Three-Star Books Read in 2016: Young Adult Fiction

Young Adult:

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell: A coming-of-age tale of fan fiction, family and first love. 
Cath is a Simon Snow fan.
Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan...
But for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.
Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.
Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.
Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words... And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.
For Cath, the question is: Can she do this?
Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories?
And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

I don't get fan fiction. I mean, I know what it is, but it holds no appeal for me, and I find the furor surrounding it mystifying, so I'm clearly not the best audience for this book. Why do you need to make Harry Potter fall in love with Draco Malfoy? Can't you just.... write your own book? Rowell is still very readable, though, and the family dynamic between Cath and her twin and her father is realistic and affecting. The good guy/bad guy scenario was a little facile for my taste, and even if I did get fan fiction I think the notion that Cath would hand it in as a legit assignment is a stretch. But oh my god I loved Reagan the roommate, and Levi is a great character. My one other quibble, which annoyed me disproportionately, is when someone mentions Harry Potter, when it's clear that Simon Snow is meant to be the Harry Potter of this universe. It's like in Law and Order when the couple in question is meant to symbolize Rihanna and Chris Brown and then someone mentions Rihanna and Chris Brown. It breaks the fourth wall in a clumsy and unnecessary way. Bottom line - this is a perfectly nice and well-written coming-of-age, dealing-with-family-shit, first-love, finding-your-voice story. It just didn't wow me.

The Forgetting by Sharon Cameron: What isn't written, isn't remembered. Even your crimes.
Nadia lives in the city of Canaan, where life is safe and structured, hemmed in by white stone walls and no memory of what came before. But every twelve years the city descends into the bloody chaos of the Forgetting, a day of no remorse, when each person's memories – of parents, children, love, life, and self – are lost. Unless they have been written.
In Canaan, your book is your truth and your identity, and Nadia knows exactly who hasn't written the truth. Because Nadia is the only person in Canaan who has never forgotten.
But when Nadia begins to use her memories to solve the mysteries of Canaan, she discovers truths about herself and Gray, the handsome glassblower, that will change her world forever. As the anarchy of the Forgetting approaches, Nadia and Gray must stop an unseen enemy that threatens both their city and their own existence – before the people can forget the truth. And before Gray can forget her.

This was kind of cool and original, and the author manages the world-building and the plot conceit very well. The relationship between Nadia and her sister is nuanced and the love story feels honestly won. 

Never Never by Brianna Shrum: James Hook is a child who only wants to grow up. When he meets Peter Pan, a boy who loves to pretend and is intent on never becoming a man, James decides he could try being a child - at least briefly. James joins Peter Pan on a holiday to Neverland, a place of adventure created by children's dreams, but Neverland is not for the faint of heart. Soon James finds himself longing for home, determined that he is destined to be a man. But Peter refuses to take him back, leaving James trapped in a world just beyond the one he loves. A world where children are to never grow up. But grow up he does. And thus begins the epic adventure of a Lost Boy and a Pirate. This story isn't about Peter Pan; it's about the boy whose life he stole. It's about a man in a world that hates men. It's about the feared Captain James Hook and his passionate quest to kill the Pan, an impossible feat in a magical land where everyone loves Peter Pan. Except one.

I read the first bit eagerly, then lost interest, then pushed myself to finish. I'm honestly not sure if it dragged because of the book or my mood. It's the most engaging re-imagining of Hook I've read (or one of them - I read a lot of Peter Pan retellings), and one of the most disturbing takes on Peter Pan himself (and I always find him a bit disturbing, I think it's weird if you don't). It gets a bit darker and more violent in the middle than seems quite fair given the tone at the beginning.

Time's Edge (Chronos Files #2) by Rysa Walker: To stop her sadistic grandfather, Saul, and his band of time travelers from rewriting history, Kate must race to retrieve the CHRONOS keys before they fall into the Cyrists' hands. If she jumps back in time and pulls the wrong key--one that might tip off the Cyrists to her strategy--her whole plan could come crashing down, jeopardizing the future of millions of innocent people. Kate's only ally is Kiernan, who also carries the time-traveling gene. But their growing bond threatens everything Kate is trying to rebuild with Trey, her boyfriend who can't remember the relationship she can't forget.
As evidence of Saul's twisted mind builds, Kate's missions become more complex, blurring the line between good and evil. Which of the people Saul plans to sacrifice in the past can she and Kiernan save without risking their ultimate goal--or their own lives?

Please see next book.

Time's Divide (Chronos Files #3) by Rysa Walker: The Cyrists are swiftly moving into position to begin the Culling, and Kate’s options are dwindling. With each jump to the past or the future, Kate may trigger a new timeline shift. Worse, the loyalties of those around her—including the allegiances of Kiernan and the Fifth Column, the shadowy group working with Kate—are increasingly unclear.
Kate will risk everything, including her life, to prevent the future her grandfather and the Cyrists have planned. But, when time runs out, it may take an even bigger sacrifice to protect the people she loves.

To be honest, the spark had kind of gone out of this trilogy for me by halfway through the second book. I'm not sure why, exactly, and it's likely that many people will find it enjoyable. It's a well-thought-out, well-explained plot, which can be really difficult with time travel. It gives a good sense of several very different times and settings. I love that Kate has such a healthy appetite; I hate those swoony waifs who always forget to eat until they faint clean away, or always pass up food like martyrs or something. This girl eats. Her relationship with her parents is nicely done, and the way they're sort of sidelined so she can get down to business is realistic. I didn't buy the romance. Not the love triangle, for once - that actually made sense here. With two Kates from two timelines, two love interests were an easy sell. The romance just isn't written convincingly. Kieran's role makes sense, since he's involved in the whole time battle thing. Trey is just a cute guy who, almost literally, follows her home so she keeps him. There's too much telling, not enough showing. Even the goofy lines from The Princess Bride, which I should love, fall cheesily flat. And the phrase "a kiss that shook me to my very foundation" is used, which is pretty much unforgivable in my book. I did want to keep reading to find out how it all turned out, and it was wrapped up well. I just felt that delicious sense of 'have-to-keep-reading' with the first book and it didn't feel like it was maintained throughout, for whatever reason.

