go into the future of this series after meeting so many of its occupants. The plot was interesting and the scenes were cool and action packed. Can't wait for the next Terminator movie! Hopefully Christian Bale will be in it again... hmm, yummy!

(500) Days of Summer - A fun and quirky Indie un-love story told in an nonlinear timeline with interesting actors. Its fun, quirky and shot in that artistic way that Indie films tend to be shot in.

The Wrestler - Though extremely bloody at times, a moving movie about the the physical abuse one will inflict upon himself for fame and a sport that he loves. This movie takes you behind the wrestling world. Whether you blame "The Ram" for his life circumstances or not, you do like him and root for him in the end.

Food, Inc. - Wow, I could say a whole lot about this documentary. It was both disturbing and disgusting. I was already leaning towards organic food as it was, but this just put me over the edge. Of course, big corporations once again monopolize the industry and tries to keep its consumers from knowing what's really going on, but when it comes to our food, its more than personal. What could be more personal then what you put into your body? This has led me to research Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs) in order to buy local and organic. Definitely changed the way I live my life.

Up - I cried within thirty minutes of watching this movie. A sweet and adventuress story, though I wouldn't say its a kids movie, at least not young children. It has more serious tones to it and it was a little slow at times to hold a young child's attention. It was a very sweet movie.

Let the Right One In - For those who want a different sort of vampire story than the popular Twilight movies (though, this isn't dissing the Twilight series since I'm an addict to them as well, vampire movies in general are kind of my thing). This movie has a romance, but between twelve-year-olds (sort of, one had been twelve for a very long time) and has subtitles. It's a much more grotesque and dark vampire movie, but at the same time artistic and beautiful. The more you think about the movie the more you like it.

Busy Bee.

I'm feeling extremely stressed right now, for a variety of reasons, but the pressing reason is that I'm cheering on my Vikings in a close and extremely painful game to watch (fumbles, Favre getting murdered every other play...) Speaking of, another fumble, grr... I'm tearing my hair out here!

This week has been especially crazy, work was demanding and on top of that, I was a bit under the weather, making for a foggy and stressful week.

Some updates, my friend and I decided to start our own book club so we can keep in touch since we live far from each other. We're going to alternate who picks the book every month and then by the end of the month both write a review of the book that I will post on my blog. This month I picked Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout since I was already reading it and also because I knew my friend would love it as I was loving it. I finished it last night and can't Wait to write my review. I might actually write it now as its fresh on my mind but wait to post it when my friend has written hers. I'm excited to read what she thought about it... I think this will be a fun thing for us and also for my loyal blog readers to get different perspectives on the same book, perhaps after following our reviews for a while you'll start finding yourself associating your reading tastes with one of us over the other!

My writing has been slow, but I have faith that it'll pick up. I'm excited to be getting back into writing an dam slowly feeling like more of myself as I get more into it.

Two minute warning, must focus on the game now. Sending all my positive energy to my Vikings.

Never Let Me Go: A Review

Much like his previous novel, The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is a slow moving creature that drags you in bit by bit until you feel trapped in the novel but not sure how you got there. It's a novel about a group of "special" students, who are looked upon in fear even though their innocence cannot be doubted as the story is told to us by one of these students, Kathy.

*Spoilers Full Speed Ahead*

Although the plot couldn't be any more different from The Remains of the Day (what an awkward title!), from the minute you start Never Let Me Go there is no doubt that it was written by the same author. The restraint and reserve in Kathy's voice match's Stevens and of course there is the unrequited love that both miss just by the tips of their fingers due to their reserved character (although Kathy gets at least a little bit of it at the end). Both novels also discuss man's humanity in ways that make you feel that although as a whole our society can be monstrous, that amongst this horror there are shining stars of humanity, especially if you look for it exactly where you don't expect it.

