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!

Apples

Richard Milward

2007

I first read a review for Apples in a magazine about six years ago and the book was quoted as being a modern day story of Adam and Eve, and I fell in love. I love historical events that are re imagined in a modern context. One of the main reasons I passed History 12 was that I memorized WWII as an SNL Skit. If you have ever seen Kristin Wiigs' "Gilly" skit this might sound familiar.

Here is an excerpt:

Hitler invades Austria

Allies: Hiiitler!!

Hitler: blank stare, slow blinks

Allies: Hiiiiiitler

Hitler: I promise I won't do it again

Hitler invades Poland

Allies: Hiiitler!

Hitler: What (Vat).

From what I know about the bible and Adam and Eve I was expecting a book about maybe two crazy kids at a highschool that fall in love. The principle (god) or their parents (god) or society (god) tells them not to do something and the bad boy lures Eve into doing something. This however if not what I received. This book was about two British teens who just happened to be named Adam and Eve who aren't even friends and only get so close as to a kiss on the cheek. All Eve does is drugs and drink and have sex. All Adam does is listen to the Beatles and have OCD. Nothing happens in this book. AT ALL. 

Major Spoiler Alerts:
At one point, a girl is raped at party. She wakes up and takes the morning after pill, throws it up because she is so hungover, on the way out to the clinic to get another one she runs into her boyfriend and feels that she can't tell him so she does not continue to the clinic, she gets pregnant and doesn't abort, gives birth to the baby and realizes how shitty it is being a teen mother since she can't go out and party, no no guy wants to have sex with her. She drops her baby of a bridge

OFF A BRIDGE.

I have no idea if that author of the original magazine article was reading a COMPLETELY different book than I was or if I remembered the review differently but I give this book zero bolts. Even though I read it three times.

Reviewed by: Lorenda!

Salt Fish Girl

Salt Fish Girl

Larissa Lai

Are you a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction with woven plots and references to Chinese culture? You are! Then you’re going to love “Salt Fish Girl.” But you don’t even have to be a fan of all those things, really you just have to like post-apocalyptic environments and novels that get under your skin and make you think (but not think in the way that makes you feel bad, think in the way that makes you feel empowered).

I am a sucker for woven plotlines. They’re hard to pull off but exceptionally rewarding when done well, as they are in “Salt Fish Girl.” One strand of the story follows Nu Wa, the goddess/human whose story begins with her creating humans and flows into her becoming one. On the other strand we have Miranda, a young woman of Asian decent, living in a post-apocalyptic Vancouver.

Miranda is stinky. Really really stinky. No one likes her. She smells like the durian fruit because her parents ate it while conceiving her. Miranda’s father is in deep in the government and eventually they get kicked out of their suburban paradise and passed beyond the wall into the impoverished area where a lot of other Chinese people are living.

While living here Miranda meets Evie who is a clone! The government is creating a clone workforce that they don’t have treat like humans because their DNA contains 0.03% freshwater caro. Any good science fiction acts as a reflection of modern issues, with that in mind you can really see what’s going on with this carp fish thing. Anyway, Evie shows Miranda that she is just as human as anyone else and they take on the man together. Awesome awesome.

Meanwhile Nu Wa’s story get’s super confusing as she’s living in old school China and being lured away from her love, which we only know was Salt Fish Girl. A lot of other stuff happens in the story but it’ll just get crazy confusing if I try to lay it all out.

SPOILER ALERT

The ending is amazing. Turns out Nu Wa and Miranda are kind of the same person and Evie is a reincarnation of the Salt Fish Girl, but Miranda doesn’t know it! And now Miranda can do right by Evie to try and make amends for Nu Was abandoning the Salt Fish Girl. But it’s about a thousand times more confusing than that. When you’re in this world reading these two stories come together it all makes sense, everything connects.

OK YOU CAN COME BACK

The main thing I have to gush about is how Lai manages to address so much in such a short book. Evie is clearly a representation of how Asian immigrants have been seen as different or less than the European immigrants, but she isn’t trying to point fingers and say, “all you people, you are all the worst.” She’s just providing readers with a perspective they may not have. That’s what good science fiction does, it makes you think without making you feel bad for living.