The Girl Who Never Was by Skylar Dorset: THE GIRL WHO NEVER WAS is the story of Selkie Stewart, who thinks she’s a totally normal teenager growing up in Boston. Sure, her father is in an insane asylum, her mother left her on his doorstep—literally—when she was a baby, and she’s being raised by two ancient aunts who spend their time hunting gnomes in their Beacon Hill townhouse. But other than that her life is totally normal! She’s got an adventurous best friend who’s always got her back and an unrequited crush on an older boy named Ben. Just like any other teenager, right?
When Selkie goes in search of the mother she’s never known, she gets more than she bargained for. It turns out that her mother is faerie royalty, which would make Selkie a faerie princess—except for the part where her father is an ogre, which makes her only half of anything. Even more confusing, there’s a prophecy that Selkie is going to destroy the tyrannical Seelie Court, which is why her mother actually wants to kill her. Selkie has been kept hidden all her life by her adoring aunts, with the help of a Salem wizard named Will. And Ben. Because the boy she thinks she’s in love with turns out to be a faerie whose enchantment has kept her alive, but also kept her in the dark about her own life.
Now, with enchantments dissolved and prophecies swinging into action, Selkie finds herself on a series of mad quests to save the people she’s always loved and a life she’s learning to love. But in a supernatural world of increasingly complex alliances and distressingly complicated deceptions, it’s so hard to know who to trust. Does her mother really wish to kill her? Would Will sacrifice her for the sake of the prophecy? And does Ben really love her or is it all an elaborate ruse? In order to survive, Selkie realizes that the key is learning—and accepting—who she really is.

Quick, fairly entertaining read. Near the end I just kind of wanted it to be done, and yet I downloaded the second book from the library as soon as I finished the first. Then I didn't read it. But I might. 

(Don't You) Forget About Me by Kate Karyus Quinn: Welcome to Gardnerville.
A place where no one gets sick. And no one ever dies.
Except...
There’s a price to pay for paradise. Every fourth year, the strange power that fuels the town exacts its payment by infecting teens with deadly urges. In a normal year in Gardnerville, teens might stop talking to their best friends. In a fourth year, they’d kill them.
Four years ago, Skylar’s sister, Piper, was locked away after leading sixteen of her classmates to a watery grave. Since then, Skylar has lived in a numb haze, struggling to forget her past and dull the pain of losing her sister. But the secrets and memories Piper left behind keep taunting Skylar—whispering that the only way to get her sister back is to stop Gardnerville’s murderous cycle once and for all.

I loved Another Little Piece so much that it's probably not fair to compare this, but even trying to give it a fair shake, I don't think it's as good. The concept is solid but the characters just don't come alive the same way, and the action seems to drag in the middle. I love her imagination, and I'll keep reading whatever she puts out. I wish someone would convince her that she doesn't HAVE to name every book after a song.

Three-Star Books Read in 2016: Mystery

Mystery:

The Long Way Home by Louise Penny: Happily retired in the village of Three Pines, Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide with the Sûreté du Québec, has found a peace he’d only imagined possible. On warm summer mornings he sits on a bench holding a small book, The Balm in Gilead, in his large hands. "There is a balm in Gilead," his neighbor Clara Morrow reads from the dust jacket, "to make the wounded whole."
While Gamache doesn’t talk about his wounds and his balm, Clara tells him about hers. Peter, her artist husband, has failed to come home. Failed to show up as promised on the first anniversary of their separation. She wants Gamache’s help to find him. Having finally found sanctuary, Gamache feels a near revulsion at the thought of leaving Three Pines. "There’s power enough in Heaven," he finishes the quote as he contemplates the quiet village, "to cure a sin-sick soul." And then he gets up. And joins her.
Together with his former second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and Myrna Landers, they journey deeper and deeper into Québec. And deeper and deeper into the soul of Peter Morrow. A man so desperate to recapture his fame as an artist, he would sell that soul. And may have. The journey takes them further and further from Three Pines, to the very mouth of the great St. Lawrence river. To an area so desolate, so damned, the first mariners called it The land God gave to Cain. And there they discover the terrible damage done by a sin-sick soul. 

Profoundly disappointing, especially considering that I had thought "okay, for my next read I'm going to pick a sure bet". I don't know if it's this book or my mood, but everything that I once found charming and comforting about this series suddenly seemed way too precious. Gamache 'sits quietly'. Everyone 'sits quietly'. The term 'sits quietly' is used six times in the first two chapters. Yes, we get it, he is a quiet man, especially while sitting, he never sits loudly. Also, there's a difference between Gamache (and numerous others, for that matter) being insightful and perceptive and suddenly seeming to become psychic. Do you remember the words used to describe Peter's paintings? I do! 'Clashing', 'repulsive', 'chaotic' - yes, they are splendid adjectives, but also they were repeated to a nauseating degree; nevertheless, Gamache intuited something magical among the clashing, repulsive chaotic forms and colours, because he is a being of uncommon insight, and also maybe Louise Penny ran out of ways to get him there with legitimate clues. Things picked up marginally then for a bit, and then that ending? Really, with that ending? I still can't bring myself to give it less than three stars, and obviously I'll still read the next book, but please let it be better. Now on to the next Adamsberg - if Fred Vargas lets me down I'm going to be SERIOUSLY cranky.

The Promise by Robert Crais: Elvis Cole and Joe Pike are joined by Suspect heroes LAPD K-9 Officer Scott James and his German shepherd, Maggie, in the new heart-stopping thriller from #1 New York Times-bestselling author Robert Crais. 
Loyalty, commitment, and the fight for justice have always driven Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. If they make a promise, they keep it. Even if it could get them killed.
When Elvis Cole is secretly hired to find a grief-stricken mother, he’s led to an ordinary house on a rainy night in Echo Park. Only the house isn’t ordinary, and the people hiding inside are a desperate fugitive and a murderous criminal with his own dangerous secrets.
As helicopters swirl overhead, Scott and Maggie track the fugitive to this same house, coming face-to-face with Mr. Rollins, a killer who leaves behind a brutally murdered body and enough explosives to destroy the neighborhood. Scott is now the only person who can identify him, but Mr. Rollins has a rule: Never leave a witness alive.
For all of them, the night is only beginning.
Sworn to secrecy by his client, Elvis finds himself targeted by the police even as Mr. Rollins targets Maggie and Scott. As Mr. Rollins closes in for the kill, Elvis and Joe join forces with Scott and Maggie to follow a trail of lies where no one is who they claim — and the very woman they promised to save might get them all killed.

