The Secret Place by Tana French

  The Secret Place is the fifth book in Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series and it's so good! Detective Stephen Moran is toiling away on cold cases waiting for his chance to join the murder's squad. That chance appears in the form of sixteen-year-old Holly Mackey. A student at the girls boarding school St. Kilda's, Holly arrives at the police station with a card she found tacked on her school's Secret Place, which is basically a bulletin board where students can post anonymous confessions and other secrets. Moran couldn't be more thrilled.

A year earlier the body of Chris Harper, a boy from St. Kilda's brother school was found on the grounds of St. Kilda. His murder remained unsolved despite the efforts of Detective Antoinette Conway and her former partner. The anonymous card Holly brings is a photo of Chris with a note purporting to know what really happened to him. Moran practically skips into Conway's office with the photo. Solving this case could be his ticket to the murder squad.

Conway and Moran quickly narrow their suspects down to eight girls: Holly and her friends Julia, Rebecca and Selena; along with four other girls, Joanne, Gemma, Orla, and Allison. The entire novel takes place over ten to twelve hours with Conway and Moran trying to navigate their way through the complicated world of teenage girlhood and figure what happened that might have caused one or more of these girls to kill Chris Harper.

A good book tells a story. A great book goes beyond that and says something about some aspect of the human condition while still telling a good story. French does that here. Holly and her friends are considered freaks and weirdos. Why? Because they dare to decide for themselves who they are rather than letting others decide for them. When Rebecca wears jeans to the Valentine's Day dance, for example, people lose their shit! The way Rebecca sees it she likes dancing but didn't feel like wearing a dress and wasn't trying to impress any of the boys so why not wear what she's comfortable in?

Moran puts it like this:  

"It took me till then to put my finger on it, what was different about them, or some of it. This: Joanne and all hers were what they thought I wanted them to be. What they thought guys wanted wanted them to be, grown-ups wanted them to be, the world wanted them to be. Holly's lot were what they were.  When they played thick or smart-arsed or demure, it was what they wanted to play. For their reasons, not mine."

Repeatedly other people remark in various ways that Holly, Rebecca, Julia and Selena need to learn their place; they can't just do what they want. The world doesn't work that way. At its core The Secret Place is about female friendships, loyalty, strength, and figuring out who you are. The crime element kept me guessing but it was the story of the girls' friendship that really drew me in.

I've been in a bit of a reading slog all summer. Not quite a slump, I've been reading just super slowly. It isn't that the books haven't been good, just that nothing that has been un-put-downable. The Secret Place is the first book in awhile that I eagerly tore through. If not for the fact that I was traveling this past week I would have finished it much sooner.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

 

I've been meaning to read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao for over a year. My book club, Mocha Girls Read, selected it to read for the month of June, providing the necessary motivation for me to finally pick it up. My fellow Mocha girls had mixed feelings about this book, as do I.

The description on the back of my copy describes Oscar of the title as a "sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd, a New Jersey romantic who dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love." Unfortunately Oscar never quite how to exist in the world. Blame it on the fuku, the curse that has followed his family for multiple generations. Or, blame it on his crazy mother. Or, blame it on his tendency to wallow in self-pity and his inability to get out of his head.

I found this book incredibly frustrating. On the plus side I liked that it was about a Dominican family. I haven't read many, or any really, books by or about Dominicans or the Dominican Republic. It was a new perspective for me, one that I found refreshing. I also really liked the character of Lola, Oscar's sister. She grew up in the same crazy, unloving household as Oscar and yet she turned out so differently. Both Lola and Oscar were smart; both went to college. In the end Oscar seemed stunted, like he stopped growing mentally and emotionally at age 12.  Lola on the other hand, not only survives her childhood, she thrives. She travels the world. She has adventures. I would have rather read the wondrous life of Lola Wao.

