The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac - Kris D'Agostino

I've never been a person to read the last few pages of a book before I read the first, but I think I'm going to start having to make an exception for reading the author's bio. A few key words that will immediately make me skeptical of the book's ability to rate on the (coveted, obvs.) Tika Scale of Success are:

Début novel
Lives in Brooklyn
Picture with fingers in hair and self-deprecating smile

I actually took the time to Post-it flag this novel, complete with comments on said flags. They read, in order:

"One of the banes - hah!"
Sentence frags errwherrrrr!
POOR WRITING ->
UGH
WTF is this?
Would it kill you to use a :?
Ok CE [copy editor], ":" =/= "is"
Homophone vs. synonym

Let's begin with the sentence fragments, shall we? Modern writers and readers understand that sentence fragments can be used to great effect. We've eschewed the idea that a sentence must have a subject and a verb to make sense because we understand context.

HOWEVER.

With great effect comes the great responsibility to not over-use the grammatical linguistic phenomenon to the point of reader exhaustion. (In the future, people will categorize the 2000's-2010's literary style as the Sentence Fragment Era.) Observe:

"We arrive at the warehouse just after nightfall. Part of an eerie industrial park. Abandoned and unused, seated behind the railroad tracks on the outskirts of Oscawana." (p.51)

I have a less emphatic "no no no" gif, but it wasn't getting the job done.

It turns out that first-person present is my least favorite of the tenses. I spend half my reading time thinking, "I do WHAT now? When did I did that?" When WHAM! Out of the blue come sentences like this:

"The scariest thing: that somehow I'm meant to be here, at this kitchen table, forever, for all time, watching these two women make chicken cacciatore." (p. 143)

As mentioned above, a colon does not function as the word "is." Punctuation is not to be thrown out (OR IN) all willy-nilly without-a-plan. It serves a purpose. It adds meaning. You are driving me to italics, Kris. And chicken cacciatore is awesome.

My dear copy editor of this wretched novel, do not think I've overlooked you! Let's have a little discussion about homophones, shall we? They're words that sound alike but are spelled differently, for those not keeping up (you).

One does not wave ones' rights. One waives them.
One does not steer from the yolk of a plane, but from the yoke.
Colons function not as verbs (see above) but as denoters of lists. Observe:

I make a list of everything in the attic: [correct!] 

Stacks of framed pictures. Grandma and Grandpa on the shores of Cape Cod. Chip, Elissa, and me in front of the Louvre. Our parents' wedding. Birthdays. Graduations. Proms. [NO!] (p. 123)

Allow me to refer you to the Tracy Morgan gif directly above, because Grandma and Grandpa on the shores of Cape Cod are not, in fact, things in the attic. Neither is your parents' wedding, etc. So, in closing, I'd like to take you out back for a little grammar/punctuation/learn-to-do-your-job lesson.

And the story is basically this guy who lives with his family and has to help them and he whines about it all the time because he's 24 and he wants to be freeeeeee! Which makes me want to punch him in the face. And then, you guys, something happens at the end that makes me feel guilty for hating this book. Which, perversely, makes me hate it even more.

In conclusion, this book is bullshit and I hated it.

2 out of 11 Ichabod Cranes.

Seraphina - Rachel Hartman

So I read The Night Circus and I didn't like it all that much. Then I read Seraphina, and I want to hoist it above my head and wave it about at infodumpy fantasy authors as an example of How Shit is DID.

It's clear that Hartman took completely to heart (HAH) the old advice of "show, don't tell," and carefully went through her manuscript to excise out all the telling. (It's that second bit that's tough, I surmise.) She expects you to pay attention, and if you do, you'll figure things out. But if you don't, that's ok - you'll get the story anyway and it will just be less subtle. Do you need to know what a houppelande is? NO! So she doesn't tell you until the (very funny) glossary at the end of the book. Was I - a textiles nerd - tickled that she used the proper word for a medieval tunic worn my both men and women, recognizable in such films as The Lion in Winter and Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves? You bet your dagged sleeves I was.

