Chronicles of a Book Evangelist

Review: What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen

Publisher: Viking Juvenile

Publication Date: May 10, 2011

Review:

Beth, Lizbit, Eliza. A new school, a new name, a new identity. Ever since her mother's highly publicized affair ended in a divorce, Mclean and her father have been travelling from town to town, following her father's restaurant consulting job. At each new place, she picks a name and decides who she wants to be - because being someone else is easier than trying to figure out who Mclean is now. However, something about Lakeview, and Dave, keeps her from creating Liz and forces her to find Mclean again. 

I love Sarah Dessen. Love. To me, her books feel like windows into the lives of real people - people I know, or have known, or want to know. What Happened to Goodbye is no exception. Mclean is probably my favorite Dessen heroine yet; she is strong in a way I haven't really seen from Dessen's other heroines, despite being so damaged. Likewise, each of Mclean's friends serve to bring out new and interesting facets of her personality while being three dimensional themselves. Like everything I have read by Dessen, What Happened to Goodbye brought out a strong emotional reaction from me. However, for the first time, it was mostly negative. 

I should start by saying that I find no fault with the writing, characterization, etc. My problem, instead, is with the character of some of these well fleshed out people, but most specifically Mclean's mother. Dave's parents are really controlling and, though it is clearly coming from a place of really caring, I would have liked to see him stand up for himself a little more. On the other hand, Mclean's dad needs to be paying a little more attention to what is going on with her. They seem to have a really great relationship, but there are too many things left unsaid. There are some perfectly healthy parent/child relationships out there where the kids take over a lot of the household responsibilities. What makes this one cross the line into unhealthy is that her dad doesn't notice how emotionally wreaked the divorce has left Mclean, despite the fact that he lives with her. I can see him not paying attention to the small details of house, but only if he IS seeing the details of his daughter's life. He should notice that she completely changes personality every 6 months. 

However, Mclean's mother just makes me angry. Hands shaking, teeth clenching, I-wish-she-were-real-so-I-could-call-her-and-tell-her-just-what-I-think-of-her angry. Over and over again she just barrages Mclean with what she wants, how she feels, what she thinks, what she needs - but NEVER LISTENS to Mclean in turn. I lost count of the conversations between the two that were endless diatribe from the mother punctuated by "mom," "mom," "mom," from Mclean. Twice Mclean thinks what I wish she would have said, "It's not about you" (p 84) and "My mother was still talking - God, she was always talking" (p 111). when Mclean asks her mother for space, her mother calls her five times in one day. However, when her mom needs space, Mclean has to talk to her stepfather. 

So much of this book, like most Dessen books, is about having to grow up and accept yourself, to take responsibility for your own actions. I feel like Mclean does that really well, especially considering the fact that she clearly does not have an example of any adults in her life actually doing that. Mclean's mother stalks her and threatens to drag her to court every time her feelings get hurt, all the time saying it is because she is worried about Mclean, yet it is obviously about no one but her. She blackmails her with threats of lawyers and court dates. Her mother is selfish, childish, and Mclean is right when she says, "I can blame you for the divorce and for the way things are between us now. You did this. At least own it." (p228) The whole "What happens in a marriage is between the two people in it" crap that her mother tries to pull throughout the entire book is just that: crap. When you are just two people in a marriage, sure. But when you have kids, when you become a family, that changes. When what you have done inside (or outside, as it were) of that marriage affects the whole family, it is now about them as well. So here is the crux of why this book just left me feeling bitter: the only person in her family that has to grow up, accept responsibility, make compromises, or apologize is Mclean. Never once do we hear her mom say she is sorry. For anything. Not the affair, the stalking, the emotional blackmail, anything! Mclean's mom only lets her stay in Lakeview (in my opinion) because she knows just how hypocritical she will look if she makes Mclean leave again. What does this book say to all those teens going through terrible divorces? They have no power or voice? That they, as children, will be held accountable for their poor choices, but the adults get a pass? I'm sorry, but when you become a parent, IT. IS. NOT. ABOUT. YOU. ANYMORE. And the parents in this book really need to learn that. 

