Taste. We all have different tastes in what we like to read. Some like everything, but most have their favorites be it historical fiction, mystery, non-fiction, comics and more. The one thing we all have in common is a love of words and the new and exciting worlds all books bring to us. This month we invite you to celebrate these tastes with us. See you next month for a little "Culture."
If anyone is interested in contributing to Estella's Revenge, be in a column, feature or book review, let us know by emailing us at estellabooks at gmail dot com. We would love to work with you!
Heather
Table of Contents
March Winners of DROOD
Features:
I Like...
Assistant Editor's Month
Columns:
Sure I Know the Queen, March 2009
Families in Fiction
Reviews:
The Darcys and the Bingleys
Pemberly by the Sea
A Perfect Waiter
Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill
The Ever-After Bird
Jane Austen Ruined My Life
The Truth About Forever
Hunger Games
Galway Bay
Showing posts with label april 2009. Show all posts
Showing posts with label april 2009. Show all posts
Thursday, April 2, 2009
March Winners for DROOD
The winners for the DROOD giveaway are...
Carl V at Stainless Steel Droppings
Amanda Teague
Kristi at Books and Needlepoint
Christina at Book-a-rama
Vasilly
Congratulations you guys! Those will be coming your way soon! Come back in May for more great giveaways!
Carl V at Stainless Steel Droppings
Amanda Teague
Kristi at Books and Needlepoint
Christina at Book-a-rama
Vasilly
Congratulations you guys! Those will be coming your way soon! Come back in May for more great giveaways!
I like...
By Stuart Sharp
I like...
Well, lots of things, really. I quite like fantasy literature, as the more observant among you may have noticed. I like poetry, I like sports books on that most maddening and obsession inducing of sports, cricket. I’m prone to a bit of comedy, a bit of serious literature, and I’ll even admit to reading the odd romance novel if you catch me in a particularly odd mood.
Before this turns into a singles’ advertisement though (Book lover WLTM same, must love urban fantasy and own complete works of Neil Gaiman), I think perhaps we should pause to consider just how wide those claims I’ve made are. I say that my taste runs to fantasy, poetry, and cricket books among other things, but those are categories so broad you probably wouldn’t attempt to jump over them on a motorbike, let alone read everything in them.
Let’s take the narrowest of those categories as a starting point. Cricket based sporting books run the gamut from ghosted autobiographies to novels and back again, often by way of some truly awful poetry. Just because I like Sir Ian Botham’s comedy novel Deep Cover and quite enjoy Gideon Haigh’s latest collection of essays A Green and Golden Age doesn’t mean that it necessarily follows that I should want to read the ‘autobiographies’ of players who haven’t been around more than a couple of years. Nor does it mean that I want to sift through the majority of poetry on the game, just because I might happen to like some of the work of the late Alan Ross.
As for the other two categories, you might as well say that your taste in music is jazz and rock. In much the same way that those musical genres have branched out into so many categories that practically no one can keep track, let alone claim to like everything in between Dave Brubeck and Alan Holdsworth, so too it has become almost impossible to simply say that your taste runs to either poetry or fantasy. If you claim to love the former, do you mean concrete poetry, free poetry, traditional rhymed verse, epic poetry, haiku, or one of the hundred other strands of it? With the latter, do you mean something traditional and epic like Tolkein, modern and strange like Gaiman, hilarious like Tom Holt’s work or maybe something from that weird borderland between horror, fantasy, teen fiction and romance that calls itself urban fantasy?
Even when you’ve settled on a subcategory, it should be fairly obvious that you won’t necessarily like everything in it. Despite being something of a fan of the comic fantasy oeuvre, I haven’t been able to finish a Robert Rankin book in years. I keep getting them out from the library, thinking that because they fall into the genre I ought to like them, but it never quite works out like that. Perhaps it’s just that there are only so many jokes about sprouts I can take.
It isn’t just that I don’t like surrealist fiction, because that would be falling into the same trap from the other end, declaring with wholehearted enthusiasm (or rather, lack of enthusiasm) a hatred for a particular genre. Possibly the best known example of this is the ‘I don’t like classic literature, it’s boring’ syndrome, which seems to affect a lot of readers at some point but again makes the mistake of lumping the whole category together rather arbitrarily. As it happens, I quite like some surrealist stuff, if Jasper Fforde’s works can be considered that.