Lai gets four and a half lightning bolts for “Salt Fish Girl” it’s very smart and you should go find yourself a copy of it right now!

Reviewed by: Meg!

A Game of Thrones

George R.R. Martin

1996

So we all know that A Game of Thrones is awesome. HBO picked it up, and they only take the best (except the recent Sookie Stackhouse novels (TrueBlood) have totally fallen apart). If you’re on top of TV at all you’ve probably watched the first season of A Game of Thrones. The TV show follows the book pretty closely so you might be asking, why read it? Well, dumb dumb, because the book is always better. And HBO focuses on all the sex whereas the novels focus on the story. I am serious, the show makes you think that the book must be smutty, but it’s totally not. Martin is like, “yeah they went to a whorehouse and there where whores everywhere, but then a bunch of cooler stuff happened.” HBO is like, “boobies, boobies, boobies, boobies.”

We all know that I love woven plot lines, or we all do now, and Martin is the king of weaving story lines. That man has woven a basket out of this book. There is so much going on all the time! And he names everyone! A character might show up for one sentence and he doesn’t just say, “then some random knight that isn’t important to the story gets killed” he says, “then Ser Knightlington, son of Lord Knightlington of Knightlington Isle – who is and excellent cook and one time went camping with Ned Stark’s brother Brandon – was killed.”

I have so much respect for that. He has the whole world perfectly mapped out, he knows who everyone is and what there connection to everyone else it. It makes it so much easier to get lost in the world. By having so many characters fully developed we get opposing views of other characters like Rhaegar. When I’m reading the Stark plotlines I’m like damn that Rhaegar, what a bastard. But when I’m reading Daenerys’s plot I’m like poor Rhaegar was killed by the usurper, you go get your kingdom, girl!

What else is nice about this book is all the women. It’s so easy to think, “well medieval women didn’t have much say so I’ll leave them out of the book.” And that’s just boring, stories where men and women both play game changing roles are way for fun to read. Martin has included all sorts of women in his novel and they do smart things and dumb things all the time, just like the men! This book has thrown me into a fantasy phase and I’m also rereading The Hobbit and no offense to Tolkien, but there’s like half a women in that novel, which is fine for a thousand reasons and I am not trying to bash Tolkien. It’s just nice to read the women in A Game of Thrones. That’s all! I’m not burning my bra over this. I love Tolkien!    

Back to A Game of Thrones I give it four lightning bolts. I know some die hard fans who will say it’s the best thing ever written and it’s not. It’s really really good but it’s not something that’s going to change my life.

Reviewed by: Meg!

Mercy Among the Children

David Adams Richards

2000

Ok so it won the Giller Prize and was selected for Canada Reads, no one is going to argue that this isn’t an exceptionally well-crafted novel. It is. It is so well crafted it’s annoying, in that good type of annoying where you want to playfully shake your finger at David Adams Richards and say “oh you.”

So what’s its deal. Well, if you like Canadian literature highlighting the impoverished Maritimes (78% of all Canadian lit) you are going to love this story. Set in New Brunswick this story follows the Henderson family through unbearable and incredible amounts of strife and hardship. Literally (pun) everyone in town has it out for this family. The worst part is that the reader can see that things are going to get worse for this them even though the family can’t see it coming. And when it gets worse it get’s way worse than you thought it would be! This book over 400 pages long, and these pages are full of information and details. That’s a lot of pain and suffering to take in.

The story weaves throughout the families of this poor New Brunswick town, as they plot against each other and work to screw over the Hendersons who are undeserving of their hardships. What’s nice about the story is that it really highlights how unfair life is; you can work as hard as you want and try to be a good person, but others will still dislike you. In that sense the story is very realistic. But as you get to the end all the coincidences start driving you mad! The good characters are so good, the bad ones are so bad, of course Cynthia’s daughter will get Percy’s heart after she kills him in a snowstorm! If it wasn’t so amazingly artful and well crafted it would be a soap opera.

