Quotable

Booking Through Thursday asks,

“Do you have a favorite quote from a book?”

I actually look for quotes in many of the books I read because I’ve long wanted a literary quote as a tattoo. Unfortunately, the quotes that speak to me and stick with me most are not things that I want to tattoo on myself. Case in point, here is one of my favorite quotes, from Octavian Nothing:

At long last, you may no longer distinguish what binds you from what is you.

That may be a quote that is more powerful in context, but idgaf because I know the context. It is a quote that still makes my heart ache every time I read it. But you can see what I mean about perhaps not being the sort of thing a person would want permanently inked on their body?

Cheap books!

First up because I don’t know how long it will last, but Shannon Hale’s Book of a Thousand Days is a mere 99 cents on Amazon and Barnes & Noble (ebook only). I shouldn’t have to tell you again how much I love this book. It is my favorite Hale (though I haven’t read them all) and in the top five of my favorite YA books. I love this book. So did Mia. So will you. And it’s cheap. Go buy it.

Also, and you probably all know this, but Amazon is doing a huge June sale: 400 Kindle books priced between $0.99 and $2.99. It ends June 24th, so go hurry and take a look!

My Miss Marple Readthrough Begins!

I was inspired by the amazing Sarah Rees Brennan’s post on Miss Marple to read through all of her books (Miss Marple’s, that is). My mom is a huge mystery reader and has a LOT of Agatha Christies, so I set out to gather all of the Marples I could find. I don’t know if she has all of them, but I’m sure I can supplement with the library if anything is missing.

Side note before we begin: I tried to find the correct covers (aka the ones I have) for these, but every Christie has been republished to the moon and back and I was only able to find the right one for the third book and I am too lazy to do the scans myself. OH WELL just consider this a purposeful medley.

OKAY first up are The Tuesday Club Murders, a collection of short stories in which Christie introduced Miss Marple. Every week, Miss Marple, her nephew and his girlfriend, and a few other people get together and tell stories of “some mystery of which they have personal knowledge, and to which, of course, they know the answer.” Everybody else is to guess the answer and then the storyteller of the week reveals the truth. Miss Marple, who everybody underestimates and indeed they assume she won’t even want to play, solves every single one through her intimate knowledge of human behavior. She makes parallels from village life in St Mary Mead and, most importantly, never assumes people are good. Or evil.

There’s not a whole lot to say about the stories. Murder mysteries short stories are hard to pull off and, while Christie does a good job of setting up little mysteries, fails pretty well at making you care about anybody. Part of the problem is that murder mysteries of the era were already emotionally detached and having less time with the characters doesn’t help matters.

Still, these are fun and short (derp derp I am so smart) and introduce some important characters in the later books. Jane Marple, of course, but also her nephew Raymond West (a novelist) and Sir Henry Clithering, an ex-Commissioner of Scotland Yard who becomes a great fan of Jane’s.

It feel particularly silly, really, to give a plot summary/blurb for Christie novels. You know exactly what is going to be inside: witty, rich, white people, one of whom will die and one of whom will kill and one of whom will solve.

The Murder at the Vicarage is from the point of view of the vicar, Clement. He and his new young wife, Griselda, were two of my favorite characters in the book. I suppose this isn’t a surprise to anybody, but I love reading about relationships, especially healthy and supportive ones. Clement and Griselda have their issues, but their relationship throughout the book is pretty consistently strong even through the trying situation of having a murder occur in their house and both being under suspicious of the murder.

Anyway, I liked this one a lot! Best out of the three. Seriously I don’t have anything intelligent to say, just go back to the Sarah Rees Brennan link and read what she has to say!

And lastly we have The Body in the Library. It’s a third shorter than MatV, which at least partially accounts for me liking it a lot less. Plus this one is third person omniscient, so we’re even further away from the emotional life of the characters.

I also just kind of wasn’t enthralled by the pacing of the plot. We start off with a body, claro, but it takes quite a while to get to the primary setting and even longer to get any useful clues/knowledge. It felt like it took 2/3rds of the book to introduce all of the relevant characters, which means that there was little time to properly get to know them and develop theories and do the things you do when you read a murder mystery.

OTOH, it’s a Christie. And Miss Marple is always full of awesome. I have no doubt I’ll enjoy many of the rest of the books! The Moving Finger is up next, but I’m taking a short break to read other things.

Lastly, I’m 100% with Sarah when she says that Joan Hickson is the only Miss Marple. Dare to suggest otherwise and, uh, I’ll do something bad to you.

Or maybe I’ll get the ghost of Joan Hickson to haunt you!

Now My For Reals Short Reviews (Or Not)

You will find enclosed: Three short reviews for Taylor’s Tempation (a Romance novel) and the first two Miss Marple books*.