Not gonna lie, folks - my heart did not stop. But that's okay. This wasn't an explosive entry in the canon or anything, but it was quite satisfying. I like Scott James, I adore Maggie - some readers understandably found the sections from the dog's point of view cheesy, but I really liked them. No, that's not a sentence I think I've ever entered into a book review before, but let's accept it and move on. Truthfully, this series is kind of like the Spencer series - devouring it all at once would feel a bit like a junk food binge, but I go back to it when I want something entertaining with a light touch, with enjoyable characters, some of whom could break your neck with their thighs, and a clever plot. 

I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh: In a split second, Jenna Gray's world descends into a nightmare. Her only hope of moving on is to walk away from everything she knows to start afresh. Desperate to escape, Jenna moves to a remote cottage on the Welsh coast, but she is haunted by her fears, her grief and her memories of a cruel November night that changed her life forever.
Slowly, Jenna begins to glimpse the potential for happiness in her future. But her past is about to catch up with her, and the consequences will be devastating . . .

DEVASTATING, DOT DOT DOT. Sorry, that's unnecessarily snide. I requested this as a library ebook, then sort of dismissed it as another Gone Girl clone and was afraid it would be like The Widow, then decided to give it a shot just before it expired. My friend Marilyn (HI MARILYN) advised me to read it without reading a single review, which was very beneficial, so I'll try not to say too much, other than if you're going to read it you should read it without reading any other reviews. It didn't blow my mind, but it was much better than any other "just like Gone Girl" offerings I've come across. 

A Game for All the Family by Sophie Hannah: Justine thought she knew who she was, until an anonymous caller seemed to know better...
After fleeing London and a career that nearly destroyed her, Justine Merrison plans to spend her days doing as little as possible. But soon after the move, her daughter Ellen starts to seem strangely withdrawn. Checking Ellen's homework one day, Justine finds herself reading a chillingly articulate story about a series of sinister murders committed at the family's new house. Can Ellen really have made all this up, as she claims? Why would she invent something so grotesque, set it in her own home and name one of the characters after herself? When Justine discovers that Ellen has probably also invented her best friend at school, who appears not to be known to any of the teachers, Justine's alarm turns to panic.
Then the anonymous phone calls start: a stranger, making accusations and threats that suggest she and Justine share a traumatic past - yet Justine doesn't recognise her voice. When the caller starts to talk about three graves - two big ones and a smaller one for a child - Justine fears for her family's safety. If the police can't help, she'll have to confront the danger herself, but first she must work out who she's supposed to be.

There's really nothing like reading your first Sophie Hannah book - the way she spins a seemingly unresolvable plot and, well, resolves it, with a gymnastic effortlessness (well no, that's a lie, it's often quite effortful, but she makes it work and I admire that). After your second or third Sophie Hannah book you start to wonder if that's enough. I've read at least four, and there's only one where I can actually remember what happened now that a few months have passed. No, wait, two. Anyway, this might be the one that finally loses me (ha ha, not really, but I'll be more circumspect). The interleaved story of the other family was actually completely captivating, but the plot overall was too convoluted to have that same airy brilliance, and there were too many loose ends. I can suspend my disbelief like nobody's business for most things, but this was a page too far. 

A Wanted Man (Jack Reacher #17) by Lee Child: Reacher is back! A Wanted Man is a new masterpiece of suspense—from #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child.
Four people in a car, hoping to make Chicago by morning. One man driving, eyes on the road. Another man next to him, telling stories that don’t add up. A woman in the back, silent and worried. And next to her, a huge man with a broken nose, hitching a ride east to Virginia.An hour behind them, a man lies stabbed to death in an old pumping station. He was seen going in with two others, but he never came out. He has been executed, the knife work professional, the killers vanished. Within minutes, the police are notified. Within hours, the FBI descends, laying claim to the victim without ever saying who he was or why he was there.All Reacher wanted was a ride to Virginia. All he did was stick out his thumb. But he soon discovers he has hitched more than a ride. He has tied himself to a massive conspiracy that makes him a threat—to both sides at once.In Lee Child’s white-hot thriller, nothing is what it seems, and nobody is telling the truth. As the tension rises, the twists come fast and furious, keeping readers guessing and gasping until the explosive finale.

"Masterpiece of suspense"? Hmmm, perhaps not. The first few Reacher books I read seemed utterly delightful and different. I guess reading seventeen of them is sort of asking for the magic to wash off. This worked perfectly as a literary palate-cleanser when I couldn't decide what to read a couple of Sundays ago, the story and the characters were interesting enough, but a main character who doesn't change or evolve at all can only go so far. And this is petty, but the constant throwing out of clothing is getting really irritating to me. Fine, buy new clothes every few days, travel light, but throw them in a donation box or something, man, it's wasteful! Also, shoving a toothbrush in your pocket has to be a little bit uncomfortable. It strains credulity. Is anyone sensing a theme? I know, I know, fool me seventeen times, shame on me.

Little Black Lies by Sharon Bolton: In such a small community as the Falkland Islands, a missing child is unheard of. In such a dangerous landscape it can only be a terrible tragedy, surely...
When another child goes missing, and then a third, it’s no longer possible to believe that their deaths were accidental, and the villagers must admit that there is a murderer among them. Even Catrin Quinn, a damaged woman living a reclusive life after the accidental deaths of her own two sons a few years ago, gets involved in the searches and the speculation.
And suddenly, in this wild and beautiful place that generations have called home, no one feels safe and the hysteria begins to rise.
But three islanders—Catrin, her childhood best friend, Rachel, and her ex-lover Callum—are hiding terrible secrets. And they have two things in common: all three of them are grieving, and none of them trust anyone, not even themselves.

