11/22/63

Stephen King

2011

I’m not really sure where to start with this review, so lets start by sharing more information about myself: I have really poor self-control. Honestly it’s a miracle I am not yet an alcoholic, drug addict or 800 pounds. This information is relevant to you because I just finished a 900 page book in three days while working full time.

11/22/63 did that to me.

I blame you Stephen King.

11/22/63 is about a man who goes back in time to stop the assassination of JFK. Instantly I was interested in this book, you already know how I love reimaging history and I needed a nice long read for a vacation I was planning to take. That vacation is still a week away but the books done, so . . .yeah.

I will try to navigate the plot without giving too much away, an ordinary man (middle aged, divorced, no kids, one cat) finds himself in extraordinary circumstances when he is introduced to a bubble in time that takes him back to the same place, same date and same time.

Here he sets out to stop some bad things from happening and if he can manage it even stop the assassination of JFK. This will hopefully prevent millions from dying during the Vietnam War and will result in a better “now.”

Things go wrong, he has to fix it, and time works against you when you try to change it, someone dies and someone falls in love. I hope some reader out there just guessed that JFK falls in love with our protagonist. I have never read a Stephen King novel until now; I knew of him and his work I just never got around to it. I now understand why he is famous.

During the entire book I was extremely tense, even during times when literally nothing of significance was happening, like when our protagonist was hanging out in his motel room I WAS ON THE EDGE OF MY SEAT. This is partially why I read the book so fast, I just needed to know what happened next.

Another thing that I noticed which may have resulted in Stephen Kings fame as a king (pun) of horror is that he chooses words that offer a hint of the unpleasant. In a sentence when he could have used the word wet, for example, he will use moist which isn’t a pleasant word or he would choose words that would imply just with a hint the darkness in all of us. I don’t really know how to explain it.

I hope you try this book out for yourself and that you have more self-control than I do. And when you do read it, contact me because I would like to be a fan girl with you. 

Five out of five lightning bolts! Reviewed by: Lorenda!

The Flying Troutmans

Miriam Toews
2008

Hattie comes back from Paris to take care of her mentally ill sister. She checks her sister into a hospital and then collects up her sister's kids and goes on a road trip to find their absent father. They take a shit areostar van through the states and get into all sorts of shenanigans. That's the plot in a nut case, typical road trip plot, we all get it.

What I really like is the way Toews develops her characters. Hattie is clearly the straight man who has a bunch of bad and weird things happen to her. Her niece Thebes is a crazy little girl with loads of emotions and blue hair. She's lots of fun and she does a bunch of really neat and unpredictable things. Hattie's nephew Logan is the sullen teen with loads of angst and poetry. The sister Min is just crazy (ok I know she's more than that but it just wasn't worth describing).

The thing that bothers me about the kids is that they are super well spoken and aware of worldly things. Not saying kids aren't that aware, but come on. Especially young Thebes, she has so much self awareness, besides being completely creatively wacked she's way older than she should be.

Although it does follow the typical road trip plot, Toews spices things up with weird flashbacks into Min and Hattie's childhood. Usually they come when Hattie is telling the kids about why their Mom is so crazy. I think the most admirable thing about this book is how it takes on mental illness. We don't ever spend anytime with the person who is ill but we see it reflected in the rest of the characters. We see the way it makes the kids feel helpless and frustrated as there is nothing they can do for their mother, and we see how Hattie has run away and come back so many times. Toews gives the full and complex picture of mental illness.

But yeah, I know what you're probably thinking. Miriam Toews, didn't she write "A Simple Meanness"? No dumby it's called "A Complicated Kindness" (I may have made that mistake before), is this book as good as her other awesome one? The answer of course is no. Is it a good book if you like really internalized plots, zany road trips, and mental illness? Yes, yes it is. So all in all I'll give it a 3.5 lightning bolts, a really good 3.5, almost a four, but for some reason not a four.

Reviewed by Meg!

Hark! A Vagrant

Kate Beaton
2011

Kate Beaton has a History degree and in more clever than the rest of us. She's so smart and witty that she has to explain why some of her jokes are good. I know what you're thinking, if you have to explain your jokes then you're probably not very funny. But if you're Kate Beaton then you will have to explain your jokes because you're able to make more historical and literary references in one book than most of us will in a lifetime. So instead of being all grumpy that I had to read the joke explanations, I was just able to enjoy the jokes more thoroughly.  Which means that when I got the jokes without the explanation I got to feel like Kate Beaton and I were best friends and were equally smart. I may have a complex.

To be clear, this is a comic book. No, not a graphic novel, it's a comic book that's full of different strips. There's lots of fun Canadian history strips, and fun classic literature jokes. If you like history and literature and still manage to have a sense of humour, you'll love it.


