The House with a Clock in its Walls by John Bellairs
Posted: April 28, 2012 Filed under: Review | Tags: fabulous, kidlit, recommendations, review 1 Comment »
Lewis Barnavelt, pudgy, orphaned and lonely, has moved into his uncle’s creepy old home in New Zebedee, Michigan and becomes fascinated by the mystery of the clock. Hidden in the walls of the house, the clock is counting down to the end of days. As if it wasn’t hard enough to be an insecure boy trying to make friends in a new school, Lewis finds himself adapting to the news that his uncle is a wizard, and his new neighbour Mrs. Zimmerman is a witch.
To solve the mystery, and in a desperate attempt to make a friend, Lewis teams up with one of the most popular boys in his class, and proceeds to tell a series of … untruths … make a series of very bad choices, and get himself into some scary situations. But I was pleased to see that for once, the protagonist is not portrayed as the hero. He’s 12 years old. He’s not the brightest or bravest boy around. He’s doesn’t discover hidden magical powers. He’s just a kid, which makes him awesome.
I absolutely loved this book and wish I could have read it years ago. I was that kid who loved to scare herself silly – and this would have done it. It’d not just a spooky mystery story – this is gothic horror for kids. Absolute terror mixed in with characters calling each other “hag face” and “weird beard.”
Read it. You won’t be disappointed. And you will be scared.
Mass Market Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: Puffin, January 1, 1993 (First published 1973)
ISBN-10: 014036336X
ISBN-13: 978-0140363364
The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay
Posted: October 25, 2011 Filed under: Review | Tags: Atlantic Canada, books, CanLit, fabulous, postaweek2011, recommendations, review 2 Comments »
You know what’s really fun about reviewing books – getting to read them before anyone else. Ami McKay’s The Virgin Cure is officially released today, but I was lucky enough to score a copy a few weeks ago, and read it in advance. I am not generally one to gush, but I really, really liked this book.
Set in the slums of New York City at the turn of the 19th century, The Virgin Cure tells the story of twelve year old Moth, who dreams of riches, mansions and exotic pets, desperate to leave behind her dreary life, only to be sold into servitude by her mother. She escapes the home of her new brutal mistress, and is ‘rescued’ by Miss Emmett and her girls into a life of prostitution. When inspected for cleanliness and virginity at her new brother home, Moth first meets Dr. Sadie, the physician who records and narrates her tale.
Dr. Sadie is based on the life of McKay’s great great grandmother (I think I have the correct number of ‘great’s here), one of the first female physicians in New York City, who dedicated her life to serving the destitute women and children of the slums in and around Chrystie Street.
“I am Moth, a girl from the lowest part of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic and the man who broke her heart.”
Moth and Dr. Sadie are remarkably different but equally intriguing characters. McKay skillfully recreates New York life in the late 1800s, thrilling the reader with unique tidbits of information from the doctor, but yet making the world so alive that you hardly realize you are reading historical fiction. Filled with thieves, gypsies, circus performers, prostitutes and representatives from the highest and lowest edges of society, the Virgin Cure has a little something for everyone. I enjoyed this novel even more than McKay’s first novel, best-selling The Birth House.
McKay will be at Chapters in Bayers Lake tonight at 7pm for a reading and book signing. Get yourself out there if you can. You won’t regret it.
Also, check out her new Tumblr page, Pear Tree Planchette, filled with images which help bring Moth’s world to life.
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Knopf Canada (Oct 25 2011)
ISBN-10: 0676979564
ISBN-13: 978-0676979565
Note: This review copy was not supplied but the publisher, but purchased in a silent auction at a fundraiser.
Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay
Posted: October 7, 2011 Filed under: Review | Tags: CanLit, fabulous, Giller Prize, postaweek2011, review 2 Comments »
It was like reading two books in one: Hay introduces us to the group of lost souls staffing CBC Radio Yellowknife in 1975 – then sends four of them on an epic trek through the barrens, changing their lives forever.
