Awesome New Contest!

I just received this email from the wonderful Jennifer E. Smith who’s sophmore novel, You Are Here, will be released May 19. I haven’t read it yet but I *adored* her first novel. (You can read my review here and my interview with Jennifer here.

Here’s what the email said:

In honor of the release of my new book, You Are Here, I’m running a contest to see who can put together the ultimate road trip mix.  In the book, Emma and Peter drive from New York all the way down to North Carolina.  What would you have listened to along the way?  You don’t have to make an actual mix or send in any music; just list the twelve songs you think would be the most fun to listen to while driving, and I’ll draw the winners randomly.  

 Prizes include: the very first signed copy of You Are Here, a signed copy of my first book, The Comeback Season, and, in honor of the road trip theme, audio books of Twilight, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and The Lightning Thief.  

 Send all entries to thecomebackseason@gmail.com by Friday, May 15th.

–

There ya go. I’m definitely entering this one and so should you!

What I'm reading: The Dud Avocado, by Elaine Dundy

Ok, I’m only halfway through, but this book is certainly something to have on one’s summer reading list. Sally Jay Gorce, the main character of the novel, is like the polar opposite of Esther Greenwood, the main character of Rhys’s Good Morning, Midnight, and Dorothy Parker on Ritalin. Dundy’s characterization is wonderful, and the dialogue is effortless. And the situations Sally gets into are well worth reading. In between all the shenanigans, there is cutting social and cultural critique, as well as a view into the Paris of the late 1950s.

Sally’s thoughts on getting onto the bar at the Ritz:

“Very jeune fille I was, jewelless and all [...] and as full of safety pins as ever.  I probably had one safety pin to every two of those gorgeous creatures’ tiny, gleaming, well-sewn, well-hidden hooks-and-eyes.  But what the hell, I told myself, it wasn’t as if I were one of them or even competing with them, for heaven’s sake, I was merely a disinterested spectator at the Banquet of Life.  The scientist dropping into the zoo at feeding time.  That is what I told myself.”

The Dud Avocado, by Elaine Dundy

NYRB press, ISBN 978-1-59017-232-2

260pp.

<em>That Hideous Strength</em> by C. S. Lewis

This book is the third book of C. S. Lewis’s Space Triology (which has, as I’ve noted in my reviews of the previous books in the Trilogy, less to do with Space, and more to do with Christian Theology); but while the first book took us to Malacandra (Mars), and the second book took us to Perelandra (Venus), this book essentially splits the difference and remains right here on Planet Earth, where an apocalyptic struggle is going on between Good and Evil.

For several (rather slow) beginning chapters in this present book, we are introduced to the lives of Mark Studdock, a young university don at Bracton College at the University of Edgestowe (who has just, to his joy, entered the “inner circle”), and his young wife Jane Studdock (nee Tudor). They have been married a scant six months, but already are dissatisfied with their relationship with each other (they have also determined to not have children yet, because she wished to concentrate on her post-graduate work, and to basically be her own person separate from her husband). Bracton College administers Bragdon Wood, a very old wood with a very old well in the center, known far and wide as “Merlin’s Well”. The National Institute of Coordinated Experiments (the “N.I.C.E”, headquarterd in nearby Belbury), manages to purchase the wood with the connivance of the “inner circle” of Bracton College, and a Lord Feverstone (who is highly connected both with the College and the N.I.C.E.) convinces Marck Studdock to join the N.I.C.E. Meanwhile, Jane Studdock has been having very disturbing dreams, and is advised by some old friends to see a Miss Ironwood at the nearby estate of St. Anne’s.

It does not take long to see that Mark Studdock is becoming involved with the powers of Evil, and that Jane Studdock is becoming involved with the powers of Good; in the course of the book we are re-introduced to Elwin Ransom (from the first two books) and to Dick Devine (from the second book). At issue is not just which side will gain the invaluable assistance of Merlin (who is not dead, but only sleeping beneath his well), but the final disposition of this Planet. And once the players and the basic situation has been set, the book moves quite well to its apocalypic conclusion.

This book is quite a fitting ending to the Trilogy; it is not that the planets or their place in the heavens determine our future (as astrology would have it), but that the edila, the spiritual beings that are the nominal rulers of the planets, can, to a certain degree, impact doings on this earth, but only via the cooperation of those of us on earth who choose to work with them.

Book Review: Fern Michaels Hide & Seek

Hide and Seek is a continuation of the Sisterhood series that took the 7 sisterhood members and created a vigilante group of women who are working to right the wrong of the people who beat the system.

This sisterhood book pick up at the Spain Mountain top retreat where the sisters have been forced to go after the last mission went a Little haywire. They are on the run and hiding out. These women can’t sit still for long, and when they find out one of their own is in trouble back in the states they decide to take the risk to come home and save her.

Just like all the sisterhood books, this one keeps you turning pages so fast that you don’t even realized you are finished reading the book. With an ending that is sisterhood worthy these girls have once again pulled off a revenge that is beyond compare.

Sisterhood lovers won’t be disappointed!

Love: A User's Guide by Clare Naylor

It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book this bad. And when I say bad I mean stinky bad- filled with clunky writing, unrealistic characters, stupid plot. So I’m lying a bit when I count it as a book I’ve actually read- mostly I skimmed.