Despite the ranty nature of the last half of the review, I want to stress that it really was an excellent book and I would still highly recommend it.

I Borrowed What Happened to Goodbye from my Local Library

Review: The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong

Publisher: Harper Collins

Publication Date: April 12, 2011

Review:

(Highlight for Spoilers)

16 year old Maya Delaney lives in a very unique small town populated entirely by the families of people employed by the St. Cloud Corporation, a medical research company. Her father, who works as the Park Warden for the thousand acres of wilderness surrounding Salmon Creek, is the exception. When strangers from out of town come poking around for information on the St. Cloud Corporation, they stir up more than one secret. Maya is left questioning the death of her friend, Seri, the strange abilities that she and her friend Daniel seem to be acquiring, and the odd connection she seems to have with the new guy, Rafe. 

The Gathering is my first experience with Kelley Armstrong, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it would be a welcome read for regular readers of paranormal YA while dispensing with many of the attributes of the subgenre that turn many readers away. No doormat heroine or absent parents here. Maya is tough, smart, and just as likely to do the rescuing as to be rescued. She is an equal partner of every relationship she is in. I love, absolutely love, the bond Maya has with her parents. It feels like a real, working family with everyday problems, big and small, that they deal with together. (And the teasing conversations between Maya and her father had me laughing out loud.) 

Maya's relationships with her various classmates were also wonderfully executed. Her friendships have nuance and layers of intimacy that feel right for such a small and isolated group of teens. Even the "mean girl" is three dimensional, with an understandable, if not excusable, motivation for her nastiness toward Maya. I really appreciate that Maya has no interest in Rafe at all when he is a jerk but rather calls him on it. I also like that (Spoiler) she gets angry when she finds out why he pursued her rather than turning all mopey and blaming herself for losing him. (End Spoiler) Armstrong also did an excellent job with the friendship between Daniel and Maya.  (Spoiler) It does concern me a little that there may be a love triangle the future. However, if there is, it will at least feel plausible - and I don't see Maya cruelly stringing Daniel along as we see so often in other PYA triangles. (End Spoiler)

I don't know if it is because the world has already been created in other novels, but I appreciate that there was never an info-dump moment. Rather, as a reader I was given the benefit of doubt and allowed to figure things out on my own. However, the book does end in an ABSOLUTE cliffhanger. So much of the story is left unsaid, I feel as if I only had part of the book. It reads like a book with one story arc divided into three parts, and this is the first. I would have liked to have a few more questions answered in this installment, even knowing there are two more to come. Overall, though, I really enjoyed this book.  

I Borrowed The Gathering from my Local Library

Review: Entwined by Heather Dixon

Publisher: Greenwillow Books

Publication Date: March 29, 2011

Goodreads Description:

Confined to their dreary castle while mourning their mother's death, Princess Azalea and her 11 sisters join The Keeper, who is trapped in a magic passageway, in a nightly dance that soon becomes nightmarish.

Review:

(Highlight for Spoilers)

I love when fairy tales are revisited by an author that respects them, loves them, and can then build upon them. Heather Dixon seems to be such an author. Entwined is a retelling of Grimm's "The Shoes that Were Danced to Pieces," but it is also much, much more. Dixon does an excellent job of turning a story about twelve rather frivolous girls into a complex story about grief, family, and the difficult choices made in difficult times. However, I feel very mixed about this book, so I will review it in lists. 

The Good: 

•  My overall impression was of a beautiful, well crafted world. Dixon took the bare bones of the Grimm story and made it a living, breathing thing. Borrowing different elements of her Eathesburian folklore from folktales and fairy tales lent them authenticity, but she combined them in a way that felt distinct and fresh. 