Most everyone has a time they recall – fondly or not – when their life changed. It may have been a job, a trip, a semester in college, but the friends made and lost, the experiences gathered meant you could never look at life the same again. This is the story Hay is telling. Two young women, Dido and Gwen, learn the ins and outs of radio, over a year in the Canadian north. But they learn about much more than radio.
Most striking about this novel is the contrasting of the characters to their natural environment. I’ve always been a sucker for books that do this well (hence my love for Barbara Kingsolver). Late Nights on Air tells the stories of these women, and their coworkers, against a backdrop of change in the north, with the MacKenzie Pipeline hearings bring controversy and conflict to their community, pitting economic growth and advancement against tradition and environmental protection. The pipeline is not part of the story, yet the controversy affects all of the characters, in different ways.
And then the story within the story: Gwen’s obsession with the story of John Hornby, the canoe trip through the barrens, retracing the explorer’s steps, visiting the cabin where he and his companions died. The trip tests all four would-be explorers physical and mental limitations, proving their mettle, bringing glimpses of happiness to otherwise lonely characters, yet ending in tragedy.
Overall, this was a book I found hard to put down. All characters charmed me – either by being charming, or so curmudgeonly I was charmed despite myself. There was layer upon layer of detail: radio’s struggle against television, a young woman’s journey to find herself, the history of exploration in the north, the conflict between advancement and tradition in the north, and on and on. Brilliantly done. My only complaint is there was perhaps an overuse of foreshadowing. I felt like Hay was hitting me over the head with the fact that “something bad” was going to happen, to that point that when it did it was almost anti-climactic.
Still, well worth a read. Also, makes me want to revisit Farley Mowat’s Lost in the Barrens, as I kept having flashbacks to grade six English class.
Paperback: 376 pages
Publisher: Emblem Editions; 1st Trade edition (April 1 2008)
ISBN-10: 0771040199
ISBN-13: 978-0771040191
*Winner of the Giller Prize in 2007.
The Antagonist by Lynn Coady
Posted: September 26, 2011 Filed under: Review | Tags: Atlantic Canada, CanLit, fabulous, Giller Prize, postaweek2011, recommendations, review copy Leave a comment »
“You boiled an entire life, an entire human being . . . down into his most basic, boneheaded elements.”
Gordon Rankin Jr., “Rank” to his friends, is a hulking goon, a hockey enforcer, a bouncer, held in awe by all due to his impressive size and presumed criminal tendencies. When Rank discovers one of his oldest and most trusted friends has published a novel turning his most tragic moments into an embarrassing cliché, Rank writes his own story, through a series of rebuttal emails, revealing the man behind the violent reputation.
How does he do this? He joins Facebook – but then freaks out and deletes his account. He joins again, but under a pseudonym, and with no friends. He returns home for the summer to care for his father who is injured in a roofing accident. He takes the daily visits from the parish priest, a reunion with a teenaged social worker, and constant reminders of his long-dead mother and channels them into a long series of unanswered emails to his author friend, all in an attempt to set the record straight – to tell his story.
“It’s like seeing pictures of yourself that you didn’t even know anyone was taking—candid camera—a whole album of worst-moment closed-circuit stills. There you are taking a dump. There you are saying precisely the wrong thing at the wrong time. There you are stepping on someone’s puppy while scratching your crotch.”
Rank’s process is heartbreaking. We have all been misunderstood, though for most of us the results are not so tragic. We all know (or knew) someone like Rank – but how many incorrect assumptions have gone into our image of this person, and how do we correct it? In The Antagonist, Coady brilliantly explores how the expectations of others influence who we are and who we become. A fantastic read, highly recommended.
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: House of Anansi Press (Aug 3 2011)
ISBN-10: 0887842968
ISBN-13: 978-0887842962
* Long-listed for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Posted: August 10, 2011 Filed under: Review | Tags: fabulous, postaweek2011, pulitzer, recommendations, review Leave a comment »
Olive Kitteridge is the old woman none of us want to be, and are ashamed to admit we already are (even those of us who aren’t old yet). There is something beautiful about a character who you hate while loving her, empathize with despite believing she got exactly what she deserved, and miss when the story is over.