Which is, of course, one of the biggest problems here. How exactly do you decide what fits into the categories you’ve decided aren’t to your taste? Where exactly do you draw the line between fantasy and horror, for example, given the amount of crossover between the two? More to the point, how do you decide it without actually having to read the books in question, since doing so would rather defeat the object of declaring your dislike? What ends up happening, as often as not, is a reliance upon that tried but not very true combination for finding out about a book, the cover and the blurb. Go on, admit it, there are books out there that you have taken one look at before thinking ‘No way am I ever going to read that’. I know I have.
To a certain extent, of course, this sort of thing is perfectly normal and even useful. It saves us from reading a great many things that we won’t enjoy while redirecting our attention towards things that we probably will. There are, after all, only so many books that we’re able to read at once, though you wouldn’t always know it from the stacks of partially read things lying around my house.
How many times though have you read something you didn’t particularly like because it looked like the sort of thing that you ought to enjoy? How many times have you put up with a bad book just because it happened to be by a favourite writer, or in a genre you like, or because it had a nice cover? Remembering that it doesn’t work like that can save you from a lot of awful prose.
I’d like to think, however, that there’s something more positive to say than simply ‘even your favourite genre will contain books you won’t like’, so let’s turn that around. Somewhere, probably somewhere on the edges, buried under the books that everybody knows about, your least favourite genre will probably contain something you’ll enjoy.
In fact, now that I think of it, there’s probably a quick challenge in that thought. Think of your least favourite genre. Now, if you feel like it, try finding something in that genre that you can manage to get through with something approaching enjoyment. You’ll be surprised at how easy it is.
Who knows, if I really look hard, I might even find a ghost written autobiography that I don’t feel the urge to throw across the room.
Well, lots of things, really. I quite like fantasy literature, as the more observant among you may have noticed. I like poetry, I like sports books on that most maddening and obsession inducing of sports, cricket. I’m prone to a bit of comedy, a bit of serious literature, and I’ll even admit to reading the odd romance novel if you catch me in a particularly odd mood.
Before this turns into a singles’ advertisement though (Book lover WLTM same, must love urban fantasy and own complete works of Neil Gaiman), I think perhaps we should pause to consider just how wide those claims I’ve made are. I say that my taste runs to fantasy, poetry, and cricket books among other things, but those are categories so broad you probably wouldn’t attempt to jump over them on a motorbike, let alone read everything in them.
Let’s take the narrowest of those categories as a starting point. Cricket based sporting books run the gamut from ghosted autobiographies to novels and back again, often by way of some truly awful poetry. Just because I like Sir Ian Botham’s comedy novel Deep Cover and quite enjoy Gideon Haigh’s latest collection of essays A Green and Golden Age doesn’t mean that it necessarily follows that I should want to read the ‘autobiographies’ of players who haven’t been around more than a couple of years. Nor does it mean that I want to sift through the majority of poetry on the game, just because I might happen to like some of the work of the late Alan Ross.
As for the other two categories, you might as well say that your taste in music is jazz and rock. In much the same way that those musical genres have branched out into so many categories that practically no one can keep track, let alone claim to like everything in between Dave Brubeck and Alan Holdsworth, so too it has become almost impossible to simply say that your taste runs to either poetry or fantasy. If you claim to love the former, do you mean concrete poetry, free poetry, traditional rhymed verse, epic poetry, haiku, or one of the hundred other strands of it? With the latter, do you mean something traditional and epic like Tolkein, modern and strange like Gaiman, hilarious like Tom Holt’s work or maybe something from that weird borderland between horror, fantasy, teen fiction and romance that calls itself urban fantasy?
Even when you’ve settled on a subcategory, it should be fairly obvious that you won’t necessarily like everything in it. Despite being something of a fan of the comic fantasy oeuvre, I haven’t been able to finish a Robert Rankin book in years. I keep getting them out from the library, thinking that because they fall into the genre I ought to like them, but it never quite works out like that. Perhaps it’s just that there are only so many jokes about sprouts I can take.
