Generation booklog
Jan. 16th, 2010 05:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofone181. The Grift, Debra Ginsberg — Starts out as an interesting book about a con woman, Marina, whose excellent skills at reading people make her a fantastic fake psychic. She sets up in a wealthy Southern California town, where she encounters a lot of rich people with assorted rich people problems, some of which may escalate...to MURDER! Dun dun dun.
Actually, all of that is quite fun, although even in its earliest parts, this novel does suffer from too many POV characters and a bit too much jumping around in time. Where it really runs off the rails, though, is when Marina starts having real visions. I am not opposed to this concept out of hand: in fact, I think the idea of a fake psychic becoming actually psychic is potentially awesome. (If the show Psych went in that direction, I would even consider trying to watch it again.) However, I really hated how it was handled here, and in regards to the ending, I was equally Not Fond. Overall, I think this book would have been better if it had taken itself much less seriously.
182. Generation A, Douglas Coupland — This book starts out really strongly and made me think I was fortunate enough to be reading an example of Coupland at the top of his game. He introduces five different narrators, each of whom has been stung by a thought-to-be-extinct honeybee, and the story of how they all come together is quirky and fun. However, once all five do land together in the same tiny town, the novel completely disintegrates. The “twists” become so bizarre and nonsensical that I kept expecting there to be some other, real twists right around the corner—I convinced myself, for example, that Diana must be faking her Tourette’s, because that was the only way her character made any sense to me. But there were no real revelations. There was nothing. I have no freakin’ clue what this book was supposed to be about. In the past, even when Coupland didn’t quite get wherever he was going—such as with Girlfriend in a Coma—I would have a sense of what he was aiming for, or the book would contain some idea or image that was wonderfully beautiful or strange. But Generation A was a relatively empty experience for me. And that does sting.
183. Beautiful Creatures, Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl — This book is all about the setting for me. Yes, it’s a YA magical romance about people in high school in epic epic love—and, you know, whatever. I don’t particularly care about those parts. But the setting—the setting is just fantastic. The town of Gatlin seems so very, very real to me, in all its stuck-in-the-past small-town Southern glory. The community seems alive. The dynamics of high school are absolutely nailed—none of this Bella Swann “I’m the new girl and everyone LOVES me and wants to be my BFF and isn’t it just AWFUL” bullshit. Ethan, the narrator (yes, first person male narrator! also refreshing!), really struggles with the pressures to conform and fit in, and I found this, like all the non-supernatural aspects of the story, to be really vivid and realistically presented.
There are some wonderful details in the magical parts of the tale, too: the fact that Lena, Ethan’s potentially lethal true love (have I mentioned how much I enjoy this role reversal?), has a house whose decor changes depending on her uncle’s mood; the way Lena’s hair moves and twists when she’s working her magic. I do wish that almost every main character hadn’t in some way turned out to be involved in Caster society—it makes it seem less likely to me that the existence of magic and magic practitioners has remained a secret. (It was gang members! Gang members on PCPs!) But the gothic mood is consistently great, and> while I was never as in love with Ethan and Lena as they were with each other, I was rooting for them.
184. When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead — Ooh. This book is so fabulously clever and smart. It brings together: 1970s New York, the game show The $20,000 Pyramid, the many complexities of interpersonal relationships, A Wrinkle in Time, and a fantastic mystery. I loved the characters, and was so impressed with how Stead (seemingly) effortlessly charts the ups and downs of their relationships: friendships forming and falling apart and coming together again. This is a kids’ book, but like I said it is a smart kids’ book, one in which Stead never writes down to her audience. And it’s funny. And suspenseful. And—oh, just read it. It’s brilliant.
185. Looking For Calvin and Hobbes, Nevin Martell — A good way to illuminate the problems with this biography of Bill Watterson and the (wonderful! glorious!) Calvin and Hobbes comics is to compare it to another literary biography I read this year, Laura Miller's The Magician's Book. Miller makes it clear up front that her book is going to be partly a story of C.S. Lewis' life and partly the story of her evolving relationship with the Narnia books. The two elements are balanced seamlessly, and both are illuminating. Martell, on the other hand, doesn’t really commit to making his book partially about his own experiences with Watterson’s work, so when he does reference his own feelings, they seem out of place. Worse, he sets up this whole fake drama about how he might just get to conduct an actual interview with Bill Watterson!!!!...which is of course B.S., because he won’t, and the reader knows he won’t: Bill Watterson doesn’t give interviews. In many ways Miller had more access to C.S. Lewis in the writing of her book, and Lewis is dead.
