Cinder by Marissa Meyer

I know that I'm not the only reader out there with a TBR stack nearly as tall as I am (or maybe even taller). Really, are you even a book lover if you don't have dozens of books on standby just waiting to be read? Last year, I received The Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer in a book gift exchange (my favorite kind!) and I am finally getting started with them. I don't read a lot of YA anymore, but I thought it would be a nice, easy read during such a busy time of year.

Beginning with Cinder, I jumped into this futuristic, fantastical reimagining of classic fairytales. Cinder, a talented machinic, is a cyborg and cyborgs are treated with utter contempt from all the "real" humans in society, from the other vendors in the market to her adoptive "family". She has no memory of her life before it was saved through the surgery that turned her into a cyborg, but since then she has lived with a horrible step-mother and two step-sisters, one awful and one very sweet and kind. When Cinder is called upon to repair the Prince's android, her life takes a very unexpected turn. She finds herself in the middle of an intergalactic conflict and fighting a deadly plague all at the same time.

This book was fun and quick to read. I found myself trying to guess who each character was meant to represent from the original story, but it wasn't always obvious- much to the credit of Meyer. The storyline is unexpected enough to keep it interesting. I was especially pleased to learn that the series covers several fairytales and the storyline continues throughout the series rather than wrapping up each tale neatly at the end of its book. I've been in a bit of a book funk lately and this light, fun series may be just the thing to end the year and begin a new one. 

Hazards of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates

I can't remember where I first heard about Hazards of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates, but I'm sure it was on a list of "top books you have to read this year" or some such article. The premise caught my attention right away: a dystopian time travel book set in an obsessively controlled near future.

Adriane Strohl is a high school senior living in a time when thinking for oneself is not a reputation anyone would have wished to have; when Skin Tone is ranked from ST1 to ST10 and used as classification for a person's level of social and intellectual class; when boy students are always smarter than girl students. This is a time when the reckoning of time itself has been reset, starting with the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, and when Homeland Security now rules the day and all "rights" are subject to reconsideration in light of Patriot Act-esque regulations. This is an extremely "democratic" society where everyone has a "vote", but those quotation marks are no mistake. Anyone who votes contrary to the wishes of the government is marked as Subversive and suffers the most terrible punishments. Even the president, chosen by the Patriot Party not by individuals, enjoys a 95%- 99% approval rating. All information is controlled by the government and all communication is monitored. Education has become 80% standardized testing and all formerly public lands and National Parks are now privately owned- trespassing upon which is punishable by death.

This novel had a fascinating concept but the execution was absolutely atrocious. The writing was terrible, which I found shocking since Oates is such an accomplished writer. I have never read anything else she has written, but her reputation is stellar. I kept hoping I would adjust to the voice she attempted for the main character, but it was exceptionally irritating. The random use of unnecessary parenthetical sentence structure was disruptive to the flow rather than enhancing of the statement. The book flap also includes the phrase "exquisitely wrought love story" and I couldn't disagree more. The "romance" couldn't have been less romantic.

Set in a time and place when ultra-conservative ideals have run rampant, this imagining of what the future could hold should have been compelling. Instead it was a wasted opportunity. I kept waiting to get to the point in this story that I was enjoying it, but it never came. It makes me sad to review a book so harshly, but I feel responsible to you, SmartGirls, to be completely honest. 

The Shell Seekers by Rosmunde Pilcher

The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher is named for the last unknown painting of famous artist Lawrence Stern which is owned by his daughter Penelope. Having reached the ripe old age of sixty-four, two of Penelope's children think it is time she sell the artwork and go ahead and pass the proceeds on to them. An epic novel, this book delves somewhat deeply into a variety of characters and takes a long swim in the past where we follow Penelope's journey through WWII, her marriage, the loss of friends and family members, and the building of new friendships and relationships.

I have strongly mixed feelings about this book. The story was good, the characters were interesting, some I loved and some I loathed, but the book was just too long. Especially the first half of the book I felt was extraordinarily slow to start and it made it difficult to get into it and want to continue reading. I persisted simply because it was a book club selection, otherwise I would probably have let this one go. I did enjoy meeting the characters and hearing about Penelope's life. I do think this is a book that some people would really love, but it would likely help to know it requires an investment in time, but that it is worth it in the end.

The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell

The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell follows the last remaining Brontë, Samantha Whipple, as she begins her education at Oxford. Samantha has inherited her late father's obsession with the Brontës and is determined to understand what it is her father wanted her to learn from them. She is also fighting the rest of the world's fascination with the missing Brontë fortune and the assumption that Samantha herself is hiding it, depriving the world of secret diaries and paintings by the Brontë sisters. Samantha attempts for a few years to fulfill her familial destiny and become a writer herself. She is sadly disappointed in her efforts:

And yet I couldn't produce anything of value. Now that I could say anything I wanted, I had nothing to contribute I was unable to take advantage of the intellectual emancipation for which my own ancestors had struggled so fearlessly I had taken the freedom Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Brontë and Mary Wollstonecraft had sent me, and thrown it right back at them. 

For that, I knew I would never be forgiven.

I learned so much about the Brontë family from this book that I never knew. For instance, this tidbit:

...Charlotte was the eldest, the most famous, and the ringleader of the family. Four foot eleven. Strong, opinionated, admirable. The entrepreneur. A real nineteenth- century ballbuster. Jane Eyre was her brainchild. Mr. Martin didn't bother mentioning that it was the sort of novel you adored as a child and then misunderstood for the rest of your life.

