The Real Boy

Title: The Real Boy
Author: Anne Ursu
Rating: 4 Stars
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy
Length: 352 pages

Synopsis

Oscar is a magician's hand. He happiest gathering herbs from the ancient Barrow, reading books snuck from Caleb's library during the night, or working in the cellar, surrounded by cats while preparing various magical herbs for Caleb. He doesn't remember life before becoming a hand, and he doesn't quite get his fellow human beings. When an accident forces Oscar to work in the shop, two things happen. One, he realizes he doesn't work and think like everyone else. Two, he makes a friend in the healer's apprentice, Callie.

The "perfect" children from the nearby city begin falling ill, while something dangerous lurks in the forest, attacking things with magic. With the magician and healer disappearing for large amounts of time, Oscar and Callie have to find a way to help the ill children and figure out what exactly is going wrong. 

Review

I really enjoyed The Real Boy. For a one-off, middle grade novel, Ursu's Alethia is richly developed, with magic oozing from its pores (or in this case, the soil). It has a full history and developed society. Oscar and Callie were delightful main characters. And perhaps this is just because I was reading the book while traveling, but I found it hard to predict where the story was going, which I loved.

One of the major themes running through the book is Oscar trying to figure out why he is different from anyone else. He struggles to read people, is anxious in their company, and would rather read about the different properties and uses for herbs. After finding an unusual doll halfway through the book, Oscar starts to worry whether he is even human. Thankfully, he has Callie to help him puzzle it out. In return for teaching her how to use herbal remedies, Callie teaches him how to read and understand people.

During the book, I noticed Oscar had several characteristics that can be found on the autism spectrum, and I wondered if this was intentional on Ursu's part. I looked into it, and it was very much intensional. Ursu's son has Asperger's, and she wanted to write a hero that her son would see is like him.

What I really appreciated about Ursu's story is the nuance she uses with the subject. Yes, autism is a part of it, but Oscar is so well-developed that he is much more than that autism box some might want to put him into. I can't really explain how well Ursu deals with this, so I'd encourage you to read her touching thoughts about her son, Oscar, and writing the book on Read, Write, Reflect. Here's a taste:

I didn’t want Oscar to triumph in the end despite his autism or because of his autism; I wanted him to triumph because of who he is-- an exceptionally brave, loving boy. I wanted him to know that he had the power to survive and triumph no matter what the world throws at him. I want every kid to know that. -Anne Ursu

While I caught the allusions to autism, I'm ashamed that I completely missed the numerous allusions to fairy tales throughout the book--specifically The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Pinocchio. I didn't realize how much Ursu was weaving in older, familiar stories until I read another review that pointed this out. The allusions are everywhere, so now I really want to reread with this in mind!

The book is also really well-written and beautifully illustrated. Also of note is that the main characters are all people of color, but like the autism element, it's quietly part of their characters without being a defining characteristic or an afterthought.

Ursu is also the author of Breadcrumbs, which has been on my to-read list for awhile now, and The Real Boy was nominated for a Minnesota Book Award this year. If you enjoy middle grade fiction or classic fantasy, I'd definitely recommend this book. And if you know a kid who enjoys fantasy, definitely hand this one to them.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Author: Katherine Boo
Genre: Narrative Non-fiction
Length: 262 pages
Rating: 4.5 Stars

Synopsis:

Katherine Boo chronicles the lives of an undercity (or slum) in Mumbai, India and the complexities and effects of inequality in her first book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity.

While the lives and dreams of many Annawadi residents weave in and out of Boo’s narrative, Behind the Beautiful Forevers focuses on three individuals who are all striving to make it New India: Manju, aiming to become the slum’s first female college graduate; her mother, Asha, with the less principled goal of becoming the slumlord; and Abdul, who through focus, hard work, and a keen business sense tries to generate enough money from his family’s garbage business to buy a plot of land.

Review:

Behind the Beautiful Forevers is both a very easy and a very challenging book to read. Everything in the book is real (Boo lived in this community for three years), but the book reads like fiction. You get pulled in and engaged in these individual's stories. This is why Behind the Beautiful Forevers is also hard to read. It hurts. It's distressing. It pushes you to face the consequences of global inequalities and poverty.

Abdul’s story was the most challenging to read—when a family feud spins out of control, Abdul is (wrongly) accused of murder alongside his father and sister, and their journey through the legal system has serious ramifications for Abdul’s successful garbage business. Asha’s story is perhaps the least sympathetic, but Boo manages not to demonize this character. Asha’s hard work and scheming allow her daughter, Manju, to attend college, which Asha hopes will help raise the entire family out of poverty.

The stories Boo captures give us a humanizing portrait of life in an undercity. “Do you ever think when you look at someone, when you listen to someone, does that person really have a life?” Abdul asks at one point. Behind the Beautiful Forevers gives all the people depicted a life. They may not be glamorous or particularly good lives, but gives Abdul, Manju, Asha, and everyone else an identity separate from their poverty.