Never Let Me Go takes you on some twists and turns at a sometimes exhaustingly slow pace, but if you stick through it, by the end your more invested in the characters and their fate then you realize. And although perhaps it couldn't end any other way, the ending leaves you feeling slightly depressed and unsatisfied. Why hadn't Kathy and Tommy run away to spend whatever time they could together? Perhaps it wasn't in their nature, but you wish that they had and that even if there were to be a bloody ending to that path, they would have at least gotten to spend whatever time they had left on their terms and with each other. I think they would have been happy with that.

I won't give the big spoiler away, but I will say that I was unaware of it for most of the first part of the novel, which obviously was Ishiguro's intent, and that it made the novel's message more powerful for me, so I'll leave that for you to discover on your own. If you have the time and patience for this novel, it is well worth the read. It gets in deep with you and forces you to view humanity with a much more cautious eye.

4*

Little Children: A Review

Little Children by Tom Perrotta is a witty and satirical look into suburbia. But while some parts of the novel are obviously exaggerated, the question nags, is it really that exaggerated?

Having grown up in suburbia and currently residing in suburbia, I could safely say that I'm a fairly good judge on the lifestyle. Much in the way of one of my favorite reads from last year, Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris, Perrotta takes a lifestyle understood to be "boring" and shows why it's not, well, at least to the people living it.

While perhaps not as thrilling or lively as life in the city, Perrotta, as Ferris does, understands that it's the little things that consumes people's interests, and as they adjust to the comfy suburban life, whether or not you remembered your child's snack becomes as important as whether or not you'll get into the ultra-hip new club. Don't both measure your worth to some degree?

Wrought with intensity and humor, though at the same time, oddly realistic, Perrotta reveals the uglies of suburban life. The desolation of becoming lost in a marriage, the despair of having never found yourself. The fear that can infect a town, and the complexities of every character, from a loving father, to a resentful mother and finally to a pedophile. Perrotta layers each character honestly and realistically. He does not soften the blow of their ultimate faults, their selfishnesses and their insecurities. And yet he is able to show sympathy and respect for them at the same time. They come off as real people, multi-layered and whole. They are all struggling to find and accept themselves. And in the end, that is what they all have in common. That even though as adults, and parents, we're supposedly supposed to have it all figured out, that the vast majority of people don't.

Whether you judge these characters or not is up to you, but I found that I could not as I felt that Perrotta clearly did not intend for them to be judged. Or at least, he intended them to be stereotyped and then made it his purpose to pull you past the stereotype. Little Children is smart and challenges you to view people as wholes rather than by their stereotypes while at the same time making you laugh.

I also watched the movie and found it interesting. While I understood the purpose of the omnipresent narrative, it annoyed me and made the movie seem too satirical. The acting was good and I loved the casting of the characters. The ending I found both interesting and disturbing, as well as a little disappointing. The ending of the book felt right and felt as if the characters had clearly changed and understood themselves better. Meanwhile, the ending of the movie showed the characters somewhat changing but not in a satisfying way or to the extreme as in the novel. Sarah's transformation in the movie seemed really ridiculous and not at all the point, especially since it wasn't fear that transformed her in the book, but rather a true realization about herself and therefore I think that that transformation was much more powerful. And while Todd (or Brad, why bother changing his name in the movie I wonder??) followed through his transformation the same way as in the book, they left out one essential piece that had to do with his career, which was a huge issue for him throughout the novel. I found that disappointing as well because in the novel when he had his realization as a reader you're like, well, duh, yeah, that's totally what he should do for a living. Overall, I'm feeling a little so-so on the movie, but the book was just an excellent read, though I can see how it could rub some people the wrong way, sometimes I think you just need to get yourself rubbed the wrong way to shake things up. So go ahead and read it anyways.

5*

Weapon X: A Review

Weapon X: Wolverine by Barry Windsor Smith is the classic beginnings of Wolverine story. While sometimes the art got a little bit convoluted, overall it was very effective and old school, and the added psychological thriller element to the story really made this Wolverine story an interesting read. I really enjoyed the twists and turns in the characters of this story, especially since the story of the making of Wolverine is so well known. Overall I can't say much more about this read without giving away too many elements of the plot twists. As always, with the story of Wolverine, it does sadden me what people will do to other living things. Although it is, obviously fictional, to every story there is some truth behind it otherwise it wouldn't hold any sway or pull with the audience.