Truthfully, I can't remember why I only gave this three stars. I really like this author, and I can't think of anything that was disappointing here. I always like the way she describes remote, different landscapes, and the way the troubled characters seem very of that landscape. This was a well-written, well-plotted, enjoyable mystery. If you like mysteries I can't think of a single reason you shouldn't read it. 

Three-Star Books Read in 2016: Fiction and Non-Fiction

Classic Fiction:

I'm a little foggy on the notion of what constitutes a 'classic', in truth. Pearl S. Buck won the Nobel Prize in Literature - does that mean every single thing she wrote is automatically a classic? I'm choosing to think so. In my mind 'classic' often means something I feel guilty for not having read, which is not a great state of mind in which to undertake reading something, but there it is.

The Eternal Wonder by Pearl S. Buck: A recently discovered novel written by Pearl S. Buck at the end of her life in 1973, The Eternal Wonder tells the coming-of-age story of Randolph Colfax (Rann for short), an extraordinarily gifted young man whose search for meaning and purpose leads him to New York, England, Paris, on a mission patrolling the DMZ in Korea that will change his life forever—and, ultimately, to love.
Rann falls for the beautiful and equally brilliant Stephanie Kung, who lives in Paris with her Chinese father and has not seen her American mother since she abandoned the family when Stephanie was six years old. Both Rann and Stephanie yearn for a sense of genuine identity. Rann feels plagued by his voracious intellectual curiosity and strives to integrate his life of the mind with his experience in the world. Stephanie struggles to reconcile the Chinese part of herself with her American and French selves. Separated for long periods of time, their final reunion leads to a conclusion that even Rann, in all his hard-earned wisdom, could never have imagined.
A moving and mesmerizing fictional exploration of the themes that meant so much to Pearl S. Buck in her life, this final work is perhaps her most personal and passionate, and will no doubt appeal to the millions of readers who have treasured her novels for generations. 

I got the Kindle version of this because it was cheap and I had a vague feeling that I should read something by Pearl S. Buck, sort of when I thought I should read something by Truman Capote but I was too cool or something for In Cold Blood, so instead I read Summer Crossing which was okay, but I always seem to pick books by famous people and then find out that it's actually some manuscript unearthed after the author's death and the publication of it was hotly contested by the heirs. With Pearl S. Buck I could have almost certainly chosen a better place to start. I almost gave up after the first few pages which described Rann's conception and incubation in exhaustive, excruciating detail. The whole thing had a sort of 'this happened, then this happened, then this' tedium to it. The description of a prodigious intelligence seeking to find its place in the world holds a certain interest, but overall this was a little underwhelming.

Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara: O’Hara did for fictional Gibbsville, Pennsylvania what Faulkner did for Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi: surveyed its social life and drew its psychic outlines, but he did it in utterly worldly terms, without Faulkner’s taste for mythic inference or the basso profundo of his prose. Julian English is a man who squanders what fate gave him. He lives on the right side of the tracks, with a country club membership and a wife who loves him. His decline and fall, over the course of just 72 hours around Christmas, is a matter of too much spending, too much liquor, and a couple of reckless gestures. That his calamity is petty and preventable only makes it more powerful. In Faulkner, the tragedies all seem to be taking place on Olympus, even when they’re happening among the low-lifes. In O’Hara, they could be happening to you. 

Oh look, I didn't review this one. I actually do remember quite a bit of it, and I didn't love reading it, which is fine because I'm pretty sure that wasn't the point, but it was definitely affecting, in a profoundly depressing kind of way. Much like with Holden Caulfield, I didn't entirely agree with the assessment that Julian English was a man who 'squanders what fate gave him'. He just seemed lost and sad, and it made me feel lost and sad. The time period and class circumstances were vividly rendered. I was really, really glad that I was not any of these people.

Fiction:

A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle: This classic tale from the author of The Last Unicorn is a journey between the realms of the living and the dead, and a testament to the eternal power of love.Michael Morgan was not ready to die, but his funeral was carried out just the same. Trapped in the dark limbo between life and death as a ghost, he searches for an escape. Instead, he discovers the beautiful Laura...and a love stronger than the boundaries of the grave and the spirit world.

I just read that Peter S. Beagle wrote this when he was NINETEEN FREAKING YEARS OLD. And it wasn't perfect, but now that I'm thinking about it the ways in which it was imperfect sort of made it all that more perfect. It doesn't unfold exactly how you expect it to, which is kind of refreshing. It describes being dead in a way that seems eminently probable. I always think that Peter S. Beagle's writing makes it seem like he's the kind of person who views the world and all the people in it in the kindest possible light. This book didn't change that opinion. 

Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty: Six responsible adults. Three cute kids. One small dog. It’s just a normal weekend. What could possibly go wrong?
Sam and Clementine have a wonderful, albeit, busy life: they have two little girls, Sam has just started a new dream job, and Clementine, a cellist, is busy preparing for the audition of a lifetime. If there’s anything they can count on, it’s each other.
Clementine and Erika are each other’s oldest friends. A single look between them can convey an entire conversation. But theirs is a complicated relationship, so when Erika mentions a last minute invitation to a barbecue with her neighbors, Tiffany and Vid, Clementine and Sam don’t hesitate. Having Tiffany and Vid’s larger than life personalities there will be a welcome respite.
Two months later, it won’t stop raining, and Clementine and Sam can’t stop asking themselves the question: What if we hadn’t gone?
In Truly Madly Guilty, Liane Moriarty takes on the foundations of our lives: marriage, sex, parenthood, and friendship. She shows how guilt can expose the fault lines in the most seemingly strong relationships, how what we don’t say can be more powerful than what we do, and how sometimes it is the most innocent of moments that can do the greatest harm.

Not the usual out-of-the-park home run that Moriarty often is for me. I like the way she dwells on and elasticizes domestic details, but here I just felt like she tried to make too much out of too little. Okay, now that seems uncharitable given that none of the individual issues were small, but the story didn't feel as expansive and rich as her other work, and the ostensible twist is kept too long and feels manipulative and unkind. There were still little moments that felt perfectly real and wonderful.

