Imagine a world in which no one got sick. Crime was an extreme rarity. Your food was delivered to you daily, rather than having to cook it yourself. And on your 80th birthday, you'd have a feast day, all day, then die painlessly.
In exchange, everything was optimized and tightly controlled. You didn't choose a career. Instead, you were monitored closely, given a work experience at 17 based on years of data about your abilities and inclinations, then a finalized vocation. You had a choice of a handful of recreational activities each week. And, at 17, your ideal match was selected for you, also based on years of data.
That's Cassia's world. Cassia is the main character in Ally Condie's 'Matched.' Except, things don't go quite according to plan. Cassia gets her Match, all right, and even more excitingly, her Match turns out to be someone she's grown up with, which is very rare, considering the large population of the Society. After you get your Match, you get a microchip containing photographs and information about them. Despite being good friends with her match, Xander, Cassia views her chip anyway.
Her chip is all screwed up, though. It's all about someone else that she knows, a boy named Ky. Although an Official quickly tracks her down to exchange the chip and reassure her that the entire thing was a mistake and that she shouldn't question her Match, she does anyway, which in turn leads her to question whether The Society really does know best. And, as it turns out, she's not the only one wondering that.
I enjoyed reading this book, and got through it very quickly. Since I've been re-reading The Hunger Games recently, which is also set in a totalitarian society in the near future and features a female POV character choosing between two different boys, I can't help but compare them. And I predict that the Matched trilogy will have fewer male fans. The boys in this story are not terribly vivid and act more as plot devices than full-fledged characters, the way Peeta and Gale came across. Also, the action in Matched is mostly emotional. There's little enough problem-solving, and no real violence at all.
That being said, I can see many women loving this book. It does have a nice, romantic plot, and but Cassia is not a sappy character. She has an Athletic Permit because she enjoys running hard on their 'tracker' and passed an examination to ensure she wasn't an anorexic or a masochist. She's very smart, and seems destined for one of The Society's higher-level jobs until the romance thing sidetracks her. She is also an independent thinker: when she chooses her Match banquet dress, the clerk points out that her non-mainstream choice was predicted by her personality. Cassia is a character you can admire and root for, and does well at carrying the plot along. I'm looking forward to picking up 'Crossed' on my next library trip.
Showing posts with label young adult. Show all posts
Showing posts with label young adult. Show all posts
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Eragon and Hunger Games, making headlines
It's been a big week for young adult fiction. First, there was the much-anticipated release of the trailer of "The Hunger Games" on "Good Morning America" earlier this week. In case you still haven't seen it, you can watch it here. We'll wait!
There's a lot of debate among fans of the books whether the movie will be as good. THe main thing I hope is that they don't water down Katniss. It still makes me angry that they excluded Hermione's hero scene from the "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" film, where she solves the logic puzzle and figures out which flask Harry needs to drink in order to proceed. I don't want them to turn one of contemporary literature's most badass female characters into a wimp. I didn't see Jennifer Lawrence (who plays Katniss) in "X-Men: First Class," but I did see her in "Winter's Bone," and she was great.
I had long held out hope that they'd cast Robert Downey Jr. as Haymitch. I've adored him in everything I've seen him in, from "Iron Man" to "The Soloist," and I still think he would have been awesome, but Woody Harrelson will also be good. I didn't know that Lenny Kravitz acted, but he definitely looks like how I imagined Cinna. I had heard of Donald Sutherland, who plays President Snow, but couldn't recall what he'd been in. So I looked him up on iMDB, and was pretty blown away by the wide variety of roles he's had in his lifetime. He should be a good President Snow as well.
The timing of the film's opening concerns me a bit. It's due to open March 23, 2012, and that's usually the time of year they reserve for bottom-shelf releases. Gross-out comedies with no-name actors, romantic comedies rejected from Lifetime Movie Network on the grounds of excessive sappiness, small-budget action films that might as well be titled "Shit Blows Up Near Boobs"...and rotten adaptions of less-popular books and graphic novels. "Hunger Games" doesn't fall into that category, though. It topped bestseller lists and garnered many accolades and awards. Google-search "The Hunger Games," and 142 million results will appear. People will definitely be watching this film.