4*

A slight sidebar, I've been reading the three issue Logan series written by one of my faves, Brian K. Vaughan and drawn by Eduardo Risso. I absolutely loved Vaughan's Faith arc in the Buffy/Season 8 series and thought that Pride of Baghdad was smart and moving. I have to say that I've enjoyed this Logan series. Not necessary loved, but enjoyed. The art is fantastic and the storyline interesting. It doesn't necessarily add too much depth to the dark and storied past of Wolverine, but it's been an interesting read and a view of Wolverine in a different setting with a different love other than the tired and old "I love Jean Gray" mantra. I actually have obtained the third book of this series but hadn't gotten around to reading it yet, so I don't know how the series ends... hopefully it's explosive! You can't go wrong with explosions, after all.

Also, because frankly it doesn't warrant its own post, but the Essential X-Men Volume 1 by Chris Claremont received 4* from me because it has the classic X-Men stories in it. It was black and white, sometimes difficult to get through and contained a little too much of the corny super-hero dialog, but is definitely an essential read for any true X-Men fan.

Astonishing X-Men - Gifted: A Review

The Astonishing X-Men #1 - Gifted written by my guy Joss Whedon brings back on old plot with a new fresh voice. Once again there are rumors of a mutant cure! With really great art and some added elements of character that Joss is so good at, this X-Men story has a couple of interesting plot elements and twists and is a fun read. Bringing back Kitty was pretty cool and I know a specific joy for Joss considering Kitty was one of the influences for my favorite vampire slayer. Nothing completely shocking in this first TPB of the Astonishing X-Men, but definitely a good start to the series which I hope will heat up in the next TPB.

5*

The Sandman - Season of Mists: A Review

Hailed as one of the best out of The Sandman series, Gaiman's fourth Sandman book, Season of Mists, is a masterpiece in storytelling. In a story that takes Morpheus to Hell to rescue a past lover, whom he put in Hell, by the way, Gaiman once again tests your thoughts and perceptions of the nightmarish things in the world and turns things in a way to make human nature the scary thing that goes bump in the night.

Season of Mists is a complete story in that it has so many elements and layers to it and satisfies on many different levels. There is the love story between Morpheus and Nada and the interesting development in character for Morpheus when he admits that he is wrong. This story also explores the Sandman's family ties and the relationships that he has with the other Endless, including a lost (on purpose) brother whom in the end he chooses to respect and leave alone. The story also includes an array of interesting and new characters from many different worlds and dimensions whose interests in Hell are as varying as their appearances. Without a doubt one of the more interesting of the series that I've read so far and thought provoking as well. Again Gaiman's imagination delights and leaves me in awe.

5*

A Wrinkle in Time: A Review

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle has been a warm fuzzy memory from my childhood for a while. I was fearful of rereading it because it had inspired such awe and inspiration for me as a child, I was afraid it'd lose that magic. Much to my pleasure, it was just as amazing as I remembered, and perhaps even more so with the growth of my knowledge in child literature.

To say that A Wrinkle in Time is innovative is an understatement, especially keeping in mind the time period it was written in (1959-1960, published in 1962 after nearly 30 rejections). The ideas are unique and push the limits of your mind (well, at least my mind, but my mind is quite limited when it comes to science), in such a way that as the introduction by Anna Quindlen says, I still don't completely understand the concepts of the book. The characters are strong and memorable, as well as faulty and realistic. One of my favorite parts of the book is when Meg is given the gift of her faults, what an elegant way to tell children to accept yourself, faults and all?

L'Engle created a beautiful and challenging book for children that can still strike awe and inspiration in adults as it did with me. I never read the rest of the books in the Time trilogy, but I've purchased them and they are waiting dutifully in my TBR stack. I can't wait!