This last comment really hit home with me, as does this statement from Samantha's professor at Oxford:

"I will wager a guess and assume that, like most women your age, this was your favorite novel growing up."

Oh, was Jane Eyre my favorite novel! And I thought it made me so original! All the other girls I knew thought Pride and Prejudice was the best on offer from classic literature, which I considered highly overrated. Instead, I latched on to the dark and mysterious Jane Eyre with the brooding love interest and tortured heroine. Still, it wasn't so dark as Wuthering Heights, which I thought was just miserable. Oh, I thought I was so clever to recognize the best of the classical novels presented in high school English class, but according to Professor Orville, I was just another cliché. 

I have always thought that certain books have season of their own. Some are beach reads, some are for fall. I would classify this as a Winter book.  Set in cold, rainy Oxford and with such a dark take on some of literature's most revered women writers, I think it is probably best suited to January, the most melancholy of months in my opinion. (My, see how my writing so quickly assumes that of the book I've most recently read. Or attempts to, at any rate.)

For the first half to two-thirds of this book, I really enjoyed the main character. She's smart and snide and sarcastic and she doesn't play into anyone's expectations of her. By the end, however, I had lost interest in her. There are twists and turns, and while they are surprising, none are enough to make this book what I had expected it would be as I read the first half. I liked it, but I didn't love it. If you are a huge Brontë fan, this book might hold more interest for you, but be prepared to have some of your images of those famous writers shaken.

What I've Heard- All the Harry Potter Books

It has been a while since I've posted a What I've Heard and that is because I've been very busy listening to ALL of the Harry Potter books as narrated by Jim Dale. I love these audio books. They are so sweet and wonderful and I get so happy every time I hear the intro music. I listen to them about every two years or so and it is always such a wonderful experience.

They make me laugh and cry every time.

I have heard that there are people who prefer the Stephen Fry narration, but I will always be a Jim Dale devotee. The way that he voices the characters makes it sound as though he is surrounded by an entire cast of actors. The experience is so vivid that I sometimes forget if a part of the story is something that is in the movies or only from the audio books. Even if you have read the Harry Potter series, and maybe especially if you have, I highly recommend spending some time at the knee of Jim Dale and absorbing the story anew.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

As difficult as it is for me to believe, I have never read anything by Agatha Christie. Given that she wrote sixty-six novels and fourteen short story collections, it's a mystery how I have thus far missed out on them. I assure you it was unintentional. That all changed this week with my first Christie novel, And Then There Were None. In this murder mystery we meet ten characters who are all invited to a mansion on a prestigious island. These ten people appear to have nothing in common, and yet the reader learns of just one quality they all have very much alike. They all have a terrible secret and one by one they each will die for their secret. But who could be the killer? Only the dead can be assured of their innocence.

Christie wrote this book in 1940 and I couldn't help but think of the similarities to Clue. It was fun trying to guess who could be the killer, but the book wasn't as intriguing as I had hoped it would be. This was a very fast read, but a fun one. This would make an excellent vacation read or for a time you might not want to concentrate too much. Christie herself says at the beginning of the version I read how very pleased she is with the novel because only she knows how complicated it was to write with all the twists and turns and red herrings. I didn't love this book and I don't know if I'll rush right out to read more Christie, but I can certainly see its value as a novel. I would be open to more.

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig is exactly the kind of book I love. It is historical fiction and literary fiction and science fiction and a love story all in one. Why confine yourself to just one genre when you can have them all?!?

In this book, Tom Hazard looks like he is about forty when in fact he is actually more than ten times that age. Born in 1581, Tom's early years were like anyone else's. Once he hit puberty, however, his aging slowed to about one year for every fifteen. This may seem wonderful but in the late sixteenth century this was seen as evidence of witchcraft. Forced to keep moving and changing his identity, Tom has had a difficult time managing his life until he is introduced to The Albatross Society, or albas for short. With this group, Tom is assisted with his transitioning from one life to the next, but what is asked of him in return is a high price.

This book was wonderful. It took me longer to read than it should have because I was out of town and unable to get to it. Given the time I would have easily been able to finish in only a couple of days because it was just so engaging. Tom is a wonderful character- tortured and lonely, but also with brilliant observations on humanity.

I was angry, yes, but as was so often the case with anger, it was really just fear projecting outwards.

It is the simplest, purest joy on earth, I realise, to make someone you care about laugh.

And my favorite:

And then, in this new state, free from fear, you ask yourself: who am I? If I could life without doubt what would I do? If I could be kind without the fear of being f--ed over? If I could love without fear of being hurt? If I could taste the sweetness of today without thinking of how I will miss that taste tomorrow? If I could not fear the passing of time and the people it will steal? Yes. What would I do? Who would I care for? What battle would I fight? Which paths would I step down? What joys would I allow myself? What internal mysteries would I solve? How, in short, would I live?

I really enjoyed reading this book and I hope that you will read it, too. The Washington Post called it "a quirky romcom", but don't let that stop you.

And OH MY GOODNESS! I just this moment discovered that it will soon be a major motion picture starring Benedict Cumberbatch!! Okay, now you really do have to read it!