Also, the final installment of the "Eragon" series by Christopher Paolini hit stores last week. The series was initially supposed to be a trilogy, but Paolini had so much left over, he created a fouth book. The new book is called "Inheritance." I know very little about it, as I read only the first book in this series. The series has many, many fans, though (including Mr. Library Diva!) and I know they've been anxiously awaiting this book for several years. If anyone out there has read it, I'm interested in your thoughts!
There's a lot of debate among fans of the books whether the movie will be as good. THe main thing I hope is that they don't water down Katniss. It still makes me angry that they excluded Hermione's hero scene from the "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" film, where she solves the logic puzzle and figures out which flask Harry needs to drink in order to proceed. I don't want them to turn one of contemporary literature's most badass female characters into a wimp. I didn't see Jennifer Lawrence (who plays Katniss) in "X-Men: First Class," but I did see her in "Winter's Bone," and she was great.
I had long held out hope that they'd cast Robert Downey Jr. as Haymitch. I've adored him in everything I've seen him in, from "Iron Man" to "The Soloist," and I still think he would have been awesome, but Woody Harrelson will also be good. I didn't know that Lenny Kravitz acted, but he definitely looks like how I imagined Cinna. I had heard of Donald Sutherland, who plays President Snow, but couldn't recall what he'd been in. So I looked him up on iMDB, and was pretty blown away by the wide variety of roles he's had in his lifetime. He should be a good President Snow as well.
The timing of the film's opening concerns me a bit. It's due to open March 23, 2012, and that's usually the time of year they reserve for bottom-shelf releases. Gross-out comedies with no-name actors, romantic comedies rejected from Lifetime Movie Network on the grounds of excessive sappiness, small-budget action films that might as well be titled "Shit Blows Up Near Boobs"...and rotten adaptions of less-popular books and graphic novels. "Hunger Games" doesn't fall into that category, though. It topped bestseller lists and garnered many accolades and awards. Google-search "The Hunger Games," and 142 million results will appear. People will definitely be watching this film.
Also, the final installment of the "Eragon" series by Christopher Paolini hit stores last week. The series was initially supposed to be a trilogy, but Paolini had so much left over, he created a fouth book. The new book is called "Inheritance." I know very little about it, as I read only the first book in this series. The series has many, many fans, though (including Mr. Library Diva!) and I know they've been anxiously awaiting this book for several years. If anyone out there has read it, I'm interested in your thoughts!
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Annoying Book Trends
So I've been trying to find ways to take the content of this blog beyond what you could find cruising Amazon reviews. I still haven't figured it out, but I did come up with an idea for tonight's post: Annoying Book Trends!
1. Title format: The [quirky profession's] [female relative]. You know what I speak of. "The Alchemist's Daughter." "The Mandolin-maker's wife". This is one of those trends where one book with a similar title broke through and everyone rushed to do it. It's particularly awful when you can tell that the book does not, in fact, concern the daughter of an alchemist. And the fact that it invariably concerns a female relative reeks of that "herstory" crap...clearly, the alchemist or mandolin-maker is the interesting one, and it makes me think that it will be primarily about the tribulations of keeping the wood shavings out of the casseroles and explaining the mysterious explosions to the neighbors. I think it's time for this trend to die.
2. The Girl who was Too Spunky For Her Time. It's hard for modern women to imagine an era in which they had almost no freedom. When it was a commonly held belief that encouraging a woman to learn things would interfere with her ability to have babies, when an unmarried 19-year-old was an old maid, when people went around saying things like "women belong in the kitchen" in a non-ironic way and didn't get smacked for them. It's hard for modern women to imagine, but if you're writing historical fiction, you need to try.
Yes, throughout history, there were women who were Too Spunky For Their Time, but the fact that the repressive system remained in place for so long seems to indicate that they were generally in the minority. Why were most women OK with their lack of spunk? What made so many women agree to marry at an early age, turn from their books once they could read well enough to get by in their society, and generally conform? Maybe the happy housewives of earlier eras are harder for us to relate to, but who says that everything in historical fiction needs to speak to our modern world?
3. Cardboard boyfriends. Chick-lit books are notorious for this. Even though the focus is supposed to be primarily on the girl, would it kill writers to give their male characters the tiniest bit of depth? Usually, all we know about them is their profession and their penchant for doing thoughtful things (if they're good guys) or being thoughtless (if they're the douchebag obstacle character). Give him a hobby or something!