5*

Water for Elephants: A Review

Sara Gruen's story, Water for Elephants, takes readers back to the Great Depression, circus style! Alright, so it isn't all fun and games, as it might sound. Gruen bluntly relays the cruelties and ugliness of the circus during the Great Depression, and not just to the animals.

Told by a male protagonist, Jacob, in extreme old age (90 plus years, he can't remember exactly), a story of horror, romance and grief unfolds. Reeling from the death of his parents, Jacob drops out of Cornell and runs off to join the circus, sounds like a familiar plot, right? However, this circus is one of odds and ends gathered from dying circuses around the country. In the Great Depression, money for entertainment is not readily available, making circuses a dying cause that era. Jacob quickly falls in love, the catch? She's married to a man who possibly has bi-polar (my own diagnosis after analyzing his erratic behaviors) and shows immense cruelty to both humans and animals alike. Enter Rose, the elephant. A smart and mischievous and therefore utterly lovable elephant who quickly becomes the center of the story. With a violent climax, Gruen tries for the big reveal ending, which worked for some according to a couple of girls in my book club, but for me I predicted it halfway through the book.

Added to the blunt realities of the circus, Gruen does not shy away from Jacob's confinement in the "old folks home." Written with stark realism and contrasted with Jacob's younger years of freedom and independence, Jacob's present life in the home is depressing and extremely well written. I actually liked the chapters of Jacob in the home better than the exciting flashbacks because of how well written they were and also for the fact that it's easy to make a story about the circus interesting, but to make chapters about an old man sitting around in an old folks home interesting, now that's good writing. I was touched by those chapters and found extraordinary understanding and compassion in Gruen's writing. And not that I'd culturally ever do so anyways (Asian cultures tend to take care of their own elderly with reverence and respect), but I know for sure now that I'd never let my mother's feet touch the floor of any nursing home.

I wasn't exactly sure of Gruen's purpose of making the story a flashback, however. A mutual consensus of the book club was that there wasn't a "bigger meaning" easily gleaned from this book. The best I can come up with is a comparison between freedom and confinement in many different contexts. First, with Jacob having the freedom of running off to the circus with his whole life ahead of him and then contrasting that with the confinement of a nursing home where he's not even allowed to use his walker without permission. Also, the confinement of the animals and later their freedom which reeks havoc on the circus. And also the illusion of freedom with the circus folks, although many of them were trapped in the circus due to their unusual appearances or out of fear of being redlighted. And of course Marlena's confinement in an emotional and verbally abusive marriage, when she'd thought she was freeing herself from a boring and tedious marriage when she ran off with August. This does seem like the most consistent theme in the novel, however it did not strike any "aha!" cords in me or move me deeply in any way. More so, this book seemed like a light, enjoyable summer read (despite the cruelty in the book). The ending felt a little bit too convenient and tied up with a pretty red bow, and some of it was not so much believable to me, but it was fine because by the end I didn't expect huge aspirations for the book. It was more of a good story just for good stories sake, and that's just fine by me. The characters were memorable and the story was interesting.

3*

The Sandman - Dream Country: A Review

A small break in the continuous story of The Sandman for a book of short stories in Dream Country. While losing some of the suspense of the other books that was one continuous plot line, it added texture and seemed to give life to many of the smaller interesting ideas that Neil Gaiman had been musing over but had been unable to incorporate into an entire book on its own.

Gaiman keeps with his dark and disturbing ideas in these stories, especially Muse in which a Muse is captured and brutalized by two separate writers looking for fame and fortune. Gaiman also brings fun twists of perception as he idealizes a world run by oversized cats. And of course, the charming story A Midsummer Night's Dream, that brings the world of Faerie together with Shakespeare's famed play. The last story, Facade, came off a little flat for me, but all in all, it was an enjoyable read and once again it stretches your imagination.

Where does this crazy man keep getting his ideas?