Gratuitous Katherine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter. Seriously,  how did anyone dare to do this play after she and Peter O'Toole took every actor anywhere to school? Ahem. I digress.

She also understands my soul, as evidenced in this sentence describing something that happens to me on a regular basis:

"Some sober part of my brain seemed to observe everything I did, clucking disdainfully, informing me that I ought to be embarrassed, yet making no move to stop me" (p. 324).

Definitely written by a woman who has had her share of I-swear-on-my-eyes-once-I-find-them-I-will-never-drink-again moments.

The world is beautifully realized, well-researched, and, in an unusual, why-didn't-I-think-of-that twist, the dragons are the clear, scientific creatures with an astonishing ability to create mechanical objects, and humans are the superstitious ones.

The whole thing is just charmingly imagined, and as we've established I have very little imagination but I'm very particular about reading the imaginings of other people, so you'll just have to trust me. Someone pass me the liquor.

9.5 out of 11 Medieval Villages Left Standing after the Dragon Scourge

The Age of Miracles - Karen Thompson Walker

There is this thing publishing has started doing in the last *mumblemumble* years where they call a first novel a debut novel. This always makes me think of débutantes dressed in white, swanning their way down stairs on their fathers' arms so they can be introduced to society, and I kind of hate it.

Firstly because there's suddenly all this pressure to make your début novel amazing, which only happens if you're Susanna Clarke or Harper Lee or Margaret Mitchell, which you are not. And secondly because it puts unrealistic expectations on the book to be HAAAA-mazing and flawless, which is hard enough for a seasoned writer, much less a débutante  And if there's one thing I will do when I'm expected to find a book to be flawless, it's... find a fuckton of flaws.

Julia is 11 when the world starts slowing on its axis. Days gain hours, and while it's kind of a thing, it's not really because she's eleven and has other stuff to worry about, like being the weird kid at the bus stop and liking the handsome skateboarder guy.

Now I'd like you to please pause and think about what you knew when you were eleven. If the answer is "almost nothing," then you are in the same boat as me and the rest of society. Julia, however, is outside of this boat. She's already made it to Adult Reflections Land, where people say things (to themselves) like,

"Carlotta's long gray hair swung near her waist, a ghost, I suspected, of its younger and sexier self" (p. 106).

Reeeeally.

Look, KT-Dubs, I dunno how long it's been since you were eleven, but I have a 12-year-old brother and I am here to tell you that considering the ghosts of people's formerly sexy hair is not on that age group's radar. AT ALL.

The narrator could have been 19, or 25, or 47 years 3 months and 7 days, because she's speaking through an adult mouthpiece - which I haaaaaaated. And I get that this is a coming-of-age novel, wherein the heroine Learns Lots of Things and Puts Away Childish Ideas, and that it's sad that she has to do that while the world is ending (slooooowly). And when there's a concept as fascinating as the Earth slowing its roll, it seems almost wasteful to overlay it with the everyday issues of a pre-teen girl, which to those of us who are no longer pre-teens are about as exciting and urgent as getting you car washed during the rainy season.

This would have been sooooooer much better as a short story or a novella. Cut 150 pages, throw a couple of other short stories on top about other people in this world, call it a collection and BOOM! Better.

Also because I don't read short stories, and thus wouldn't have read it or felt left out for skipping it.

4.5 of 11 Stockpiles of Apocalypse-Friendly Foodstuffs

Code Name: Verity - Elizabeth Wein

One of the reasons I don't tend to read mysteries is that I like to talk about plot, and it's difficult to do so when one-third of a book is about "Lo, a mystery!" and the other two-thirds are about "Let's solve this (preferably with witty banter and possible sexytimes, a la Castle and Bones)!" And then one has to dance around the plot, not Giving It All Away, much like a great aunt warning you against sexytimes of your own while "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" plays sadly in the background.

And while this book is not a mystery, it presents many of the same discussion difficulties that a mystery might.


This book is...

I want to talk about...

And then there's this other thing...


