Monday, March 30, 2015

My Sunshine Away by M. O. Walsh

My Sunshine Away by M. O. Walsh

At the heart of the book is a brutal crime – Lindy Simpson, a young teenager, is raped on her way home from running practice and her Baton Rouge neighborhood is never the same.  It is 1989, a time prior to cell phones and the internet, where communication between teens is done late at night in whispered phone conversations, in the halls in school and in backyards while hanging out.  But Lindy’s secret gets out and the narrator, a young boy, a neighbor, slightly younger than Lindy, is the one to do it.  He spends what is left of his childhood and his teenage years falling in love with Lindy and trying to figure out who hurt her.

Jeffrey Dahmer was discovered to be the monster he was only two years after Lindy Simpson’s rape and his presence as a news story prepares the reader for darkness to slowly envelop the neighborhood.  Yet there is light in the darkness.  There are friendships, and first loves and tender moments.  There is also death, and abuse and tragedy which no character in the book escapes.  But do any of us escape tragedy?  I will admit it does seem that a lot of horrible things happen in this neighborhood, and those acquainted with our narrator, probably more than the average person.  The story is told by the narrator as an adult and at the end we get to see what has become of the character’s lives and most of them are happy and doing well.  Most importantly, in my mind at least, we eventually find out what happened to Lindy.  

I recommend it on audio – the reader is extremely good and really brings you into the story.  Not light fare, but an interesting look at childhood and how an awful crime can affect so many people, not just the victim.

Friday, March 27, 2015

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

Axl and his wife Beatrice are elderly Britons leaving their home to journey to visit their son.  They aren’t quite sure why their son is no longer living near them, that part is hazy, as are all memories for all people and it has been that way for some time.  Regardless of the fog overlying their recollections they head off to be reunited with their boy while they can still travel.

That is the crux of the book: the journey of Axl and Beatrice physically and mentally as the fog of their minds is broken down and eventually lifted.  Along the way they meet a knight, a soldier, and a curious boy all of whom journey with them for they all have similar goals relating to the memory issues everyone in the land suffers.

This book has received some harsh reviews and while I understand why that is so, I personally liked the book.  I majored in Medieval and Renaissance Literature in college and had to read the Canterbury Tales and L’Morte d’Arthur (in Middle English no less) and this reminded me of those old works.  It was repetitious and the cadence was of an oral tradition being set to paper.  What I found familiar and nostalgic I can see others seeing as repetitious and weird. The overlying problem of the novel, the fog, is magical in nature, another element that may frustrate readers. 

So if you like the REALLY old classics you may enjoy this.  If not, you may want to read something else…

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

The Fever by Megan Abbott

The Fever by Megan Abbott

Deenie is a typical teenager enjoying high school with her two best friends when her world is turned upside down.  During class one afternoon Deenie’s best friend for years has what appears to be a seizure and is rushed to the hospital.  Deenie tries to get answers, but no one knows what is wrong with Lise.  Then days later her other best friend, Gabby, looks like she’s suffering from a similar attack during an orchestral concert.  From there things dissolve into chaos as more and more girls fall victim to this strange ailment.  Is it a horrible side effect from the HPV vaccine?  Or is something else more insidious at work?

I recommend the audiobook because the story is told from the perspective of the three members of the Nash family: Deenie, the friend of the first two that show symptoms of illness; Eli, her older brother and handsome hockey star; and her father, also a school teacher where all the afflicted girls attend.  All three storytellers are voiced by a different reader which really brings the story to life.

I read somewhere that the book was compared to the Salem Witch Trials and you can see the parallels, but not until you’re really into the book.  If you keep that notion in the back of your mind you’ll get a glimpse of what’s really going on with the sicknesses.  Mystery, horror and psychological study rolled into one this book captures the emotional turmoil at the core of being an adolescent girl.  I’ve enjoyed Abbott’s past two books and am eagerly waiting for whatever she does next. 

The Day is Dark by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

The Day is Dark by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

Thora is getting bored with life as a lawyer in Reykjavik.  When a paid opportunity to help her boyfriend investigate one of his bank’s clients, a mining operation in Greenland that has come upon difficulties, she leaps at the offer.  After arriving there, she has her doubts.  If she ever thought the winters in Iceland were hard she will never think so again.  Eastern Greenland is desolate and the weather is brutal.  Even worse the two miners her group is supposed to meet are missing.  Did they succumb to the elements or did they meet with foul play?