• I love the relationship between the girls. Even though the story is told primarily from the point of view of the eldest, Azalea, all of the girls are given distinct personalities. The younger girls may be a bit more two dimensional than the eldest three, but the way the girls all interact with each other just works. Dixon really has a feel for large family dynamics. 

• I like that the relationships between the eldest three girls and their love interests are reciprocal and healthy. (Spoiler) Okay, Bramble and Teddie may have been a bit too love at first sight, but I just assumed there was more going on that I didn't see because the story was following Azalea. (End Spoiler) I also like that they each feel like real guys you might actually meet. None are paragons of virtue, nor are they damaged bad boys. 

• The bad guy is bad. Really creepy bad.

• It is hard not to like a King that is so quirky in his need for organization that his daughters are all named for flowers in alphabetical order. I really enjoyed watching his personality develop. 

• I really liked the way dance is woven throughout the story in a way that shows just how vital it is to the girls. Dixon takes the very element that made the princesses seem frivolous in the Grimm story and uses it to ground them.

• I also like that the girls help save themselves. The men may charge in for the rescue, but they fight alongside the princesses. 

The not as good: 

• I don't understand why the girls feel as they do about Fairweller. There is never really any justification for their negative feelings. (Spoiler) And when they object to his marriage to Clover, it just feels really classist and shallow. He is the only employee, rather than family friend, to ask to marry one of the daughters. Even in the face of Clover's justification for her affection, he is still dismissed out of hand. I really didn't like it. (End Spoiler)

• The King's relationship with his daughters. I'm sorry, but if they used to call him Papa, when did he change to "the King?" I could understand if he was originally affectionate, then became cool because their mother died. I could also understand if he were originally reserved in his affection, then thawed because their mother's death forced him to interact with the girls in a new way. However, it is just confusing that they all used to be close and he was outwardly affectionate. Then he had the middle coldness period where he became "the King" and forced them to learn all sorts of rules. When he comes back from the war he is magically caring again. That personality change in the middle is unrelated to any part of the plot to which we as the readers are privy. The set up for the familial distance just didn't make sense and felt too contrived. They were at odds because they had to be at odds for Keeper to meet the girls. They get a better relationship because they have to for the King to save the girls. That said, I liked watching him redevelop his relationship with his daughters, and it often was really touching. 

• The bad guy is bad. Really creepy bad. I know I said that was a good thing, and it is. It's just that, well, everyone else gets a real story. A human, relatable reason for participating in the fairy tale. Keeper's personality is very well developed, but his motivation - his story - is not. (Spoiler) Considering how much we are told about The High King D"Eathe, all the hits dropped about his one love and the magic he performed, I think we could have done with just a little more. WHY did he kill her? WHY did power become more important? WHAT made him change? (End Spoiler) It would be okay if all the characters were just moving mechanically through the fairy tale, but to provide the WHYs for every other character but the Keeper made the absence of his WHYs even more apparent. 

Right after I finished Entwined, my problems with it felt rather large. However, the longer I got away from it, the more positive I felt about the book. It really is beautifully written and the characters are lovely. 

I Borrowed Entwined from my Local Library

Review: Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore

Publisher: Bloomsbury 

Publication Date: December 22, 2009

Goodreads Description:

Nimira is a foreign music-hall girl forced to dance for mere pennies. When wealthy sorcerer Hollin Parry hires her to sing with a piano-playing automaton, Nimira believes it is the start of a new and better life. In Parry's world, however, buried secrets are beginning to stir. Unsettling below-stairs rumors swirl about ghosts, a madwoman roaming the halls, and Parry's involvement with a league of sorcerers who torture fairies for sport. Then Nimira discovers the spirit of a fairy gentleman named Erris is trapped inside the clockwork automaton, waiting for someone to break his curse. The two fall into a love that seems hopeless, and breaking the curse becomes a race against time, as not just their love, but the fate of the entire magical world may be in peril.