4. Memoirs by boring people. The memoir genre is hard to do well. The cold, hard truth is that not everyone's life is interesting. Other people have interesting lives and can't portray them well. Some have something very mildly interesting about them but flog it way too hard. Since the explosion of the genre about 15 years ago, they've definitely varied in quality.
5. Formulaic fantasy. Shouldn't that be a contradiction in terms? Sadly, it's not. I took a beating on here a few years ago for my post on The Alchemyst, but it's pretty typical of a formulaic fantasy novel. Person or persons receive a strange visitor. Strange visitor reveals magic ability/chosen one status. Person embarks on a quest to either find a lost object or destroy a dangerous object. Fate of world hangs in balance. Quirky companion goes along. Plot culminates in an archetypcial struggle between good and evil. Good wins.
When it's good, like in the Harry Potter series, it can be good. There were enough side roads and distractions in that to prevent it from seeming like the same old plot. When it's bad, like in "The Alchemyst," it's dreadful. When it's not like that at all but forced into that model for a movie, as in "The Golden Compass" film, it deserves a prison sentence. George RR Martin gets high marks from me for breaking out of this mold. Wish more people would.
So tell me: what do you all dislike in books? What device, trend, or character archetype would you like to place a 1000-year ban on?
1. Title format: The [quirky profession's] [female relative]. You know what I speak of. "The Alchemist's Daughter." "The Mandolin-maker's wife". This is one of those trends where one book with a similar title broke through and everyone rushed to do it. It's particularly awful when you can tell that the book does not, in fact, concern the daughter of an alchemist. And the fact that it invariably concerns a female relative reeks of that "herstory" crap...clearly, the alchemist or mandolin-maker is the interesting one, and it makes me think that it will be primarily about the tribulations of keeping the wood shavings out of the casseroles and explaining the mysterious explosions to the neighbors. I think it's time for this trend to die.
2. The Girl who was Too Spunky For Her Time. It's hard for modern women to imagine an era in which they had almost no freedom. When it was a commonly held belief that encouraging a woman to learn things would interfere with her ability to have babies, when an unmarried 19-year-old was an old maid, when people went around saying things like "women belong in the kitchen" in a non-ironic way and didn't get smacked for them. It's hard for modern women to imagine, but if you're writing historical fiction, you need to try.
Yes, throughout history, there were women who were Too Spunky For Their Time, but the fact that the repressive system remained in place for so long seems to indicate that they were generally in the minority. Why were most women OK with their lack of spunk? What made so many women agree to marry at an early age, turn from their books once they could read well enough to get by in their society, and generally conform? Maybe the happy housewives of earlier eras are harder for us to relate to, but who says that everything in historical fiction needs to speak to our modern world?
3. Cardboard boyfriends. Chick-lit books are notorious for this. Even though the focus is supposed to be primarily on the girl, would it kill writers to give their male characters the tiniest bit of depth? Usually, all we know about them is their profession and their penchant for doing thoughtful things (if they're good guys) or being thoughtless (if they're the douchebag obstacle character). Give him a hobby or something!
4. Memoirs by boring people. The memoir genre is hard to do well. The cold, hard truth is that not everyone's life is interesting. Other people have interesting lives and can't portray them well. Some have something very mildly interesting about them but flog it way too hard. Since the explosion of the genre about 15 years ago, they've definitely varied in quality.
5. Formulaic fantasy. Shouldn't that be a contradiction in terms? Sadly, it's not. I took a beating on here a few years ago for my post on The Alchemyst, but it's pretty typical of a formulaic fantasy novel. Person or persons receive a strange visitor. Strange visitor reveals magic ability/chosen one status. Person embarks on a quest to either find a lost object or destroy a dangerous object. Fate of world hangs in balance. Quirky companion goes along. Plot culminates in an archetypcial struggle between good and evil. Good wins.
When it's good, like in the Harry Potter series, it can be good. There were enough side roads and distractions in that to prevent it from seeming like the same old plot. When it's bad, like in "The Alchemyst," it's dreadful. When it's not like that at all but forced into that model for a movie, as in "The Golden Compass" film, it deserves a prison sentence. George RR Martin gets high marks from me for breaking out of this mold. Wish more people would.
So tell me: what do you all dislike in books? What device, trend, or character archetype would you like to place a 1000-year ban on?
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Just the title of this book, "MIss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" was enough to capture my imagination. I decided to buy it after looking at it in the store.
