#14: Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

Kick ass girls and women in fantasy make me so happy.  These young women deal with all of the frustrations of growing up and becoming independent, falling in love, following their heart, and not letting anyone tell them who they can and cannot be.

Some of favorite badass young women are found in Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom Series.  Sabriel and Lirael are amazing.  They are forced into situations that they are in no way prepared to deal with, but trusting themselves, they fight and claw and tear through.  (Side note: there is a fourth full Old Kingdom book coming out in 2013.  Excuse me while I do some excited celebratory movements.  …  Aaaaaaaand I’m back.)  I’d like everyone to read anything by Tamora Pierce and hang out with her amazing young women.  These girls are not going to sit by and let things happen to them while they watch.  They have stuff to do and it’s going to get done.

Kristin Cashor has given us three new young women who stand up and work.

Bitterblue is the third book in the Graceling Realm series, following Graceling and Fire.  I strongly recommend that you read them in order, even though Fire is considered a companion book. 

In this world, some are Graced.  Anyone born with two different colored eyes has a great talent to be discovered. It might be rather useless like being able to whistle without growing tired or helpful like being able to bake the most delicious bread or sing the sweetest songs.  But it can also be dangerous.  Some are Graced with killing or mind reading,  or being able to craft untraceable poisons or having unstoppable strength.  The kings of the realms use their power to take any child born Graced and hold them until their Grace is discovered.  If they are useful, they will be kept.  Because of this, kings have grown more and more powerful and more and more dangerous and corrupt.  Gracelings are used as sport to entertain their kings, their Graces used against each other.  Many Gracelings are openly distrusted because they could be hiding something and using it against everyone, Graced or not.  This is a land where conspiracy and secrets and fear is thick.

There are spoilers ahead for those who have not read the first two.  You’ve been warned.

Eight years have passed since the end of Graceling.  Bitterblue is now queen of Monsea, and at 18 she is surrounded by older men who advised her father and who seem to want to help her.  They also hide her from her own people.  The realm is slowly healing from her evil father’s reign, and there are still secrets and whispers and Bitterblue realizes she’s helplessly, and possibly dangerously, uninformed. 

Restless and suspicious, she begins sneaking out of the castle in disguise to spend time with her subjects in the hopes of discovering what is being kept from her.  This leads to more confusion as she finds that people are remembering things differently.  Some are content to forget everything the evil king did and refuse to talk of the past.  Others want reparations for what was taken from them, but even here they seem hesitant to speak.  It quickly becomes obvious that what Bitterblue is being told by her advisors is not what is happening on the streets.  The rich continue to profit from the evil king’s reign and those who would speak truth go missing.

Bitterblue makes new friends and is exhausted by having to lie about who she is, and then having to hide what she is learning from her advisors.  She is not sure who she can trust and what the truth is, but it is clear that something is very, very wrong.  I was confused throughout because a character would seem to lie one minute, speak the truth the next, and then tell a half truth after.  It felt impossible to know what the truth was, and which truth was the one to believe.  Many good people are making decisions that were right for them, but are they right for Bitterblue and are they right for the kingdom?  At what point does healing and rebuilding become harmful if the past is not addressed?  And Bitterblue is caught because she doesn’t know everything that her father did.

I really enjoyed this book because you get to live in Bitterblue’s confused head.  It’s clear that things are being kept from her, but because you only have her perspective, you’re as frustrated as she is.  What are the right questions to ask?  What can she reveal, and who can be trusted?  There were several moments where I was almost in a panic because she was confiding in someone who might turn against her.  I wanted her to have a trusted friend, but it was clear that people who wished her a long healthy life were also lying to her.  And why were they doing it???

And on top of the weight of the crown, she’s eighteen and falling in love for the first time.  But does a queen have a choice?  Her advisors need her to marry royalty and produce heirs, but this is the last thing on her mind.  She wants to heal her lands and make sure her people are safe.  But can a queen even know what’s best for her subjects what she cannot even understand what their lives are like?

This series lives on my Absolute Favorites shelf.  There are comforting faerie tale themes, but it’s not a cookie cutter plot and I was never sure who to trust or what mistakes Bitterblue was making.  Cashore has created an amazing land and filled it with characters who are delightfully real.  There is much heartbreak in these pages, but there is also hope and friendship and loyalty and love.  At times Bitterblue is completely alone, and yet you know there is a chance that, even just for one moment, she will be understood and loved and protected and will know the truth.