Review: 

One of the hardest parts of becoming a parent, in my opinion, is having to crystallize in words what it is that we believe, to articulate with precision that which we have only vaguely felt to be true before. To have to look into the eyes of a child who trusts us and answer a question like, "Why do we have war?" One thing that has become clear for me in the past few years is that I do not believe in "Good Guys" or "Bad Guys." We each of us make a thousand decisions every day that slowly shape us into the person we are - dynamic, not static. Sometimes we make good decisions and sometimes we make bad ones, but at the end of the day, we are still all people. It may not seem like this has anything to do with Magic Under Glass, but it does! I promise!

The world in which Dolamore has created is rich in cultural texture. The story is fast paced and intriguing. However, where I feel Dolamore really shines is in her characterizations. So often in YA we are given villains who do bad things because they are just evil. Not so for Magic Under Glass. The characters are weak and strong. They make bad choices for good reasons and good choices for bad reasons. There is room for redemption. I appreciate the shades of grey. Without ever becoming preachy, Dolamore shows how racism can come from a place of smug superiority, or from a place of fear. She shows how people who want the same thing for their country can come to diametrically opposed positions on how that can be achieved. There is more than one way to be courageous. She shows how passion can be good - and how it can lead to zealotry. Dolamore's characters are neither "good guys" nor "bad guys," they are simply people who have made good choices and people who have made bad ones, but they all had their reasons. I can not wait to see where they go from here. I will absolutely be reading her next book. 

I Borrowed a Copy from my Local Library

Review: A Kiss in Time by Alex Flinn

Publisher: Harper Teen

Publication Date: April 28, 2009

Review:

Princess Talia of Euphrasia pricks her finger on a spindle, causing the entire kingdom to fall asleep for 300 years. They awaken when Talia is kissed by Jack, a teenager sent by his parents to tour Europe for the summer. A Kiss In Time is obviously a modern retelling of Sleeping Beauty. 

I try really hard to write balanced reviews. I try to point out the good with the bad. I'm having a hard time finding the good here. I should start by saying that I really enjoyed Flinn's Beastly, and I love fairytale retellings, so I went into A Kiss in Time with pretty high expectations. I came out really disappointed. 

First, Flinn does an excellent job in Beastly of bringing the classic elements of the fairytale as well as the magic into the modern world in a plausible way. That just didn't happen for A Kiss in Time. There are so many contradictions in the world building that it just feels lazy. How is it that the Eurphrasia is completely forgotten by all of Europe, but the insulted concierge is able to send Jack directly to it? And how are the spires of a Castle in a supposedly forgotten Kingdom visible from a plane? What teenage boy could know a girl (who is wearing a full-on ball gown) for a few hours then walk into a Gap and buy her clothes that fit? How many manufactures of fake IDs are hanging out in Gap and willing to do business with a teenager? For that matter, how many Gaps are there in rural Belgium? I don't believe Flinn's contemporary world, much less the magical elements. (ETA: It also doesn't help that I was continually thinking about how much better OSC handled all of this in Enchantment.) 

The characters are even worse. Talia is a spoiled brat, thoroughly nasty in her own time. I understand that she felt stifled, but her behavior was more that of a 6 year old than a 16 year old. The modern day Talia is irreconcilable as the same character - she has a completely different personality. Jack is shallow, selfish and self centered. He is lazy and ungrateful, completely unaware of anyone around him. Each of their parents are studies in extremes - either overbearing in their care or completely hands off. The only character for whom I felt ANY compassion was Malvolia, but that was more picking the best out of a bad lot. They were all cardboard. The HEA was forced and contrived. 

It feels like Flinn was just going through the motions with this one, and I feel frustrated that I wasted my time with it. I know this is not the best she can do, so I will continue to read her work. However, I will do it more cautiously in the future. 

I Borrowed a Copy from my Local Library

In My Mailbox #7

In My Mailbox is a weekly Meme sponsored by The Story Siren where you share all the new books you get each week to read or review.