And then the intertextuality! Lyle Henderson is telling the story, but he starts with his grandfather. He includes details of Cynthia and Mathew’s lives that he wasn’t there to witness, he couldn’t possibly know! But the damn device is used so well because it makes Lyle an unreliable narrator (the best kind!) and so his character descriptions have to be taken with a grain of salt. Percy never cries (bullshit), his mother is a saint (she sounds kind of dumb), everyone is out to get them. It makes Lyle seem paranoid. What’s weird is that every character is so wonderfully well rounded and full of details. It makes the world so full, yet I’m not sure if I believe Lyle! Damn you Richards!!!

But at the end of the day, although it is exceptionally well written and so well thought out I just can’t handle reading a novel full of constant pain. It isn’t my style, I don’t like it. My friend Becky likes these hardcore stories about life, I just can’t handle it. Which is why I give this Giller Prize winning marvelously written novel two and a half lightning bolts. It’s just too much pain!

Reviewed by Meg!

The Fault in Our Stars

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By John Green

2012

I am a fan of infinite fiction, no series is long enough. I want to know what happened to the characters everyday of their lives until the day they die forever and ever amen. I am also a fan of teen lit, mainly due to being a recent university grad who is turning twenty three and finds her own stark adult life too similar to adult lit themes that do not offer the escapism that the pleasant themes of finding yourself and possible teen vampires provide. Adult life is like J.K. Rowling's six page epilogue. It sucks.

Girl meets boy, falls in love, it does not end well. Just your typical love story, add  in a dash of cancer and some international travel and you have  John Green’s “The Fault in our Stars”. John Green is an exceptional writer, who does not write series, yet just like Coupland and Apatow he creates a universe for his characters. This is not your world of perfection and heros, it does not always have a happy ending and the good guy does not always get the girl but the writing is beautiful.  With quotes such as “my thoughts are stars I cant fathom into constellations” or “that’s the thing about pain, it demands to be felt” and “some infinities are bigger than others”. 

While it is a good book and is beautifully written I realized during the writing of this review that nothing really happens plot wise, which is why I give it three and a half lightning bolts.

Reviewed by Lorenda!

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)

Mindy Kaling
2011

As a complete disclaimer, I feel like I have to admit that this book took me almost two weeks to read, which is completely ridiculous seeing as even Mindy Kaling says that it’s going to be an easy read. The truth of it is that I started reading the book, realized that I was going to love it, then stopped reading it. Instead of sitting down and reading it, I ended up carrying it around with me for almost two weeks, reading snippets at a time. I read it when I was feeling down, or when I was just too tired to read “Game of Thrones” (Game of Thrones review is pending).

Going into this book I already knew that I liked Mindy Kaling. But once I got started in this book I realized that I love Mindy Kaling, I have a total lady crush on her, and I think we could be really good friends. Not best friends, she already has enough of those, but maybe just close friends, the kind of close friends where one completely idolizes the other.

“Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) is the story of Mindy Kaling’s life up to now, with anecdotes and advice just tossed in there. There’s a good ratio of Mindy’s life to funny anecdotes so it doesn’t completely feel like a memoire or a joke book.

The main thing I learned from her book is how smart she is. She tends to play fun bubbly characters, and even on her own show where she’s a doctor she still seems fairly ditzy. But in real life she went to Dartmouth, and her writing is clever and smart. Fuel for a lady crush. I have a soft spot in my heart for people who don’t have famous parents and who have just worked really hard to get where they are and are still in touch with themselves.

However my favourite tid-bit the book offered was her stance on comedy and women. She explains joining a discussion on this topic is like asking "Should dogs and cats be able to care for out children? They're in the house anyway." She is wonderful

Writing books seems to be the new Pixar voice acting for a lot of celebrities. It’s something else to keep a career a float, or it’s an obvious cash grab. And I am not talking about Tina Fey’s book here, I’ll get to her’s later. But Mindy’s book seems somehow necessary. She is such an awesome writer but she doesn’t seem to get the credit she deserves for it. No one thinks of the Office and goes directly to Mindy Kaling, they usually go to Steve Carell or B.J. Novak. And the characters she plays do not do her brain power justice. Her book gives people a deeper sense of who she is, and how hard she’s worked, and how amazingly endearing she is. 

I’ll give her four out of five lightning bolts!  

Reviewed by Meg!