The Dinner by Herman Koch: A summer's evening in Amsterdam and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant. Between mouthfuls of food and over the delicate scraping of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of politeness - the banality of work, the triviality of holidays. But the empty words hide a terrible conflict and, with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened... Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. Together, the boys have committed a horrifying act, caught on camera, and their grainy images have been beamed into living rooms across the nation; despite a police manhunt, the boys remain unidentified - by everyone except their parents. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children and, as civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple shows just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.

The writing style held my interest, and the very first part does a fair job of setting up the reveal, but I felt like too much was revealed too early which caused all the tension to leak out of the rest of the book. I had the impression that I was expected to be more shocked and appalled than I was, as if the author was terribly impressed with how daring and alternative he was being, which smacked - possibly unfairly - of adolescent gimmickry.

The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman by Bruce Robinson: The cult classic novel of growing up in 1950s England from the writer of Withnail and I.

This was on my book club list. I really didn't enjoy it. It actually made me feel faintly nauseous on more than one occasion. Even looking at the cover now still makes me uncomfortable. Then I read that it might be autobiographical, and somehow it makes it better if it's not fiction. Still gross, but not gross on purpose, I guess. It definitely conveys a vivid sense of being alive in that time, stuck between warring parents and desperate for freedom, romance and pornography. I have to go take a shower now.

Non-Fiction:

Death in a Prairie House: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Murders by William R. Drennan:      The most pivotal and yet least understood event of Frank Lloyd Wright’s celebrated life involves the brutal murders in 1914 of seven adults and children dear to the architect and the destruction by fire of Taliesin, his landmark residence, near Spring Green, Wisconsin. Unaccountably, the details of that shocking crime have been largely ignored by Wright’s legion of biographers—a historical and cultural gap that is finally addressed in William Drennan’s exhaustively researched Death in a Prairie House: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Murders.
     In response to the scandal generated by his open affair with the proto-feminist and free love advocate Mamah Borthwick Cheney, Wright had begun to build Taliesin as a refuge and "love cottage" for himself and his mistress (both married at the time to others).
      Conceived as the apotheosis of Wright’s prairie house style, the original Taliesin would stand in all its isolated glory for only a few months before the bloody slayings that rocked the nation and reduced the structure itself to a smoking hull.
     Supplying both a gripping mystery story and an authoritative portrait of the artist as a young man, Drennan wades through the myths surrounding Wright and the massacre, casting fresh light on the formulation of Wright’s architectural ideology and the cataclysmic effects that the Taliesin murders exerted on the fabled architect and on his subsequent designs. Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians, and Outstanding Book, selected by the Public Library Association.

I didn't come out of this book feeling like the event in question was the least bit more understood. I picked it up in the library because I was interested in reading about Frank Lloyd Wright and I've always found the figure of Taliesin intriguing. As a biography of Wright - clearly a brilliant man and another entry in the catalogue of brilliant people who believe that brilliance entitles one to behave like a self-centered jackass - it was fascinating. The story of the murders was horrible and the question of the motivation was as clear as mud by the book's end. I probably just should have read a straight biography. 

The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves by Stephen Grosz: Echoing Socrates' time-honoured statement that the unexamined life is not worth living, psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz draws short, vivid stories from his 25-five-year practice in order to track the collaborative journey of therapist and patient as they uncover the hidden feelings behind ordinary behaviour.
These beautifully rendered tales illuminate the fundamental pathways of life from birth to death. A woman finds herself daydreaming as she returns home from a business trip; a young man loses his wallet. We learn, too, from more extreme examples: the patient who points an unloaded gun at a police officer, the compulsive liar who convinces his wife he's dying of cancer. The stories invite compassionate understanding, suggesting answers to the questions that compel and disturb us most about love and loss, parents and children, work and change. The resulting journey will spark new ideas about who we are and why we do what we do.

Interesting, if a little glib. Certain cases felt like Grosz was forcing an analytical framework over life events whether or not it fit well. I was expecting a little more subtlety and depth. The first chapter, which I believe I read in the bathtub (what does that mean?),  was a perfect story, truth or fiction - immensely satisfying.

Books 2016: Unclassifiable and Turkeys

My Goodreads book total for the year is 111, down two from last year. I was a little surprised at this, because I felt like there were longish periods where I only read a little bit of one book for days at a time. I still do feel like I stuck with easier reads this year - I just didn't feel up to tackling anything really dense or challenging. I've had Home by Marilynne Robinson on my bedside table for the whole year, and the little bit I've read about it is just as wonderful as I expected, and yet I can't bring myself to read any further. I thought about pushing myself, and then for a while I just didn't. This year I'm going to try to chart more of a course. I'm not sure exactly how - my to-read list is a giant unwieldy book-snake and I'm not sure if there's a way to renumber it so I can put more immediate things near the top - but I'm going to try.

All synopses are from Goodreads:

Four one-star reads, seven two-stars and one that I couldn't bring myself to rate. The latter was:

Delicate Monsters by Stephanie Kuehn: From the Morris-Award winning author of Charm & Strange, comes a twisted and haunting tale about three teens uncovering dark secrets and even darker truths about themselves.
When nearly killing a classmate gets seventeen-year-old Sadie Su kicked out of her third boarding school in four years, she returns to her family’s California vineyard estate. Here, she’s meant to stay out of trouble. Here, she’s meant to do a lot of things. But it’s hard. She’s bored. And when Sadie’s bored, the only thing she likes is trouble.
Emerson Tate’s a poor boy living in a rich town, with his widowed mother and strange, haunted little brother. All he wants his senior year is to play basketball and make something happen with the girl of his dreams. That’s why Emerson’s not happy Sadie’s back. An old childhood friend, she knows his worst secrets. The things he longs to forget. The things she won’t ever let him.
Haunted is a good word for fifteen-year-old Miles Tate. Miles can see the future, after all. And he knows his vision of tragic violence at his school will come true, because his visions always do. That’s what he tells the new girl in town. The one who listens to him. The one who recognizes the darkness in his past. 
But can Miles stop the violence? Or has the future already been written? Maybe tragedy is his destiny. Maybe it’s all of theirs.