Also?  She knows the exact place to slip a knife into anyone who dares to attack her.  How can you not like a young woman who can wear silks while killing?

This is a solid fantasy series and I recommend it to anyone who is looking for fantastic characters, both male and female.  Read the other two first, then settle in to try to figure out what happened during the years when the evil king reigned.

#13: The Book of Flying by Keith Miller

This book was a wonderful surprise.  I have no idea how it got on my To Be Read list, but I am so glad it did and that I randomly picked it in my last library run.

The writing in this book is beautiful.  More than beautiful.  It’s the kind of book where you need to pause and reread so you can hear the words a second time.  There were parts I needed to say out loud because the phrasing was so good.  It became a tactile experience for me – the cadence paired with alliteration and consonance and assonance created a flow and I needed to feel the words in my mouth.  It was gorgeous poetry in prose form and even as I was pulled into the story I still needed to slow down to enjoy and marvel at the writing.

The plot itself is fantastic.  It follows a classic folklore motif and was comfortable without being clichéd.  Pico is a lonely library and poet, sick with love for the girl he cannot have.  He was born without wings, and Sisi is blessed with them.  The two have some time together, but Sisi realizes Pico will never be able to give her what the air and the ocean and the sky does, and she leaves him to his books and poems.

Lovesick, Pico packs a few books and journeys into the land beyond.  He follows the promise of The Book of Flying.  If he reads it, he’ll grow wings.  With his wings, he’ll be able to win Sisi back and have his love and the air and the sky.  He’ll be worthy of her and of all the winged ones.

The folklore journey is wonderfully followed.  As he travels further and further away from the sea, he meets people who are on journeys of their own.  His quest is told through their stories and each section is based on the strangers’ tales without becoming its own separate book.  The overlap is incredibly skillful and Miller takes these stories and weaves them into Pico’s journey.

These new characters and friends have amazing tales of their own.  There is a lot of heartbreak and longing.  Each character is severely broken and they all want Pico to be successful so that their own misery and mistakes will be somehow forgiven.  There is a lot of pain in every page, and yet Pico brings so much hope.  When he falters it’s even more upsetting because he is representing all the others’ failures.  Again, Miller takes these characters and makes their faults build up Pico’s strengths.  They need him to succeed.  They need to know he’s out there on his path and completing his quest.  They need something good and perfect and his love and dedication to Sisi is a gift.  It’s amazing, but it is not neat and tidy.  This is not a sweet bedtime tale for little ones.

As he gets closer and closer to Morning Town and the book that might not even be real, I wondered if Sisi was worthy of this quest.  I wondered if he would decide he was better without her.  I wondered if it would end the way he hoped and they’d live happily ever after.  I wondered if he’d get his wings or not.  I wondered if he’d even return home or if he’d find a new home and a new life.  I absolutely loved every step of his journey, even when he stopped for too long and lost his way. 

And a wonderful bonus!  Keith Miller’s new book is out and I cannot wait to get it in my hands.

#12: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

I read this a few years back and recently picked it as the first read for my book group.  Why?  Because it is awesome.

I am not a fan of the zombie genre.  I do not like horror.  This book was sort of on my radar because it was on every OMG!!! READ THIS BOOK!!! list when it came out, but it was about zombies, so I didn’t pay attention.  But after seeing it again and again as a suggested book on various Fark threads I decided to give it a try.

And I tore that thing apart.

Here’s what you need to know: this isn’t a zombie book.  I mean, yeah, the entire thing is about zombies, but it’s not a zombie book.  It’s so much more and when I read it the first time and now rereading it, I continued to be amazed and impressed about how smart it is.  Brooks researched the hell out of each topic.  Even if every chapter isn’t a smash, it’s obvious that he put in some serious work.

The Zombie War lasted for roughly ten years.  Another ten years or so have passed, and our interviewer has finished his report for the United Nations, but is frustrated that the human aspect was left out.  He returns to his interviews to put faces to the facts and to reconstruct what happened to us all when the zombies came.