 

As I mentioned on Friday, Algonquin had their Lucky 7 sale where seven different books were only $1.99.   I picked up Dan Kennedy's Rock on: An Office Power Ballad, Gossip of the Starlings by Nina de Gramont, and The Resurrectionist by Jack O'Connell.

 

Again with the single author theme...this week it is Patrick Ness.  I borrowed The Knife of Never Letting Go from my local library, and my husband bought me A Monster Calls from Nightbird books while we were on our date-night.  (Yes, we go to bookstores on dates.) 

 

Random House kindly provided me with review copies of C.K. Kelly Martin's Yesterday and Sara Rees Brennan's Unspoken.  (Okay, there is a small - read VERY LARGE - chance that I screamed and jumped up and down in excitement when I opened the email approving me for Unspoken. Possibly.  Maybe.)

 

Last and definitely not least, my wonderfully smart, kind, and lovely friend Rhi sent me a package.  It arrived on a very cold, grey, foggy, rainy day - aka a perfect time!   Not only did it include a copy of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer and The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson (who is, btw, the absolute funniest person to follow on twitter), it also had TEA!  and COOKIES/BISCUITS! and also cute little bookmarks for my kids!  I really love my friends.  (I should have provided pictures, but, you know, the lighting was bad that day.  And how was I supposed to not drink some hot tea on a day like that?  Or not open shortbread cookies with chocolate and caramel?  It would have taken way more self control than I possess to wait until I had pictures to open everything!)

What was in your mailbox this week?

Link Trove #9

This cartoon from foxboros cracked me up.  In her own words, "me earlier as i sobbed to my friend shelby about the hunger games."  (I love that she is wearing a Black Keys t-shirt, even if it does put "Howlin' for You" in my head all day.)  I think I may be the only reader I know who will not be watching Hunger Games this weekend - not for a lack of desire, but rather a lack of babysitter...

Now, for linky things:

•  I thought the question of whether or not John Green, author of Looking for Alaska, is a pornographer had been answered four years ago.  Apparently, though, the good folks of Knox County want to revisit the issue.  When are people going to get it that just because you don't want to read something, and do not want your kids to read it, does not mean that you can tell other people's children that they cannot read it either!

• Speaking of books being accused of pornographic, why don't we include Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game...what, huh?  I mean, you can accuse Mr. Card himself of saying some fairly hateful things, but writing porn isn't something I think he's ever be accused of before!  Yet, it is true: a Schofield Middle School teacher has been placed on administrative leave for reading from Ender's Game.  

• Let's move to something less depressing, shall we?  According to the Guardian, Phillip Pullman (an auto-buy in this household!) will be revisiting 50 0f his favorite Grimm Fairytales and "telling the best of the tales in [his] own voice!"  I really cannot describe the sheer amount of awesome that sentence contains!  

• Algonquin Books has seven e-books that will be on sale for only $1.99 until March 28th.  A good deal if you are interested in the titles.  

• The following Pie Chart displaying the division of YA Deals by Genre for the past year actually surprised me!  I thought that the Paranormal category would be larger and the Contemporary much smaller.  Kate Hart put this graph, and many others, together in this enlightening series of posts about YA Deals.  (I was also shocked by the portion of single book deals vs. multi book deals - I thought the trilogies would outweigh everything else! (found via YA Highway)

That's it for this week!  

Review: The Girl in The Park by Mariah Fredericks

Expected Publication Date: April 24, 2012

Publisher: Random House Children's Books

Description:

When Wendy Geller's body is found in Central Park after the night of a rager, newspaper headlines scream,"Death in the Park: Party Girl Found Strangled." But shy Rain, once Wendy's best friend, knows there was more to Wendy than just "party girl." As she struggles to separate the friend she knew from the tangle of gossip and headlines, Rain becomes determined to discover the truth about the murder. Written in a voice at once immediate, riveting, and utterly convincing, Mariah Frederick's mystery brilliantly exposes the cracks in this exclusive New York City world and the teenagers that move within it.

