Review: Sleeping Giants

I originally got the ARC of this book secondhand this past Spring, after a promotional event at a local Seattle book retailer, but I'd been saving it for a good summer night... mainly because I honestly feel that's the optimal time for science fiction reading! Unfortunately, in the end, it took me a lot longer than a couple blissful, balmy evenings to finish. 

I don't usually do in-depth reviews for 3-star reads, but this one had enough interesting plot and structural elements, that I felt like I just wanted to talk about it. So, strap in! 

Dr. Rose Franklin never expected herself to be working on a top-secret government operation, piecing together fragments of lost alien technology, found across the globe... then again, she never thought she'd have originally unearthed it so many years ago in the first place! Alongside a team of military professionals, a geneticist, a linguist, and more - including a mysterious and seemingly all-knowing project supervisor - Rose is tasked with reuniting the broken pieces of what just might be Earth's deadliest weapon. Told through the perspective of classified government files, including interviews and personal journal entries, the characters in Sylvain Neuvel's Sleeping Giants awakens not just a long-dormant extraterrestrial power, but the ambitions of those foolish enough to try and command it for themselves. 

The book is billed for fans of Andy Weir's The Martian, due to its document-oriented format, lending itself to categorization as intense science fiction realism. However, Sleeping Giants loses a key facet of that book that did so much to humanize its intangible characters: humor.

When you parse out a narrative's components through the fractional viewpoint of a series of external focuses - whether its a journal entry, a back-and-forth interview, etc. - you lose the personal connection of firsthand "experience," whether that's from the external observations of an omniscient narrator, or the deeper internal exposition of a firsthand one. That distance needs to be remedied by a harder-working stylistic or tonal element to bridge the gap, that provides a point of connection, which, for The Martian, was humor. Without that element of outreach, Sleeping Giants, and its occupants, seemed removed and distant, which did not do much to make me connect to the characters or story line.

Perhaps the situation could have been remedied - or at least alleviated - if I was more invested in the characters themselves; unfortunately, the people involved with this alien project were all pretty darn unlikable (or, at least, uninteresting). Had I been more compelled by their stories or viewpoints, I might have been more invested, but instead, it just looks like yet another layer of missed connection with the audience.

(Okay, t-b-perfectly-h, I was kind of interested in one character in the story: the know-it-all interviewer and political master manipulator of the novel, our project's mysterious supervisor, who managed to play every character in this book like a chess Grandmaster. In my head, I cast him as a cross between Agent Coulson from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and the Cigarette Smoking Man from The X Files, which is probably why I liked him.)

In terms of the production element of the format in itself, I felt like there was a lot of clunky exposition overlaid in those interviews. I saw words around various other reviews like "infodump" and "overwhelming," and I agree. Being that you're denied the opportunity as a firsthand observer to witness what something looks like through primary description, I'll give a pass for the extensive detailing of various aesthetic values...but what I won't excuse is the clumsy mishandling of providing backstory or demonstrating personal development. You think I'm going to believe an actual person was willing to say some of that stuff in front of not just a project superior, but also a functioning tape recorder?

Any additional suspense that was supposed to be added by the mysterious epilogue, I'm counting as not-very-effective as well, by sheer presence of one of my least favorite cliches in any story: if the only way you feel like you can cap off an ending is by saying, "We have much we need to discuss," then you didn't do a good enough job generating a conversation I even want to be a part of.

I also think the book summary overall is a little misleading, because I never for a second thought that this story revolved around the project's original scientist, Dr. Rose Franklin. If you wanted to make such a big deal about her having found the original alien component, and then revisiting it as an adult, then you should have made it a big deal... if anything, the book managed to effectively pass it off as mostly coincidence, and then shunted her aside into a stock character role. I understand there might be additional interest generated in the book's sequels towards her, specifically, but I feel like there wasn't enough done to capture focus in the first place.

In total, it took me a couple of weeks to get into this book. So, it was one of my last books of the summer, and, the fifth that I finished this Fall.


Final Verdict: A new and interesting narrative, told through a format which - while wholly appropriate and true to the nature of the story - did little to actively engage the reader. Unreachable characters and intangible plot points did little to bring me in further, and in the end, it just seems like a bit of a wasted opportunity. I'll give it a 3-star for its innovation, in terms of use of format, and in terms of performing technological marvels within the scope of science fiction realism. I'd probably read another book written by this author, but not if it's a sequel.