Well, there is ONE thing I want to talk about. This book is set in the 1940s in England (mostly), and it's written in the first-person, which means that the characters should speak as if they were in that time period. And if I am not very much mistaken - which I am not - the convention of speaking forcefully being expressed in ALL CAPS, shouty-internet style, is fairly recent.

I know that complaining about all-caps usage by an author makes me a huge hypocrite. Trust me, I'm aware.

But it bugged me.

Especially because I tend to read sentences in all caps in a very specific type of shouty style - probably due to the book blogging friends I hang out with - which looks very much like this:

"...SO EMBARRASSING..." (p.1)

BUT aside from that, this is a Very Good Book and you should all read it and if I go on much longer I will Give It All Away, which as we've all learned will lead only to singing sad doo-wop tunes in the shower.

The best accolade for this book I can give is this: I think Connie Willis, High Dame of Alternative WWII History, would like it.


9 of 11 Muppet Flails, Aviatrixes!

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern

Soooooo this book is all about atmosphere. It's beautifully conceived, and the author is clearly super-creative, which I am... not. At all. This is why I majored in art history instead of art. I like the scribblings and paint splashings of other people, but not my own.

Pretty sure this is how Raych's Sister of the Art paints.

Did you ever get into the FIMO/Sculpy clay thing? People were making all of these incredibly elaborate creations, and I was the kid in the back going, "lookit what I made!" and my mom would be all, "oh... that's a nice mud-colored blob, dear. What is it?" And I'd answer, "it's a RAINBOW!"

This is how I feel criticizing highly imaginative work. But someone's got to before Pinterest goes all crazy with The Night Circus-themed weddings, y'know? Oh, wait...

With all of that said, I feel like it was missing... something. Like maybe actual main characters? The Circus itself was uh-mazing, and all the secondaries were wonderfully realized, and the whole thing just oooooozed imagination like... I dunno because I'm not imaginative.

But I didn't dig the love story, ducklings, and I don't know why because I luuuurve a good tragic love story. Except it wasn't tragic and I felt like the lovers didn't really love one another so much as they loved their images of one another, and that always ends in tears.

I am totally That Girl who Side-Eyed this book.

6.5 of 11 flaming cauldrons full of ghosts

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams

I consider myself to be a moderately serious Anglophile - particularly when it comes to books. I mean, I've been to a couple of Jane Austen events, seen several Andrew Lloyd Webber productions, memorized Bridget Jones, and had high Victorian tea at a big hotel in London that I've since forgotten the name of - the Regency, maybe? I don't remember because I was 13 and at that age all I could think about was how desperately I wanted to sink into the floor in a puddle of my own hormones.

This is how it feels to be a teenager. 

So imagine my surprise and dismay when I realized that I'd skipped Douglas Adams' entire catalogue! I promptly ordered Dirk Gently from my library and put Hitchiker's Guide on my Classics Club list, and I was super-excited to start; after all, I was a theater/sci-fi nerd in high school!

And dudes, I... I think maybe Douglas Adams is not my thing? Just in a very overall sense, not in the "I hated every minute of this book" sense, which I most assuredly did NOT. Much of it was quite clever. But I feel like Adams and Pratchett are similarly enamored of their own cleverness, so the plots don't quite line up? Even though there are lines like these:

"He had extracted himself from the Cambridge one-way system by the usual method, which involved going round and round it faster and faster until he achieved a sort of escape velocity and flew off at a tangent in a random direction, which he was now trying to identify and correct for." (p. 96)

And:

"Dirk turned away and sagged sideways off his chair, much as the sitter for 'The Thinker' probably did when Rodin went off to be excused." (p. 217)

OKAY I CHUCKLED AT THAT. I am, after all, an art history major with a keen appreciation of art-y stuff, and also an appreciation of how Adams chose his joke carefully so that people on pretty much any part of the art-understanding spectrum would find it funny.

But can we talk about Chapter 26, which miiiight be my favorite chapter ever with the possible exception of Chapter 13 of The French Lieutenant's Woman? Because it starts on a train with a bunch of drunks and turns subtly into the beginning of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." When I realized what was happening, I wanted to get up out of bed and run around the room like Rocky, except it was the middle of the night and I was cozy so I settled for a book nerd wriggle.