It isn’t just that I don’t like surrealist fiction, because that would be falling into the same trap from the other end, declaring with wholehearted enthusiasm (or rather, lack of enthusiasm) a hatred for a particular genre. Possibly the best known example of this is the ‘I don’t like classic literature, it’s boring’ syndrome, which seems to affect a lot of readers at some point but again makes the mistake of lumping the whole category together rather arbitrarily. As it happens, I quite like some surrealist stuff, if Jasper Fforde’s works can be considered that.
Which is, of course, one of the biggest problems here. How exactly do you decide what fits into the categories you’ve decided aren’t to your taste? Where exactly do you draw the line between fantasy and horror, for example, given the amount of crossover between the two? More to the point, how do you decide it without actually having to read the books in question, since doing so would rather defeat the object of declaring your dislike? What ends up happening, as often as not, is a reliance upon that tried but not very true combination for finding out about a book, the cover and the blurb. Go on, admit it, there are books out there that you have taken one look at before thinking ‘No way am I ever going to read that’. I know I have.
To a certain extent, of course, this sort of thing is perfectly normal and even useful. It saves us from reading a great many things that we won’t enjoy while redirecting our attention towards things that we probably will. There are, after all, only so many books that we’re able to read at once, though you wouldn’t always know it from the stacks of partially read things lying around my house.
How many times though have you read something you didn’t particularly like because it looked like the sort of thing that you ought to enjoy? How many times have you put up with a bad book just because it happened to be by a favourite writer, or in a genre you like, or because it had a nice cover? Remembering that it doesn’t work like that can save you from a lot of awful prose.
I’d like to think, however, that there’s something more positive to say than simply ‘even your favourite genre will contain books you won’t like’, so let’s turn that around. Somewhere, probably somewhere on the edges, buried under the books that everybody knows about, your least favourite genre will probably contain something you’ll enjoy.
In fact, now that I think of it, there’s probably a quick challenge in that thought. Think of your least favourite genre. Now, if you feel like it, try finding something in that genre that you can manage to get through with something approaching enjoyment. You’ll be surprised at how easy it is.
Who knows, if I really look hard, I might even find a ghost written autobiography that I don’t feel the urge to throw across the room.
Families in Fiction
It is estimated that nearly 1 in 5 American families deal with some form of mental illness (NAMI). From depression to schizophrenia to obsessive-compulsive disorder and beyond, these families must forge a difficult path, not only towards treatment and a cure, but through a variety of social stigmas attached to mental illness. Sadly, such social stigmas are most often perpetuated through inaccurate and insensitive portrayals in mass media, including fiction.
In her eye-opening study entitled “Myths of the ‘Crazy’ Client,” marriage and family therapist Karalee L. Bechtol, M.A., LMFT, exposes the fact that even interns and trainees entering the field of therapy are hesitant to treat mentally ill patients. Despite their training and desire to provide care, she discovers that “the views of participants who had never met someone with a mental illness are based on myths that society at large holds to be true and upon the media’s interpretation of the mentally ill” (Bechtol). Bechtol writes, “There is a tendency of mass media to treat mental illness as an object of ridicule, to use psychiatric terminology inaccurately, and to overuse slang and disrespectful terms for mental illness” (Bechtol).
Bechtol uses Otto F. Wahl’s book Media Madness: Public Images of Mental Illness to support her findings. In Wahl’s book, which won the 1996 Gustavus Myers Award for an Outstanding Book on Human Rights in North America, he asserts that he is “quite certain that public knowledge of mental illness does not come from the professional journals through which mental health professionals share their research and ideas with one another” (Wahl 2). Instead, Bechtol concludes, “It is more likely that the public’s knowledge of mental illnesses comes from sources closer to home, sources to which we all are exposed on a daily basis—namely the mass media, which includes television, movies, newspapers, literature and the internet” (Bechtol, emphasis added).
The National Alliance on Mental Illness - also know as NAMI - has long called for a change to the misrepresentations perpetuated by inaccurate media. “Stigma erodes confidence that mental disorders are real, treatable health conditions. We have allowed stigma and a now unwarranted sense of hopelessness to erect attitudinal, structural and financial barriers to effective treatment and recovery. It is time to take these barriers down” (NAMI).