5*

Eat, Pray, Love: A Review

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert is a book about, well, one woman's search for everything across Italy, India and Indonesia. The memoir is a brutally blunt look at Elizabeth Gilbert's "rock bottom" and her way back to happiness. The book invokes strong emotion from those that read it, so it seems, and tends be either loved or hated.

I took to the memoir without judgment, rolling with Elizabeth wherever she was in her journey. I'd been to the point in life where I was crying in the bathroom, unsure of myself and about my place and path in life. Who am I to judge her life crisis or her emotional breakdown? I found some of Elizabeth's methods of coping odd, but was okay with them because I have some odd ass methods myself.

The "eat" section of the book was incredibly slow for me because frankly, I don't care about food. I'm one of those people who if I could get through life without having to eat I'd do it. One less thing to do, after all. I'm also the type of person who can't function if I'm hungry, which really annoys me. I hate having to take care of myself overall, but having to feed myself three times a day, jeez what a pain. I also have fairly simple tastes, I'm definitely not a connoisseur of any sort of food, so in general, Gilbert's continuous descriptions of food fell flat on my tastes and I ended up skimming some of those parts, as much as I hate to admit that I skimmed, I did.

"Pray" was my favorite part of the book. As I'm a recent devotee to yoga and have been attempting to practice meditation, I appreciated Gilbert's frankness with the difficulties in practicing meditation and prayer. I felt that this part of the memoir touched me and met me where I was at spiritually, and frankly I'm more interested in developing countries such as India than any European country. I really felt touched by this section of the book and I admired Gilbert's devotion and struggles spiritually.

"Love" was entertaining and finally there was the juicy sex that everyone was looking for! Hope I didn't give anything big away, but for those frustrated in Italy that Liz wasn't getting laid by some hot Italian twin, fear not, her time will come. But this section also brings up some controversial topics when dealing with developing countries that I also had had some experience with. When someone Gilbert considers a friend begins to try to take advantage of her and get money out of her, Gilbert questions their friendship, but another foreigner to Bali explained to her that this was her friend's only chance to get anything in life and that to her this was survival for her and her daughter. I had a similar experience when in Uganda where a conference participant and someone I had considered a friend had told everyone that he had been robbed, again. Out of compassion many of the American participants gave him money to help him buy the things he'd lost only to find out months later that he had not been robbed at all but had lied to us to get money from us. I was both disappointed and hurt. But after reading Eat, Pray, Love I've thought about the situation a bit different, realizing that this Ugandan was in fact raising his two younger sisters on his own and did not have a job because the job market in Uganda is extremely sparse. It was survival for him, but on the other hand, did he deserve the money from us any more than the other Ugandan participants, all of which had their own individual struggles and family they were caring for, and yet they did not lie to us or ask for a dime from us? I always come back to my dear friend Abramz, whom I look up to and admire. He was helping children affected by the war with his Breakdance Project and paying for it all out of his own pocket, and also had not been able to obtain a job. And yet when I asked if I could purchase a copy of his CD, he refused to let me pay for it because he considered me his friend and would not take money from me. The only way I ended up "paying" for it was giving him a donation to his project in lieu of paying for the CD. So I guess I'm saying there are different ways people in developing countries can approach visiting Americans. One Ugandan took whatever he could get from them while they were there and then basically severed all ties with them since the lie, once revealed, made him untrustworthy. Abramz, on the other hand, decided to value the friendship more than the money, which was meaningful to me because although I know that I'm more well off than most of the Ugandans who were in the conference, I wanted to be seen and treated as a person, not a bag of walking money. And in return I've recently donated a large sum of money to Abramz, money I'd been saving up monthly for him, and that he'd never have dreamed of receiving. I can guarantee you that the amount of money that the Ugandan swindled out of us Americans was even half of what I've donated to Abramz, and I'm happy and feel fulfilled donating this money to Abramz because I have complete faith in his character.