Most books use bespoke illustrations to fit with the story. In this book, the author unearths vintage photographs that become an integral part of the story. If you've ever checked out my Big Happy Funhouse link, you'll know that one of the best aspects of that blog is mousing over the images and reading the comments, and seeing what the blogger and his commentors think is happening in the photo.
Ransom Riggs, in his debut novel, wove an entire story around the photographs he found in people's private collections of vintage photography. The tale concerns Jacob, who recently witnessed the violent death of his grandfather. His grandfather had a small collection of strange photos and used to tell even stranger tales about them. When he was growing up, he lived on an island off the Welsh coast, with other children who could do strange and wonderful things.
Jacob's grandfather's death triggers a near-nervous breakdown on Jacob's part, and for his own healing, his father accompanies him to this island to sort out the mystery for himself. The children, of course, were real, and there is an interally-logical explanation for everything.
But the real joy of the book is seeing the story interact with the photographs. Sometimes it falls a bit flat: a two-part series of children in yarn suits with yarn balaclavas is never explained at all; one gets the sense the images were simply too good not to include. But others are haunting and clever: his father, a dejected Halloween bunny, sitting alone on the curb; a photo of a man holding a toddler labeled "this is why"; a man in a suit loading a shotgun into the back of a 1960s-era car. "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" is worth checking out, simply because it's so very different.
Can anyone reading this think of a book where the images played such an integral role in the story -- a book that would make no sense without the images (excluding picture books for children?)
Most books use bespoke illustrations to fit with the story. In this book, the author unearths vintage photographs that become an integral part of the story. If you've ever checked out my Big Happy Funhouse link, you'll know that one of the best aspects of that blog is mousing over the images and reading the comments, and seeing what the blogger and his commentors think is happening in the photo.
Ransom Riggs, in his debut novel, wove an entire story around the photographs he found in people's private collections of vintage photography. The tale concerns Jacob, who recently witnessed the violent death of his grandfather. His grandfather had a small collection of strange photos and used to tell even stranger tales about them. When he was growing up, he lived on an island off the Welsh coast, with other children who could do strange and wonderful things.
Jacob's grandfather's death triggers a near-nervous breakdown on Jacob's part, and for his own healing, his father accompanies him to this island to sort out the mystery for himself. The children, of course, were real, and there is an interally-logical explanation for everything.
But the real joy of the book is seeing the story interact with the photographs. Sometimes it falls a bit flat: a two-part series of children in yarn suits with yarn balaclavas is never explained at all; one gets the sense the images were simply too good not to include. But others are haunting and clever: his father, a dejected Halloween bunny, sitting alone on the curb; a photo of a man holding a toddler labeled "this is why"; a man in a suit loading a shotgun into the back of a 1960s-era car. "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" is worth checking out, simply because it's so very different.
Can anyone reading this think of a book where the images played such an integral role in the story -- a book that would make no sense without the images (excluding picture books for children?)
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Trilogy complete, mind blown, spoliers within
After I wrote the last post, I ran out and bought the other two books. I returned home at 10:30 p.m. and started reading "Catching Fire." By morning, I was into "Mockingjay". By Sunday night, it was all over...and it took me this long to be able to articulate more than "wow...fucking amazing."
I'd wondered where the series would go after the first book. I wouldn't have really said it ended on a cliffhanger. Katniss won the Hunger Games, when the Gamemakers sadistically forced her and her District 12 partner Peeta into an alliance, then shattered it at the last minute by renegging on their promise to declare co-victors. Katniss and Peeta were ready to kill themselves when the Gamemaker frantically ordered them to spit out the poison, they could be co-victors after all.
Well, it turns out that didn't sit well. You're not supposed to beat the Games, you're supposed to beat the other competitors. Katniss winning in the way she did was the worst possible thing for the Capitol. It gave hope to the districts, and the Hunger Games are designed to quell hope. The next two books deal with the fallout from her subversive victory.
My sister teaches this book to her classes sometimes, and she said on her blog post that one of the main things about it that students always notice is how violent the books are. Every death means something, there's no gratuitous violence here. Either the deaths happen offstage, or they happen as you stare into the eyes of someone with a name, a family, a backstory as they take a spear to the core or melt or get attacked by a monkey. It's enough to make you wish for some gratuitous violence, actually.