When author Julie Schumacher’s own daughter went through the nightmare of depression, the toughest barrier for her to take down was shame. In an interview on Minnesota Public Radio about her 2008 book, Black Box, which tells the story of a family dealing with a teen daughter’s depression, Schumacher said about writing something so close to home, “On the one hand, I wanted to value discretion and to honor my daughter’s privacy. On the other, I wanted to distrust discretion because it’s a close cousin to shame when it comes to mental illness. And I said to myself, and kept thinking, if my child were suffering from cancer, I would say to anyone, ‘Boy she’s having a hard time, she’s got an issue, she’s in the hospital, could you please come?’ and people would come. When you’re talking about hospitalization for mental illness, there’s just a pall of silence. It’s shame” (Schumacher).
Schumacher knew from her own experience that other teens at her daughter’s school might be hesitant to go pick up a pamphlet about depression from the school nurse, but they might be more likely to pick up a novel and relate to accurate depictions of depression in it. Carefully going over the details of the book with her daughter, and ultimately acquiring her permission before publishing it, Schumacher’s hope in writing the book was to use narrative to break social stigmas on depression and give meaning to their family’s experience. She said in a recent interview on the blog Mother Words: Mothers Who Write, “Black Box, because of its subject matter, is different from my other novels. I wrote much of it in a state of despair, feeling bitterly lonely — and the author’s note gave me a chance to say to someone reading the book, “You don’t need to feel this way. You aren’t the only one going through this.” I don’t want to pretend that books can solve serious problems, but I do think that in acknowledging and naming our experiences, they can make us feel less alone” (Mother Word).
Schumacher is doing her part as an author – and as a parent – to undo the stigma created by many years of inaccurate depictions of mental illness in media. And there are ways that each of us, in our own corners of the world, can do the same. For more than 50 years, May has been celebrated as Mental Health Month. This year you can mark the occasion by making yourself more aware of issues surrounding mental illness, and making a commitment to recognize inaccurate depictions in fiction for what they are: totally without merit. The National Alliance on Mental Illness, found at www.nami.org, has a wealth of useful articles on informing yourself, finding support, and taking action. We must understand that stigmas in fiction can only be perpetuated as long as we, as readers, are willing to accept them. If we arm ourselves with education and compassion, we can confront the misrepresentations we find in literature and say, “It just isn’t so.”
Bechtol, MA, LMFT, Karalee L. “Myths of the ‘Crazy’ Client.” PROGRESS: Family Systems Research and Therapy 9 (Summer 2000).
Mother Word: Mothers Who Write. “Black Box and an Interview with Julie Schumacher.” [post published on 23 March 2009]. Available from http://motherswhowrite.blogspot.com/2009/03/black-box-and-interview-with-julie.html
National Association on Mental Illness (NAMI). About Mental Illness. [cited on March 21, 2009]. Available from http://www.nami.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Inform_Yourself/About_Mental_Illness/About_Mental_Illness.htm.
Schumacher, Julie. Interview with Kerri Miller. Midmorning. Minnesota Public Radio. 25 November 2008.
Wahl, PhD, Otto F. Media Madness: Public Images of Mental Illness. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University, 1997.
In her eye-opening study entitled “Myths of the ‘Crazy’ Client,” marriage and family therapist Karalee L. Bechtol, M.A., LMFT, exposes the fact that even interns and trainees entering the field of therapy are hesitant to treat mentally ill patients. Despite their training and desire to provide care, she discovers that “the views of participants who had never met someone with a mental illness are based on myths that society at large holds to be true and upon the media’s interpretation of the mentally ill” (Bechtol). Bechtol writes, “There is a tendency of mass media to treat mental illness as an object of ridicule, to use psychiatric terminology inaccurately, and to overuse slang and disrespectful terms for mental illness” (Bechtol).
Bechtol uses Otto F. Wahl’s book Media Madness: Public Images of Mental Illness to support her findings. In Wahl’s book, which won the 1996 Gustavus Myers Award for an Outstanding Book on Human Rights in North America, he asserts that he is “quite certain that public knowledge of mental illness does not come from the professional journals through which mental health professionals share their research and ideas with one another” (Wahl 2). Instead, Bechtol concludes, “It is more likely that the public’s knowledge of mental illnesses comes from sources closer to home, sources to which we all are exposed on a daily basis—namely the mass media, which includes television, movies, newspapers, literature and the internet” (Bechtol, emphasis added).