Olive’s story is told not through a continuous chronological narrative, but through a series of short stories, connected by location (most of the time) and by the one character everyone knew – Mrs. Kitteridge, the local junior high math teacher whom everyone is afraid of. Occasionally Olive narrates a story herself, but more often she is a character, often minor and sometimes only mentioned in passing.
A teacher and the wife of the pharmacist in a small town in Maine, Olive knows everyone, and has had some influence, large or small, good or bad, in the lives of everyone. The stories are about her, but not. Above all, they are about relationships, the connectedness of people, and what makes us feel important and connected. It is a heartbreaking yet hopeful story, beautifully told, and at the risk of sounding sentimental and cliché, it will change the way you think about the people in your life. Faults are just faults, we all have them, and they don’t appear out of nowhere.
There is a bit of Olive in all of us I believe (and more in some if us than others, for sure). We need to keep it in check, but also embrace it.
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Random House
ISBN-10: 0812971833
ISBN-13: 978-0812971835
*Winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Light Lifting by Alexander MacLeod
Posted: August 2, 2011 Filed under: Reading, Review | Tags: Atlantic Canada, book club, CanLit, fabulous, Giller Prize, postaweek2011, recommendations, review Leave a comment »
I don’t even know how to begin reviewing this book. So excuse me if I ramble.
I don’t read short stories. I think the only other short story collection I read start to finish was by Alistair MacLeod. Short stories have never really spoken to me the way a novel does. I read for escape more than anything, and I need to be wrapped up in a story, consumed by it, to really enjoy it. So I struggled at first to read this.
Admittedly, the first story, Miracle Mile, didn’t really speak to me. Adolescent boys. Athletes. Risk takers. I bunch of things I never was. Then the next story, Wonder About Parents, spoke to me a little too well. I was in tears. And I am not a parent. So I put the book aside for a while, not picking it up again for almost two months. At which point I read the title story, Light Lifting, and was absolutely blown away. Funny how that can happen. It just got better from there. Adult Beginner I made me extremely happy merely for not ending the way I cynically thought it would. The Loop was absolutely brilliant, and Good Kids, also fabulous, reminded me of my days in a large family, one of the “good kids” (but not always living up to it) and the expectations that came with that. Even The Number Three, whose conclusion I wasn’t happy with, was so well set up I can’t say I didn’t like it.
What I remember about this collection is not so much the stories, but the characters. The people stand out – their fears, their choices and their regrets.
MacLeod has a gift for creating characters. Within a few pages, you know them. They are as familiar as your uncle, your neighbour, your coworker. Your heart breaks for them – because I must say, these are not happy stories. Happy stories are nice for family story time, but past the age of ten, does anyone really enjoy or believe them? Not really. (I’m not that much of a cynic, really. But life is difficult. Part of being happy is realizing and accepting that, no?)
I won’t bore you with descriptions of plots. I will just tell you to buy the book. Keep it on a side table in your most comfortable room. Pick it up once or twice a week until you’ve read it through. You won’t be sorry.
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Biblioasis; Reprint edition (April 5, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1897231946
ISBN-13: 978-1897231944
* Short listed for the 2010 Giller Prize.
Pluto’s Ghost by Sheree Fitch
Posted: June 9, 2011 Filed under: Review | Tags: Atlantic Canada, CanLit, fabulous, postaweek2011, review, young adult Leave a comment »
I have a bad habit of picking inappropriate airplane books. Which inevitably leads to me crying in front of 300 strangers (as happened when reading Come Thou, Tortoise). Saturday morning, I flew to Austin, TX for work. (What a city! Had a fantastic time.) I had my Kobo packed and so lots to choose from, but also recently bought a good old-fashioned hard copy of Sheree Fitch’s new young adult novel Pluto’s Ghost, so I threw that into my bag at the last minute.
Pluto’s Ghost is the story of Jake Upshore, a troubled teen from a small Nova Scotia town. He lost his mother at a very young age. He is dyslexic and struggles at school. He has suffered with substance abuse and has had more than one run-in with the law. He is occasionally violent with an unruly and explosive temper.