Which is not to say that a book about Watterson shouldn’t be written: though limited, the information Martell was able to dig up about him is interesting, and the enigma that he presents is potentially fascinating. So I really wish Martell could have come up with a different approach to this material. One that involved accepting that no interview would be forthcoming, and so instead chose to approach Watterson from another angle. Some real literary analysis, maybe? All of the best discussion of the actual Calvin and Hobbes strips (which are totally worthy of an in-depth academic look) comes from Watterson himself, with Martell simply quoting from the artist’s mini essays in The Calvin and Hobbes 10th Anniversary Book; I felt like I was experiencing severe déjà vu while reading certain sections. If only Martell could have presented what little background information about Watterson is known, and then used that as a jumping off point for the story of his own relationship with the comics and some real analysis about what the strip means—to him, and in a larger sense. That is a potentially fascinating book.
It’s just not this book, alas.
186. Cat Burglar Black, Richard Sala — Argh, just thinking about the plot of this book, in attempt to write it up, makes me furious with frustration.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
octopedingenue said it best: “Holy expired plot coupons, Batman!”
187. Ox-Tales: Earth, Ed. by Mark Ellingham and Peter Florence — I think I like the design of this short story collection better than anything else about it, even the Kate Atkinson story (which was good but not close to her best). The tales themselves were a mixture, some good, some bad, with no real standouts. I still want the other books in this series, though. THEY ARE JUST SO PRETTY.
188. Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner — Fun! I don’t know how accurate it is and I don’t really care; I consume nonfiction books like I might a roll of LifeSavers—it’s all shiny colorful candy FUN, with lots of diverting, interesting information arriving to sit on my palate for a while, before it dissolves and it’s done. But why not enjoy it while it lasts?
I was a little distracted, however, by Stephen J. Dubner’s giant mancrush on Steven D. Levitt. Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell could take a break from their current projects and do a skit about it. HILARITY.
189. The Overnight Socialite, Bridie Clark — Surprisingly intelligent chick-lit with a truly ridiculous plot—it’s basically a Pygmalion update, but with more focus on the clothes. Still, I admired Clark’s restraint: you could totally see the precise moment where she could have, say, given her villain an over-the-top taking down, but she pulls back and refrains. Likewise, I admired her choice to focus less on the romance and more on her protagonist’s career goals. This wasn’t great, but it was different, which in this genre especially I find admirable.
190. Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi & Curt Gentry — You have to ask yourself, “Do I want to read 700 pages of a brutal true crime narrative?” If you do, this is probably an above average choice: the Manson murders are psychologically complex and horrifying, the evocation of time and place—late ’60s/early ’70s California—is vivid, and the author has inside knowledge—Bugliosi was the prosecuting attorney—that really brings the story alive. It’s certainly better than the Ann Rule I read recently, and simply as a piece of local history, I’m not sorry I read it. But, well. You have to really want to read 700 pages of a brutal true crime narrative. I think I’ll be cured of that for a good long while now.
Total Reviews: 190/210
Actually, all of that is quite fun, although even in its earliest parts, this novel does suffer from too many POV characters and a bit too much jumping around in time. Where it really runs off the rails, though, is when Marina starts having real visions. I am not opposed to this concept out of hand: in fact, I think the idea of a fake psychic becoming actually psychic is potentially awesome. (If the show Psych went in that direction, I would even consider trying to watch it again.) However, I really hated how it was handled here, and in regards to the ending, I was equally Not Fond. Overall, I think this book would have been better if it had taken itself much less seriously.
182. Generation A, Douglas Coupland — This book starts out really strongly and made me think I was fortunate enough to be reading an example of Coupland at the top of his game. He introduces five different narrators, each of whom has been stung by a thought-to-be-extinct honeybee, and the story of how they all come together is quirky and fun. However, once all five do land together in the same tiny town, the novel completely disintegrates. The “twists” become so bizarre and nonsensical that I kept expecting there to be some other, real twists right around the corner—I convinced myself, for example, that Diana must be faking her Tourette’s, because that was the only way her character made any sense to me. But there were no real revelations. There was nothing. I have no freakin’ clue what this book was supposed to be about. In the past, even when Coupland didn’t quite get wherever he was going—such as with Girlfriend in a Coma—I would have a sense of what he was aiming for, or the book would contain some idea or image that was wonderfully beautiful or strange. But Generation A was a relatively empty experience for me. And that does sting.