Have you read Sleeping Giants? What did you think of it? Do you think I'm being too harsh on the narrative style? Let me know, in the comments below!

Review: Life After Life

I'd had this book on my TBR shelf for a while, and was looking for a good time to read such a hyped - and mammoth! - novel. Therefore, why not summer vacation, right? 

Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson, follows the story of Ursula, born on a snowy winter's day in 1917, who dies shortly after birth... and then is reborn again, given another chance at life robbed so quickly. Then another, and another. In fact, every time Ursula dies, regardless of whether that point is at the age of 4 or 40, she gets another chance. Set in a time period that intersects with WWII, the choices Ursula makes impact a lot more than just her own life, and it's up to her to make those decisions, even if she's not entirely aware of the consequences... and even when she's made the same mistakes before.

I used to think that being immortal would suck, because you'd lose your friends and family and just outlive everything you cared about. But I'd like to revise that statement: living your life over and over and over again - in the manner of our narrator and main character - seems like it would kind of suck, too.

(Then again, that might also just be the time period talking. Books set in Europe with a focus in WWII probably have a solid stake in making it seem like life kind of sucks in general.)

Even when Ursula's life has gone fairly well, or successfully - she's lived past the age of 60, she's got a family to dote on, she's accomplish major goals - it starts all over again, regardless... which just begs the question, what is the purpose of her life anyways? If Ursula is slated to be reborn the very second of her death, then what exactly is the final goal of her living in the first place? What is she supposed to achieve?

Basically, it's like dying over and over in a video game that doesn't have any primary directive. In that special way, it definitely raised a couple of philosophical questions in myself, as to what I was trying to achieve in my own life. Nothing to make you rethink mortality, the inevitability of death and the inscrutability of life's purpose like a little light reading on a warm summer's day.

But actually: there are so many book lists out there touting titles that "will really make you think," and this is definitely one of them. I read this book a handful of weeks ago, actually, but there are still bits and pieces floating around in my head that I can call to mind almost immediately. Ursula didn't just live one life, but many, and thus transforms her into many different characters, with different views of the world, different friends, etc. It's a pretty awesome thing to watch how those transformations come about.

As an after-effect of Ursula's chronic habit of dying, the book is oftentimes told in a non-chronological order, in a manner of speaking. While this sometimes made it a little confusing to follow, it also lent it its uniquely circular flow and direction. The overall composition of it was very well-constructed - as this kind of narrative effect would probably cause confusion in most readers, but it managed a good cadence, for the most part - and I was really, really impressed as to how everything was laid out so gradually. I want to know how Atkinson managed it, because I've got to figure a wall full of index cards factored in somehow.

Final Verdict: Windy, plot-twisty, and almost meditative in its circular narrative, this is a good thinking book. Maybe not a beach read, but something that should definitely be sitting on your bedside table come Fall.

Review: Belzhar (aka, WHAT.)

How could something so promising resolve itself so poorly? How can a narrative completely dismantle itself after the 80% mark? Who the hell edited this? Answers to these questions - and more! - I'd really like to have explained.... and here's why! 

Belzhar is the first young adult novel written by NYT Bestselling author Meg Wolitzer, who also wrote The Interestings. 

This novel follows the story of a girl named Jam - as in, Jamaica - Gallahue, who is sent to a boarding school for emotionally fragile teenagers in order to recover from the trauma of losing her boyfriend. There, she becomes a part of a five-person Special Topics in English class, which is said to be a transformative experience for the few students who are able to take part... only to realize shortly thereafter that it's because of the magical journals they're assigned to fill, which transport those writing in them to revisit the time just before their tragedy.

Boarding School? English Classes? Magical journals?! You'll notice a sharp disparity between the venom of my opener, and the sheer awesome that was that blurb. My sister certainly did, on our weekly tea date two weeks ago, after I opened the conversation with, "I just finished the worst book ever," and then proceeded to launch into a half an hour of lauding minutae of approximately 80% of the plot. As I paused to draw breath, she stopped me. "It sounds like you actually liked it!"

Oh, I did. I sat quietly on the floor of my room during a jam-packed Finals Week with one of my best friends sitting four feet away, studying dutifully at her desk, for a little over three hours. Well, strike that: I sat quietly for about two hours and forty minutes, until the silence was broken with a quick and disbelieving, "WHAT."