Here's a sample:

I guess what with being a comic book I should talk about the art. It's good. Not high end graphic novel good, more comic strip good. She changes it up every now and then depending on her subject matter, which makes for a nice variety when you're reading the book in one sitting because it's so funny.

I think by now you should know that this book is getting five lightning bolts, the first book of the site to cause such a big storm (heh) so go read it! If you can't get yourself to the book store/library right now get over to harkavagrant.com.

Reviewed by Meg!

Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret War

Hal Vaughan

2011

By now I hope you know that Meg is the funny one if this book/blog relationship and that I am the historical one. It’s a characteristic to my character in this novel called life….. apparently I am also very dramatic. Do you know who is also dramatic … COCO CHANEL is DRAAAAMATIC.

In Hal Vaughan’s book Sleeping with the Enemy he outlines just how dramatic Coco Chanel was and that drama is NAZIS. Yes, World War Two (The Great War the Sequel) Nazis. Hitler Nazis. Apparently Coco Chanel was an anti-Semite and extremely supportive of the National Socialist Party and the down with communist vibe it had. So supportive that she let them into her bedroom, no not  Hitler but a hansom Nazi spy (drama) named Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage. The book supports how Coco Chanel may have been a spy for the Nazi Party, and when France was liberated only narrowly missed execution thanks to her dear pal, the ever so dreamy, Winston Churchill.

This is the plot and the drive of the book, to uncover this secret (and not so secret) world of Coco Chanel. However this is a hefty 300 + page book that includes not only the Nazi drama but also the entirety of Coco Chanel’s rise to fame and glory. I am not one who is typically interested in fashion but being that she was a historical figure I was intrigued. I learned that Coco loved men and that men loved Coco. I learned a few flirting tips. I learned a plethora of the who's who of the 1920's through to the 1940’s.  I learned that Coco had a hard life, and a sad life, one where she needed to be loved to feel independent and needed to be loved to feel alive. I learned that she may have had relationships with women and that she developed a serious drug habit near the end of her life. I learned that I pitied Coco. I learned about fashion.

This book was suggested to me by a friend who loves fashion and while I feared those bits would be dull, the fact that the author includes photos (that do not interfere with the story) of some of the clothes he is talking about and chooses well known and revolutionary pieces (like the little black dress and its history) I actually found myself enjoying or at least tolerating the fashion excerpts. However it was the DRAMA and historical tid bits (Churchill in a bathing suit people!) that won me over.   

The timing of this book just couldn't be better, starting in the roaring 20s, arching into WWII and ending in a Cold War World. Chanel is one of those names that most people know, yet not a lot of people know about her; her life or anything other than the fashion house. I am glad that I have rectified my ignorance. I didn’t find myself staying up until all hours to read just one more chapter but I found it to be an interesting leisurely read and I will most definitely be introducing this book into my dinner party conversation (drama people, draaaaaaama) for that I award this 3 ½ lightening bolts out of 5. 

 

Reviewed by: Lorenda!

Martin Sloane

Michael Redhill
2001

This is Redhill's first novel and it took him something like ten years to write. When your first novel takes you ten years to write, hopefully it'll be pretty good (and I mean actively write, not like that novel you've been writing for ten years where you just tell everyone that you're writing but never actually put pen to paper). So yeah, it's pretty good (and it has a woven plot! if you've read any of these you know that's what I love)

It's good, it's well crafted, it's smart. I didn't really like it. Jolene falls in love with an artist (Martin) who is much older than she is. They seem to be in love, but then Martin leaves her in the middle of the night and she never sees him again. Years later she goes looking for him and unveils bits of his mysterious past. It's good. Good story.

Here's what drives me crazy:
Martin isn't that awesome of a guy. And yeah ok, girls like broken things and want to fix everybody. Ok. But that's boring, and he's not that broken. He's just empty enough to be mysterious and I just don't see the appeal. Jolene is kind of nuts, why did he even go for her? She wallows for years, she loses her job, she goes kind of nuts. Come on girl! Pull yourself together. These two characters are just awful and frustrating, I wanted to rewrite them both - but that was the point.

Here's what is amazing:
This novel delves a lot into story telling, who is telling this story and why. Well, it's Jolene. So that woven plot that is either Jolene's voice or an unknown voice telling Martin's story, is really just Jolene. Wikki What!? So the real question here is how can Jolene know all the intricate details of Martin's life? She can't! What? So she's gotta be making it up. So as she quests after Martin she's learning about what Martin made up, but then because Martin's story is also Jolene's story we don't know if she just made it up and can't remember that it was her! Now we have an unreliable narrator who has a potentially horrific memory!