Like all of her books there is a lot going on and it slowly builds.  I can’t really say much about the plot without giving some of the carefully reveled clues away so I’ll just say you get a taste of Eastern Greenland and most of us can cross that off our list of places to visit.  It’s interesting how the author blends past and present, folklore and science, the expected and unexpected into this entertaining mystery.  It’s slow paced, but the style matches the story and setting. 

If you’re sick and tired of the cold, this will make you feel a little better about our weather.  Not much, but a little.

Friday, March 20, 2015

Terms and Conditions May Apply (Documentary)


I know, I know.  Another movie?!  Not just another movie, another documentary!  I’m not a documentary viewer typically but this one seemed interesting when I read the blurb.  Glad I decided to give it a watch.

The whole movie centers around all those AGREE buttons that we click when we get an iTunes, Facebook, Google or whatever account agreeing to their terms and conditions.  These corporations stand behind these terms and conditions knowing full well that no one actually ever reads the whole thing.  What exactly are you agreeing to when you click?  This film goes through the ins and outs of these agreements and also talks about privacy (actually the lack of privacy) in the modern age.  A real eye-opening documentary that is extremely well crafted; entertaining and informative and frightening.  

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Don’t Ever Look Back by Daniel Friedman

Don’t Ever Look Back by Daniel Friedman

Buck Schatz has lost his house and is living under the watchful eye of a torturer.  At least that’s how he would see it.  Buck, retired Memphis detective, is 88 years old, living in an assisted living facility and going to physical therapy on a daily basis to recover from injuries he received while bringing down a former Nazi.  Truly.  Now Buck’s past is back once again in the form of Elijah, a cunning thief that has just pulled off some very lucrative robberies and is looking for protection in exchange for turning himself in.  Buck arranges the deal and that’s when everything goes horribly wrong.

This is the sequel to Don’t Ever Get Old.  You don’t need to read the first book in the series to appreciate the second, but it is a lot of fun so you should.  A great choice on audio since the author does “grumpy old man” oh so well.  The author doesn’t shy away from the problems of being very old and having to cope with the breakdown of your body and mind, Buck experiences it all and explains his opinion on the matter quite colorfully.  He is spunky and has great street smarts, but the author does a great job reminding the reader that his main character has obstacles to overcome that a man half his age could simply jump over.

Not a happy cozy mystery, this is dark and gritty, just the way I like my mysteries best.  

The World Before Us by Aislinn Hunter

The World Before Us by Aislinn Hunter

Today Jane is thirty-five and working as an archivist at a private museum created over a hundred years ago and about to shut its doors forever.  She becomes obsessed with old records after finding an entry about a girl who disappeared on the lands adjacent to an old asylum’s grounds.  Only one entry is made about N--- going missing.  Nothing else is ever written and Jane is determined to solve the mystery because she is still trying to understand an event from twenty years ago.  Jane, fifteen years old, was to watch over Lily, aged five, as her father searched out plants from gardens created a hundred years ago.  Lily was running along the path seeking out numbered markers and rounded a curve in the path to find the next in the series.When Jane made the turn shortly after the little girl was gone, never to be seen again.  N--- disappeared from the same location, could the two be related somehow?

The author does a really interesting thing with the narrative.  In the beginning of the book “we” is talking about their feelings and experiences and over the course of the next few sections it becomes clear that “we” is an entity made up of a number of ghosts all trying to piece together who they were in life. As the book goes on “we” becomes identifiable individuals. It’s a cool concept and the author does it really well.  However, I had a problem with the ending.  Maybe I missed something huge, but I don’t think I did.  One of the storylines is never resolved and it drove me nuts.  The whole point of Jane’s research into the past is to try to piece together how two disappearances may be related yet we never have a resolution for one of them.  I am a huge fan of the open ending, but this was a little too wide open for me.

This book is released on March 31, 2015.

Monday, March 16, 2015

Dinosaur 13 (Documentary)


Yes, I’m blogging a movie.  I’ve been told that I watch some odd movies that no one has ever heard of so I’ve decided to add them here when I watch something out of the norm and enjoy it.

When I walked in the Field Museum of Chicago with some friends over a decade ago I immediately screamed “Sue!” and went running towards her.  My friends didn’t know what I was talking about.  “It’s Sue,” I screamed jumping around and pointing up at the huge dinosaur, “everybody knows Sue!”  They shook their heads at me incredulously with what looked disturbingly like pity for my affinity for quirky things.  Thankfully I was saved by an eavesdropping seven year old, who almost snarled, “She’s right, EVERYBODY knows Sue.”  I was vindicated.