Let me make it perfectly clear: I was head-over-heels for this book. I am a firm believer in using journals as a therapeutic means of overcoming trauma, as well as Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, which is central to the plot of the novel. The entire thing was one great, big, beautiful allegory for confronting the difficulties of your past by writing it out, and I was ready to start a religion on this thing. I was ready for a full week of allied posts, like how to start your own journal, and my own personal reflections on my lifetime of journaling. I was ready to GO.

And then it FELL APART so damn quickly I felt like it was a narrative device. You can honestly stake the exact point in the novel where I checked out, the shift in interest altering so violently I thunked my head against the wall behind me in sheer, unconscious frustration. The climax of this story so fully altered all of the beautiful plot it had been doing such a fantastic job constructing in the first 4/5ths of the novel, I almost DNF'd. Not a joke.

I'm going to try  and describe the ultimate point of meltdown as abstractly as I can, but hopefully those of you who have also suffered through the last bit of this novel will understand.

Here's the thing: you have a purportedly contemporary novel, with fantasy elements. Those fantasy elements are explored in the first person narration, and corroborated by other similar characters to agree with your narrator. It's a solid means of constructing weird stuff - like magical transportation journals - into an otherwise normal plot. That is, of course, until you do something that makes the narrator - the first-person narrator, primary point of contact for everything that happens in the novel - UNRELIABLE.

This shatters any believability that the fantasy element actually exists, because if the only person we know who can give us a complete description of the element is a crazy person (even if the existence of the element is agreed upon by others) there's no reason we have to believe them. This un-believability didn't just take me out of the narrative, it ripped me out backwards and threw me against the wall. I read the same page six times, trying to understand, because clearly, there was something wrong with my comprehension ability if something that was just so great wasn't making sense anymore.

But no, it wasn't me. It was the book. And I'm glad I read it... but I'm even more glad that I finished it, because for a little bit there at the end, I didn't think I'd manage.

Final Verdict: Really, I think everyone should read the first 80% of this book, because it's honestly awesome. Then just feel free to close it, and never read past your bookmark.

Review: Daring Greatly

Like every lost cause of a nervous Junior year college girl with a penchant for Pinterest quotes and self-improvement books, I love a good TED Talk. So wouldn't it naturally follow that I'd pick up a nonfiction work by a TED Talk veteran.? 

Okay, so that might not be exactly how it went. My Mom was the one who picked it up first, for my sister when she graduated high school, kept it for herself, then started her Fellowship, and ended up giving it to me. So, from the very outset, there was a bit of variability between what I look for in my self-help books, than my mom or sister does.

(Seriously, the last one of her leadership books that I read, was a fable about farm animals. Not joking.)

Daring Greatly, by celebrated TED speaker and noted "shame specialist" Dr. Brene Brown, is a discourse on the crippling effects of shame and fear, and how they can really put a damper on the enormous amount of personal potential you have. By exploring aspects of these phenomena - like how men and women dare, or are kept from daring, differently, or how you can break down the self-constructions of alienation or timidity to better learn how to speak up - Brown puts a very direct focus on the reader, and challenges them to participate in a greater context in the world around them.

There were numerous aspects of this book that spoke very clearly to me, especially when it came to speaking about shields against vulnerability, like perfectionism and numbing, which are both forms of self-sabotage I subscribe to absolutely. Her rationalization of these principles made complete, recognizable sense, and her strategies for pushing against them made sense, too.

However, a lot of what she was saying was not just recognizable because I've lived with it, but because it was something I've heard before: as I described it to a friend of mine, it was very Pinterest-y. These parts of it that could be summarized by things like "The First Step is the Hardest" and "Just Do It" and "You Only Regret the Shots You Don't Take" and every other piecemeal philosophy I've found in a pretty photo package on Tumblr.

Don't get me wrong... I LIVE for that kind of stuff. It's my favorite. My phone background is an inspirational quote about painting, and no, I don't paint.

And, of course, with many books about abstract self-help and leadership concepts, I was left looking for greater examples of how I can model the principles touted within. It kind of reminded me of a lecture my CHID professor would give.

Here's the thing: Brene Brown is an incredibly good speaker, and I was far more enthralled in her TED talks than in her book. I almost recommend that you watch her talks before you read the book, because they not only give you a sort of intro and outline for what the book covers, but also gives you a better fit in her personality as a storyteller.