Either way, I enjoyed reading this memoir. It provoked some thoughts and emotions about myself that I found useful and meaningful. Some of the ladies in my book club did not like this book because they felt that either it hit too close to home or that the author was "whiny." I guess I understand if it hit too close to home it'd be hard to read, but to call the author "whiny" and selfish annoyed me. I mean, um, hello, it's a memoir, it's supposed to be all about herself and her own thoughts. I found Gilbert extremely candid and brave and not whiny at all. Hell, I'd be twice as whiny as she was in many of the situations, so who am I to judge? Really, I had no judgment of the author's personal journey any more than I would of a friend going through a personal journey. Frankly, I'd have more judgment of myself than I did of the author because I respect people trying to figure things out for themselves and having the grace to find humor in it as well. I definitely don't prescribe to everything that she did for myself, but that's okay. Some of it was useful to me, other parts weren't, but it didn't bother me. Whatever I didn't find useful I just found entertaining and moved on.

4*

The Life Of A Social Worker.

I realized that I hadn't posted on my blog for almost a month, and this is my quibbling explanation (or excuse, however you'd like to view it).  Not only do I owe an explanation but four whole book reviews, which will have to be done another night since this is already pushing my bedtime.

But as it is, all the rumors and talk about social workers are true... it is hard work.  Not that I'm complaining.  I've chosen it and I truly love it, but it is exhausting and out of my love and passion it takes up far more than the measly 40 hours a week of any normal job (though, in the USA, that can be argued for many jobs now-a-days).  I've been challenged and filled up more in these months in this profession then in the nearly two years as a Project Coordinator for an IT Consulting Company (god, that just sounds soooo boring and lame, doesn't it?)  There are days I've driven home in tears after sustaining an hour tantrum by a child.  I'm not sure if I've explained my exact niche in the huge social work field, but I'm what's called an Intensive In-Home Specialist, which basically means that I work within people's homes with the entire family for children who are either at risk for an out-of-home placement or are coming back from one.  So when I say that one of my kids had an hour long tantrum, these aren't your run-of-the-mill tantrums I'm talking about.  Either way, there are the stresses of the job that make me come home and tell my husband quite crossly that I don't ever want to have children.  Then there are the days that I come home and tell my husband - making it clear that there is to be no discussion, of course - that if a certain child were to be put up for adoption we'd adopt him immediately.  I've grown to deeply care for the children I work with, even those that most challenge me.  It is great and fulfilling work.

But leaves me really freaking drained and with barely any time for myself!!

Needless to say, I'm still trying to learn the balance of the job.  How much of your time, your heart, your thoughts do you give to the job without completely losing yourself?  I'm toeing the line right now, and am reaching back to those things that are important to me to pull myself back a bit.  Maybe if my loyal and very-angry-by-my-absence readers were to leave me comments demanding my attention back to my blog, I'll be more inclined to give myself the time to blog and write, which truly are important things to me.

Despite shamelessly begging for your love, I do promise to catch up on my reviews and to write interesting and intriguing blogs again about the issues that strike at my heart.  Most specifically all that has been going on in Africa as of late, with Kenya in an uprising and Uganda on the verge of peace, my eyes and ears are pointed towards the news from these countries.

And of course the huge splashes the Steelers are making in free agency... I mean, hello, Mewelde Moore!  Can the Steelers stop stealing from my other team please?  Ahh, when loyalties cross paths, what's a girl to do?

The Kite Runner: A Review

I had heard a lot of hype over this book and since the movie was coming out, predictably I made a huge effort to get this book read. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini was not what I expected. For some reason I was expecting a more politically minded, look-at-how-the-Taliban-has-changed-people type of book, but in fact, all of the main characters who stay in Afghanistan stay remarkably the same (except they get older and a little ragged around the edges). The Kite Runner is a well written book with a nice story behind it. It enlightens you on life in Afghanistan before and after the Russian occupation (and then the Taliban liberation... and then the Taliban occupation). It is a sad story about the fall of a friendship and the fall of Afghanistan.