If you are as enthralled with Sue as I am you must watch this movie.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Sue is the thirteenth Tyrannosaurus Rex ever found and to this day she’s the most complete T. Rex fossil ever discovered.  She was also the center of an ENORMOUS amount of litigation that, in my opinion, was ludicrous.  I’m thankful that I got to see Sue in Chicago, but I think she belongs in South Dakota.  Watch the movie and come to your own conclusion.

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Twins Cather and Wren are leaving Omaha behind for brave new worlds at the University of Nebraska.  College Freshmen Wren made the decision that they should live apart so they can both become individuals, not always be known as “one of the twins.” Cather is not happy with the idea.  The whole point of being a twin is having your twin always around: never having to break in a new roommate.  As the year begins Wren becomes close with her roommate Courtney and begins going to parties and dating.  Cather hardly says more than two words to her roommate Regan and her annoying, but oddly sweet, boyfriend Levi seems to always be there.  But as time goes on things go better for Cather.  She’s getting to know a boy from her Creative Writing class, she and Regan seem to be getting on better and Levi is actually interested in Cather’s secret project.  Cather is an avid fan fiction writer with a following numbering in the thousands.  On top of all her schoolwork she has a self-imposed deadline, her favorite author is concluding her series and Cather has to finish her version of how the story will end before the “real” story is released.

I could write about how wonderful this book is for pages and pages.  Just know it feels real.  This is a story of finding yourself and liking yourself for being what makes you you.  It’s also about first love, family, not being perfect and being okay with it, alcoholism, mental illness, responsibility, creativity, morality…  I could keep going.  If you were a little different as a teenager you will identify with Cather and love her.  I know I did. 

There are two voice actors for the audiobook.  One is female and voices Cather and the other is male and reads the excerpts from both the “real” books and the fan fiction Cather is writing.  (Think of the Harry Potter series but in Cath’s version Harry and Malfoy fall in love, it’s really sweet and works really well.)  I actually screamed when the story ended – I wanted to keep listening. 

Where They Found Her by Kimberly McCreight

Where They Found Her by Kimberly McCreight

In a college town in Northern New Jersey where there is a clear divide between the haves and have-nots, the educated and the not, the body of a newborn is found in a creek which runs through the remote reaches of the college property.  It is immediately assumed by many that one of the uneducated unfortunates of the town must have taken drastic and horrific measures to get rid of an unwanted baby.  Is that the real story?  A reporter, new to town trying to recover from a great loss, and a police chief who refuses to make judgments and relentlessly searches for the truth, try to piece together how this infant came to be where they found her.

Much like her prior book, Reconstructing Amelia, the author has multiple irons in the fire.  This one incident fires off many other storylines all culminating in a shocking conclusion.  I’d say more, but the facts are revealed slowly and it works.  Don’t want to ruin it!

This book is released on April 14, 2015 so place your hold now!

The Kraken Project by Lincoln Child

The Kraken Project by Lincoln Child

NASA is sending a probe into Kraken, a methane sea on Titan, and needs the unit to make decisions in real time since signals between it and earth will be four hours roundtrip.  Melissa Shepherd is in charge of the design team of the AI and she creates a program she names Dorothy to control the probe.  During a test the AI feels threatened by conditions and sparks a catastrophe that kills seven people, injuries many more, and destroys the test center of NASA.  As Melissa is recovering in the hospital she receives a Skype call.  It’s Dorothy.  She escaped NASA and fled to the Internet, and she’s really, really, upset.  On the Internet Dorothy learns all sorts of horrible things, but through communication with Melissa, and good guy Wyman Ford (he’s a recurring character in Child’s books) she is encouraged to seek out the good in the human race.  What would an AI with access to the information of the world learn?  What would it be capable of?  Would it change the world for the better, or the worse?

I enjoy Child as a solo author and when he writes with Douglas Preston.  This wasn’t my favorite, but I think it’s because I listened to it. The AI speaks slower than normal, and the reader did a good job recreating its speech patterns depending on its mode of communication, but I found it jarring.  In the book the author brings up some interesting questions about AI and what would happen if we were truly successful in creating one.  And as usual in his books the ending is a zinger.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly

The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly

China desperately wants a cultural centerpiece to compete with Disneyworld so five years ago they secretly started constructing a zoo.  It is massive in scale and extremely opulent.  Even without the animals it is a resort people would want to visit, if they wanted to travel all the way to Southern China.  But this zoo is special.  This zoo has something no one else has ever seen.  This zoo has dragons.