Following a fairly chronological arc, he meets with a range of individuals and each chapter is one interview.  Medical professionals, government officials, members from differently levels of the military, researchers, scientists, capitalists, religious leaders, environmentalists, average folks, clean up and reconstruction volunteers, historians, and many more make up his book.  This is one of the things that made me love it so quickly.  You get to see every level of the Invasion from people at the top to J. Random Guy sitting on his couch when his front window gets smashed in.    It could have just been a military book or a government book or a civilian book, but he makes it a world book, and it is awesome.

The oral history also did it for me.  This isn’t a text book.  These are people telling their story in their own voices.  Each profession (for lack of a better term) has their own vocabulary and view of what happened and how they reacted, and I really liked comparing priorities and responses.  For a mom, her only goal was to get her kids to safety.  For researchers and government officials, they had to figure out how to save the most amount of people and decide on an acceptable death rate.  The military has to learn an entirely new battle system and completely change the psychology of war.

The oral history aspect of the book doesn’t work for all readers.  People in my book group as well as other reviewers felt like all the voices sounded the same and that Brooks didn’t have the talent or vocabulary to write for all these characters.  I disagree, but then again, if I was an expert in any one field, I’m sure I would cringe at that section.  The first time I read the book, I really liked the entry told from the point of view of a woman named Sharon who was very young when the Invasion happened.  She escaped and became a somewhat feral child until she was discovered and brought to a group home.  Her feral life has resulted in cognitive impairment and she tells her story in basic language.  I really liked it because she was mimicking the sounds and voices and shouts and I liked teasing out what really happened based on her childhood version.  However, after my book group, I realized that this chapter doesn’t hold up so well.  One of my friends has a three year old and hated how Sharon spoke.  She said she sees this a lot – adults writing the way they think kids talk.  Sharon speaks like a toddler, yet is able to tell a complicated, sequential story.  She doesn’t recognize blood or know the word for cell phone.  We tried to figure out how old she was when her story happened based on what she says, but the language and sequential arc do not fit together.  This is something I never would have noticed on my own, which is why book groups are awesome.

Another major selling point for me was that each interview was fairly short and because Brooks chooses so many subjects, if you weren’t that interested in a topic, you only had to skim for a bit more to get to the next one.  There were characters who I were fascinated with and took my time with, and then there were others that I glossed over because I wasn’t interested in that aspect of the War.  It was great to discuss it with my book group because there was a mix of favorites. 

In no particular order, my favorites:

• Breckinridge Scott because I hated this guy.  Hated him so much because his character would happen in real life and who knows if he’d ever be punished.  HATED HIM.  The kind of hate where I get mad all over again when I think of his interview.  Yeah, it didn’t happen, but things like this happen all the time, and fuck those guys.  SO MUCH HATE!!!
• Todd Wainio because it was frustrating and heartbreaking to see how unprepared the US military was and how useless our modern weapons were.
• Colonel Christina Eliopolis because… what really happened?
• T. Sean Collins because the pop culture aspect was so satisfying.  I had forgotten what happened to the Hollywood elite and was as surprised the second time as I was the first.
• Sensei Tomonaga Ijiro and Kondo Tatsumi because they were representatives of people who were deemed useless to society before the Invasion yet became crucial during the fight and now in the rebuilding.

Anytime anyone asks for a book recommendation, this is always my go to.  I feel just about anyone will like it because it doesn’t really fit into any genre.  There’s going to be at least one story in here that you relate to or are interested in.  I challenge anyone to read this and not try to figure out how they’d react if something like this happened.

 

#11: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling

Mindy Kaling is a badass.  She’s never fit neatly into any category, so she made her own.  Her childhood stories are laugh out loud hilarious and she has that great storytelling gift where she captures the moment the way she saw it as a child with the understanding she now has an adult.

I love how she never seemed to realize that she wouldn’t be able to do what she wanted.  It seems like it never occurred to her to be nervous or unsure.  If she didn’t get a part or didn’t find anything she liked, she’d write something for herself.  This becomes painful when she and her writing partner sell a sitcom, have to audition for their own parts, and then don’t get them.  But she shrugs it off and moves on to the next awesome thing.

I really liked the parts where she talks about The Office, especially how everyone assumes she’s just like Kelly Kapoor.  No one asks her co-workers what she’s really like because obviously she writes down what she thinks and says in real life and then gets in front of the camera and starts talking.  She presents a neat list of how she differs from Kelly, nothing that she would never fake a pregnancy to save a relationship.