The National Alliance on Mental Illness - also know as NAMI - has long called for a change to the misrepresentations perpetuated by inaccurate media. “Stigma erodes confidence that mental disorders are real, treatable health conditions. We have allowed stigma and a now unwarranted sense of hopelessness to erect attitudinal, structural and financial barriers to effective treatment and recovery. It is time to take these barriers down” (NAMI).
When author Julie Schumacher’s own daughter went through the nightmare of depression, the toughest barrier for her to take down was shame. In an interview on Minnesota Public Radio about her 2008 book, Black Box, which tells the story of a family dealing with a teen daughter’s depression, Schumacher said about writing something so close to home, “On the one hand, I wanted to value discretion and to honor my daughter’s privacy. On the other, I wanted to distrust discretion because it’s a close cousin to shame when it comes to mental illness. And I said to myself, and kept thinking, if my child were suffering from cancer, I would say to anyone, ‘Boy she’s having a hard time, she’s got an issue, she’s in the hospital, could you please come?’ and people would come. When you’re talking about hospitalization for mental illness, there’s just a pall of silence. It’s shame” (Schumacher).
Schumacher knew from her own experience that other teens at her daughter’s school might be hesitant to go pick up a pamphlet about depression from the school nurse, but they might be more likely to pick up a novel and relate to accurate depictions of depression in it. Carefully going over the details of the book with her daughter, and ultimately acquiring her permission before publishing it, Schumacher’s hope in writing the book was to use narrative to break social stigmas on depression and give meaning to their family’s experience. She said in a recent interview on the blog Mother Words: Mothers Who Write, “Black Box, because of its subject matter, is different from my other novels. I wrote much of it in a state of despair, feeling bitterly lonely — and the author’s note gave me a chance to say to someone reading the book, “You don’t need to feel this way. You aren’t the only one going through this.” I don’t want to pretend that books can solve serious problems, but I do think that in acknowledging and naming our experiences, they can make us feel less alone” (Mother Word).
Schumacher is doing her part as an author – and as a parent – to undo the stigma created by many years of inaccurate depictions of mental illness in media. And there are ways that each of us, in our own corners of the world, can do the same. For more than 50 years, May has been celebrated as Mental Health Month. This year you can mark the occasion by making yourself more aware of issues surrounding mental illness, and making a commitment to recognize inaccurate depictions in fiction for what they are: totally without merit. The National Alliance on Mental Illness, found at www.nami.org, has a wealth of useful articles on informing yourself, finding support, and taking action. We must understand that stigmas in fiction can only be perpetuated as long as we, as readers, are willing to accept them. If we arm ourselves with education and compassion, we can confront the misrepresentations we find in literature and say, “It just isn’t so.”
Bechtol, MA, LMFT, Karalee L. “Myths of the ‘Crazy’ Client.” PROGRESS: Family Systems Research and Therapy 9 (Summer 2000).
Mother Word: Mothers Who Write. “Black Box and an Interview with Julie Schumacher.” [post published on 23 March 2009]. Available from http://motherswhowrite.blogspot.com/2009/03/black-box-and-interview-with-julie.html
National Association on Mental Illness (NAMI). About Mental Illness. [cited on March 21, 2009]. Available from http://www.nami.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Inform_Yourself/About_Mental_Illness/About_Mental_Illness.htm.
Schumacher, Julie. Interview with Kerri Miller. Midmorning. Minnesota Public Radio. 25 November 2008.
Wahl, PhD, Otto F. Media Madness: Public Images of Mental Illness. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University, 1997.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
A Perfect Waiter
by Alain Claude SelzerBloomsbury Publishing
211 pages
Reviewed by Elaine Simpson-Long
This book was sent to me by Bloomsbury. I must say that those doom mongers who said that after the last Harry Potter book Bloomsbury would find it hard to survive, are doing this house a disservice as they seem to have an endless stream of fascinating books published and ready to come in 2009 and this is one of them.
A Perfect Waiter tells the story of Monsieur Erneste. He is the perfect waiter, discreet, efficient, non intrusive and has been a fixture at the Restaurant am Berg for sixteen years. Before that he worked at a grand hotel in
His was an unplanned existence. Any plans affecting him were made by others, people who knew their business and to whom he willingly deferred...having always been alone, he was barely conscious of his solitude. At night when he sank wearily into bed he felt safe...he had no reason to wish for a change in his circumstances...he could have gone on living like that for many years more.