The down side of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was Oscar. I am not sure if the character is meant to be seen as mentally ill but I kept hoping that someone would take him to a therapist. His obsession with women a little creepy. At times his behavior came a bit too close to stalking for comfort. Perhaps Oscar would have been a more sympathetic character if the story were told from his point of view rather than a third person narrator. (Not to say I didn't have some sympathy for him.) Coming from a third party, it was never quite clear why Oscar acted the way he did or how he felt. It might have helped to have been in his head. Then again that might have been an equally frustrating place to be in.

The Undoing by Shelly Laurenston

  It's strange how at times media that I am consuming end up relating to one another in unanticipated ways. Over the last few days I've been watching the final episodes of the last season of Showtime's Penny Dreadful. (Yes, I know it ended weeks ago. I am perpetually behind on my DVR list.) At the same time I've been reading Shelly Laurenston's The Undoing. Unexpectedly both have feminist underpinnings with a particular focus on women refusing to conform to what men (or society or large) want or expect. On Penny Dreadful this is most evident with the characters Vanessa Ives and Lily. On the episode Ebb Tide (season 3, episode 7) Dracula gives a great speech in which he tells Vanessa that he loves her for who she really is and that she need not conform herself to what others expect, as she has tried to do for so long. Meanwhile the murderous Lily is bent on avenging herself and the multitudes of prostitutes, abused wives, and other women who society turns a blind eye to when they are beaten or otherwise ill treated. In The Undoing there is Jacinda "Jace" Berisha, a once abused wife who woke up in her second life filled with rage. 

This is the second book I've read by Shelly Laurenston and the second in her Call of Crows series. Whenever I think of the Crows I can't help but picture a biker gang but they are something much cooler than bikers: The Crows are Viking inspired warriors. Long story short, there are various Viking clans on present day Earth whose job is more or less protect humanity from itself and from the misdeeds of various supernaturals. Each clan was created or put together by a particular god or goddess, like Thor or Odin. I can't remember which goddess created the Crows, but whoever she was she takes women who died, usually violently, and offers them a second chance at life as one of her Crow warriors. In their second lives the Crows are stronger, can sprout wings and fly, and are generally bad ass in every way. 

I would classify this series as paranormal romance with lots of action. Each book in the series focuses on a particular Crow woman and her budding romance with a guy from one of the other clans. Plus there is always some big bad they have take down. The Undoing focuses on Jace, who aside from having the usual Crow powers of super strength and flight, manifests berserker level rage when she is really pissed off. Her fellow Crows find Jace's rages both helpful and frightening. When she is in a rage Jace is unstoppable but she is also has a tendency to lose control of herself. The reasons behind her rage are undoubtedly rooted in her first life when she was forced to be the wife of a crazy cult leader who believes the end of days are near. In The Undoing Jace has a lot on her plate. She has to (1) deal with her crazy ex-husband who wants to forcibly bring her back into the fold, (2) figure out how to stop a vengeful, ancient goddess who is wreaking havoc on the world, and (3) contemplate dating when the only other relationship she has ever been in was one that was forced on her at the age of ten.

I really liked this. How could I not? When not in a berserker rage, Jace is a quiet girl who prefers reading to small talk. She hides in empty cars, up in trees, wherever she can to escape the constant chatter of her sister crows, love them as she does. When Ski Eriksen of the Protectors clan, whose is also known as the "Keeper of the Word," asks for her help with translating and organizing a bunch of books his clan took from a Russian mobster Jace is all in. For the books, that is. She is completely clueless that the cute guy offering her job is in interested in much more than an employee/employer relationship.

There was also something about an enchanted necklace, an unkillable goddess causing all kinds of trouble. Truthfully I  focused less on that part of the story. That part of the story was fine, and the parts about the other clans and how none of them get along was funny, but really it was all about the romance for me. Can't wait for the next book in the series.

Trailer Park Fae by Lilith Saintcrow

  Trailer Park Fae has a great cover and a great title. That was part of what attracted me to this book. That and the blurbs on on the back by Patricia Briggs, author of the Mercy Thompson series which I love, and Chuck Wendig. With a title like Trailer Park Fae, I expected fantasy and fun. I got fantasy, not that much fun, and lots of confusion.