Girlfriend In A Coma

Douglas Coupland
1998

Have you ever watched a Judd Apatow movie? Or a Quintin Tarantino film? They create these alternate universes for their characters. If you have not seen any of Judd Apatows films please watch: The 40 Year Old Virgin, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Knocked Up, I love you Man and This is 40. These movies in particular from the Apatow Vault can chart the love and marriage of Paul Rudd and Leslie Man, both exceedingly funny comedians.

I am a fan of alternate universes in pop culture films and books and because of that I love Douglas Couplands work. If you lived in the Douglas Coupland universe you would experience and apocalypse or the threat of an apocalypse at every turn. But do not confuse this apocalypse for the zombie-ridden adrenaline filled apocalypses of our dreams. Douglas Couplands apocalypses involve the dry dry heat of an atomic bomb and the bright bright light as your life and lies are burnt into your corneas. “And any small moments of intense, flaring beauty such as this morning's will be utterly forgotten, dissolved by time like a super-8 film left out in the rain, without sound, and quickly replaced by thousands of silently growing trees.” (Generation X). Douglas Coupland loves the prospect of an apocalypse, not the threat, the prospect.

In the Douglas Coupland Universe, if you were to loose your job and your character was in the "parent" roll, you would loose it at the age in which you should have been retiring however due to our current consumer driven materialistic world you wouldn’t be able to retire and would be forced to return to the job market, on the hunt, for a job you no longer want and are no longer relevant to. If this happens you will be instructed by your wife that she will:

a) Not be making you lunch

And you will:

b) Not be coming grocery shopping

I find these to be excellent rules and will incorporate them into raising my future imaginary children.

These rules will also apply to any and all children that may or may not have to move in after loosing their jobs as well.

Have you thought about your own mortality today? How the world will continue on with out you. Do you believe in God but look at the world around you and wonder if maybe he just doesn’t really like us? Have you spent time thinking about the burning dry heat of an atomic bomb? How you might be grocery shopping, have it be a sunny clear day. So sunny that you a feel it all the way in the crevices of your brain, bleaching the inside of your skull bright and holy white. How you will see a flash and a whoosh and a dry dry heat. No?

Well you need to pick up a Douglas Coupland book immediately. It doesn’t even matter which book. Any of them, all of them will satisfy this need.

I first read Douglas Couplands book "Girlfriend in a Coma" at the tender age of 16, and I fell in love. I fell in love with a book years before I would know what falling in love with a human being would feel like and I think Douglas would approve of that.

Girlfriend in a Coma involves a girl, who is dating a boy and falls into a Coma. The end.

Just Kidding.

The book, written with a youth perspective that includes an omnipresent narrator, chronicles a teenage girl who in the process of starving herself for an upcoming vacation accidentally sees a prediction of the end of the world. In an attempt to avoid the end of the world she slips into a coma. Right after loosing her virginity. You guessed it; she’s also knocked up.

Her boyfriend and baby daddy never really grows up; this can be extended to her group of friends as well. Girl wakes up from coma, world ends. They survive. Sacrifice themselves and the world returns to continue as always.

While the plot itself seems strange it was the language and dialogue that I fell in love with, with quotes like "At what point in our lives do we stop blurring? When do we become crisp individuals? What must we do in order to end these fuzzy identities - to clarify just who it is we really are?" or “One of my own stray childhood fears had been to wonder what a whale might feel like had it been born and bred in captivity, then released into the wild–into its ancestral sea–its limited world instantly blowing up when cast into the unknowable depths, seeing strange fish and tasting new waters, not even having a concept of depth, not knowing the language of any whale pods it might meet. It was my fear of a world that would expand suddenly, violently, and without rules or laws: bubbles and seaweed and storms and frightening volumes of dark blue that never end.” And also “I didn’t realize then that so much of being an adult is reconciling ourselves with the awkwardness and strangeness of our own feelings. Youth is the time of life lived for some imaginary audience”; how could, I a youth coming of age, not resist this book that had answers to questions I had never even considered and questions I am still trying to find the answers to.  

Reviewed by: Lorenda!

The Hunger Games

By Suzanne Collins

2008

 

 I snagged the first Hunger Games out of a discount bin at the Superstore. Everyone was telling me to read it, but after the Twilight debacle of 2008 I was still feeling weary of Young Adult Fiction as a genre. But it was only six bucks so I figured why not.