Amy works for Vogue in London. She’s beautiful and smart and funny and quirky and perfect and fashionable and and and. Orlando Rock is a movie star. He’s gorgeous and perfect and kind and hot and not even remotely stuck on himself.

Amy and Orlando meet on a beach (shortly after Amy has her first sexual encounter of the lesbian kind with someone who happens to be a dear friend of Orlando’s). He’s smitten. So is she.

What followes is a completely ridiculous courtship followed by even more ridiculous plot machinations aka tabloids which drive a temporary wedge between our lovers. Every once and a while the author speaks  about the characters as if she’s some sort of benevolent angel watching over their love affair.

“…we have to make allowances for love and hope that the lesson they learn won’t be too painful.” (170)

Yeah okay- what about the pain you’re causing your readers, Ms. Naylor?

This book was so bad, I had to make a new tag category: really bad books.

Read a Review

What is Valuable in Humankind?

I have asked myself this question several times now.  Sometimes it seems that the majority of our kind inhabiting the surface of this planet are in fact:  undereducated, illogical, given to group thought, riotous, rebellious, cynical, gluttonous, lusting, hating, little misanthropes who only love themselves.  And that is on a Sunday.

Then you see acts of altruism and heroism and courage and intellectual fortitude and vast kindness and sacrifice and all the virtues that make man the most noble creature in the known universe.

My first question is “What is Valuable in Humankind” would be about characteristics and attributes.  What do we value in ourselves?  What do we value in other species?  Some of them we keep around because they taste good to us.  Some are cute.  All fall under that old biblical dictum.

It is:  Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

Is it right to say?  Well man has in his own heart and mind bent the world to his will.  There are some species that we have gorged ourselves upon so much that they are no longer extant.  We even picked our teeth clean with their bones, and moved on to others.  No problem here.

So, what gives us the right to do that?  The Bible?  A book?  Do all intelligent species eventually overwhelm their planet with their biomass?  What makes us valuable?  Are we valuable to ourselves?

My next work of fiction attempts to answer all these puzzling questions.  It even has a working name.  It is going at 300 plus pages right now.  Again, I will not publish it in a traditional manner, because I want to help in killing these old sacred cows off.  I mean I want to garrote them, like one would a cow on Eid al Fitr.  Bleed them out into the gutter where they belong.  And we all could get fat and happy off of their carcass, but I would rather stay wiry and fast.  That is the dictate of nature, no matter what the Bible tells us is so.

Someone answer me.  Maybe there is a democritization of attributes that are held to be valuable and worth maintaining in our species.  I don’t see it.  I see us becoming a species unfit for life.  It will be the environment which decides though.  We don’t decide anything about it.  I am sorry, but those are the choices we are confronted with.

Review: Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is a compelling YA novella that opens on Melinda’s first day of high school.  That’s typically an anxiety filled day for anybody, but it’s excruciating for the girl who called the cops at an end of summer party, getting a lot of kids in trouble.  Shunned by her friends and taunted by everyone, Melinda goes through the day and the entire school year mostly alone inside her own head.  

Something has happened that has traumatized Melinda and transformed her from a good student with close friends into a withdrawn selective mute- she speaks only when absolutely necessary. Melinda keeps everything inside and it eats her alive.  Harassed and tormented by her classmates and mostly ignored by her busy parents, she falls deeper into a depression; cutting class, forgetting to wash her hair, spacing out, gnawing on her lips until they are cracked and bleeding.  Even her one friend, a cheery transplant from another school who is desperate to fit in somewhere, finally gives up on her, saying she is always negative and calling her a freak.  But no one knows the torment Melinda is going through.  As her grades slip and her social status plummets, she finds solace in art class.  Her year-long art project is something she can get lost in and ultimately something that helps her heal. 

Speak is an excellent portrayal of high school alienation - nothing is sugar coated here.  This is an intimate look into teenage depression; emotional, painful, honest, raw.  I’d heard the book was great and yet I wasn’t prepared for all the emotions I would go through while reading it. The mom in me was so frustrated with Melinda’s situation and just wanted to hold her and help her.  I worried that the book would end with a suicide (it did not) and was grateful when Melinda began to show signs of getting better, becoming empowered through a confrontation with another classmate, and ultimately finding her voice.  

The subject matter is dark but it isn’t graphic in any way.  Speak came out in 1999 and it is my understanding that it is taught in high schools throughout the country, which I think is great.  Laurie Halse Anderson got Melinda’s voice just right- it does not sound like an adult trying to write like a kid.  It’s a powerful read; one I would strongly recommend for teens, parents, and teachers alike. 

I was fortunate enough to see Laurie Halse Anderson speak on a panel last weekend at the Festival of Books, and she said that many critics are calling her latest book, Wintergirls, her best novel since Speak, or better than Speak.  She said it’s a challenge for an author when your first book is your best known work, and she said she was “Miss Crankypants” about that for a long time, but now she is grateful and feels so fortunate to be able to wake up and listen to the voices in her head each day and write down what they say.   She is frequently asked what impact Speak has had on her life, and she said it changed everything- in writing Speak she found her voice and she found her “people”. 

Thanks to Jill at Fizzy Thoughts for sharing this book with me!  I loved it.