I appreciated that Behind the Beautiful Forevers doesn’t offer any easy solutions. If anything, it highlights the complexities of anti-poverty work. Charitable efforts to promote education, microfinance, and health conditions are almost completed stymied by corruption. Government officials, elections, police, and local slumlord all support themselves through bribery.

In short, Behind the Beautiful Forevers is an excellent, engaging piece of narrative non-fiction that thoroughly deserves the National Book Award it earned. 4.5 Stars.

Editorial note: This review was drafted as a sample post in January 2013 when this blog was still an idea. I recently found the review and decided to edit, reformat, and publish it.

Two Owls Review Gone with the Wind

Gone with the Wind is held up as one of the greatest American classics. The story of the rising and falling fortunes of the fiery, independent, selfish Scarlett O'Hara and the rascally Rhett Butler is set against the backdrop of the Civil War and Reconstruction in Georgia. Two of our parliament recently read the book for a book club, and gathered here for a discussion.

Sonya: After loving the film version of this historical novel, I never thought that the book could be as good. Having finished Gone with the Wind, I can honestly say that it has become one of my all-time favorite books. Margaret Mitchell’s narrative is so easy to read and yet so beautiful.

Madeleine: I have never seen the film version! I’m actually glad I hadn’t seen the movie before reading the book. Besides knowing a few things (it’s about the Civil War and it’s aftermath, the main couple is Scarlett/Rhett, and there are a lot of fancy dresses), it was all completely new to me.

I also loved the book, but I don’t know if it would make it into my all-time favorites. I need some more time to think about it. There were some bits that I really struggled with in this book (more on this later). What really made the book for me was the characters.

Sonya: I think that is what she does best! We get to see Scarlett journey from naïve, selfish Southern belle to a destitute woman who is willing to do anything to keep food in her stomach and Tara under her feet, and then finally in the end to a person that finally understands herself and what is really important to her.

Madeleine: Margaret Mitchell took a really big risk making her main character a dislikable character. I loved and hated Scarlett. I was cheering for her throughout the whole book, except for the stage of life that you skipped: her selfish, malicious, ignorant behavior after earning back her fortune. She annoyed me enough that I stopped cheering for her for awhile.

I like Scarlett best when she’s at Tara. She needs Tara to keep her grounded.

My other favorite character is Melanie. She’s an easy character to love, but I love the unexpected strength she shows throughout the novel and her unflinching loyalty to Scarlett, who doesn’t deserve it. She’s wonderful.

Sonya: I also liked Melanie, and thought that Ashley did not deserve her. Rhett is the other character that I find so enthralling and mysterious. (BTW, Clark Gable could not have portrayed him better in the movie.)

Madeleine: Obviously. :)

Sonya: Even after finishing the novel, I still don’t really have a sense of who he really is. Even though he is a scoundrel, I can’t help but cheer for him and hope that Scarlett can realize how wonderful he is.

Madeleine: I was actually more impressed by Rhett’s character development through the novel. He changes and becomes a better person a lot more than Scarlett does. I’m not totally convinced that Scarlett has changed by the end. But I absolutely loved them together. Whenever Rhett walked onto the page, I always got very excited. The dialogue! The wit!

Sonya: Every scene with Scarlett and Rhett was just bursting with well-wrought dialogue, and consequently I could practically feel the sparks between these two coming off the pages. I so hoped that this story would be happy in the end (even though I know from the movie that it’s not), and I always think that somehow Scarlett does get him back. I sure hope that she does.

Madeleine: When I first finished the book, I felt the same. Having had some time to digest the book a bit, I like the open ending. I don’t know if Rhett will ever let Scarlett back into his life. He was burned pretty badly. I hope Scarlett stays at Tara. Tara makes Scarlett a better person; I don’t know if Rhett does.

Sonya: The other aspect of Gone with the Wind is its insight into Southern life before the Civil War, during the war, and the war’s aftermath. Naturally, as a child I learned how the South consisted of inhumane bad guys keeping slaves in bondage, and then the North swept in and saved the slaves from their awful plight.

I absolutely do not condone slavery, but I will say that it was interesting to see this time in American history from the point of view of a Southerner. Even if Mitchell is biased, this fictional account gives us another perspective to ponder, and I found it fascinating. Mitchell really shows that war is war, and there are going to be bad and good people on both sides of the conflict.

Madeleine: Ah, here we are, the parts I really struggled with in the book, and that I have to separate from the book when making my judgements. I agree that the Southern point-of-view is very interesting, and I know that contextually Margaret Mitchell is just reflecting the period she’s writing from, but I really struggled with the racism in the book. In fact, I might’ve given up on it if I weren’t reading for a group.