 Review:

(Highlight to view Spoilers)

By page 4 of The Girl in The Park I knew with absolute certainty that, even if I hated the story and the mystery just sucked, I would be shown why and not told.  I read the conversations between Rain and her mother, then Rain and Ms. Geller over again a few times to be certain that it really had been only four pages, yet I already knew so much about Wendy, Rain, and their relationships with each other and their mothers.  Fredericks has honed down her words until each and every one pack a potent visual punch.  The novel rushes forward but never let me behind.  It was thoughtful and thought-provoking, moody and suspenseful, disturbing yet ultimately uplifting.  Rain succeeds in her attempt to discover Wendy's murderer; but the most important discovery she makes is herself. 

I am so impressed by so much of what Fredericks has done in The Girl in The Park.  There are moments that feel so very dark and bleak, but the tone of the book as a whole is much more complex because - at its core - the book is honest.  I love the way Fredericks deals with Rain's disability and the long lasting influence it has on how she views herself.  How Wendy and Rain's friendship develops, grows, changes, then fades away.  I like that Rain never really has a love interest because she hasn't yet learned to love herself.  I am awed by how well she shows all the varying aspects of Wendy's character without invalidating the others.  Fredericks' characters are almost entirely shades of grey. 

The mystery, too, was very well executed (except, perhaps, for the bad-guy-explains-it-all monologue toward the end.)  There is successful foreshadowing - hints and clues that keep us one step (but only one step) ahead of Rain in pursuit of the murderer.  As for that honesty mentioned earlier?  It is shown in the suspects to full effect.  Fredericks doesn't rely on last minute character assassination, previously unknown redemptive traits suddenly revealed, or a good guy just grossly misunderstood - everyone remains as they ever were.  I love that Fredericks shows that just because someone is a thoroughly nasty jerk does not necessarily mean they are capable of murder, and (Slightly Spoilery) nor does being interesting and charming preclude one from that capability. (End Spoiler)  It may seem a bit grandiose to say this, but as I thought about what I would write in this review of The Girl in The Park, I kept coming back to some things I've heard Sister Helen Prejean and Vincent Harding say about justice, revenge and vengeance; about how the quest for each can become something just as dark as the original act and should never be what gives your life meaning.  Fredericks does a wonderful job of showing Rain find meaning for her life within herself - and that is a powerful thing for a who-done-it.

Some Quotes:

 My mom doesn't know what it's like to be less than perfect, how people zoom in on that until it's all they see.  Maybe because it weirds them out...or maybe because it makes them feel better about themselves.  People do pretty ugly things to make themselves feel better, this I do know.

 Wendy is still dead.  I hadn't understood before: it really doesn't bring them back.  Somehow, you think, despite what you know, it will be a trade.  Find the person who did the wrong thing and they will suffer instead of the one who was killed.  Instead, that person just suffers too.  

 ARC provided by Random House Children's Books.

Review also appears on Goodreads

Review for 2012 Debut Author Challenge: Article 5 by Kristen Simmons

Publisher: Tor Teen

Publication Date: January 31, 2012

Goodreads Description:

New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., have been abandoned. 

The Bill of Rights has been revoked, and replaced with the Moral Statutes. 

There are no more police—instead, there are soldiers. There are no more fines for bad behavior—instead, there are arrests, trials, and maybe worse. People who get arrested usually don't come back. 

Seventeen-year-old Ember Miller is old enough to remember that things weren't always this way. Living with her rebellious single mother, it's hard for her to forget that people weren't always arrested for reading the wrong books or staying out after dark. It's hard to forget that life in the United States used to be different. 

Ember has perfected the art of keeping a low profile. She knows how to get the things she needs, like food stamps and hand-me-down clothes, and how to pass the random home inspections by the military. Her life is as close to peaceful as circumstances allow. 

That is, until her mother is arrested for noncompliance with Article 5 of the Moral Statutes. And one of the arresting officers is none other than Chase Jennings—the only boy Ember has ever loved.