And speaking of personality, here's another thing: sometimes her handles on gender roles and motherhood were open in Theory, but seemed to come from a context of acceptance of principles that I didn't necessarily agree with. I especially think some of these topics were a little heavy-handed... like full acceptance of the tendency of the men she interviewed to blame their issues with vulnerability on women, resulting in (I kid you not), the unironic sentence, "I am the patriarchy."

In another instance, she makes a salient point about the objectification in the customer service industry and its ties to overuse of cell phones, but when she described a drive-through worker coming to the point of tears after she apologized for ordering while on her cell, I figured there were definitely some instances of exaggerated Hallmark-ness happening here.

But I digress. Another random thing that I can say about its status as a book format - as well as the work of a professional academic - is that she really knows how to cite her sources. Her own work was definitely bolstered by similar conversations and queries held and made by those who occupy similar realms of discourse, which, seeing that everyone seems to a how-to happy quick fix these days, is a fairly popular one.

Final Verdict: An incredibly interesting and contemporary topic discusses in an engaging way... but that I still found far more compelling in video format. Watch the TED Talks! 

Review: Humans of New York

With the quarter picking up again, my schedule endeavors to overload me with to-do lists, and kill me with jog-walks between buildings on campus; however, instead of making me wish I had the ability to teleport - well, okay, maybe I do that, too - I instead find myself ruminating on the realities of the people I pass along the way to class. I'm thinking this book is to blame...  

You know what Humans of New York is. Even if you don't know it by name, it's hard to ignore the multitude of pictures you see while scrolling through your Facebook timeline, full of portrait-style confessionals, happy snapshots full of families and friend groups, or maybe even depictions of action and innovation perfectly encapsulated in one single instant that just happened to be captured on film.

The man holding the power of those images, is Brandon Stanton, and those images are the culmination of many years of pursuing excellent photography, and, in particular, the people of New York City. If a picture is worth a thousand word, this epic saga of street-side snapshots from the city that never sleeps speaks volumes on human creativity, compassion, and the lengths we go through to say, "Hello."

However, I'm not going to get caught up in how amazing the photography itself is; you can observe that just as readily, and my talents don't primarily lie in evaluating the image, either (we'll leave that to the Art Historians). Instead, I would argue the book is more than just a simple coffee table tome that might impress the neighbors.

I argue this touting the concept of how HONY speaks to the concept of web-to-reality virality, or how people get famous on the internet, and where they go from there.

Stanton - as he describes in the book's introduction - got started as a photographer traveling through cities, and publishing his work on Facebook. In fact, that's where I find most of his photos now: they're a pretty big deal among the women of my sorority, and I can't scroll through the news feed of the popular social network without seeing one. (Which is why many of the most notable pictures within the book might be ones you've seen before.)

But what is it about the content that Stanton produces that proves so appealing to virality? My hypothesis: snapshot content - easy to digest - published alongside humorous and insightful  messages from the photo's inhabitants, which appeals to the consumer, to construct their own story behind the image. The photos are easily sharable - just one *click*, no caption necessary - and easy to identify with, for people from all backgrounds and walks of life, but especially those who buy into the mystique of the country's biggest bustling metropolis.

So why a book? Why not just leave it on the web? My answer: it popularizes the world of the individual, which, collected with other simultaneous worlds, builds a more comprehensive understanding of exactly what kind of humans are populating New York. It's like a census of sentiment. No person or peoples is exempt from classification among the pictures housed within Stanton's collection: ragtag crews of kids from the Heights, contrasted against the sleek and chic of Fashion Week and Wall Street. Homeless people, artists, and homeless artists. No one is above or below in importance of the project.

Still, lets not get too introspective on what this project really is comprised of: the pictures themselves.

In terms of what they give you, individually, sometimes there is frustratingly less information presented than you'd like. That's why its important to glean as much context as you can from the photograph. Sometimes, that can be a bit of a headache.

This search for greater understanding lead to a strange confluence of the concepts of web and physical reading: I had to keep myself from wondering what the comments would say, a mental kind of "scroll down" effect. In fact, towards  the beginning of the book, I debated actually looking up the photos online, to see what other observers had noted and deemed worthy of their interaction.

(But then you really just have to think about what it would be like to encounter these people on the street: Lord knows you wouldn't be getting much more than what you're getting here, if that; or more disappointing yet, would you have even noticed them?)