183. Beautiful Creatures, Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl — This book is all about the setting for me. Yes, it’s a YA magical romance about people in high school in epic epic love—and, you know, whatever. I don’t particularly care about those parts. But the setting—the setting is just fantastic. The town of Gatlin seems so very, very real to me, in all its stuck-in-the-past small-town Southern glory. The community seems alive. The dynamics of high school are absolutely nailed—none of this Bella Swann “I’m the new girl and everyone LOVES me and wants to be my BFF and isn’t it just AWFUL” bullshit. Ethan, the narrator (yes, first person male narrator! also refreshing!), really struggles with the pressures to conform and fit in, and I found this, like all the non-supernatural aspects of the story, to be really vivid and realistically presented.
There are some wonderful details in the magical parts of the tale, too: the fact that Lena, Ethan’s potentially lethal true love (have I mentioned how much I enjoy this role reversal?), has a house whose decor changes depending on her uncle’s mood; the way Lena’s hair moves and twists when she’s working her magic. I do wish that almost every main character hadn’t in some way turned out to be involved in Caster society—it makes it seem less likely to me that the existence of magic and magic practitioners has remained a secret. (It was gang members! Gang members on PCPs!) But the gothic mood is consistently great, and> while I was never as in love with Ethan and Lena as they were with each other, I was rooting for them.
184. When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead — Ooh. This book is so fabulously clever and smart. It brings together: 1970s New York, the game show The $20,000 Pyramid, the many complexities of interpersonal relationships, A Wrinkle in Time, and a fantastic mystery. I loved the characters, and was so impressed with how Stead (seemingly) effortlessly charts the ups and downs of their relationships: friendships forming and falling apart and coming together again. This is a kids’ book, but like I said it is a smart kids’ book, one in which Stead never writes down to her audience. And it’s funny. And suspenseful. And—oh, just read it. It’s brilliant.
185. Looking For Calvin and Hobbes, Nevin Martell — A good way to illuminate the problems with this biography of Bill Watterson and the (wonderful! glorious!) Calvin and Hobbes comics is to compare it to another literary biography I read this year, Laura Miller's The Magician's Book. Miller makes it clear up front that her book is going to be partly a story of C.S. Lewis' life and partly the story of her evolving relationship with the Narnia books. The two elements are balanced seamlessly, and both are illuminating. Martell, on the other hand, doesn’t really commit to making his book partially about his own experiences with Watterson’s work, so when he does reference his own feelings, they seem out of place. Worse, he sets up this whole fake drama about how he might just get to conduct an actual interview with Bill Watterson!!!!...which is of course B.S., because he won’t, and the reader knows he won’t: Bill Watterson doesn’t give interviews. In many ways Miller had more access to C.S. Lewis in the writing of her book, and Lewis is dead.
Which is not to say that a book about Watterson shouldn’t be written: though limited, the information Martell was able to dig up about him is interesting, and the enigma that he presents is potentially fascinating. So I really wish Martell could have come up with a different approach to this material. One that involved accepting that no interview would be forthcoming, and so instead chose to approach Watterson from another angle. Some real literary analysis, maybe? All of the best discussion of the actual Calvin and Hobbes strips (which are totally worthy of an in-depth academic look) comes from Watterson himself, with Martell simply quoting from the artist’s mini essays in The Calvin and Hobbes 10th Anniversary Book; I felt like I was experiencing severe déjà vu while reading certain sections. If only Martell could have presented what little background information about Watterson is known, and then used that as a jumping off point for the story of his own relationship with the comics and some real analysis about what the strip means—to him, and in a larger sense. That is a potentially fascinating book.
It’s just not this book, alas.
186. Cat Burglar Black, Richard Sala — Argh, just thinking about the plot of this book, in attempt to write it up, makes me furious with frustration.
octopedingenue said it best: “Holy expired plot coupons, Batman!”187. Ox-Tales: Earth, Ed. by Mark Ellingham and Peter Florence — I think I like the design of this short story collection better than anything else about it, even the Kate Atkinson story (which was good but not close to her best). The tales themselves were a mixture, some good, some bad, with no real standouts. I still want the other books in this series, though. THEY ARE JUST SO PRETTY.
188. Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner — Fun! I don’t know how accurate it is and I don’t really care; I consume nonfiction books like I might a roll of LifeSavers—it’s all shiny colorful candy FUN, with lots of diverting, interesting information arriving to sit on my palate for a while, before it dissolves and it’s done. But why not enjoy it while it lasts?
I was a little distracted, however, by Stephen J. Dubner’s giant mancrush on Steven D. Levitt. Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell could take a break from their current projects and do a skit about it. HILARITY.
189. The Overnight Socialite, Bridie Clark — Surprisingly intelligent chick-lit with a truly ridiculous plot—it’s basically a Pygmalion update, but with more focus on the clothes. Still, I admired Clark’s restraint: you could totally see the precise moment where she could have, say, given her villain an over-the-top taking down, but she pulls back and refrains. Likewise, I admired her choice to focus less on the romance and more on her protagonist’s career goals. This wasn’t great, but it was different, which in this genre especially I find admirable.
190. Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi & Curt Gentry — You have to ask yourself, “Do I want to read 700 pages of a brutal true crime narrative?” If you do, this is probably an above average choice: the Manson murders are psychologically complex and horrifying, the evocation of time and place—late ’60s/early ’70s California—is vivid, and the author has inside knowledge—Bugliosi was the prosecuting attorney—that really brings the story alive. It’s certainly better than the Ann Rule I read recently, and simply as a piece of local history, I’m not sorry I read it. But, well. You have to really want to read 700 pages of a brutal true crime narrative. I think I’ll be cured of that for a good long while now.
Total Reviews: 190/210
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-17 02:54 am (UTC)If the show Psych went in that direction, I would even consider trying to watch it again.
I think I've read that fanfic.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-17 03:12 am (UTC)I think I've read that fanfic.
Ooh! I am intrigued!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-17 03:19 am (UTC)In conclusion, thank you for writing good fic that doesn't make me want to curl up in the corner and weep.
Ooh! I am intrigued!
It was all right until the very rushed sex scene at the end, which used the word "cum" and thus immediately lost all respect in my book. Argh.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-17 03:26 am (UTC):) Thank you. This is funny, because I was just talking to
It was all right until the very rushed sex scene at the end, which used the word "cum" and thus immediately lost all respect in my book. Argh.
Urk. Uh, still, though, if you have a link handy, I might be interested... I've gotten myself all curious now. ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-17 03:56 am (UTC)Link. (http://www.gryvon.com/archives/474) Skimming it, I think I confused the bad sex with a different fic, though it's still rushed.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-17 05:10 am (UTC)I should maybe stop reading this horror novel and try to get into a fluffy state of mind so I can write HUGS FOR EVERYONE! fic.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-17 06:55 am (UTC)I should the same thing, although in my case it should read "stop rereading things on my delicious page and write that epic Dresden Files fic I've had sitting on my harddrive for six months." I fail at writing anything, ever.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-17 06:30 am (UTC)If you want something different from true crime/tales of serial killers, I cannot recommend enough Life after Life: Interviews with Twelve Murderers by Tony Parker. It's completely anti-sensational, heartbreaking, and hopeful, all at once.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-18 12:36 am (UTC)Reading Freakonomics, I kept imagining these awkward moments in the writing process where Levitt would look up from his work and realize that Dubner was giving him one of those fond, longing looks, and their eyes would meet for a second and then Dubner would cough and shuffle some papers and look away, and Levitt would be like "???" I'm surprised it hasn't hit Yuletide yet, honestly.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-18 12:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-18 12:32 am (UTC)I've never actually read The Giver. Is that awful?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-17 12:02 pm (UTC)I totally want to read the Rebecca Stead now, omg.
(And I am surprised you don't enjoy Psych! That might just be cause I hearts it, though.)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-18 12:30 am (UTC)You will love the Stead. *is excited for you*
Psych...From the few episodes I saw, I didn't find it funny, I found it kind of embarrassing? It's just not my sense of humor, I guess. I enjoyed the fic linked above, though. ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-17 08:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-18 12:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-17 11:17 pm (UTC):D
(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-18 12:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-19 01:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-01-19 05:16 am (UTC)