Don't tell me you don't know what those are. You know you do.


7.5 out of 11 hitchikers, Fnordlings.

Feeling Sorry for Celia - Jaclyn Moriarty

The best part about this book is the lovely relationship Elizabeth has with her mom. They are witty with one another but not too witty: 

Elizabeth to her mother:
P.S. I just realized that I told you we drank your Bacardi. Do you want me to cross that bit out? Everyone was saying I should refill the bottle with water so you wouldn't know...

Elizabeth's mother to Elizabeth:
I can't wait to meet your new friends. Please tell them not to put water in my Bacardi.

Amen, sister! There's no excuse for watered-down booze.

It's told entirely through letters and notes; notes between Elizabeth and her mom, her new pen pal from the school 3 blocks over, her best friend since childhood, and a scattering of groups that I clearly recall getting letters from myself when I was a teenager, such as the aptly named Association of Teenagers and the COLD HARD TRUTH Assn. 

Nearly all of the individual letters are rather short, which means I read it so fast the pages may have been smoking when I was done. It's tough to stop when you just careen from paragraph to paragraph.

You know how some people are charming just underneath their skin? You have to get to know them for a minute, and in that minute you're kind of like, "hmm... I don't... know... about you, you curious little thing..." and you raise your eyebrow in their general direction (if you're genetically blessed with a raise-able eyebrow, which I - to my GREAT disgust - am not). And then you blink and suddenly it's been 3 hours and your face hurts from smiling so much. 

That's this book. 

7.5/11 Letters to Santa

The Little Stranger - Part the Second

This read-a-long brought to you by The Estella Society, which is awesome: 

Four hundred sixty-three pages later and I am... seriously underwhelmed.

First, let me say that I read through a lot of the first round RAL posts over at The Estella Society, and I think those people maybe read a different book than I did? Because their reviews were full of praises for the characterization and the creep factor and the slow build of the characters' interpersonal relationships, and (as you may be aware) my review was full of Whoopi Goldberg gifs and what-am-I-missing-guise?!?

For those of you new to this place - which is pretty much everyone since this blog is only a month and a half old - I promise you that I know A Lot about plot and watching slow characterization and that I can use all the Big Literary Words and once got 100% on a paper about how the City of London was a legit character in The Old Curiosity Shop. But let's face it: gifs are funnier, and everyone needs a niche.

SO. Let's talk about how this book is basically the literary equivalent of:

So I guess titular character was only ever after the family? Which is weird because they never really talked about it, or when they did someone got chucked into an asylum. And also un-scary because I didn't really care about the family much, and since I'm NOT the family, I'm safe. Safety is the antithesis of fear. And then Doctor Faraday convinced himself that he was in love with Caroline, which isn't really true because obvs. he wanted Hundreds - weird shit and all. And THEN Mrs. Ayres goes and hangs herself on a doorknob (?) because why not leave the woman with spontaneous body-stigmata all alone? Surely nothing could happen to her!

The Aunts KWIM.

And then Caroline calls off the wedding to Dr. Faraday because she never loved him after all, which I COULD HAVE TOLD HIM based on her behavior, and THEN she jumps/is pushed off of a balcony in her house and dies, too, because she thinks The Thing in the house is done with her family maybe, so getting up in the middle of the night is safe?  This is All So Sad, but from one event to the next, there's no sense that the next person should GTFO and move to sunny Spain and spend the rest of their lives tilting at windmills.

(My favorite metaphors are mixed ones.)

Herein lies my ISSUE with this book: I got no sense of looming danger, no sense of frenetic AGGHGHHHHHH for me-the-reader, no sense that the thing in the house is truly malicious or even really dangerous. The Doctor got more and more repugnant as he pushed and pushed his wedding to Caroline, and really in the end I felt like everyone deserved what they got, which (while allowing me to feel very smug) is probably not the way Waters intended me to feel. Witholding information from the reader can be extremely effective, but in this case there was too much witholding; not enough detail got through to incite fear or dread.