But Jake is so much more than his bad reputation. He is desperately trying to improve himself. He is in therapy and overcoming his addictions, having been clean for six months. He is a songwriter and a poet. He studies martial arts with a teacher, one of his mother’s old friends. He started his own landscaping business. He is in love with longtime friend Skye Derucci, but even this relationship brings limited joy as Skye insists on keeping the relationship secret – she says this is because of her overprotective policeman-father, but Jake is pretty sure it is because she’s ashamed of him.
The novel opens with Jake being handcuffed and shoved into the back seat of a police car in Halifax.
“Everything that’s happened is because of Skye. I’m not blaming. I’m just saying. I’m telling this tale because of Skye and the only reason I was starting to think my pathetic life wasn’t such a crock of shit after all was because of Skye. “
How did he get there? It started with Skye’s disappearance, and the rumour that she was pregnant and running off to Halifax for an abortion. Not quite sure what he wants her to do, Jake is hurt that she didn’t turn to him, and decides to follow her to the city.
“I’m not complainin’
I’m just explainin’
I’m not excusin’
But see
I thought I was losin’
my baby
my lady
my mind.”
Thus begins a terrible 48 hours filled with poor decisions, terrible choices and bad, bad luck. Rumours continue to swirl, as they will in a small town, and your heart breaks right along with Jake’s as you wonder: is she pregnant? Is the baby even Jake’s? Why won’t she answer her phone?
The novel is written in Jake’s voice. His therapist and teachers encourage him to tell his story, both to help deal with the trauma and to earn the final credits needed to graduate high school. Most mentions of teenage pregnancy in novels are from the perspective of the mother, but Pluto’s Ghost allows you to see it from the other side. While Jake knows and accepts that the choice in the end lies with Skye, he desperately wants to be involved. He wants to believe that his voice matters. He just wants to be asked, and have a chance to state his opinion and show his support.
In true Fitch style, Pluto’s Ghost reads like a poem. Using songs, poems, word tricks and more, Fitch writes the novel in the voice of an angry, dyslexic and extremely sensitive boy. She takes you inside the troubled mind of a confused young teenager as he deals with pregnancy, loneliness and addiction, and the kind of desperate love only an 18-year-old can feel.
To anyone who has ever fallen in love with an 18-year-old bad-ass (which is pretty much everyone I know: You will fall in love with Jake Upshore. You will want to hold him, kiss his forehead, run your hands through his hair, and make everything better. But he won’t let you. That’s not what he does, and that’s not how it works. Pluto’s Ghost will touch you, shock you and knock the wind out of you with its final scenes. And as mentioned, you may cry on a plane full of strangers.
“Murderer. It’s one kick in the belly of a word isn’t it? Has a taste, too. It tastes like barbed wire and has wild hyena eyes. Murderer. Murder-her. Did he? Did I? That’s when I remember what I want to forget.”
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Doubleday Canada (September 28, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0385665903
ISBN-13: 978-0385665902
Drive by Saviours by Chris Benjamin
Posted: May 20, 2011 Filed under: Review | Tags: Atlantic Canada, CanLit, fabulous, postaweek2011, recommendations, review Leave a comment »
In my introductory post, I included a list of books I planned on reading in 2011. Chris Benjamin’s Drive by Saviours was on that list. To date, I have had more visits to this site as a result of searches for this novel than any other topic other than Barney’s Version. There were fewer people searching for Jane Eyre and Water for Elephants. I’d call that impressive.
As our book club choice for May, Drive By Saviours inspired the longest and arguably most interesting discussion we have had in a long time. I’ve been a member of the same book club for years… eight or nine I think. We’re pretty laid back. We discuss the book for an hour or so, drink wine, and conversation fades into discussion of work or children or annoying things our husbands did.
Wednesday night we got of course a few times, but kept coming back to the book.
There’s a lot to discuss about Drive By Saviours. I’ve read a few books lately where it seems nothing really happens (and that can be OK) but with this one SO MUCH happens. Honestly, one member who came for discussion despite not reading the book* kept stopping us for clarification. “Is this all in one book? How is that even possible? Let me see that, the writing must be TINY.”