WOW, this was messed up. I was blown away by her Charm & Strange, but this was an order of magnitude more challenging and troubling. I'm kind of impressed by her willingness to feature twisted characters and resist the impulse to redeem them or give them neat little endings. And her writing is stellar. I just can't bring myself to say I 'liked' it.

One-Star:

The Shadow Girl by Jennifer Archer: Sometimes I forget for an hour or two that she's with me. Sometimes I convince myself that she was only a dream. Or that I'm crazy.
For as long as Lily Winston can remember, she has never been alone. Iris, a shadowy figure who mimics Lily's movements and whispers in her ear, is with her always—but invisible to the rest of the world. Iris is Lily's secret.
But when Lily's father is killed in a tragic accident, his cryptic final words suggest that he and Lily's mother have been keeping secrets of their own. Suddenly, Iris begins pushing Lily more than ever, possessing her thoughts and urging her to put together the pieces of a strange puzzle her father left behind. As she searches for answers, Lily finds herself drawn to Ty Collier, a mysterious new boy in town. Together, Lily and Ty must untangle a web of deception to discover the truth about her family, Iris . . . and Lily's own identity.

Like a child who can't look away from bright shiny things, every now and then (more often than I like to admit) I still pick something up because the plot sounds intriguing. This is not really a sound strategy, because at this point in a reading life there really aren't many plots that are going to surprise you - you really need to go for characterization, dialogue and writing. Truthfully, the plot was kind of cool here. Everything else? Just really bad. Predictable and hackneyed and the plot-advancing events are clunky and the plot-retarding devices are idiotic and god, you guys, just really, really bad.

The Good Girl by Mary Kubica: "I've been following her for the past few days. I know where she buys her groceries, where she works. I don't know the color of her eyes or what they look like when she's scared. But I will." 
One night, Mia Dennett enters a bar to meet her on-again, off-again boyfriend. But when he doesn't show, she unwisely leaves with an enigmatic stranger. At first Colin Thatcher seems like a safe one-night stand. But following Colin home will turn out to be the worst mistake of Mia's life. 
When Colin decides to hide Mia in a secluded cabin in rural Minnesota instead of delivering her to his employers, Mia's mother, Eve, and detective Gabe Hoffman will stop at nothing to find them. But no one could have predicted the emotional entanglements that eventually cause this family's world to shatter. 
An addictively suspenseful and tautly written thriller, The Good Girl is a propulsive debut that reveals how even in the perfect family, nothing is as it seems.

Just... just... why? Flat characters and predictable plotline, ridiculous amnesia 'twist' notwithstanding. Completely standard triangle of low-income low-class chip-on-shoulder cop plus rich desperate housewife plus rich horrible husband. Nothing special in the writing or the characters or the story.

The Cold Cold Sea by Linda Huber: A powerful suspense thriller inspired by the author's work with neurological patients.
When three-year-old Olivia disappears, her parents are overwhelmed with grief. Weeks go by and Olivia’s mother refuses to leave the cottage, staring out at the turbulent sea and praying it didn’t claim her precious daughter’s life. Not far away, another mother watches proudly as her daughter starts school. Jennifer has loved Hailey for five years, but the child is suddenly moody and difficult, and there’s a nagging worry of doubt that Jennifer cannot shake off. As she struggles to maintain control there are gaps in her story that even she can’t explain. Time is running out for Maggie at the cottage, and also for Jennifer and Hailey. No one can underestimate a mother’s love for her child, and no one can predict the lengths one will go to, to protect her family.

Oh Goodreads, how could you fail me so cruelly? This was on my Kindle on the strength of many, many glowing Goodreads reviews (and a low sale price) so I read it last night while I was insomnia-ridden, and it's TERRIBLE. How can you all think it's a good book? It's a VERY BAD book! Okay, it's not the worst book ever. I guess it's less a mystery than some kind of psychological suspense thing. Because there is zero mystery (and very little suspense, as far as I'm concerned). It's completely obvious what's happened, and happening, and the writing is fine but there's nothing in it that makes the lack of tension forgivable. Clearly a bunch of people have found something agreeable here. But if you read mysteries because you like, I don't know, MYSTERY, run fast, run far, preferably in the direction of Fred Vargas or Laura Lippman.

The Widow by Fiona Barton: For fans of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, an electrifying thriller that will take you into the dark spaces that exist between a husband and a wife.
When the police started asking questions, Jean Taylor turned into a different woman. One who enabled her and her husband to carry on, when more bad things began to happen... 
But that woman’s husband died last week. And Jean doesn’t have to be her anymore. 
There’s a lot Jean hasn’t said over the years about the crime her husband was suspected of committing. She was too busy being the perfect wife, standing by her man while living with the accusing glares and the anonymous harassment. 
 Now there’s no reason to stay quiet. There are people who want to hear her story. They want to know what it was like living with that man. She can tell them that there were secrets. There always are in a marriage.  
The truth—that’s all anyone wants. But the one lesson Jean has learned in the last few years is that she can make people believe anything…

Me whenever someone writes a review saying a book is bad: "You shouldn't say it's bad, you should say that you didn't enjoy the experience of reading it, or that it didn't work for you". Me when I read a book like this: "This book is just objectively awful". Gone Girl was a good book - great, even. The Girl on the Train was a perfectly good book. This? This was donkeyballs. The whole thing consisted of Jean recounting her boring life with her boring-yet-slightly-sinister ass of a husband, summing up all of his dialogue in short lines with her name at the end: "Nobody's business but ours, Jeanie." "Too tarty, Jeanie." "Can you believe how bad this book is, Jeanie?" Then what you pretty much assume happened is revealed to have, in fact, happened. The end.