From Amazon: “Bobby Taylor is a Navy SEAL, and his best friend is his swim buddy, Wes Skelly. As Wes ships out on an assignment, he asks Bobby to go to Boston to look out for his younger sister, Colleen, who is doing stuff that has big brother in overprotective mode. Bobby goes, but is full of reservations because his feelings for Colleen Skelly are far from brotherly.”

First off, the whole reason I read this book is cause the heroine is big & tall, and as a 5’10” tall woman, I was feeling a little desperate for representation. But this cover? Makes her look 5’5″. Makes ME grouchy.

Books about Navy SEALs are popular. So much so, that I wouldn’t be surprised if there were way more fictional SEALs that real ones. I don’t really get it, but then, I don’t enjoy romantic suspense much and these SEAL books are all romantic suspense. (I could have sworn I had written about why I don’t like romantic suspense, but I can’t find it! Anybody else want to take a look? If not, I’ll have to write about it soon. I have Opinions, ya’ll.) This book gets a pass on my normal worries (that romance built in times of intensity is at least partially based on those intense times and I need EXTRA proof that what the characters are building is going to last. And no, a happy epilogue is not proof.) because the hero and heroine have known each other for years.

Also, if I remember correctly, the hero is Native, so that’s cool. Unfortunately, any coolness of having a MOC as the hero is pretty well negated by the suspense part of the plot, which involves them going to a dangerous developing country to do Good and there were Poor Brown Children and shit. Guys, I am white. I am interested in making the world a better place for all. But my whiteness doesn’t make me some magical being that can go to a third-world country (which is a problematic term to begin with) and have flowers bloom at my feet and heal people just by touching them. My whiteness isn’t a virtue when it comes to helping people and it certainly doesn’t replace actual education and talking to, you know, the people that I want to help. And it doesn’t make me a saint if I did any of the above. Colleen is not a saint for helping the poor brown children, no matter what this book says.

The suspense part of the book, which I am lambasting for the above reasons, was a disaster, but it is thankfully a small part of the book, at least for the genre. My other main complaint is that Colleen is that type of woman who disregards her own personal safety in an irritatingly flippant way. But seriously, overall, I thought it was a pretty alright book. Especially if you like romantic suspense and/or want to read a romance with a “stacked,” tall heroine.

*Man, this turned out fairly long too. I guess Miss Marple will have to wait for tomorrow!

Free books!

First up, Tor has a free YA SF&F anthology called Fierce Reads that you can get more info on over here. (via bookshelves of doom)

Sync YA is all about YA audiobooks and to celebrate their launch they are giving away TWO free audiobooks every week for ten weeks! One of the books in each pair will be YA and the other will be a related classic. For instance, this week’s offerings are The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. The first is a dystopia/apocalypse story where 2/3 of the world’s population has died from a lethal flu and the second, which I probably don’t even need to tell you about, is basically the seminal piece of literature of the Great Depression. Here is the link straight to the download page and here is the link for the schedule. (Mia – go look at week 6! I was giggling when I saw it.) (via The Shady Glade)

Skinned by Robin Wasserman

I have been so lax in reviewing, guys.  Hell, I’ve been lax in blogging, period. Partially I just haven’t been reading a whole lot (I fee like this always happens), but also I just haven’t been feeling the need to share my opinions.

Anyway, here’s a short selection, as collected from reviews I’ve started and not finished. It may be a little rough, since I read these as far back as January (!):

From Amazon: “Lia Kahn was perfect: rich, beautiful, popular — until the accident that nearly killed her. Now she has been downloaded into a new body that only looks human. Lia will never feel pain again, she will never age, and she can’t ever truly die. But she is also rejected by her friends, betrayed by her boyfriend, and alienated from her old life.”

Robin Wasserman was sweet enough to send me a whole set of her Skinned trilogy when she needed to make room for its repackaging into the Cold Awakening trilogy. I wanted to read the whole trilogy before reviewing it, but my reading whims cannot be tamed and I have still only read the first one.

You might be thinking that that’s a bad sign, but that’s just not the case with me. I like to read series’ slowly. For instance, I read The Hunger Games way back in January of 2009, didn’t read Catching Fire until last year, and am only getting to Mockingjay now.  I read the first Temeraire book a couple of years ago and enjoyed it a lot… And I still haven’t read any of the others. Throne of Jade has been waiting for me in the trunk of my car for quite a while. Poor thing.

Anyway, I did enjoy Skinned, though not as much as I hoped I would. I was intrigued by the premise – your mind downloaded into a new body that is way too Uncanny Valley for the comfort of yourself or your loved ones. Unfortunately, Lia is the wrong character for the kind of identity ruminations I wanted. In many ways, I think Lia is super realistic in her reactions and not dissimilar to me, actually. She spends a good portion of the book trying to ignore the implications of her situation, most of the rest simply being angry and sad, and she is generally more focused on how the people in her life see her than how she sees herself.