Truth be told, I really didn't know much about the history of Afghanistan, and I sure did learn a lot from this book. That might be my favorite thing about the book. There are many nice things about this book. It has some really beautiful moments and scenes in the book. The description of the kite running was, of course, the most beautiful and interesting. The story of the friendship between the boys was interesting, but got a little old after a while. Overall, I felt like all of the relationships in the book end up coming off dry in the end due to being beaten into the ground. Okay okay, I get it, the father was distant from the son! How many more little examples do we need? I guess this is the product of a story being told in flashback, if it's taking place in the present then you don't feel like the character's just continually rehashing the same point over and over again.

The "Big Scene" that took place early in the book that haunts our narrator was disturbing and sad, and there were other scenes that definitely got to you and disturbed you. While I was interested enough to keep reading and find out what happened, many of the plot twists seemed a bit too convenient to me and just cheapened the emotion of the story. I thought the ending was a little quaint and anti-climatic (following the over-dramatic near ending, if that makes sense). The mood of the book just didn't feel consistent to me.

The inelegant point I'm trying to make is that while the book had some powerfully written scenes scattered about here and there and while the story was interesting, it just didn't grab me and it didn't stick with me after I was finished reading it. I was just kind of like, alright, it's over. Next book. So I guess I was disappointed with all the raving and ranting people had been doing over the book because all in all it was just alright.

3*

Atonement: A Movie Review

Having read the novel Atonement by Ian McEwan last year, I was eager to drag my poor hubby to the movie, though Keira Knightly was in it, so at least he had some eye candy (although she's suddenly skinny as a pencil, which is kind of unattractive to my hubby - much to my advantage).

I'm quickly becoming a pseudo connoisseur of books turned to movies (just because of my frequent reading/watching of them) and was pleasantly surprised by how well the movie followed the book (this rarely happens). The actors were well picked for the characters and the plot followed the book to a T. I felt that movie was extremely well done and the acting was great. I was impressed by the way the director, Joe Wright, incorporated a historical relevance into the movie because although the book didn't necessary give a historical relevance to the book specifically, the setting of the novel during WWI was a huge part of the novel and I felt that the historical relevance was naturally incorporated into the novel. Wright does so in the movie with class and in a manner fitting to the feel and theme of the movie. The movie was moving and powerful with a good pace and absolutely perfect editing. It's been a while since a book turned to movie (or just any movie out in the theaters recently) has been this satisfying and impressive to me.

Hopefully the Coen Brothers do as well with No Country for Old Men, which I'm planning on watching next weekend - as long as my hubby finishes the book by then...

No Country for Old Men: A Review

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy was my first McCarthy experience. I actually own All the Pretty Horses but had never gotten around to reading it. With the movie out for No Country for Old Men I was finally motivated enough to read my first McCarthy novel and finally found out what all the fuss was about!

No Country for Old Men is a modern day western story. Partly told from the point of view of an aging Sheriff, the book is not only about the actions of the story, but about how it relates to the direction our world is going. The Sheriff seems to waiver between having hope and being hopeless about our world, and his narrative sprinkled through out the book add a deeper context to the story.

McCarthy's writing is to die for, literally (at least in the novel, literally!) He brings simplistic writing to a whole new level. His writing is amazingly descriptive, but the truly amazing part about it is that he barely goes into detail about anything at all! He's a master of describing a scene or a situation by the way a character says something or by their body movement. His subtly is extremely well calculated and well thought out, and something that I personally strive for as a writer. Of course I tend to over-describe (if you couldn't tell). His writing is so articulate and well thought out that I read somewhere that the action in the movie is literally taken from the book, word-for-word, which is usually very difficult to do when turning a book into a movie because of how much descriptions of action is left out or glassed over. McCarthy not only describes nearly every action, he does so with simplicity and clarity. The book is fast paced, suspenseful and an extremely satisfying read. And at the same time it goes much deeper than that, it is a well written literary novel that ultimately connects the story to a much larger and meaningful picture. In every way that I believe McCarthy could strive for, I believe that this novel was a success. I'm pushing my husband to finish the book by the end of this week so we can see the movie this weekend!

5*