Review:

 I want to start by saying that the last fourth, perhaps even third, of the book was pretty good.  If I were reviewing a novel that had started out the way it ended, I would probably be saying something completely different.  However, That is not how Article 5 began.  Article 5 begins with some seriously flawed world building that not only creates a bad novel, but also encourages some very bad political ideas and behaviors.

The premise of Article 5 is that a totalitarian theocracy controls what amounts to a dystopic contemporary America as a result of a war - The War.  The War apparently included some bombing of major US cities, but left other areas almost completely untouched.  It was severe enough to warrant the re-establishment of the draft and wiped out our basic media infrastructure.  However, at least as far as can be inferred from the novel, it did not affect Mexico or Canada.  Also, it lasted less than three years.  There is very little information about the War provided, but what is provided is conflicting in nature.  The physical effects of the war imply an external 'other' - that this war is with a nation that is geographically independent of the US.  However, the socio-political effects do not match up with this sort of war.

American voters are, in actuality, on a spectrum.  We have Liberals and Conservatives on each extreme  jockeying for control, hoping to sway the Moderate Independents in the middle to their side each election.  The result, therefore, is that, on really polar issues, the country is often divided into fairly equal, diametrically opposed sides with a huge mass of not-as-concerned people in the middle.  That is part of why our politics tend to take a pendulum-type pattern - it takes something extreme to move the middle.  In order to have such an extreme Neo-Conservative government take power, we would have had to have experienced a civil war, or a long, sustained war with an external 'other.'  Neither of these options are even remotely possible with the way the war is described.  (Seriously.  Bush barely pulled 50.7% of the popular vote against a weak opponent three years after 9/11 while fighting two ongoing wars!!!)

Therefore, a contemporary America that could be interchanged for Nazi Germany, with a Morality Militia reminiscent of the Iranian militias and the Republican Guard, is really implausible based on Simmons' premise.  On this shaky ground she then proceeds to build every Liberal's worst nightmare of America.  Each flash-point is pulled directly from our current headlines, divided perfectly down the R/D line.  However, most of what Simmons shows in the early part of the novel, while frustratingly offensive to most liberals, would have the average conservative saying, "yeah, and?"

 This is where I have to ask myself who, precisely, Simmons intended as her audience.  I mean, I get that she anticipates them to be teenagers - hence the young adult label.  However, no age group has uniformly similar beliefs.  There are conservative teenagers, liberal teenagers, and those who could really care less.  Her portrayal of the 'liberal' characters is just sympathetic enough, and the 'conservatives' just offensive enough, to alienate most conservative readers.  If she was trying to change anyone's political beliefs by showing some of the hazier implications of conservative ideology (which she admittedly does later in the novel), she fails by alienating her conservative readers early on.  I doubt they even finish it.  The worst part?  If they do, it only reaffirms the often held belief of the religious conservative that all liberals are out to malign them as evil, simply for being religious and conservative.  

More dangerously, though, is what I feel  this book does to the liberal reader.  The further the book progresses, the worse it gets.  Article 5  is perfectly calibrated to push every liberal hot button. It makes your blood boil.  It makes you angry.  You feel frustrated rage and what those conservatives are doing to our country!!!......in a book.  It is, in short, fear and hate mongering!  Yes, these issues echo our current newspapers.  BUT we are still working on it!  There are equal and opposite reactions from the other side as well.

The only way to make a democracy work, without tearing ourselves apart, is to encourage discourse.  When we are busy whipping ourselves up into a fervor over imagined slights, it discourages discourse in a serious way.  America has real problems right now.  Women's rights are seriously in danger.  Religious freedom is daily being called into question.  The LGBTQ community is still systematically disenfranchised.  Racial equality has not yet been obtained.  We have problems, but books like this - books that encourage righteous anger but offer no answers - contribute to the problem, not the solution.  This is why, in my opinion, if you want to tackle serious issues in current events through fiction, it is best to create artificial distance by making the characters aliens or dragons, creating a futuristic or fantastical setting.  Books like this are too personal.  You can't get people to listen to you if they are busy defending themselves.