The book romanticizes slavery, and does so very subtly. If you aren’t paying attention, it is easy to buy into this romanticization. In our book club, we had someone argue that it wasn’t that bad because the slaves were treated well by their masters who saw them as part of the family. This point-of-view takes something horrible and completely unjust, owning people and forcing them to work for you, and turns it into something kind and paternalistic.

Again, I understand that we have to take context into consideration, but I really struggled with how to respond to it. Book Riot ran an interesting series of posts on this exact issue last year. I’ll leave you with those: “I Couldn’t Finish GONE WITH THE WIND Because it Was So Racist” and the response “Let’s Talk About Racism in the Classics.”

Stepping off my soap box, I still enjoyed Gone with the Wind and give it 5 stars. Aside from it’s size, the book is very accessible and wonderfully written. Margaret Mitchell made me love a rather unpleasant character and wrote interesting enough stories that I didn’t complain about the 1000 page love triangle. Read it.

Sonya: Overall, Gone with the Wind fabulous read that I will recommend to pretty much everybody. It’s a commitment to read as it's so long but it is definitely worth it. I was hooked from the beginning and never wanted it to end. A solid 5 stars.

Attachments

Attachments is Rainbow Rowell's first book and only adult book until Landline is published this summer. She's probably better known for her two YA novels for Eleanor & Park (reviewed by Nox last year) and Fangirl. I've actually read and enjoyed all three, but this is the first one I'm reviewing here.

The year is 1999. Y2K is approaching. Email is just catching on, and it has some employers running scared. Enter Lincoln--late 20s, serial student and degree earner, D&D player, and living with his mother until he can save up for his own place. Lincoln is hired as the Internet security officer for the local newspaper, which means he is responsible for reading employees' emails to make sure no one is using it inappropriately.

Jennifer and Beth are both co-workers and best friends at the newspaper. Despite the fact that they know someone is reading their emails, they are definitely not following company policy. At first, Lincoln is highly entertained by their witty conversations, but eventually he finds himself interested in their lives.

When Lincoln falls for Beth, it gets very tricky, very quickly. He's never met Beth. He doesn't even know what she looks like. Despite this, he knows very personal details about her life, because he's been reading her emails.

Attachments is unique for several reasons. First, it's a romance told from the point-of-view of the guy. Second, guy and girl don't even meet until very late in the book.

I really enjoyed Attachments. Lincoln is a great character. Yes, he's a little nerdy and geeky, but he's much more adorable than my description above makes him sound. He's conscientious, smart, sweet, and funny. He reminds me of Clay from Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. I definitely had a bit of a crush on him.

While the main part of the book is told from Lincoln's point-of-view, the chapters are interspersed with emails between Jennifer and Beth. These emails were wonderful! I wanted to be friends with Jennifer and Beth. Rainbow really captured the camaraderie and spirit of female friendship. She has posted a deleted scene from her book with Star Trek themed emails and another section that made the cut where Beth waxes poetic about the month of October (which also happens to perfectly capture my feelings about the most glorious month of the year).

I only had two minor complaints about the book. There was ongoing tension between Lincoln's sister and mother that was weird. I never quite figured out what was going on. Also, the book wrapped up really quickly, at a pace that didn't quite match the book. It was a bit jarring.

I got to briefly meet Rainbow Rowell when she came to speak about her books and censorship last year, after a school in Minnesota challenged Eleanor & Park. (I have LOTS of passionate, library school student thoughts about that situation, so let's not go into that). You guys, she's such a genuinely wonderful person. My younger sister once woke me up in the middle of the night with ecstatic texts when Rainbow Rowell responded to her tweets. And now I've read her backlist. Do yourself a favor and follow her on Twitter/Tumblr, or even better, read one of her books.

4.5 Stars.

The Parliament Convenes: 2013 in Review

So, we know it's 2014. And we know everyone else has already published their year-in-review posts. But we're still writing 2013 on things by mistake, which means it's not too late to share our favorites from last year. Right?

Before we begun, if you're looking for something really good to read, The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, and Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein all made it onto multiple owls' top five lists for 2013.

Zelda

Five Favorite Books Read in 2013

1. The Archived by Victoria Schwab 
2. The Ocean at the End of the Lane  by Neil Gaiman
3. The Theory of Everything  by J. J. Johnson
4. Speaking From Among the Bones by Alan Bradley - This was definitely my favorite Flavia book! I adore this world and I especially adore Flavia! I love listening to the audiobooks for these, Jane Entwistle does a great job! I constantly get little sayings from these stuck in my head. I have yet to find someone that doesn't like Flavia (and we are talking a wide range of ages, genders, and reading interests)! 
5. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green - I was nervous to read this one, but I actually don't remember crying when I read the book. I plan on going to the movie and ugly crying with my friends, but I don't think the book made me cry. However, I loved it. John Green is a wonderful author and really knows how to connect the reader and the character so you feel their emotions for fully and are immersed in their world. 