That last, especially, seems realistic. Lia doesn’t know what to think of her situation. She’s freaked out and confused and so takes cues from her family and friends. If they treated her normally, then maybe she was normal. Maybe she could start to feel normal. Unfortunately, it becomes quickly clear that things aren’t normal, that she isn’t normal, that nothing is alright.

There’s a lot more to the book, setting up the plot of the next two, introducing new characters who are like her, etc etc. But I almost wish this had been a quieter book. Perhaps a standalone that focused more on Lia and her immediate surroundings. You know, one of those literary family dramas full of dysfunction. Still, it is what it is, and because I love dystopias (oh, did I mention that this is a dystopia?), I know I will be reading the other books eventually!

Okay, well, this turned out longer than I meant it to, so I’m just going to end it here and go write those other reviews RIGHT NOW and QUEUE THOSE BABIES UP oh yeah that’s right.

Links x2

(Jessica: I just found this post that I wrote back in MARCH, but never published! Shame on me! Still, these are all great links, so I’ll just go ahead and publish it now.)

As a romance reader, I know intimately the embarrassment of people trashing those purple-prosed bodice-rippers. I’m not embarrassed that I read romance, but who wants to constantly defend a genre against people who are only interested in making fun and not interested in a new point of view? In Feb, SB Sarah wrote about reader shaming. She quotes a reviewer of her latest book: Never feel guilty for reading something. A book can mean anything to anyone.
I’d like to add to that: Never feel guilty for loving something. What a book means to you is no less importance for someone else’s opinion.

Keeping with romance novels, here’s a video for Maya Rodale’s Dangerous Books for Girls: The Bad Reputation of Romance Novels, Explained.

Ya’ll, I’m in love with this video. It just makes me want to punch my fish in the air and shout, “GO WOMEN!!!”

Have any of you heard of Science in my Fiction? It’s a great blog aimed towards writers of all sorts, though more SF&F, who want to inject a bit of real science into their work. In Feb they did a post on dragons that will give you a good idea what they’re about!

Afterlives of the Saints by Colin Dickey

Afterlives of the Saints: Stories from the Ends of Faith

by Colin Dickey

“Afterlives of the Saints is a woven gathering of groundbreaking essays that move through Renaissance anatomy and the Sistine Chapel, Borges’ “Library of Babel,” the history of spontaneous human combustion, the dangers of masturbation, the pleasures of castration, “and so forth” — each essay focusing on the story of a particular (and particularly strange) saint.” (via Amazon)

Good Things: As the above summary says, this book is a collection of essays, each about a particular saint–but this book departs from traditional hagiography (biographical writings about saints) in that, while each essay includes each saint’s story, the true focus is generally the cultural impact or relevance the particular saint gained post-canonization. This is an interesting direction to take, and gives the author freedom to cover a lot of ground, which he does: discussion of Saint Paula leads to Chaucer’s depictions of women; discussion of Saint Lawrence leads to the often-confusing iconography of saints in general (Lawrence was burnt alive over a gridiron, and so is depicted carrying one, which has alarmingly led to his becoming the patron saint of barbecues); discussion of Saint Bartholomew, flayed alive, leads to the evolution of the study of anatomy. Despite being a distinctly unreligious person myself, I have a lot of interest in the way that different religions and pieces of religions shape world cultures and how we live, and Afterlives of the Saints is right up my alley.

There’s a decent amount of the juicy details, too–I like to imagine that, like me, at least a decent number of people who seek out stories of saints are interested in the weird and gory details of their martyrdom, like Saint Lucy and her gouged-out eyes or Saint Agatha and her cut-off breasts. The book doesn’t shy away from these, and often helpfully provides images of paintings discussed in the text, so we get to see Saint Sebastian pierced by arrows in all his weirdly sexy glory. It also doesn’t shy away from the strange and myriad connections saints have to the rest of history. Pornography, castration, masturbation, racism, and all sorts of other complex subjects come up, and I appreciated the frank (and non-moralizing) treatment of all of the above.

Plus, I just plain like collections of essays. The variety of topics keeps things interesting, while the overarching theme mostly brings it all back around in the end. I thought it would be something that I would pick up and put down frequently over the course of a month, an essay here and an essay there, but I actually ended up reading it almost straight through over the course of two or three days. Saints are fascinating! I would, however, caution against reading it in the wee hours just before going to sleep, however. Reading about Bartholomew being skinned is one thing, but dreaming about it is entirely another.