Addtionally, you're inundated by colors, framing, and faces; you can't sort through the entirety of the book all in one go. There's no sitting down to read HONY; then again, that's not what its for. What it really is there for, is to provoke some kind of contemplation on the realities of the lives of those who walk the same streets you do.

Final Verdict: I feel that Humans of New York is an important project, not just for demonstrating the applications of human connection, but how that contact extends throughout formats, including both web and print.

Top Ten Books I Read in 2014

Now that the year's winding down to a close, I figure it's time once again to review all of the books I've read in 2014, and weigh the merits of some of my absolute favorites (and also, not-so-favorites).

According to the count of the many titles I actually managed to plug into my Goodreads account, I've read 68 books in the past year - surpassing my Challenge of 55! - and through them all I've found some really great YA, really terrible nonfiction, and just about everything in between, including quite a bit of comic books, too.

So, without much further ado, here's my bookish year in review! (*self-high-five for the sweet rhyme*)

Killer Thrillers with A Twist

Chock full of the kinds of jaw-dropping, heart-stopping twists and turns that can only follow murder and mayhem... but neither of them the typical kind of thriller novel, either! 

Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn
I'm not the only person in the world who fell in love with this story this year - mainly because of the movie that has won international acclaim - but I seem to be the only one who can't shut up about it.

The Intern's Handbook, Shane Kuhn
Even a handful of months after I published this review back in September, I still am struck by how quickly I made it through this break-neck barrage of violence and wit... not to mention how much I LOVED it.

Making Old Love Stories New Again

Classic tales of epic romance, flipped through the lens of a more modernized approach, and two that take on the new scope of storytelling powers afforded by new mediums! 

The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet, Bernie Su and Kate Rorick
I've already remarked upon my absolutely obsessive love for Austen, and the Lizzie Bennet Diaries web series fangirling continues in the novelized compendium to dearest Elizabeth's annotation on the modern version of the classic comedy of manners.

Fangirl, Rainbow Rowell
Speaking of fangirling, despite a rising acknowledgement of fanfiction in the realms of popular reading - hey, Fifty Shades started out as an explicit-grade Twilight fanfic, right? - there definitely isn't all that much acceptance for it - with the previous bit of trivia probably playing a part in that, actually - so it was interesting to see it play such a large part in a contemporary Young Adult novel.

Cinder and Scarlet (Lunar Chronicles #1 and 2), Marissa Meyer
It may be my obsession for hometown author heroes, but Tacoma's own Marissa Meyer is a pretty fantastic creative type in the forefront of young adult science fiction, specializing on finding yet another new angle to take classic fairy tales.

The Hard Truth of It All

Three hard-hitting works of nonfiction that explore facets of human history and experience strange enough to be fiction, and one heart-breaking work of fiction just painful and real enough to be completely true. 

Freakonomics,Stephen D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Once again, a widely-praised title long before I came around to it, but this nonfiction exploration of everyday kinds of economics in action makes difficult concepts easy to experience.

Devil in the White City, Erik Larson
How many amazing history-oriented non-fictions have I been missing out on? This is yet another that has won a couple of awards, and holds the specific point of interest of featuring the mechanisms of an infamous American serial killer.

Barbie and Ruth, Robin Gerber (I didn't end up doing a review on this one!)
If you're as enamored with the glittery pink legacy of Barbie as I am, then this nonfiction account of the origins of not just the long-lampooned busty blonde and her ingenious entrepreneurial inventor, Ruth Handler, will no doubt make you at least a little interested.

Still Alice, Lisa Genova
Besides Gone Girl, this is probably the novel I recommend the most to others, half because it's a guaranteed ugly-cry-fest, and half because it links up with something else in my life that I care about tremendously: philanthropy. And since the movie's coming out in January, you could definitely work this one into your Winter Break reading list before school starts up again!

What were some of your favorite titles from this past year?

Review: Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Book Club

I had a very different idea of what this book would be about before I started reading... but even though the subject matter was so wildly different, I still enjoyed this adventure into the similarities between publication and immortality... 

As Clay faces his grim future in the unemployment line - thanks to the collapse of the bagel company he served as designer for before the Great Recession - he chances upon a small bookstore, looked over by the enigmatic owner Mr. Penumbra. Frequented by a select clientele who don't even buy the books that populate the store's high-reaching shelves - just check out a copy or two of mysterious coded texts  - the bookstore holds a series of secrets Clay can't help but try to uncover... with a little help from Google. (The novel takes place, after all, in San Francisco.)