I noticed something odd about my top 5 books. They are ALL blue. Apparently I'm pretty into that color.

I read less in 2013. School, oddly enough, is a time suck. My goal in 2012 was 100 and I just made the cut! 2013 was lowered to 75 and I managed to squeeze out 84. 2014? Yeah....about that....my goal is 50. So far we have a whopping 3 books under our wing. School is trying to ruin my life! Ok, that may be a bit dramatic. But seriously...

Reading Goal for 2014: 50 

Like Sonya, I would also like to read more non-fiction. I noticed a trend in my non-fiction: animals and eating disorders. I don't entirely know what that says about me, but you can't say I don't know what I like. I just get bored very quickly with real people and their lives and I tend to give up. I read 5 non-fiction books in 2013. That is kind of embarrassing....I can't help that I love my murder books and my teen angst!

Sonya

Five Favorite Books Read in 2013

1. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein - I could not put this one down, and was an absolute wreck at the end of it. My husband saw me crying over this book and thought I was being a bit melodramatic. Later, I tried to explain to him what had me so upset and as a result, ended up crying in the middle of the coffee shop where we were playing Scrabble. If that isn't a good book, I don't know what is.
2. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor - This book was so inventive with the world the author created. It had great tension and the story and suspense just kept building. The writing was wonderful and I always wanted to know what would happen to Karou and her mysterious Akiva.
3. Graceling by Kristin Cashore - Another amazing YA book where the author creates a captivating world with compelling characters with quite interesting abilities. I devoured this first book in the trilogy as well as the following two books. All three were top notch but the first was my favorite.
4. Life of Pi by Yann Martel - I read this book in one day. I couldn't put it down because I had to know what was going to happen to Pi and the animals with him. Reading this was like being unable to turn away from a train wreck. So many awful things happen in the duration of this story but I just couldn't stop. Then, the twist at the end where Martel leaves the reader wondering if it was all real just blew my mind.
5. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy - This may have taken me 6 months to finish but nonetheless it was well worth the read. The story is beautiful and tragic, and we can't help but sympathize with the toils women had to deal with in that time. I already knew how this one ended but it did not diminish the poignancy with which Tolstoy shows Anna's spiral into madness.

Library School definitely put a damper on my reading for the past year and a half. In 2012 I read 66 books, and in 2013 only 30. Granted, some of the books have been outrageously long books like Anna Karenina and Vanity Fair, but still. It looks like my favorite books from 2013 were dominated by young adult novels. It really is my favorite genre.

Reading Goal for 2014: Nonfiction!! I want to find a nonfiction book that I can like as much as I like a great novel. I've read a handful of nonfiction books but none have really kept my attention or made me want to read them. I basically end up browsing through the book. In addition, I definitely want to read more than I did in 2013. Only 30 books. Pitiful. I think a nice healthy reading goal is 50. (Zelda, we can try to recommend nonfiction to each other! And compete to see who makes it to 50 fastest!)

Nox

Five Favorite Books Read in 2013

1. Between Shades of Gray by Ruth Sepetys - This story of a teenage girl who is shipped to a Siberian work camp with her family and thousands of other Lithuanians moved me to tears multiple times. There was so much about the history behind this story that I wasn't aware of and the story of these survivors was incredibly inspiring.
2. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
3. NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
4. Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton - A very big concept SF book complete with alien swarms, sentient worlds, medical-enabled long life, inter-world portals that could easily have become unwieldy, but Hamilton keeps it grounded by focusing on the human condition. Normally I'm not a huge fan of something that is so purely science fiction, but the world building in this book blew me away.
5. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green - I'll admit, I was afraid to read this book for the longest time because of the hype - usually when everyone loves a book, I'm disappointed, but I'm happy to say this wasn't the case in this situation. Rarely does a book come along that deals with such a hard topic with the humor that John Green does with this book. Although I had been warned that this was a "crying book," I still wasn't able to adequately prepare myself for how moving the story was.

Wow, so I definitely read fewer books in 2013 than 2012. Who knew that grad school would take up so much of my free reading time. When I did find time, I wanted to numb it with terrible television rather than invest in a book. I also read some pretty terrible books this year that had come highly recommended. My two biggest disappointments were Wicked, which I started after seeing the musical last fall and couldn’t even finish and Forever, the classic book that I found waaaay too focused on sex.

Reading Goal for 2014: I've decided not to focus as heavily on numbers this year, but instead focus on reading widely. While taking a course on Young Adult literature last semester I realized just how few books I had read written by minorities or who had main characters of another race. Living in North Dakota means that my daily life is pretty homogenous, so my goal this year is to expand my horizons.