Two Stars:

Northwoods Deep by Joel Arnold: Deep in the north woods, two sisters become lost; one stalked by a murderous ex-husband, the other unable to rid herself of the leeches that appear mysteriously on her skin. All are drawn to an old, dilapidated cabin. Inside lives an old man with awful urges, accompanied by a Rottweiler possessed by something...unnatural. But it's what resides beneath the cabin that they should really be worried about. Please join award-winning author Joel Arnold on a ride over the river and through the woods straight into terror in his newest novel, Northwoods Deep. 

More meh than I'd hoped. Pretty simplistic rendering of an abusive husband. Had the germ of a good plot but nothing really head and shoulders above a lot of other horror. Characters were more than flat but less than fully realized. Plus everyone belches way too much.

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes: They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose . . .
Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has barely been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life—big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel—and now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is.
Will is acerbic, moody, bossy—but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.
A Love Story for this generation and perfect for fans of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, Me Before You brings to life two people who couldn’t have less in common—a heartbreakingly romantic novel that asks, What do you do when making the person you love happy also means breaking your own heart?

I had a "maybe it's just me" moment with this one. A lot of people really, really liked it - several people whose reading tastes often overlap with mine, whose opinions I respect. Personally, I found this really trite and simplistic. Characterization was desultory, plot was contrived and the writing style was underwhelming. It read like a Harlequin romance with more medical terminology.

The Unbound by Victoria Schwab: Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books. Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.
Last summer, Mackenzie Bishop, a Keeper tasked with stopping violent Histories from escaping the Archive, almost lost her life to one. Now, as she starts her junior year at Hyde School, she's struggling to get her life back. But moving on isn't easy -- not when her dreams are haunted by what happened. She knows the past is past, knows it cannot hurt her, but it feels so real, and when her nightmares begin to creep into her waking hours, she starts to wonder if she's really safe. 
Meanwhile, people are vanishing without a trace, and the only thing they seem to have in common is Mackenzie. She's sure the Archive knows more than they are letting on, but before she can prove it, she becomes the prime suspect. And unless Mac can track down the real culprit, she'll lose everything, not only her role as Keeper, but her memories, and even her life. Can Mackenzie untangle the mystery before she herself unravels?
With stunning prose and a captivating mixture of action, romance, and horror, The Unbound delves into a richly imagined world where no choice is easy and love and loss feel like two sides of the same coin.

Ugh. I loved the first one so much. This one mostly made me wish it had been a standalone. Mackenzie was too much of a martyr/Job figure and I spent most of the book angry. It seemed weird trying to root out corruption in The Archive when a key authority figure was allowed to practice torture and assault on a sixteen-year-old girl. The new love triangle was forced and unnecessary also, and some interesting new relationships with girls were crowded out by the constant violence and misery. I understand that there were important things at stake, but there were in the first book too, and she managed the pacing better - this was almost farcical in the number of crappy things happening to the character in the shortest possible amount of time. I sort of wish I hadn't read it. Not sure what I'll do when the next one comes out.

The Creeping by Alexandra Sirowy: Eleven years ago, Stella and Jeanie disappeared. Only Stella came back.
Now all she wants is a summer full of cove days, friends, and her gorgeous crush - until a fresh corpse leads Stella down a path of ancient evil and secrets.
Stella believes remembering what happened to Jeanie will save her. It won’t.
She used to know better than to believe in what slinks through the shadows. Not anymore.

I have NO idea why I kept reading this, when I keep saying I'm going to stop finishing books that I'm not enjoying. I think I read some reviews that made me think it would get better. Everything from the writing to the characterization to the plotting just felt clumsy. Zoey was supposed to be the fake-bitchy friend with a heart of gold, but she comes across as way too actually bitchy and self-absorbed to actually be any kind of friend; the rehabilitation of Sam as a love interest is too fast and lacks any subtlety; Stella herself has very little in the way of nuance. And the old lady in the woods is just freaking annoying with her hillbilly dialect and her itchy trigger finger. The mystery wrap-up was halfway satisfying, but by then I was just desperate to be done.

Bathing the Lion by Jonathan Carroll: Neil Gaiman praises as "Brain-smooshing work. As if John Updike were to write a Philip K Dick novel." A surreal apocalypse novel that tackles a world of domestic strife and fragile friendships. 
In Jonathan Carroll's surreal masterpiece, Bathing the Lion, five people who live in the same New England town go to sleep one night and all share the same hyper-realistic dream. Some of these people know each other; some don’t. 
When they wake the next day all of them know what has happened. All five were at one time “mechanics,” a kind of cosmic repairman whose job is to keep order in the universe and clean up the messes made both by sentient beings and the utterly fearsome yet inevitable Chaos that periodically rolls through, wreaking mayhem wherever it touches down—a kind of infinitely powerful, merciless tornado. Because the job of a mechanic is grueling and exhausting, after a certain period all of them are retired and sent to different parts of the cosmos to live out their days as "civilians." Their memories are wiped clean and new identities are created for them that fit the places they go to live out their natural lives to the end. 
For the first time all retired mechanics are being brought back to duty: Chaos has a new plan, and it's not looking good for mankind...

I don't know if Jonathan Carroll's best work is behind him or if I'm just too jaded and cynical now, but I found his earlier work (Bones of the Moon! A Child Across the Sky! Sleeping in Flame!) unutterably brilliant and original and wonderful. The last four or five books just seem tired and garbled rehashings of the same thing - some mystical world-spanning plot, random deus-ex-machina events that let people know what's going on, culminating in a bunch of new-agey silliness. I may just stick to rereading from now on.

Be Not Afraid by Cecilia Galante: Marin spends a lot of time avoiding things. She avoids thinking about her mother's suicide and what she could have done to prevent it. She avoids looking at people directly-because she can see their pain as bright, colorful shapes. And she avoids Cassie Jackson, who used her in a sinister ritual months ago, although Marin's not exactly sure why.
When Cassie stands up at school, screaming, raking her nails down her cheeks, and pointing a finger at Marin, whispering "YOU," Marin's days of avoidance come to an abrupt end. Cassie's older brother believes that Marin holds the secret to Cassie's illness. So they team up to solve the mystery of what Cassie has unleashed. But as they look deeper into the darkness and things begin to go bump in the night, can Marin trust what she sees?
Cecilia Galante, author of The Patron Saint of Butterflies, presents a chilling story with horror-movie thrills and nail-biting suspense. Perfect for fans of American Horror Story, Paranormal Activity, and The Exorcist, and readers who love to feel goose bumps.