She does write about how frustrating it can be when you don’t fit into the Hollywood box.  People Magazine names her one of their Most Beautiful People, then doesn’t bring any clothes that will fit her when she shows up for her photo shoot.  After a quick and angry cry in the bathroom, she walks back in, points to a dress and calmly explains that they will have to take it apart to make it fit her.  And they do.  Total badass.  And check out the dress.  They were going to stick her into some navy blue, shapeless thing.  Kelly Kapoor never would have forgiven her.

She is crazy talented and is perfect to write, direct and act on The Office.  I’m glad she continues to assume anyone who doesn’t think she’s amazing must not understand what amazing means.  Her book is great, her work is great and she is awesome.

#10: My Booky Wook 2: This Time It’s Personal by Russell Brand

This ended up being a super depressing read.  I really enjoyed My Booky Wook the first and was looking forward to more, but he wrote this pre-divorce and it was so so sad at the end.

Brand is really smart and I enjoy his writing.  He doesn’t have someone else write for him, which I always appreciate in a celebrity memoir.  His voice is clear, his asides are hilarious and you can feel his personality on every page.  As in his first book, he isn’t trying to clean up his past and make himself look better.  He knows he was horrible at times and doesn’t try to brush it off or blame it on other things.  Although there are a few times where I feel he has the attitude of “This is who I am and I’m honest about it, so you can’t get mad at me.” and that doesn’t really fly.

He’s writing about clean and sober times now, so there’s a much happier and lighter tone.  However, his sex addiction is still turned up to eleven and it’s sad to see.  Even though women delight him on all levels, you get the sense early on that he realizes there’s something more than sex and that he’s both bewildered by it and drawn to it.

He continues his story about fame and how weird it is.  He is huge in England and began to get excited about the idea of coming to the States to make movies.  He steps off the plane and no one knew who he was.  Although he tried not to let fame change him, it threw him to suddenly be able to walk around and not be mobbed.  Suddenly he had to audition for a part just like all the other unrecognized actors instead of being welcomed in and asked to relax with tea and biscuits. 

Some of the most interesting and powerful moments Brand writes about revolve around when he’s alone.  He doesn’t seem to know who he’s supposed to be when it’s just him.  He’s always entertaining everyone else and almost everything he does is with the intent so have sex and/or make people laugh, so when he’s alone it’s sad.  When filming Forgetting Sarah Marshall, he hides in his trailer, petrified to go out and talk to anyone.  He’s in Hawaii, miserable and depressed because he doesn’t know how to engage with anyone.  He attempts to bed Mila Kunis and Kristen Bell but they both had boyfriends, so he retreats back to his trailer and rather quickly goes mad.  I know I keep saying this, but it’s just so sad.

Several times when he travels he brings a girlfriend along to keep him company.  Sometimes he even convinces himself that this girl will help him “be good” and not sleep around the set.  He often then sends her home when he realizes there are many other women in the area that he can sleep with.  He’s addicted to sex and his constant stream of women becomes more and more depressing to see.  He has women waiting for him in bed, in the bath, in the kitchen, on the front step, the car, the hotel, the office…  I get the feeling some people are impressed and jealous of the constant orgasms, but knowing his marriage didn’t last and seeing him want to make a genuine connection with a woman really bummed me out.

The final few pages are heartbreaking.  He’s met Katy Perry, she’s invaded his brain and he writes about how happy he is and amazed that she’s in his life.  Only she’s not any more and I wanted to know what went wrong.

It’s still a great book and I enjoy his writing and comedy, but man…  I wish I had read this before the divorce.

#9: The English Major by Jim Harrison

The English Major was a nice surprise.  I’m not sure how this one got added to my pile.  I was an English major, so I probably picked it up on the title alone.

Cliff is in his sixties and is suddenly starting over.  His wife has left him, filed for divorce and manages to walk off with the farm and almost everything they owned together.  Cliff is no longer a Michigan farmer with a routine.  He’s a guy with no home, little money and no responsibilities.  This forced freedom is terrifying.

A child’s puzzle of the US gives him the idea to drive across America, visiting every state.  He decides that who ever named the states and the birds got it wrong and as he travels he’s going to take notes and rename everything until it makes sense.

Before Cliff was a farmer, he was a high school English teacher.  He meets up with a former student and has a painful, hilarious, maddening sex-vacation.  He visits a high school friend who has a snake farm in Arizona.  He spends time with his successful movie producer son in San Francisco.  He fishes.  He looks at birds.  He thinks about his dog.