Madeleine

Five Favorite Books Read in 2013

1. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (the link will take you to a post my human alter-ego wrote for a public library blog, or you can read my review of the follow-up book on Owl You Need is a Good Read)
2. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
3. Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
4. Teaspoon of Earth and Sea by Dinah Nayeri
5. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

Struggling for some originality here, but grad school really cuts into the free reading time! I read 107 books in 2012 and only 70 books in 2013. I've already dissected my 2013 reading with charts and graphs. Honestly, it wasn't my best year for reading in more than just numbers. I liked all the books above, but I liked my top five books of 2012 a lot more. My worst book of the year was Vanity Fair, which I couldn't even finish. On a more positive note, I did reread several of my favorite books of all time: Jane Eyre, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and The Book Thief.

Reading Goal for 2014: 50. And I want to make it to at least 1945 in my Newbery Medal Reading Challenge. With the Newbery Challenge and potentially a Reader's Advisory class this summer, I think I should be able to make it over 50 books.

Never Have I Ever

I have a bit of guilt about this review. I got it as an ARC from NetGalley ages ago (okay, just January). Free book? Check. When I used it as my #FridayReads, Katie Heaney, the author, favorited my tweet. Author encouragement? Check. Then, when I rated the book on GoodReads and wrote "3.5 rounded up to 4 stars for GoodReads. Very funny. Longer review coming," she liked that. I get free books and encouragement; she gets radio silence in return.

The book in question in Never Have I Ever: My Life (So Far) Without a Date. Here's the official blurb:

"I've been single for my entire life. Not one boyfriend. Not one short-term dating situation. Not one person with whom I regularly hung out and kissed on the face." 

So begins Katie Heaney's memoir of her years spent looking for love, but never quite finding it. By age 25, equipped with a college degree, a load of friends, and a happy family life, she still has never had a boyfriend...and she's barely even been on a second date. 

Funny, relatable, and inspiring, this is a memoir for anyone who has ever struggled to find love, but has also had a lot of fun in the process.

So, I definitely didn't request that book because I also have enjoyed being single for roughly the same number of years. Or because the author was also from Minnesota. Or because I'm what Katie has termed a Bermuda Triangle ("It doesn’t mean to do any harm, and it’s actually pretty nice once you get to know it. It’s just that Bermuda doesn’t know how to handle itself when somebody sails into its territory, because that hardly ever happens.").

Nope. Not true. That's not why at all.

Never Have I Ever was hilarious. It routinely turned me into that weird girl laughing at her ereader on the bus or in the break room. Despite the fact that it sounds like a dating memoir, it's really much more about friendship with a healthy side of funny dating mishaps. Katie is funny, relatable (oh no, I'm parroting the blurb), slightly neurotic, and excellent at telling stories. She's someone with whom I would want to be friends. Proof:

• On online dating profiles: "I am no interests snob. I listed the Harry Potter books in order of how much I liked them in my 'favorite books' section, for God's sake."
• "I have lived twenty-five years in this body by myself, and I feel pretty confident that, by now, my personality is staying as it is. I'm going to continue enjoying plans and Post-its and clean, orderly spaces."
• "She was saying she was sorry that she couldn’t always hang out when I wanted to, but that 'when you get a boyfriend,' he becomes the only person you want to spend all your time with....“You’ll know what I mean, when you get one,” she said. So that’s when I gripped my upper jaw and pulled back the skin and muscle of my face to reveal an alien, like the one in the film Alien, and I jumped through the glass in Leigh’s window and ate every boyfriend in the city, and the country, and the world. I swallowed them whole, and many of them cried, and those were the ones I liked best."

Also, she comes right out and tells us "I'm not trying to be self-righteous about that, but I am literally the best friend a person could ask for..."

I'll stop throwing quotations from the book at you now. If you're looking for a light-hearted, funny read, Never Have I Ever is for you! You can find another excerpt on Refinery29.

3.5 Stars.

I received an ARC of Never Have I Ever through NetGalley.

My Year in Reading - 2013

We're back from a bit of a holiday-season hiatus with Madeleine, who's taking a look at what exactly she read in 2013.

Madeleine's Top Five Favorite Books of 2013

In alphabetical order by author's last name, because having to rank them further would be torture!

• Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
• Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
• Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
• Teaspoon of Earth and Sea by Dinah Nayeri
• Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (no review, sorry)

The Best Reread 

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (which won by a narrow margin after a rather fierce battle with Jane Eyre and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn).

Breaking Down the Numbers

• I read 70 books in 2013, just shy of my goal of 75 books. This number was a lot lower than last year, when I read a personal record of 107 books.

• I read a lot more fiction than non-fiction (83% fiction). Most books were new to me, but I did reread 7 books.
• My 56 distinct authors came from 12 countries around the world. 26 were from the US, 19 were from the UK, 2 were from Australia, and 1 came from each of the countries marked on the map below.
  