Normally I wold write a little something about the plot but honestly I'm not quite sure what happened in this book. The big hurdle was my lack of knowledge about the world of the fae. There wasn't much world building in the story and it felt like the reader was expected to be well versed in fae mythology. I am not. I'm still not sure who half the characters were or why there were battling one another.

Sabotaged by Dani Pettrey

  Sabotaged is the fifth and final book in Dani Pettrey’s Alaskan Courage series. Like the other entries in the series, it is a mixture of romance and suspense with a heavy dose of Christianity. The couple at the center of this entry in the series are Kirra Jacobs and Reef McKenna.

Kirra and Reef have known each other since childhood but were never exactly friends. She was a “goody-two-shoes” and apparently rather bossy while Reef was the resident bad boy. Plus, Reef once dated Kirra’s cousin Meg. Now they’re both working search-and-rescue for the Iditarod race. When Kirra’s uncle Frank, a competitor in the race, goes missing Kirra is determined to go looking for him. Reef is determined not to let her go alone. Reef and Kirra quickly discover why Frank has veered off course. His daughter Meg has been kidnapped and the kidnappers are threatening to hurt her unless Frank does what they want. Kirra and Reef must find Meg in order to convince Frank not to do whatever it is the kidnappers are demanding.

I didn’t enjoy this as much as the other books in the series. As noted earlier, Sabotaged could best be described as Christian fiction with elements of suspense and romance. As to the suspense element, this definitely wasn’t an edge of your seat kind of book. The main twist was evident a mile away. Still it was good enough to keep me reading. And as to the Christian element, it was heavy handed and overly simplistic, but I expected that having read the first four books in the series. This isn’t a book I would give to someone who is questioning their faith as it is not inspiring in that way. That being said, it is refreshing to read about characters who have a faith system.

The romance is where the story really fell apart for me. It happened too quickly and didn’t ring true. Sure Reef and Kirra knew each other as kids but they didn’t have much a relationship then, certainly not a romantic one and it didn’t seem like much of a friendship either. Now this a romance so of course they were going to end up together but the whole novel takes place over the course of a week so for them to be madly in love by the end just didn’t feel real on any level.

What I really wanted from Sabotaged and didn't get was more about the Iditarod. What largely drew me to this series in the first place was the Alaskan setting. Strangely there wasn’t much about the race in the book beyond the fact that it exists. Nor for that matter, was there much Alaska at all here. I just didn’t get a strong sense of place the way I have with some of the earlier books in the series. In contrast, I recall Submerged having a good sense of life in a small Alaskan time. I have never lived in Alaska so I don’t know if was true-to-life but at least it read like a tangible place. Here the Iditarod and Alaska served mostly as a plot devices which is a shame.

In sum, Sabotaged was definitely not my favorite but I enjoyed the Alaskan Courage series overall.

My First Manga: Dimension W by Yuji Iwahara

  I only began reading comics and graphic novels in earnest a few years ago. The launch of the DC New 52 is what initially pulled me into the world of comics. Eventually I branched out beyond DC and superheroes, but the manga section of the bookstore remained off limits. One of the reasons it took me so long to get into comics is because I didn't know where to start. With its right-to-left format, manga was even more intimidating and confusing. But with a little help from the website Panels and the beginning of a new cartoon series, I decided it was finally time to give manga a try.

I first came across Dimension W in anime form and really liked it. A post on Panels.net taught me about the relationship between anime and manga, namely that anime cartoons are adapted from manga. I wondered if that meant Dimension W had a textual counterpart and finding that it did, decided it was time to read my first manga.

Dimension W takes place in the year of 2072. The world's energy problems have been solved with the invention of coils. The power behind coils comes from Dimension W, a recently discovered fourth dimension beyond X, Y, and Z. (I have to admit it took seeing a drawing of a Cartesian coordinate system with its X, Y, and Z axis before I fully grasped the concept of a fourth W dimension.) Kyouma Mabuchi makes a living as a Collector, retrieving illegal coils that can be dangerous. While on his latest retrieval job he comes across Mira, a very human-like robot. Their meeting starts them on a journey to learning some of the secrets behind coils, their inventor, and much more.