If you were a little bit taken aback from the inclusion of technology in that blurb, then you're in good company. That was actually the thing that surprised me the most about this novel: the heavy integration of computer-y bits, from the basics of data visualization, to project outplacement through a steady stream of supercomputers, makes for a bit of difference from what I thought I was getting into from just the cover alone. When you look at the sunny yellow psuedo-bookshelves and chicken-scratch writing, you would think it would be something like a Carlos Ruiz Zafon Shadow of the Wind kind of situation, or even a Cornelia Funke kind of Inkheart, but while the books share similar tone - preaching the prolonged endurance of the printed word - they really couldn't differ more in subject.

One attitude taken by the novel I did appreciate, wa the projected ingenuity and optimism represented in the future of Generation Whatever... instead of focusing on the romantic nostalgia of the musty smell of books and the magic contained between moldering pages, there was a Tomorrowland-style appreciation for all the ways technology makes our future even that much more interesting. There was a twin respect for the wonder of books and the wonder of human development, basically unheard of in books about books...

In terms of writing construction, the interior, more personal, form of narration was an incredibly interesting stylistic choice, as well. Instead of a standard format for dialogue, Clay's questions are built into the inner narration, which makes for a wonderfully absorbing character, which makes the job of connecting to him that much easier. You know you're following the story along with Clay, because you're finding everything out at the same time he is.

One thing, though, is that I feel like the inventive plot and format kind of rendered some of the characters a little bit more one-dimensional - from the imposing, mustachio-ed baddie, the fluttery and kind old bookstore owner/mentor, and the geeky and utterly irresistible intelli-girl love interest (see SNL's recent form of parody, One-Dimensional Female Character from a Male-Driven Comedy, for a more complete diagnosis of this particular stock character) - and the happy ending was just a bit too idllyic.

(Then again, an idyllic, tech-driven future, built on youth and ingenuity, that manages to satisfy all consumer groups, is kind of Google's thing, isn't it?)

In the end, I'm just waiting for it all to be unearthed as a conspiracy, planned on the part of Google's PR department, on how to promote a more positive public image for the company in the wake of so many evil-tech-empire scandals in recent years (this year's Christmas miracle will hopefully involve me convincing my father he shouldn't be buying so completely into all of Amazon's splendor).

Final Verdict: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Book Club was actually a fun and interesting quick read, especially recommended for those studying communications or invested in conversations about the durability of the written word.

College Fashion Link Up: Gone Girl

This book didn't just provide the chills and thrills as promised by hyped-up fans and movie-trailers alike... it made me more excited about the concept of an unreliable narrator than I've ever been before. 

A narrative we've seen spelled out too many times splayed across spreads of tabloid pages, a cause championed by media blowhards like Nancy Grace, the twisted tale of a seemingly idyllic marriage cracking like a mirror, played out in cliche's that rip through Facebook news feeds like buzzsaws. After all, who doesn't love the spine-tingling reality and grim thrill of tracking down a Dead Wife... and who better to pin her disappearance on than a Deadbeat Husband? Nick, what did you do to Amy? 

I don't have to pretend that most of you don't know the plotline for this epic best-seller of a novel. It's maintained a spot on the New York Times list since its publication two years ago, in 2012, so it's a pretty big deal in Bookworld (and now, Movieworld, too!). The very idea of a wife's mysterious disappearance and her husband's inability to account for his actions is already a harsh situation, especially when even the narrator himself seems to be unable to explain his motives...

Alright, I know I shouldn't say "narrator," because the novel itself is a study in perspective. Part One alone flips between the modern-day observations of Nicke Dunne, while Amy's diary pages make up the rebuttal... the entire novel displays the chasms of disconnect built from the years of their relationship, only to bridge the gaps with flashes of strange commonality.

Also, to make this point clear - especially to my Dad - I refuse to tell you what happens. It's a holy mindf*** of a situation, and I went and ruined it for myself by reading the Wiki synopsis before I'd even gotten to page two, so I won't tell you, but be wary: like I said above, it's a study in perspective. So keep your eyes open. 