  
  
  
• As you can see, my reading was highly Eurocentric (something to work on!), with only 2 authors from the Middle East, 1 from South America and none from Africa or Asia.
• The oldest book(s) I read were originally published in 1847 (Agnes Grey and Jane Eyre) and the newest hasn't been published yet (The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches).
• Most of my books come from the library! This year, 71% of books I read were library books.
  
• My biggest genres were fantasy, mystery/thriller, and (unexpectedly) historical fiction this year.

My reading goal for 2014 is a more modest 50 books (slightly less than one a week). What about you? What were your favorite books of 2013? What are you looking forward to in 2014?

Revisiting The Book Thief (plus, a movie review)

"It's just a small story really, about, among other things:
*A girl
*Some words
*An accordionist
*Some fanatical Germans
*A Jewish fist fighter
*And quite a lot of thievery"

I usually mention The Book Thief when asked to list my favorite books. I don't remember where I heard about the book or why I picked it up, but I read it for the first time in 2009. And while I always mentioned it as a favorite, I knew I had forgotten many of the details. With the movie coming out, I decided to reread the book. Thankfully, the book was just as good as I remembered.

The Book Thief depicts daily life in Nazi Germany through the eyes of Liesel Meminger. Liesel and her brother are given up by their family (who are, it is implied, being persecuted by the Nazis for being communists) into the care of a foster family. However, Liesel's brother dies on the train journey and is buried quickly in a haphazard ceremony beside the tracks. As the unexpected funeral finishes, Liesel picks up a book that has fallen out of one of the grave digger's pockets and keeps it for herself. This is her first act of book thievery.

Liesel's new family consists of Hans and Rosa Hubermann, who struggle to make ends meet due to Hans's troubled standing with the local Nazi Party. Liesel also befriends the boy next door, Rudy Steiner, a rather incorrigible flirt who dreams of running like Jesse Owens.

When Liesel starts school, it becomes quickly apparent that she doesn't know how to read. When Hans discovers Liesel's stolen book, which turns out to be The Grave Digger's Handbook, he and Liesel begin middle-of-the-night reading lessons using the book, despite the fact that Hans is not a strong reader himself. The father/daughter relationship between Hans and Liesel is one of my favorite parts of the book (and the movie).

Midnight Reading Lessons with Liesel and Hans (Christopher Polk/Getty Images for DCP)

When World War II begins, life at the Hubermann's becomes more challenging. Rudy and Liesel are required to attend Hitler Youth meetings. Food becomes more scarce. Rosa, who earns money doing washing for others, begins to lose clients. Liesel steals another book from a Nazi-sponsored book burning, and befriends the mayor's wife, who lets her read from her library. The constant threat of bombing raids becomes a fact of life. And most importantly, the Hubermanns take in and hide Max, the son of a Jewish man who saved Hans's life in WWI, who becomes a sort-of brother to Liesel.

While the story and characters of The Book Thief alone are wonderful (don't worry, more book thievery happens), what makes the story unique is the narrator. The entire book is narrated by Death. Yes, Death. Death rather resignedly travels the world collecting the souls of the dying and trying not to pay attention to the reactions of those left behind. As the narrator, Death is very present in the story, inserting rather philosophical asides and comments. Also, Death does not believe in a no spoiler policy, and tells you bits (tragic bits) about how the story will end.

In my experience, Death as the narrator either works really well for readers, or comes off as gimmicky and disjointing for others. I personally love what Zusak did with the narration. If you're curious about it, Death is also in the movie, and there is a short clip of him that can be found here (sorry, it won't let me embed it for you): http://zusakbooks.tumblr.com/post/67057754417/if-death-could-have-a-business-card-it-could-look

Speaking of the movie, I got to attend an advance screening just over a week ago. They are slowly releasing the movie to more and more theaters, so keep an eye out for it over the next few weeks. I thought the movie was wonderful.

Geoffrey Rush plays Hans Hubermann alongside a new, young actress, Sophie Nelisse, who plays Liesel. Rush makes a perfect Hans--quiet, understanding, thoughtful, honest, with a touch of humor and playfulness, and his relationship with Liesel in the movie feels very real. Rudy, Max, and Rosa are all very well-acted as well. Rudy is absolutely adorable, and has the same energy he has in the book. Watching the friendship grow between Liesel and Max actually drew out the similarities in their stories in a way that I never pulled out from the books before. And it would have been especially easy to flatten Rosa's character, but Emily Watson is wonderful. The movie is also visually rich and beautiful, as is the soundtrack (John Williams). 

It's been awhile, but I'm still thinking about the movie. It's a bit slow-moving and they've had to cut out a good bit of the book. However, The Book Thief really captures the spirit of the book, and the relationships between all the characters. Just like the book, the movie had me in tears. I did manage not to sob in the theater, though, which I feel is a great accomplishment.