Redhill also throws in a bunch of ekphrasis (see I done did school) to head up every chapter. These bits of ekphrasis are describing Martin's artwork. The artwork as dates and is formatted like an art show exhibit description, which make them feel like the only solid details in Jolene's messed up narration. The descriptions give solid facts into Martin's life (which you'll get if you go all nuts on the novel and try to figure them out). The ekphrasis weaves in with the narration to show even further inconsistencies in Jolene's narrative.

The inconsistencies jive into Jolene's past and the way that she treats people. Her childhood was crazy messed up and it's easy to see how that would influence her relationship with Martin. So the novel is full of details that will completely drive you mad in a good way, if you're into that kind of thing.

So What's the verdict?
It's amazingly well crafted, with too many layers to talk about here. But the characters drive me freaking crazy! So well crafted, but I wanted to smack both Martin and Jolene in the face the entire time. Frustration in literature is good, but this frustration was too frustrating and it just made me not care. So Redhill gets three lightning bolts and a shurg.

Reviewed by Meg!

Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir)

Jenny Lawson
2012

Let's talk about charming. "If you need an arm condom, it might be time to reevaluate some of your life choices." Charming.

Yeah, I read thebloggess.com so clearly I'm going to love this novel. If you don't read the bloggess then you might be wondering why it's so clear that I'd love it. Well, because if I didn't love the bloggess I wouldn't read it anymore and probably wouldn't talk about it. So I wouldn't go out an buy her book the same day it came out in softcover (we're all not ritzy enough to own hardcovers) and I wouldn't read it and subsequently review it. The book is just like the blog, but better.

Lawson talks about everything from swimming with a family of dead squirrels to trying to have a baby and then some. I can't really find a catch-phrasey way of describing this book. You should probably just read it yourself.

I love her language. She writes the way I speak but can't dare to write because my Mom might be reading. The F-Bomb isn't even a bomb, because if it was this book would be a war zone. At points it feels like she's going out of her way to be offensive, and I just find that charming. What does that say about me?

Still, with all of her fowl language and off colour subject matter, she manages to be extremely human, humble, and forgiving. She talks about miscarriage with so much respect, it's hard to believe that a person who claims to have so much social anxiety manages to be so personable and open about such difficult matters. Throughout her life's narrative (this is after all a memoir) she has encountered so many alarming issues and pitfalls and has managed to come out of it all as a mostly sane adult with a wicked sense of humour.

So four lightning bolts for Ms. Lawson. Thanks for being open and wonderful, and for giving me weird hope for my future. However, I can see how this book might not be for everyone, and so can the author, in her introduction she writes, "I apologize. . . for offending you, because you're going to get halfway through this book and giggle at non sequiturs about Hitler and abortions and poverty, and you'll feel superior to all the uptight, easily offended people who need to learn how to take a fucking joke, but then somewhere in here you'll read one random thing that you're sensitive about, and everyone else will thing it's hysterical, but you'll think, 'Oh, that is way over the line.' I apologize for that one thing. Honestly I don't know what I was thinking."

And that is why she's awesome.

Reviewed by Meg!

Alias Grace

Margaret Atwood
1996

It's Atwood time yo! Atwood, you are Canadian and Alias Grace is a freaking kick ass novel. I know I know, Atwood, blah blah blah. This one is also a Giller Prize winner (Like Mercy Among the Children) but I actually like this book.

So Alias Grace is the story of Grace Marks, who was incarcerated for double homicide in 1843 (for real), but there was a lot of controversy over whether or not she did the crime (as she did her time). In real life (and in the novel) Grace is a maid who supposedly kills her master and his mistress Nancy. Her accomplice, McDermott, is hanged but Grace is let go after being in prison for a super long time.

The novel has a woven plot (yes!) which follows the story of Grace (before and after the murders) and Dr. Simon Jordan - a brain doctor who is taking in Grace's story while dealing with weird daemons of his own.

Basically, the entire novel is a criticism for the distribution of knowledge and the bais that is inherent in story telling. Grace's half of the story is told in first person, so the reader knows when she's leaving parts out of her story, but the reader still doesn't know the truth. Dr. Simon's story isn't told in first person so we don't know what's going on in that wack mind of his. Still, even with Grace's first person narrative we're not sure whether she did it or not. Which is awesome! Unless you need everything to be tied up in the end.

In this novel Atwood uses quilting as a metaphorical form to weave together the story. Each chapter is headed by a picture of a type of quilted square with a title that alludes to the following chapter. Grace herself is an avid quilter. What is this all about? The fabrication of story telling? The intertextuality that reminds the reader at every chapter that this is a novel? A comment toward the complex nature of story telling? A thousand other things that Atwood is being all smart about? Yes. I'll just say yes.


I could go on about this novel forever. There is so much going on in it, so your best bet is just going and reading it yourself.
This novel is super killer awesome, which is why it gets a stormy four lightning bolts!

Reviewed by Meg!