Drive By Saviours is about two men, Mark, a social worker in Toronto, and Bumi, and illegal immigrant from Indonesia, working off his debt in a Toronto restaurant. Mark’s life is not living up to his expectations. Mark feels he ought to have saved the world at least twice now, and that his super-hot girlfriend should be nicer to him (sarcastic, yes, but Mark is a character who is supposed to annoy you so I feel justified). Bumi escaped a life sentence in Indonesia for crimes he did not commit, but left his family behind, and is dealing with loneliness and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Mark and Bumi meet on a TTC bus, and develop an unlikely friendship. Mark decided fixing Bumi’s life will finally make him happy – but of course nothing is that simple or easy.
Along the way Mark reconciles with his estranged sister, proposes to and breaks up with his girlfriend, develops a crush on a lesbian, and tries to save Mexican migrant farm workers. We also learn of Bumi’s childhood: inventing new technologies for fishing, his father’s alcoholism, being torn away from his parents and sent to residential school, reading banned literature, getting a friend killed, and eventually being charged with murder.
No wonder Meghan thought we were talking about three or four different books.
You see parallels between Bumi’s young life in Indonesia and Mark’s unhappiness now in Toronto. Bumi was an intellectual reading communist and western literature, discussing change and revolution at a café, yet not doing anything to make it happen. Mark bemoans his inability to help people, yet is so self-absorbed he ignores the few clients he has left. He complains about the administration and paperwork, and then talks himself into a promotion to assistant manager. You will want to shake the arrogance out of both of them. Of course, Bumi’s life does that for you. Eventually, it seems Mark might have woken up to this as well.
Opinion was spilt on the merits of the book, but came down on the positive side. Two of us (myself included) thought it was fantastic. Others enjoyed it, but found the complex plot overwhelming. Another thought it was altogether too political and trying to teach too many lessons at once. “It’s a Fibre One book. 42% of your recommended daily intake of social justice!”
Admittedly, when the migrant worker issue was introduced I briefly thought the same, but it came back to the main story before my opinion was clouded too much.
Drive by Saviours was beautifully written, and on more than one occasion I stopped to reread a passage that was particularly striking or touching. I think Benjamin is trying to teach us something, or many things, but they are things we ought to know, and he does so through a wonderful story.
Highly recommended.
Published: Roseway
Paperback ISBN: 9781552663691
Publication Date: Sep 2010
Pages: 346
* We are very laid back. Didn’t read the book? No problem. Come. But bring wine, and expect spoilers.
Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen
Posted: May 2, 2011 Filed under: Books on Film, Review | Tags: books on film, fabulous, postaweek2011, recommendations, review, rpatz, TBR list 3 Comments »
Paperback: 350 pages
Publisher: Algonquin Books (April 9, 2007)
ISBN-10: 1565125606
ISBN-13: 978-1565125605
If there is a theme to my reading in 2011, it is a rush to read books that have been on my list for ages, before they are ruined by Hollywood. I am a book-to-film skeptic. I understand that they are two different art forms and I must expect changes during a conversion. I get that. I have just never found a film adaptation that was better – or even as good as – the book it is based on. I’m sure the same can be said in the opposite direction too, though books based on films are far less common.
Regardless, that has almost nothing to do with the following review, except that I first bought Water for Elephants as a gift for my sister-in-law for Christmas 2009. It looked fantastic. I figured I’d probably end up borrowing her copy when she finished, or buying myself another copy, and I’d have it read by spring. Didn’t happen. I was in school and working and reading other stuff for book club. I have a very long to-be-read list. This was just one more.
Then I cringed upon hearing the film was being made and learning who was cast. I hate reading a book when I know what actor has been cast for each role, because I cannot put it out of my head and thus can’t decide for myself what that character looks like, which really is half the fun of reading.
So I rushed out to buy myself a copy and read the book as quickly as I could before anything else was ruined.
The good news: nothing could ruin this book. It was fantastic. Well researched. Well written. Well developed characters. Well, well, well.