I'd definitely read the book first, if you are able (I'm looking at you, Zelda). But if not, The Book Thief also makes a stunning movie.

Bellman & Black

'Bellman & Black' is the new novel by Diane Setterfield, author of 'The Thirteenth Tale'. The story opens with the incident around which the entire plots twists. While his three friends watch, William Bellman makes a perfect shot with his catapult, striking and killing a rook in a faraway tree. While his friends are impressed, the day is mostly forgotten and William grows. William's work ethic, problem-solving attitude, people skills, and ability to learn things quickly serves him well, and he becomes an extraordinarily successful businessman and industrialist. He also falls in love and has a family.

However, as his star rises, there always seems to be a rook around. People around him start dying, and at all the funerals Bellman attends, there is a strange man in black watching. Eventually, tragedy strikes closer to home, and Bellman makes a deal with 'Black'. Professionally, his success continues, but things are never the same after that.

The official blurb for the book calls 'Bellman & Black' a "heart-thumpingly perfect ghost story, beautifully and irresistibly written, its ratcheting tension exquisitely calibrated line by line." While the book was well-written, it was less eerie than I wanted. I expected an atmospheric book, with a slightly gothic feel (along the lines of Carlos Ruiz Zafon or Erin Morgenstern). I did not feel any "ratcheting tension" at all. The story was slow-moving and quotidian. Setterfield scattered references to rooks in the background of Bellman's life, watching him, but it was obvious from the beginning where the story was going. There was no sense of mystery, and the supernatural was barely present.

'Bellman & Black' was very character-driven, particularly by the main character, William Bellman. I found Will a bit dull. Most of the book was devoted to his business decisions--becoming head of the mill, arranging for food for his workers, constructing his mourning emporium, doing paperwork, setting business goals. There was too much detail about his work life, and he didn't have an interesting character to carry the business details.

Yet, I loved the last 20 pages. In the last 20 pages, the atmosphere, the emotion, the mystery that was missing for the book finally appeared. Had the entire book been written like the end, it would have lived up to its description. In fact, I think 'Bellman & Black' might have worked better as a short story or novella.

I've only heard wonderful things about Setterfield's first book, 'The Thirteenth Tale,' and I still intend to go back and read it someday. 'Bellman & Black' might be a good book for people who like fantasy or supernatural without a lot of gothic embellishment and flowery language. People interested slow-growing family dramas may also be interested as well.

2.5 stars.

I received an ARC of Bellman & Black through NetGalley. Bellman & Black will be released on November 5th, 2013.

Flavia, Flavia, Flavia

Cozy murder mysteries usually aren't my genre, but I absolutely adore the Flavia de Luce series. Flavia is a precocious, eccentric eleven year old growing up in 1950s England. Her greatest passions in life are studying chemistry, particularly poisons, and devising ways to poison her older sisters--Feely (Ophelia) and Daffy (Daphne). Being unusually bright, she has a great talent for worming her way into other people's business, exasperating the local Inspector, and solving murders while bicycling around on a bike she has christened Gladys.

I love her.

The book trailer above captures Flavia rather well, but here are a few more quotes from the first book.

Flavia, on her future book:

“If there is a thing I truly despise, it is being addressed as "dearie." When I write my magnum opus, A Treatise Upon All Poison, and come to "Cyanide," I am going to put under "Uses" the phrase "Particularly efficacious in the cure of those who call one 'Dearie.”

Flavia, on being the youngest daughter:

“It is not unknown for fathers with a brace of daughters to reel off their names in order of birth when summoning the youngest, and I had long ago become accustomed to being called 'Ophelia Daphne Flavia, damn it.”

 (Having grown up in a similar "brace of daughters," I can tell you that the dynamics among the sisters are spot on and hilarious in these books.)

Flavia, on self defense:

“I remembered a piece of sisterly advice, which Feely once gave Daffy and me: "If ever you're accosted by a man," she'd said, "kick him in the Casanovas and run like blue blazes!" 

Although it had sounded at the time like a useful bit of intelligence, the only problem was that I didn't know where the Casanovas were located.

I'd have to think of something else.”

The series so far consists of:
1. Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
2. The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag
3. A Red Herring Without Mustard
4. I Am Half-Sick of Shadows 
5. Speaking From Among the Bones
6. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches (January 2014)

The books are quick reads, but are also wonderful to listen to (the narration in the book trailer above comes directly from the audiobook)! Books 1 through 4 build on each other, but I think they could be read in any order. That changes with book 5, which broke the mold and ended on a major cliff-hanger.

Which brings me to 'The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches'. The point of this entire review.