A little bit of mystery and heap of science fiction made Dimension W a really fun read. The characters are funny and complex, especially Kyouma who clings to old technology while making a living chasing down old versions of new technology, and Mira who seems to feel human emotions even though she's more steel than flesh. I already knew the story from having watched the anime but reading it was still great. The only thing I wish was different were the black-and white drawings. There were a few color pages and they popped off the page. I wish the whole book was in color. Overall I'd say my first attempt at manga was pretty successful.

In Praise of Assigned Reading

(This post originally ran on Book Riot.)

A Thank You to Teachers Who Forced Me to Read “Boring” Books

When my eleventh grade English teacher announced that we would be reading books about or centered around war to correspond with our eleventh grade history class where we were studying various wars that the United States had been involved in (the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War), I was not particularly happy. Wars weren’t really something I was into. Nor was I excited at the prospect of reading a critique of American democracy by a Frenchman or about the trials and tribulations of whale hunting, these last two to be read over the summer. I have always loved reading but none of this sounded fun or interesting.

As a student I greeted prescribed reading and summer reading lists with a mixture of excitement and dread. On the one hand, reading lists inevitably provided a list of titles that were not new but were new to me. Plus, I love lists and crossing things off.

On the other hand, I wanted to read what I wanted to read. This was especially true during the summer, which more than any other time of the year, was for what I called “free reading,” as in free to read whatever I wanted at the pace I wanted. But being the rule follower/good student that I was, I grudgingly read Catch-22, Democracy in America, Moby Dick, and host of other books that made their way onto my class syllabi and summer reading lists. Thank goodness I did.

There is much to be said for letting kids pick what they want to read. They are more likely to finish a book if they got to choose what to read. Giving kids choices, particularly kids who otherwise wouldn’t choose to read, tends to make reading seem less like homework and more like something that could be enjoyable. As a librarian and aunt to many young readers I try to encourage their reading by helping them find books that match their interests.

The son of a friend told me that he wanted to travel around the world with his mom so I gave him a kid’s atlas from National Geographic. One of my nieces loves animals, not just cats and dogs but polar bears and frogs so I searched the shelves at my local bookstore for fiction and nonfiction stories about or involving animals. One of my middle grade aged nephews, who is somewhat of a reluctant reader, loves football so together we found a series of books that featured kids playing sports.

That being said, I also encourage them to read books they claim to not be interested in because although I respect other people’s choices and preferences whether they are kids, young adults, or actual adults, I also think a person doesn’t fully know what they are interested in until they have been exposed to it. It is easy to have a gut reaction to a thing without actually knowing much about the thing, like my reactions to books about wars and whales. Sometimes those gut reactions are spot on, sometimes not.

Catch-22 ended up being one of my favorite books of all time, so much so that I have reread it several times since high school. Moby Dick was amazing in a way I would have not thought possible. (Yes, I really do like Moby Dick.) This isn’t to say I loved or liked every book I was forced to read in elementary, middle, or high school. Try as I might, I simply cannot stand Wuthering Heights. I didn’t not like Democracy in America but I have no intention of ever reading it again. Still, I am grateful for being exposed to books I did not think I would like. I am also grateful for being exposed to things I didn’t like because it helped me figure out what I didn’t like and why.

And so I keep buying my nephews and nieces “boring” books because I know that once they actually sit down and read them they will find that some of those books are not so boing after all. At least, that’s what happened to me. Or maybe not, maybe my nephews and nieces will think a book I gave them is terrible and then they can tell me why they did not like a particular book. Either way is fine with me because I got them to read a book and talk about it. 

So thank you to all the teachers who forced me to read boring books.  In some cases you helped me find something I loved. Sometimes you forced me to think about why I didn’t like something. In every case you gave something to think about.