Quick synopsis: Jacob is studying to be a vet at Cornell. He is suddenly orphaned, left destitute, and does not sit his final exams. Then he accidentally runs away with the circus. Then he meets Marlena. Cue some glitz, glamour, sex, violence, murder and mayhem under the Big Top. And a Polish speaking elephant. Many years later, 90 (or 93) year old Jacob tells his story from a nursing home.
The bulk of the plot occurs in 1931, through flashbacks or dream sequences. Jacob and Marlena fall in love. They train Rosie (the elephant) to be a star. They protect her from August’s cruelty. They make other friends along the way. And then the whole circus falls apart in a dramatic ending.Yet, the pieces of the narrative that really stick with me are the scenes with Jacob as an old man, frustrated with the limitations of his body, and with the world’s assumption that his mind must be similarly limited as well. Here we see a different, empathetic side of the stereotypical cranky old man. And he is extremely endearing.
Most of us will never join a circus. But most of us will grow old. It is this side of Jacob that makes him such a great character: an old man, sad for what he has lost, but reflecting with joy and pride on all that he did and accomplished, and the people he loved.
Highly recommended.
Also: Saw the film yesterday. All things considered, a pretty good adaptation. The idea of pairing Reese Witherspoon with Robert Pattinson seemed ridiculous, but it worked. He makes a much better vet than vampire. Not as good as the book of course, but I would never expect that.
Book Review and Giveaway: The Nymph and the Lamp
Posted: April 17, 2011 Filed under: Giveaway, Review | Tags: Atlantic Canada, books, CanLit, fabulous, giveaway, postaweek2011, recommendations 17 Comments »
Author: Thomas H. Raddall
Paperback: 318 pages
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing
ISBN-10: 1551095769
ISBN-13: 978-1551095769
It is only fitting that I follow up my review of Jane Eyre with another longtime favourite, known to some as “Jane Eyre’s conservative Canadian cousin.”
The Nymph and the Lamp was written by Halifax writer T.H. Raddall and originally published in 1950, becoming one of Canada’s most popular novels in its day. The story begins in Halifax, but is set predominantly on Sable Island, known in the novel as Marina.
Isabel Jardine, the heroine of Raddall’s novel is an orphan, in her mid to late twenties, working as a secretary in the Marconi Depot in Halifax. She lives alone in a rundown boarding house at the end of Barrington Street. Not particularly pretty and already viewed as an old maid, Isabel has long ago stopped waiting for romance. She meets Matthew Carney, the Operator in Charge of the Marconi Station on Marina, when he makes a rare shore visit. Overcome with surprise when Carney asks her to dinner, Isabel says yes, despite not being particularly attracted to him, and his reputation as a bit of an oddball.
A little false advertising, but I do love this cover. Yes this is a scene in the book, but a minor one.
Through a bizarre series of events, including being accosted by a drunken neighbour, disgraced and thrown out of her boarding house, Isabel agrees to marry Carney after only three days, and travels with him to begin a new and lonely life on Marina. Enter radio operators Skane and Sergeant, and the other inhabitants of Sable Island in the 1920s: the live-saving station workers and their families. And of course, a love triangle. Two love triangles, to be precise.
Now, I have always been a sucker for historical fiction, and more particularly so when it is a local story. Behind the love story, the novel is full of interesting tidbits about the history of Sable Island, the shipwrecks, the horses, the Marconi wireless system, and Halifax during and just after World War I. There is even an excursion to the fishing outports of Newfoundland. I have read and reread this book many times, and love it more every time.
I don’t want to say much about the outcome of the story, except it does have a few remarkable similarities to the Bronte novel, despite being a very different story overall, and definitely not a feminist tale. But really, I want you to read this one for yourself. And to make that happen, I am making this post into my first giveaway on onebookperweek.ca. Leave a comment below telling me about your favourite historical fiction novel. One lucky reader will be randomly selected to win a copy of the 2006 edition of The Nymph and the Lamp, from Nimbus Publishing. Good luck.
* Contest open to readers in Canada and the USA only, and open until April 30, 2011 at 11:59:59 Atlantic Time.