I was so excited to get an advance copy from NetGalley, I moved it to the top of my reading list. It was an excellent book. But I don't know how to review it in advance without spoiling anything. So, here are some spoiler-free thoughts (after the jump) about the book. Once it has been published, I hope to return with a more detailed review.

Septemb-Eyre (Chapters 30-End)

And we're done! I'm happy to say that Jane Eyre remains one of my favorite books. In fact, I probably liked it more on a second reading.

I was surprised by how much I had forgotten about this section of the book. I remembered that Jane runs away, finds some people who end up to be her cousins, and almost goes to India with St. John. I remembered St. John as a much nicer character though. In my head, he was a bit strict and uptight, but also caring and a bit more understanding. The real St. John was unrelenting, cold, and judgmental. Quite honestly, I don't know how Jane put up with him so long. Living under the scrutiny, guilt trips, and impossibly high moral standards would wear me out very quickly. I cheered a bit when Jane told St. John she scorned his idea of love.

Jane realizes that marriage with St. John would be a very bad idea. Thanks to some psychic communication of some sort, Jane ends up back with Rochester. And thanks to a several very convenient occurrences, Jane has inherited money from a long-lost relative, found family via the same long-lost relative (a least good female cousins), and Rochester has found himself able to marry again due to the death of his first wife in a fire she started herself. I had to laugh a bit at Jane's reaction to gaining a fortune:

One does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah! at hearing one has got a fortune; one begins to consider responsibilities, and to ponder business; on a base of steady satisfaction rise certain grave cares, and we contain ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn brow.

Jane would certainly make an unusual lottery winner, would she not? Most tellingly, Jane is much more excited by acquiring family (via Diana, Mary, and St. John) than wealth. This is what Jane has truly been lacking her entire life.

It may be of no moment to you; you have sisters and don't care for a cousin; but I had nobody; and now three relations...are born into my world full-grown. I say again, I am glad!

In previous parts of the book, I mentioned how the relationship between Jane and Rochester makes me a bit uncomfortable at times. Once Jane and Rochester are reunited, I'm much more comfortable with them together. In fact, I'm fully in the Jane-Rochester camp, because they come to it as equals. Jane is not dependent upon him for employment, money, or her sole source of companionship. She has the means to support herself and has family and friends outside of Thornfield/Ferndean. More tellingly, she's not holding him at a distance this time. Reader, she married him.

Want More Jane Eyre?

While I had only read Jane Eyre once prior to this, I've read several other novels that involve Jane Eyre, all of them very different. If you just can't get enough of Jane, check one of these out!

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
I'll be honest. I remember maybe 5% of this book. I read it in an AP English lit class, possibly as an example of postcolonial literature. I was unused to the style of writing and had not read Jane Eyre, so the book made very little sense to me. It's pretty short, and college gave me an appreciation for postcolonial lit, so I have it sitting on my bookshelf to be revisited. Wide Sargasso Sea is a prequel/parallel to Jane Eyre--it tells the story of Bertha Mason (name Antoinette Cosway in WSS) up to her marriage with Rochester, humanizing the woman who otherwise serves as a plot device locked up in an attic.

The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey
The Flight of Gemma Hardy is a recently published book that retells the story of Jane Eyre in 1960s Scotland. For the first part of the book, Livesey stays very close to Jane Eyre. I enjoyed finding the connections at first, although it got a bit old and forced in the middle. Gemma becomes an au pair in the Orkney Islands where she falls in love with her employer, Mr. Sinclair. The age difference between them is maintained--and it does not work quite as well in the 1960s.

I loved Gemma just as much as I love Jane, and my favorite parts were when Livesey wasn't trying as hard to replicate Jane Eyre and told Gemma's story instead. At the end, the novel takes Gemma into Iceland to discover her family history and herself. Also, Livesey does such a beautiful job of describing landscapes and the feelings that different places in Scotland and Iceland evoke throughout the book, I was ready to hop on a plane at the end to see them for myself.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
How does one describe the Thursday Next series? If you like off-the-wall humor, more literary references than you can count, comic fantasy, or book and grammar jokes, you should check out this series. Basically, the series is set in an alternate universe where the Crimean War is still going on, people have dodo birds for pets, and it's possible for a few people to read their way into the world of books and interact with the characters. Thursday is a literary detective for SpecOps in the outside world initially, and ends up being a literary detective within the BookWorld (with Miss Havisham as a mentor) in future books. In The Eyre Affair, the villain, Acheron Hades, kidnaps Jane Eyre from her book. This is particularly troublesome because the story is told in first-person, which means the BookWorld can't just get any old character to stand in for her. Thursday has to figure out how to enter the novel and stop Acheron. It's great, and the following novels are even better!

This post is part of the Septemb-Eyre Read-Along hosted on Entomology of a Bookworm. Be sure to check out what other bloggers had to say, and an extra special thanks to Kerry for hosting the readalong!