A week later I read the entire series, just to note, I work full time and have a variety of extracurriculars. I had things to do. Once I had finished reading the novels I fell into a dark, three day depression. I had read them too fast. It was all over so quickly.

So let’s start with book one

The Hunger Games is set a post-apocalyptic North America where the new nation of Panem has been built. There are thirteen districts in Panem, all fuelling the Capitol with some sort of necessary resource (coal, lumber, firearms, etc.). Many of the districts are very poor and there is an unfair class system going on, as there needs to be to have a rebellion story work. The Capitol people are all well fed fashionistas whereas many of the districts are poor.

The story starts off 74 years after some huge revolt by the districts has been crushed by the Capitol. As part of the punishment for the uprising those in power demolish District 13 as a show of power and start a tournament called the Hunger Games (see title). Two teenaged children from each district (a boy and a girl) are randomly selected for the Games where they are taken to the Capitol, paraded in front of all the districts then put in an arena to fight to the death. It’s the Capitol’s way of continual punishment toward those rebellious districts. Ya with me?

Part of the dealio is that you can volunteer for the Hunger Games if you so wish, which is what some of the richer districts do. By training up their youth going to the Games becomes some sort of sick honour. But not in District 12, where our heroine Katniss lives. The novel is also told in first person through  Katniss’s voice which is fun for everyone. She’s described as being kind of prickly person. Her dad is dead, her mom is weak, and her younger sister, Prim, is super loveable, or something. So she’s all tough and she goes out to the woods and hunts in order to feed her family. Got it? Strong female protagonist, it’s nice to read.

This is Prim’s first time having her name go into the pool to be drawn for the Hunger Games, so naturally Katniss says something like “don’t worry, I promise you won’t get your name drawn.” Obviously it does. Way to jinx it Katniss, no wonder you have no friends. Then Katniss has to volunteer to take Prim’s place because she is just the bravest chickie who ever walked the earth.

The boy drawn for district 12 is some dude named Peeta who we don’t really know. They go to Capitol and make a big show and everyone loves them. They’ve got one of those “nobel drunk” character’s in Haymitch who is their mentor. He’s supposed to guide them through their games and send them gifts in the arena to help them survive. Haymitch is by far my favourite character.

They do these group interviews before the Games so the audience gets to know the tributes, and Peeta comes out and tells everyone he’s in love with Katniss. I’m all like, dude, you’re sixteen calm down. But Katniss is super pissed off because she’s too strong and defensive to take a compliment.

They all end up in the arena in a big ol’ fight to the death. It looks like Peeta’s betrayed her but then of course he hasn’t (refer to the love stuff). The Game master pulls some foolish trick like “Oh hey guys, remember how there’s only one winner? Well now there can be two, but only if they’re from the same District.” I’m thinking, yeah right, like this crazy society is actually going to let that happen.

But Katniss is all like “phwef now I don’t have to kill Peeta” and she goes and finds him. But he’s super injured and she has to take care of him. Whoop Whoop! Ok she’s a really strong character you guys. The amount she internalized not crying makes me cry.

Katniss is really kick ass but she also uses her feminine wiles the entire book. She really wraps boys around her finger, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not. But at the same time, in this world her provocative behaviour goes as far as kissing Peeta to get him some medicine. So I think we can all forgive her that slutty behaviour.

I’ll give Katniss and her crazy adventure 4.5 lightning bolts!

Reviewed by Meg!

Hey There!

Welcome to Book Thunder!

It's a new book blog where we'll review some books and be a little sassy.

Some other title options for Book Thunder included:

• Hey You Guuuys (Let's Read!)
• Books and Babes
• Lit and Bitch
• Buy and Prejudice
• Sluts Turning Pages
• Face Book: But not that one
• Lit Lickers: Putting Authors in their Friggin' Place
• Blackbeard's Story Time Corner

We ended up with Book Thunder! Because we're reviewing books after you've heard of them (like lightning). Also so we could rate books between one and five Lightning Bolts! One bolt is barely a storm and five bolts is a wicked awesome storm!