Bad Things: Unfortunately, I felt like the essays didn’t really hit their stride until Part Two. The book is divided into five Parts, with Part One covering saints that have written things, Parts Two and Three covering saints that inspired art and literature, Part Four covering “the wide range of beliefs [certain saints] encompassed,” and Part Five covering some non-saints, those who were not formally canonized but who are of interest despite (and partially because of) their non-sainthood. While I found Part One interesting, particularly as a former student of Literature, I felt like the essays in this section tended to wander a bit more, and didn’t feel as tightly written as the later sections. I still enjoyed them, but didn’t feel that they would draw a standard reader into the book as easily. When the book is at its strongest, it is fun interesting, fun, and informative, but occasionally the essays get either a bit didactic or a bit muddled, which both serve to draw one out of the text.  I also occasionally disagreed with the conclusions the author came to about this or that saint, but that’s not so much a “bad thing” as “humans having differing opinions,” so I won’t count that against him.

Overall:  In the prologue, Dickey writes, “I, too, am uninterested in writing that downplays the humanity of the saint in favor of God’s divinity. For me, saints exist not as a medium for God but as a lens for humanity.” The essays that come after serve this vision well–even when the essays stray from the original topic, they always get to the heart of the universal nature of the saints’ stories, whether some of them were real people who actually existed or whether they are simply symbols of a certain place and time. We see what the saints meant and continue to mean to people, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, and how they interest and inspire and connect us through all sorts of media. It connects pornography, spontaneous human combustion, WWII, and Margery Kemp’s endless torrent of tears, and through that, this book makes me see the web of the world.

Disclosure: I received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley. Afterlives of the Saints is available now.

Beauty, by Robin McKinley

Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast

by Robin McKinley

“Beauty has never liked her nickname. She is thin and awkward; it is her two sisters who are the beautiful ones. But what she lacks in looks, she can perhaps make up for in courage.

When her father comes home with the tale of an enchanted castle in the forest and the terrible promise he had to make to the Beast who lives there, Beauty knows she must go to the castle, a prisoner of her own free will. Her father protests that he will not let her go, but she answers, “Cannot a Beast be tamed?”

Robin McKinley’s beloved telling illuminates the unusual love story of a most unlikely couple: Beauty and the Beast.” (via Amazon)

Good Things: Okay, you guys know the story. You probably even know Robin McKinley’s version of the story, if you’re the kind of person who reads book blogs. But, you guys!!! This is the fourth Robin McKinley book I’ve read, and she continues to impress me with her…her Robin McKinley-ness. I might even like Beauty better than I liked Chalice, Deerskin, or The Hero and the Crown. Let’s figure out why, shall we?

I think the most immediate thing is that Beauty has a waaaaay better support system at home than the heroines of the other three books I’ve read. Okay, so Aerin in The Hero and the Crown has her father and Tor, but she is also pretty much feared and/or hated by everybody else. Beauty, on the other hand, has a family that loves and supports her–a dead mother, of course, but a pretty stable father and two pretty stable sisters, and friendly, supportive townsfolk besides. Beauty works hard to support them in turn, not just out of duty but out of love. And, you know, it’s nice! Human relationships and simple interactions are one of McKinley’s (many) strengths, and they really shine through in Beauty–which isn’t to say that there aren’t some lovely interactions and relationships in her other novels, but Beauty is coming from a different place than Mirasol, Lissar, and Aerin do, and consequently has different strengths and challenges.

Beauty isn’t so different from McKinley’s other heroines, though. As with her other novels, a large portion of the story has to do with Beauty’s personal growth as she discovers hidden strengths inside herself and really comes into her own. She changes during her time living at the Beast’s enchanted castle, and that change benefits the Beast and ultimately breaks his curse, but in the end, she changes for herself. And that’s one of the things I love most about McKinley’s heroines.

Plus, I really liked the alternate history/future thing that McKinley let us onto with Beauty’s studying, and the not-yet-written books in the Beast’s castle. WHAT! I love the idea of Sophocles existing in the same world as magic and goblins and crap.

Bad Things: Do I sound incredibly suck-uppy if I can’t think of any? There’s a cat on my lap and she’s making it hard to type. It’s a bit short, and Beauty doesn’t quite have the bite of McKinley’s later books (Beauty being her first). The story is pretty quiet and gentle, and the ending, despite some of the drama, ends pretty quietly and gently–there aren’t any towering battles or end-of-the-world magical showdowns. Only a dubious Beauty, a troubled Beast, and a loving family.

Overall:  Sweet! Smart! Beauty is a heroine with punch and sass and I like the heck out of her and her family, and I even like the Beast too. McKinley fleshes the story out and makes it more complex, and I like that too. Go read it if you haven’t! It’ll only take an afternoon or so, and I don’t think you’ll regret it.