When it comes to construction, the characters are so well-rounded, it's astounding. Both Nick and Amy are incredibly relatable, even for their faults and foibles and differences and destructive habits, there were aspects of their personalities I viewed with close familiarity. Without giving away too much, I'll just say that we can call killers and psychos "monsters," dehumanizing them to create a discernible breach between Us and Them... but I recognized pieces of myself, my friends, my family, etc. in each of the characters of the novel.

I'm immensely impressed with Flynn for being able to craft such a monster of an interconnecting story. Trying to sift through the plot of this book was like untangling the contents of a mixed-up jewelry box... trailing along endless knots, criss-crossing story lines, coming across glinting, sharp edges of cutting commentary and recognizable views of the world, but all muddled together in an addicting mess you are determined to see through to the end. Just like I was determined to wear my long pendant tassel necklace to the first day of school, even though I had to spend a good hour extracting it from the mauled mess of my other necklaces, I was determined to find out what happened to Amy Dunne.

And be forewarned, oh future readers: this is the kind of book where people ask, "What part are you at?" then immediately follow up with the ominous, "I want to talk to you when you're finished." If you don't like having others' opinions impressed upon you unbidden, then maybe keep this title to your Kindle, so nobody gets any crazy ideas about approaching you while you're reading.

This maybe is going to sound a little heavy-handed, but honestly, it makes me reaffirmed in my desire to be a writer, that there are still people like Gillian Flynn out there writing.

So, I did a College Fashion article on this one, though inspiration didn't exactly come to me as easily as I would have like, but I'm still proud on how it all turned out. Here's my favorite look from the piece, depicting the summer Southern setting, juxtaposed against its dark and bleak tone:

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE! 

Also, this amazing 8Tracks playlist by user "alihendrix" definitely helped get me into the mood for writing this post... with numbers like a low-key Sky Ferreira rendition of Nancy Sinatra's "Bang Bang," and indie rock The Neighborhood's smoldering "Baby Come Home" I was sucked right back into the mindsets of Nick and Amy Dunne. Definitely recommended for those who like music to accompany their reading habit!

College Fashion Link Up: The Giver

 I've been on a bit of a re-reading kick lately, partially because I feel like summer always leads to a bit of nostalgia to the long, lazy days in reading chairs from my youth, but also because I'm still struggling to get out of the Summer Slump that I've been talking about recently. While returning to some of my favorite stories doesn't earn me many points in knocking down that bordering-on-disastrous TBR pile currently terrorizing the top shelves of my bookcase, it's definitely a fun trip to see just how much you hang on to from when you last read a great novel.

Which brings us to an oldie-but-goodie, with a brand spankin' new movie coming out, just begging for its own College Fashion post: Lois Lowry's seminal sci-fi-for-kids book, The Giver.

When I first read The Giver, it was a part of the disastrous kinds of "challenge" books placed on many a middle school reading list. However, unlike most of those kinds of reading material, I was able to look beyond the fact that it was required for school, and really enjoy it! And, like many who've read the story of Jonas and his community, I found the story itself enthralling, but hated the ending... but maybe because of a different reason than you would think! I was such a stickler for rules and regulation - and, in many ways, still am - that when I first read the novel, I loved the idea of a society where everything is equalized, sterilized, and taken care of for you, providing you followed directions.

Obviously, I grew out of that. In fact, when re-reading, I had to stop myself time and again, and just ruminate on the steady suspense being built within the narrative. I didn't catch it so much as a kid... I was more focused on the utopian side of things, than the slow erosion of the facade of comfort and contentment built up in the community. On first reading, I was focused on the composition of the setting, the rules, the construction of the plot; on second reading, the sinister undercurrent running through the novel was basically hitting me in the face with every turn of the page.

If anything I'm most happy, after revisiting the novel, that I really felt like I experienced it more completely than I originally had. I got the best of both worlds: the "reader response" kind of comprehension when I was twelve, and the scholastic side of comprehension now, with eight more years of dystopian literature knowledge under my belt. It's so impressive to see not just the things Lowry was able to convey in her writing, but how the book has affected those that came after it in the YA dystopian canon, like The Hunger Games, or Divergent.

Which is funny, because my favorite look from The Giver's "Looks from Books" post, had everything to do with railing against the dystopian regularities, with colorful chaos, called "Experience." It really brought together the things I love in fashion, as a contrast to the Sameness of the Giver quartet.

CHECK OUT THE REST OF THE LOOKS FROM THIS CF POST HERE! 