Add to these problems a heroine who is truly too stupid to live - and who is UTTERLY CLUELESS about basic world history if she believes all she professes to through the book.  She also had to basically have lived in a box during the war to treat Chase the way she did when he had to become physically violent to protect her.  (Perhaps I am reading too much into this, but I eventually thought of Ember as an allegorical representation of how the politically active often view the 'clueless' mass of moderates in the middle.  I can't even count how many times I have seen people on both sides of the fence nearly scream in frustration, 'how do they not see what is going on?!'  I was definitely screaming that at Ember.) 

In Simmons' defense, once she quite pushing her political agenda the book really did get quite enjoyable.  I really liked Chase, and the action was fast paced and engrossing.  I just really didn't like how Simmons got there.  I don't think I will be recommending this book.

Purchased from Barnes & Noble Nook Books

Review also appears on Goodreads

 

 

Review: The Last Song by Eva Wiseman

Publisher: Tundra Books

Expected Publication Date: April 10, 2012

Goodreads Description:

Spain had been one of the world’s most tolerant societies for eight hundred years, but that way of life was wiped out by the Inquisition. Isabel’s family feels safe from the terrors, torture, and burnings. After all, her father is a respected physician in the court of Ferdinand and Isabella. Isabel was raised as a Catholic and doesn’t know that her family’s Jewish roots may be a death sentence. When her father is arrested by Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor, she makes a desperate plan to save his life – and her own.
 
Once again, master storyteller Eva Wiseman brings history to life in this riveting and tragic novel.

Review:

It has taken me  a while to review The Last Song because I have struggled with how to approach it.  You see, I am precisely the type of person who would be inherently interested in it, but not at all Wiseman's intended audience.  I am well read in both the middle ages and Jewish history and culture.  In short, I know too much.  That is not to say that Wiseman is in any way ignorant, or that she is wrong; merely that I wanted more detail, more nuance, and more depth from this story than she provided.  The fault, therefore, lies in my expectations and not The Last Song.

First and foremost I want to applaud Wiseman for even tackling the Alhambra Decree and the Spanish Inquisition.  I cannot even begin to count the number of times I have tried - in vain - to put the Holocaust into its proper prospective.  When people ask, 'How could that have happened?' the answer for any student of Jewish history would be, 'Easily!'  European countries have a long and sordid history of treating Jewish people abysmally - everything from laws which classified them as second or third class citizens to expulsions.  It is nice to see something about Jewish history for young readers which is not about the Holocaust.  It saddens me sometimes to see how popular perception had ossified Jewish history and the Holocaust into one and the same thing. 

So few people know that the Spanish Inquisition started primarily because conversos (or Jewish people who had recently, ahem - as in within the past few generations, converted to Christianity were enjoying very high levels of financial, political, occupational, and intellectual success.  Never mind that this was a period of fierce intellectualism within the Jewish community - in stark contrast to the rather ostrich-like approach Christians were taking to the world at the time.  Wiseman does a very good job of highlighting most of these issues within The Last Song without ever getting too dark.  So many things about this time period were made softer, toned down, simplified.  Nobody important dies.  Spaniards who are really close to Isobel never really betray her. Her family makes it out of Spain safely, as do her friends, and she has her happily ever after with the boy she loves.  

The Last Song is a gentle introduction to Jewish history, but it is still a true one.  There are no easy lies, perhaps only careful omissions.  So, while I may have expected the quintessential (and completely un-PC) medieval insult slinging; the dirt and poverty and despair in the Juderia; the families and friends ripped apart by betrayals and arrests - they weren't necessary.  The Last Song was safe enough that it was fun to read, and real enough to make kids think.  And that, to me, makes this a very good book indeed.  

With all that seriousness we need a little break, yeah?  

And Now For Something Completely Different!

 

 

Many thanks to Tundra Books for the ARC

Review also on Goodreads