And then one day, this ordered life is plunged into turmoil when he is sent down to meet the steamer crossing the lake bringing new staff for the hotel, two laundry maids and a new waiter who he will train. He meets Jakob and immediately falls in love.
Jakob shook Erneste's hand and introduced himself...the handshake seemed to say "Here I am, having come here purely for your sake" and the little world in which Erneste had so blithely installed himself collapsed.
And so a feverish love affair begins in the hot drawn out summer days where the febrile pre-war atmosphere heightens the senses as the cataclysm is awaited. The room Ernest and Jakob share is high under the eaves and is hot and sweltering and this sense of heat and tension adds to the passion they feel for each other. This is a fairly explicit book, but I did not find it offensive in any way and the reader knows that this intensity cannot last and that Erneste is destined for heartbreak. So it happens as one day he returns to the room unexpectedly and finds Jakob with one of the guests, a wealthy writer who has fled
Years pass and Erneste's life as the Perfect Waiter continues, alone and solitary, he has managed to conceal his heartbreak and carve out an existence for himself and then one day, out of the blue, comes a letter from Jakob, he is in trouble and is asking for Erneste's help. He is to go and see the writer, Klinger, whose lover he was and who now lives in Switzeralnd and ask him for money, Jakob is desperate.
Erneste is in turmoil as his life is turned upside down and his memories of Jakob and his betrayal are revived but he cannot say not to Jakob and finds his way to Klinger's house. He now lives alone, a widower, his daughter in
Used to gay relationships nowadays, it is easy to forget that being homosexual at the time of the setting of this novel, was regarded as perverse and immoral and one night when Erneste goes what would now be called "cottaging" he is set upon by thugs who despise his kind, and he is beaten badly. He manages to get back to his small apartment, knowing that the police will not be sympathetic to his plight and that he can seek no redress. He curls up and heals himself, like an animal and for the first time in his life, has to take time off work. Though this is a horrible episode it has a rather uplifting moment as he returns to work, scared that he might lose his job and finds an unexpected reception:
He was surprised to find that his reappearance was greeted with pleasure, not only by the manager but also by his fellow waiters, even by the chefs and kitchen hands. Although none of them slapped him on the back, he could tell from their friendly faces that they had missed him a little.
So, not so unloved or unappreciated after all.
When reading this book I thought of Aschenbach in Death in Venice staying in a grand hotel and becoming obsessed with the youth and beauty of Tadzio (who surely knew of this love and encouraged it), of the butler in Remains of the Day, repressed and always the perfect servant, the setting reminded me of Hotel du Lac and the feeling of a world encapsulated for a short period of time in one place which, for the purposes of this novel, is isolated from the happenings in the world.
A review in The Guardian says of this book, "The real perfect waiter of the title is, I suspect, the author himself. Like his hero he is unobtrusive and alarming in equal measure, he does his job not just with great polish, but with real heart".
An elegant, quiet, deeply felt book. Oh dear, how love does make fools of us all.
The Truth About Forever
The Truth About Foreverby Sarah Dessen
Puffin books
374 pages
Reviewed by Heather F.
I really needed a break from review books and this one sounded good. I’ve been meaning to try Sarah Dessen’s writing for a long time. Little did I know; this one hit a little close to home.
Macy is like most regular 17-year-olds. She has a boyfriend. She makes good grades. She’s on the student council. She has a summer job. Only difference, she witnessed her father’s death and hasn’t figured out how to mourn. But she’s fine, just fine.
She does what everyone tells her to do so that they will be happy. She takes over her boyfriend’s library job for the summer, while he goes to Brain Camp. She comes home every night and studies for the SATS. She fixes the salad to her mother’s chicken for supper. She covers for her sister when she sneaks out at night. She gives everything she’s got, just to be perfect.
But then she meets the Wish Catering crew, her boyfriend decides he wants a "break" and her life is turned upside down. Suddenly, it’s okay to go to a party of Friday night. It’s okay to see her friends and spend the night. It’s okay to be human. And then Wes, gorgeous, compassionate Wes, teaches her how to mourn.