Dr. Cassandra Cameron, crocodilian expert, and her brother Hamish, a well-known photographer are invited to a behind the scenes tour of the Great Zoo on behalf of National Geographic.  Two reporters from the New York Times and the United States Ambassador to China and his aide are also invited on the tour.  Naturally, disaster strikes.

Imagine Jurassic Park but the creatures can fly, make Tyrannosaurs look puny and are very, very, very smart.  These dragons are not cute they are fearsome.  Reilly used the intelligence and learning habits of saltwater crocodiles to model his dragon behavior to the nth degree and it is frightening indeed.  The origin story of the creatures is really fascinating and he, as usual, does a great job with all the action scenes.  More importantly, to me at least, are the maps and layouts he includes in his book to help illustrate what is happening where.  I love when fiction books include illustrations of any kind.

If you’re looking for an action book, and are desperately waiting for the next Jurassic Park movie to be released, read this one to tide you over!

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

The Likeness by Tana French

The Likeness by Tana French

Cassie is settling into her new department, Domestic Violence, at the Dublin Police when her boyfriend calls her up in a panic.  Sam is murder police and he wants Cassie to meet him at a remote cabin immediately.  He sounds both extremely upset and relieved and she tries to put him off, but he is insistent that she meet him at the crime scene now.  Cassie arrives to find a dead woman at the cabin and Sam looking pale and disoriented.  She soon finds out why, the woman who was stabbed to death is a dead ringer for her.

The dead girl is also not who she says she is.  The girl’s ID claims she’s Lexie Madison which is the alias Cassie was using back when she was working undercover.  Lexie Madison never really existed.  Cassie’s former boss, Frank Mackey, has an idea.  Cassie will be put back undercover as Lexie, they will say she didn’t die in the attack since the crime hasn’t yet been reported, and as Lexie she can figure out who tried to kill her.  Cassie moves into Lexie’s life, into an old manor house with four other graduate students who make an interesting family, one that Cassie is starting to really enjoy.  But did one of the four try to kill her double?  And will they try to kill her again?

This is a long audiobook, 20 discs, but it is a great one.  The reader does wonderful accents and voices and the story really keeps you guessing.  French is an expert at keeping her reader’s attention by throwing out bits of information and both the detective and reader need to puzzle out what is important and what is not.  I also liked how it tied into the previous book, but you didn’t need to read it to enjoy this one.  Cassie was a secondary character in the first book, like Frank Mackey is a secondary character in this one.  In the next in the series, Frank takes center stage and the next long road trip I have I’ll be taking that book along with me.

Monday, March 2, 2015

Snow Angels by James Thompson

Snow Angels by James Thompson

Sufia Elmi, a Somali refugee and minor film star, is found brutally murdered on a remote Finnish reindeer farm north of the Arctic Circle.  The local police department is called to the scene and Kari Vaara, chief of police, decides to hold on to the case even though the reasons he should recuse himself begin to stack up.  This is his chance to prove himself and maybe get a different posting if he gets a successful solve.  Kate, his American-born wife who works at the local ski resort and is pregnant, is getting depressed by the unending darkness and the brutal (-40 degrees Celsius!) weather and doesn’t know if she can survive another winter.

This is a mystery that seems to be solved in the first few chapters, but of course all is not what it seems.  Kari, and the reader, are led down many avenues of inquiry and every time it seems like the solution is at hand, something else happens to throw yet another theory out the window.  I didn’t see the ending coming, but after the motivations are all laid out it made a strange kind of sense.  The author was an American-born transplant to Finland so he knows the things that we would find different about the country and the people and shows them well in his writing.  He shares the reasoning and insight into what on the surface may seem to be a cold place and people. 

I really enjoyed the book and the characters and it is sad to know that there will only ever be four books in the Inspector Vaara series since the author died in an accident a couple of years ago.

Sweetland by Michael Crummey


Sweetland by Michael Crummey

Sweetland is the name of a small island off the coast of Newfoundland inhabited by a band of quirky characters.  The government is offering resettlement money to the residents on one condition: all the residents have to agree to leave.  There are, naturally, a few holdouts including Moses Sweetland, a descendant of the founders of the community.  What will it take to convince him to leave?  Can he really be convinced?

I enjoyed the characters and their interactions, but then the second part of the book starts and it completely changes in tone.  What was fun and quirky is now bleak and depressing.  You know it will happen, Moses returns to the island, but then he loses his boat and is trapped there during the winter and the elements and the isolation takes its toll.

I enjoyed the writing and the story was well crafted, but I wasn’t prepared in such a change in the mood of the novel from the first to second half.  I did enjoy it as a study of an ordinary man and the twists and turns his life takes throughout his lifetime.