I will say, though, that I enjoyed the read-a-long itself very much, and am looking forward to more with The Estella Society!

4 of 11 Victorian speaking tubes, and a mandatory viewing of Arsenic and Old Lace for anyone who doesn't recognize the Aunts.



BONUS LIST OF Things that Do Suspense Better than This Book:

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland
My cat about to pounce on something
The doorbell when you don't know who's coming over

The Smoke Thief - Shana Abe

Historical fantasy romance, I'm not sure how I feel about you. I appreciate you for your fluffy, cheerful qualities and your ability to increase my Books Read in 2012 total in short order - it is difficult, as it turns out, to read 350+ pages of Gone with the Wind in one sitting [mostly because of the page/type size but also because hellooo, real plot and dynamic characters and OMG Ashley Wilkes you are all the milksops and milquetoasts for all eternity and that is not a compliment. I am going to print out copies of chapter 31 of GwtW and hand it to prospective lovers to read from now on, and if they identify with even ONE quality you exhibit, then KA-POW!

(in this scenario I am the jumping goat)]

Ahem. Where was I?

Ahh, yes. Historical fantasy romance. We begin with a VERY CRYPTIC story about the original drakon and how they were in tune with gems and some such thing, then they lost everyone (but not everyone?) and this one gem had the biggest draw so the last of the drakon (but not the last, obvs., because this is the prologue) threw it and herself into the deepest darkest mineshaft at the bottom of the deepest, darkest mine so no one would ever get it, ever.

Because that always works.

And then we cut to " the recent past," which is 17mumblemumble* and 12-year-old half-drakon/half human Clarissa falls asleep on the moors and wakes up to see Heir to the Duchy schtupping some chick who (of course) haaaaates Clarissa because she's a mudblood half-breed. Fade to black.

Announcement: Clarissa has been tragically drowned/eaten by wolves/something at the tender age of 17 and no body was ever found. She is definitely dead.

So let's recap:
-Carpathian mountains but no vampires, just big gems and deep mines (there's a metaphor there but I just... can't... reach it...
- All the drakon are dead but jokes! They really moved to England.
- Clarissa is a half-breed and dead.

Oh, and drakon can take human form (duh) but their between drakon/human form is smoke. And when they turn to smoke, they lose all their clothes.

I know, right, Kim? I was shocked - SHOCKED! - too!

There is a WHOLE LOT of coalescing in tight spaces like belfrys and dovecotes and whatnot with no clothes and heaving bosoms and lingering looks. So many nekkid people drakon, you guys.

And then really everything after is just an excuse for the hero to express to the heroine (spoiler: Clarissa isn't dead after all! Also the boat sinks in the end of Titanic.) how much he wants her to be his wife while she unsuccessfully fends him off and then has to nurse him back to health because he got bit by an alligator? I don't even know because - as I mentioned - I read this whole thing in one sitting.

HOWEVER. There are definite pluses to this particular piece of fluffy drek. First, I didn't walk away (or rather, drift off to sleep) feeling like I wanted to strangle the author for turning her heroine into a hole for a man (fine, drakon) to stick his sausage into all willy-nilly. Have a little respect for your gender forchrissakes, lady authors of romance novels! Feminism is still happening! And second, I admire the way she didn't even deign to address how a half-breed turned out to be the Strongest Female of them All. Why bother? Everyone knows that hybridization leads to stronger stock. ALSO, remember way back to the prologue? It had nothing to do with the plot of this book.

So the real question is, will I read the second in the series? Probably, now that I have a local library card** and can throw things on to my hold list at will, and also I want to see whether throwing a ring gem in a deep dark mine ever really kept it from resurfacing. I suspect... not.

5.5 out of 11 rings, my preciousses.




*I'm writing this at work and the book is at home. Thank you, start-up culture, for not blocking Blogger on my computer while I wait for Very Important People to email me back.

**The hardest part about moving was deleting my hold queue in Sacramento. I'd been waiting for some of those books for simply ages! /sigh