Review: Tiger Lily

A popular YA novel considered "under-rated" but still well-loved by many of my favorite YA bloggers, I can definitely understand - after having read the novel - how it generates so many conflicting opinions in its audience. 

I was actually just thinking about Revisionism - the literary practice of subverting a previously established story line or character for greater emphasis from a different point of view, basically revising a story to tell a different story - recently, in terms of its ties to the Feminist movements during the Early Twentieth Century.

I presented the genre as a part of a half-hour presentation I had to give in this past quarter's English 336 class, and the topic really stuck out in my head (mainly because my group partner and I kept arguing about whether something like Wide Sargasso Sea - the story of Bertha Mason from Jane Eyre, written by Jean Rhys in 1966 - was comparable to more ground-level works, like fanfiction). During this time period, Revisionism was used to give women greater voice in writing, by allowing them to speak up for women in fiction who might have remained voiceless.

Similarly, Tiger Lily, by Jodi Lynn Anderson, finds itself subverting the familiar stories and characters of Neverland, to better contrast gender role norms, conventional femininity, racial relations, and imperialism, while also touching on topics like sexual assault and suicide. Ironically, the one doing the talking this time 'round, has been famously voiceless in most iterations of the tale: the fairy, Tinker Bell.

The novel follows its titular character, a quiet, mannish young orphan feared by her tribe, but adopted by the shaman, Tik Tok, as she stumbles across one dangerous secret after another on the island of Neverland, from a Englander stranded on its banks, to the mysterious boy in the forest her tribe tells her to fear. Her new-found friendship with the enigma that is Peter Pan could shatter the fragile peace treaty her village keeps with the nearby pirates, and soon the crow-feather girl finds herself dreaming of a life outside the one she's always known... an illusion shattered by the arrival of yet another English vessel, this one bearing a yellow-haired girl, named Wendy.

The story itself is well-written and accomplishes the task of treading its own footprints in a much-traversed landscape: Neverland as seen through unexplored eyes, from the point of view of the oft-seen, but never-heard mute fairy. Tinker Bell proved to be a completely capable and interesting choice of narrator, being that as someone who couldn't speak otherwise, was deeply in tune with the emotions and thoughts of those around her; most particularly, the stoic, reserved Native girl with whom she develops a deep bond.

That being said, the word "Native" is never used; the Natives are only delineated by words like "village" or "tribe." In terms of the depictions of said customs and traditions - clearly taken after Native American heritage, like the original J.M. Barrie novel - I don't know, I felt like Anderson did a half-okay job. She had to have done at least a little research to understand the complexity of the status of "two-spirit" personhood (represented in the characterization of Tik Tok), and I thought that the parts of the narrative dealing with imperialism - with the villagers fearing catching disease from the Englanders, and the ideas of religion that man brings to the village - were handled true to history.

However, you don't grow up next to the Puyallup Reservation your whole life without knowing that taking on issues of Native American race, even one that isn't prescribed to a particular tribe, is a tricky business. I felt it was accomplished with an intermediate degree of success, with major points docked for names like "Bear Claw" and "Stone," and the undefined and indeterminate nature of the transmigration of the English language learned by the various villages (as taught by the Englanders).

(You can find an interesting perspective from a Native American blogger on the subject here.)

With the veritable laundry list of contemporary cultural pressure points listed near the beginning of this blog post being among its hot button issues, it should come as no surprise that the novel gets its strengths from its emotional core, the depths of the contrasts in gender roles, and divisions between the villagers versus the Lost Boys and pirates, ringing home the most. However, in some key territories, the narrative steers a little close to being preachy or heavy-handed, where the text almost screams the injustice at you in a way that isn't even thought-provoking, just obvious. The subtleties present within the work are much more poignant than the glaring "teachable" moments.

Furthermore, the book was advertised to me by its fanbase as being a book that would make you cry, and I can understand where they were coming from, but the novel didn't ever bring me even close to tears. If anything, the novel is dark and hard to choke down in parts, due to the explicitly depicted pain the characters are going through, but it made me wince, not cry.

Final Verdict: Tiger Lily gets its power from an emotionally-driven narrative that provides a series of jumping-off points for further discussion and contemplation of serious topics for today's young adult readers, as well as questions the implicit nature of a coming-of-age story, as told about a girl who never grew up. Revisionism, indeed.