Started out promisingly - good conversational writing style, no clunky dialogue, smart and sarcastic protagonist. Devolved into a simpering, sentimental stew of platitudes and insta-love. Wholly unsatisfying.

Black Feathers by Robert J. Wiersema: Sixteen-year-old runaway Cassie Weathers is utterly alone, living on the streets of Victoria as winter sets in. She meets Skylark, a girl who draws her into a community of street dwellers, a rag tag group led by the charismatic Brother Paul.
Cassie begins to find friendship and a tentative sense of belonging within the group, though everyone is on edge when the city is rocked by the news that a number of young prostitutes have been murdered. Cassie is haunted by dreams and the secrets that she fled from at home. What is real from her past and what exists only in her night terrors? How did the darkness of her dreams slip into her life back then, and why does it seem to be happening again? Under the spectre of a serial killer and questioning her own violent nature, Cassie spirals into complex dreamworlds where her past blurs with her present and nothing can be trusted.
Reminiscent of the works of Stephen King, Charles de Lint and Neil Gaiman, Black Feathers is a mythic thriller that carries you in its grip right until its heart-stopping conclusion.

By far my least favourite of Wiersema's. The parts about "The Darkness" feel kind of pretentious and cheesy, and I didn't feel there was adequate explanation of why Cassie had so much trouble telling what was real from what wasn't. The parts about being homeless were very realistic and affecting, but it was supposed to be a scary story, not just a social commentary.

With Painful Steps and Slow

That title is just because I've been obsessed with Sixpence None the Richer's version of It Came Upon a Midnight Clear for the past few Christmas seasons, and it seemed more appropriate to my current state than "With Peaceful Wings Unfurled".

Matt went to California last week because he kind of needed to visit a customer and if he did it now it would give him enough points to maintain his Ludicrous Elite status for next year. I don't begrudge him that at all - traveling is draining, and anything that makes it less suckful is all good with me - but it was kind of a tough week to be alone. There was shoveling and box-moving and decorating and baking to be done, which is fine, but on top of all that I was the sole kid wrangler and driver, and by the end of the week I was wrung out like a dishcloth. Consequently, I feel like I've managed to get everything done for a great family Christmas, but my Christmas cards are now going to be January cards and I haven't done as much for friends and charitable stuff as I meant to and have done in the past. I did some online donations, and I guess I'll have to call that good for this year.

More on cold-weather accessories, because it was so enjoyable last time: the temperature dropped to below minus 30 with the wind chill last week. I actually had to wear a winter coat in the car a couple of times, something I rarely do because no matter how cold I am getting in, I'm always too hot by the time I get where I'm going. I also tried multiple pairs of mittens and gloves, and the only ones that kept my hands warm were the ones I got at a sex store while I was visiting Zarah in Barrie. The store was empty when we went in, and the woman who owned it was so fun that we ended up trying on a bunch of lingerie and walking around the store half-naked completely unself-consciously. Then I noticed this random box of mittens that were wholly incongruous in the setting but incredibly squishy fluffy warm, and dirt cheap, so I bought a pair. Then, while I was waiting for Zarah to finish up and chatting with the store owner at the counter, I picked up a bottle of vanilla something and said oh, what is this? Room spray? And then the store owner doubled over laughing because of course it was lube. Sex lube. At least I didn't try to spray it into the air.

Right now we're continuing our tradition of exposing Eve to horrifically inappropriate Christmas movies - watching The Ref while I bake cookies and she decorates. She did a bunch of really beautiful ones, and then she said "hmm, this one looks a little Satanic. Maybe I'll try adding some of these adorable little gingerbread men sprinkles.... OH NO, now it looks like I murdered the gingerbread men and they're lying in a pool of blood!"

So. You know. Merry Christmas.

Reading and Not Writing and Walking

Goodreads just sent me my Year in Books, which reminded me that I should be getting ready for my Year-End Book Round Up posts, which reminded me that I haven't done any normal posts lately, which reminded me that I should FREAK THE FUCK OUT and add it to my list of shit that I'm behind on, along with Christmas shopping, Christmas cards, Christmas decorating, Christmas baking, and, I don't know, exercise and having a conversation with my husband.

Just kidding. No freaking out. My cards aren't getting there til January, most of the presents are done, and I just baked some stuff and tried to put it in the freezer and realized there's no fucking room in the freezer, so I guess we'll just eat it and then I'll bake some more. Also, not cooking because the freezer's full - smoothie fruit and lobster mac-and-cheese bites tonight, frozen pizza and an opaque plastic container of something-or-other tomorrow.

Winter boots: My Bogs from a few years ago still look fine, but when I wear them my back hurts like hell, so I mostly wear my Docs, unless the snow is knee-deep and then we have giant boots that you can't walk any distance in but they work for shoveling or taking Lucy around the block. Last year I bought a pair of simple black Joe Fresh boots just to have when I wanted simple slip-ons to go from one place to another in the car, or around the block with Lucy when it wasn't too snowy.

Sweet fucking freshly-poured purgatory, what maladapted sadist designed these things? They're so viciously uncomfortable they feel like they're on the wrong feet even when they're not - I've even tried wearing them ON the wrong feet to see if it would be an improvement. It's not, but it's hardly worse. It feels like the soles are made of concrete. I ended up wearing them to walk home a couple of weeks ago because of that pesky no drunk driving thing, and my hips were on fire by the time I made it a couple of blocks. I don't know what to do with them. I can't give them away because I wouldn't wish this level of excremental misery on my worst enemy, and I don't feel like I should throw them out because they're so patently evil it seems like it would end up in some Jumanji/the Possession scenario where their sinister heartbeat lures some unsuspecting innocent into finding their hiding place and they'll end up wreaking havoc all over again.

I might have to burn them.

Okay. ONE. One magnificently trivial post in December, ha ha ha ha ha ha. See you tomorrow. Or in January.