My mom took off when I was about 3 and my dad died when I was 8. I was raised by my grandparents and I never really learned how to mourn for my dad. Even at 8, I felt I had to be, maybe not perfect, but *fine*. So you can see where this book hit a little close to home.
So, what was so great about this book? All of it! The characters were amazing. I felt a little bereft when I read the last page. They are still in my mind, days later and it’s made it somewhat hard to read another book. Dessen is a great writer who seems more than capable of writing for the Young Adult audience. The dialogue feels natural and honest. The story rings with humor and some of the more lighthearted moments serve as a nice contrast to the darker subjects of death, fear and loss. Macy’s shift from fragile perfection to poignant grief and renewal is nothing short of mastery.
There were a few problems. A few of the characters were barely two dimensional. Monotone Monica has a repertoire of, maybe 5 words. She has like 2 complete sentences throughout the book. Her sister Kristy has a tendancy to wear the loudest, most colorful outfits and their descriptions can get tiresome. And, yes, while everyone isn't perfect, sometimes it felt like Dessen was trying a little too hard to make sure every-single-character had a very pronounced fault.
All in all though, a must read for anyone who appreciates a good story with good, well-written and honest characters. I can’t wait to get my hands on more by this author.
A few favorite quotes:
You can find more out about Sarah Dessen at herwebsite or blog.
I really needed a break from review books and this one sounded good. I’ve been meaning to try Sarah Dessen’s writing for a long time. Little did I know; this one hit a little close to home.
Macy is like most regular 17-year-olds. She has a boyfriend. She makes good grades. She’s on the student council. She has a summer job. Only difference, she witnessed her father’s death and hasn’t figured out how to mourn. But she’s fine, just fine.
She does what everyone tells her to do so that they will be happy. She takes over her boyfriend’s library job for the summer, while he goes to Brain Camp. She comes home every night and studies for the SATS. She fixes the salad to her mother’s chicken for supper. She covers for her sister when she sneaks out at night. She gives everything she’s got, just to be perfect.
But then she meets the Wish Catering crew, her boyfriend decides he wants a "break" and her life is turned upside down. Suddenly, it’s okay to go to a party of Friday night. It’s okay to see her friends and spend the night. It’s okay to be human. And then Wes, gorgeous, compassionate Wes, teaches her how to mourn.
My mom took off when I was about 3 and my dad died when I was 8. I was raised by my grandparents and I never really learned how to mourn for my dad. Even at 8, I felt I had to be, maybe not perfect, but *fine*. So you can see where this book hit a little close to home.
So, what was so great about this book? All of it! The characters were amazing. I felt a little bereft when I read the last page. They are still in my mind, days later and it’s made it somewhat hard to read another book. Dessen is a great writer who seems more than capable of writing for the Young Adult audience. The dialogue feels natural and honest. The story rings with humor and some of the more lighthearted moments serve as a nice contrast to the darker subjects of death, fear and loss. Macy’s shift from fragile perfection to poignant grief and renewal is nothing short of mastery.
There were a few problems. A few of the characters were barely two dimensional. Monotone Monica has a repertoire of, maybe 5 words. She has like 2 complete sentences throughout the book. Her sister Kristy has a tendancy to wear the loudest, most colorful outfits and their descriptions can get tiresome. And, yes, while everyone isn't perfect, sometimes it felt like Dessen was trying a little too hard to make sure every-single-character had a very pronounced fault.
All in all though, a must read for anyone who appreciates a good story with good, well-written and honest characters. I can’t wait to get my hands on more by this author.
A few favorite quotes:
"There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment."
"It's all in the view. That's what I mean about forever, too. For any one of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred years from now. You never know for sure, so you'd better make every second count."
"It's just that...I just think that some things are meant to be broken. Imperfect. Chaotic. It's the universe's way of providing contrast, you know? There have to be a few holes in the road. It's how life is."
"I knew, in the silence that followed, that anything could happen here. It might be too late: again, I might have missed my chance. But I would at least know I tried, that I took my heart and extended my hand, whatever the outcome.
"Okay," he said. He took a breath. "What would you do, if you could do anything?"
I took a step toward him, closing the space between us. "This," I said. And then I kissed him."
You can find more out about Sarah Dessen at herwebsite or blog.
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