I almost tossed this book after the first few chapters.  I simply did not care about Cliff.  Aside from the English degree and teaching, I had nothing in common with him and couldn’t relate.  He was bemused and I was frustrated because things happened to him and he didn’t seem to take any action.  All he did was react and in a slow, “what is happening right now?” way.  I wanted him to make a decision, get angry, or just do something.  Anything!

When he finally started his drive, I became a bit more interested, but I didn’t really commit to the book until he was a few states away from home.

Things still happen to him and he still reacts more than acts, but there was a steady reflective monologue happening.  Up until this point his life has been neatly divided into three stages: growing up on a farm, and then teaching high school English, and then running a farm.  Now that he’s been shoved into stage four, divorced and homeless, he thinks back to everything he’s learned and slowly pieces together something new.

What I ended up liking about this book was the relatable human experience.  While I started out uninterested in Cliff, his wandering thoughts and sometimes bemused observations won me over.  He’s just a normal guy who suddenly has to adjust to a new world.  Watching him change and grow from state to state was both frustrating and satisfying.  At times he thinks everything is going to go back to the way it was.  He’ll get back together with his wife, he’ll get back to farming, and things will be the same.  Then he realizes that the farm has been sold and most of it has probably been bulldozed and torn up, he might not even like his wife anymore and nothing will ever be the same.  Harrison writes these parts well.  It’s a normal human reaction to be all over the place when a life changing event happens.  We long for what we had, hate what we had, want what’s next and are terrified of what’s next.

As I got closer to the end I found myself caring for Cliff and wondering if he’d become a new person and wanting to know how he was going to adapt to his new world.  At times he seemed defenseless and powerless, but then he’d have a realization and I’d think he was going to be just fine.  But then there’d be a phone call with his son, his ex-wife, or his crazy former student and I’d get worried all over again.  I wanted to shake him and make him realize what was happening, but I also wanted him to figure it out on his own.

The ending was satisfying because it fits Cliff’s character.  Harrison doesn’t write something that doesn’t mesh with the rest of the book.  A lesser author could have easily made it all puppies and sunshine and then I would have had to stab something.

Harrison has written several other books and I’m curious to see if nature is as much of a main character as it is here.  (He wrote Legends of the Fall, and based on the movie, I’m guessing it is.)  I think I’ll try a few more of his books and see if I continue to relate to his characters that are nothing like me.

 

Note to self: Have I really only read nine books so far this year?  This seems impossible.  I should be somewhere around book fifteen by now if I’m trying to average one a week.  Time to turn off the TV and get back to reading!

#8: Seriously…I’m Kidding by Ellen DeGeneres

This is another book that I had to get in audio.  Why wouldn’t I have Ellen read me her own book?

Like any memoir from someone famous, if you don’t like her, you won’t like her book.  But if you’re a fan of her show and her comedy you won’t be disappointed.

There are chapters where she wanders about in her traditional stream of conscious observations.  I love when she spins off into tangents and random thoughts that are barely connected to the original point and then winds up far away from where she started, only to circle back and start again.

From watching her standup, reading interviews and watching her show, it is clear that Ellen is truly a kind person.  This book isn’t a gossipy tell all.  That’s not who she is.  She talks about being on American Idol and I was curious to hear what she’d say.  The media was not shy about how much they didn’t like her as a judge.  She explains how it wasn’t the right fit for her and that the entire process was a learning experience that she is grateful for.  I’m astounded that she has so much grace about a moment where people were so hostile.  For her, it came down to not wanting to judge people.  She quickly realizes that it wasn’t a great idea to become a judge when you don’t like to judge people and jokes about not being able to realize that ahead of time.  She wants people to love music and when a performance wasn’t great (or was flat out terrible), she couldn’t bring herself to say it.  What did come out of her American Idol experience was a record label.  She loves music and artists and her audience so much that she decided to create her own record label to bring new artists to new audiences.  She could have pretended the entire thing didn’t happen, but instead she pulled out what she loved about the show and made it her own.

The book is a good mix of her observations about the world that would easily make for a good stand up special as well as information about her life, her show, and her marriage.  It isn’t a tell-all where she gets in deep to her daily activities, but she does share information about what it’s like to be her.

And it’s awesome to hear.