The books don't make you feel like a horrible person for enjoying them, however, because they really do make you think. It made me think a great deal about what life under a totalitarian society would be like. As the trilogy wears on and the rebellion's spread, it becomes clear that no one's safe. Members of the victor's prep teams (Capitol citizens all, at the top of society) are murdered. When the rebellion reaches the Capitol, their society disintegrates. The poor citizens of Katniss' home District 12 don't escape notice either.
Being a victor won't even guarantee anything: win in the wrong way, like Katniss' mentor Haymitch, and they kill your whole family. Have the misfortune to be attractive, like Finnick, and you become a sex slave, a reward for good behavior, and if you refuse, they kill your family. And there's the psychological fallout that leads many down a path of addiction and insanity.
I also thought it was clever how the characters keep shifting. When you first meet Haymitch, the only other victor in history from Katniss' district, he's sort of a pathetic and laughable character, showing up an hour late to dinner and puking all over their prim escort because he's drunk. Get to know him, though, and he's clever and tough. The aforementioned Finnick is a flirty, sexy career tribute at first. After a while, he's revealed for who he really is: a loyal guy, in love with a badly damaged girl from home, who screws everyone they tell him to in order to protect her. Beetee transforms from an older, burnt-out Victor to a wily hacker, indispensible to the revolution.
I'm not sure how much my sister liked Katniss at the end of the books. I still liked her a great deal. I still feel she's an excellent female role model with many, many fine qualities, even if she is guilty of selfishness. Her two love interests, I'm less sure of. Peeta is the only character who really doesn't change. He's still the boy next door, goodhearted and in love with Katniss, the same boy you meet on the train to the Capitol as a scared tribute. Gale hardens, although you know him less intimately at first. Once he hears of the rebellion, he's all about it. He has no problem sacrificing ohter people's lives for it, either. I thought the resolution of the 'love triangle' was a bit of a cop-out, although at least no one died.
If you made it this far, you've probably already read the books, so I'd like to know, what did you think of them?
I'd wondered where the series would go after the first book. I wouldn't have really said it ended on a cliffhanger. Katniss won the Hunger Games, when the Gamemakers sadistically forced her and her District 12 partner Peeta into an alliance, then shattered it at the last minute by renegging on their promise to declare co-victors. Katniss and Peeta were ready to kill themselves when the Gamemaker frantically ordered them to spit out the poison, they could be co-victors after all.
Well, it turns out that didn't sit well. You're not supposed to beat the Games, you're supposed to beat the other competitors. Katniss winning in the way she did was the worst possible thing for the Capitol. It gave hope to the districts, and the Hunger Games are designed to quell hope. The next two books deal with the fallout from her subversive victory.
My sister teaches this book to her classes sometimes, and she said on her blog post that one of the main things about it that students always notice is how violent the books are. Every death means something, there's no gratuitous violence here. Either the deaths happen offstage, or they happen as you stare into the eyes of someone with a name, a family, a backstory as they take a spear to the core or melt or get attacked by a monkey. It's enough to make you wish for some gratuitous violence, actually.
The books don't make you feel like a horrible person for enjoying them, however, because they really do make you think. It made me think a great deal about what life under a totalitarian society would be like. As the trilogy wears on and the rebellion's spread, it becomes clear that no one's safe. Members of the victor's prep teams (Capitol citizens all, at the top of society) are murdered. When the rebellion reaches the Capitol, their society disintegrates. The poor citizens of Katniss' home District 12 don't escape notice either.
Being a victor won't even guarantee anything: win in the wrong way, like Katniss' mentor Haymitch, and they kill your whole family. Have the misfortune to be attractive, like Finnick, and you become a sex slave, a reward for good behavior, and if you refuse, they kill your family. And there's the psychological fallout that leads many down a path of addiction and insanity.
I also thought it was clever how the characters keep shifting. When you first meet Haymitch, the only other victor in history from Katniss' district, he's sort of a pathetic and laughable character, showing up an hour late to dinner and puking all over their prim escort because he's drunk. Get to know him, though, and he's clever and tough. The aforementioned Finnick is a flirty, sexy career tribute at first. After a while, he's revealed for who he really is: a loyal guy, in love with a badly damaged girl from home, who screws everyone they tell him to in order to protect her. Beetee transforms from an older, burnt-out Victor to a wily hacker, indispensible to the revolution.
I'm not sure how much my sister liked Katniss at the end of the books. I still liked her a great deal. I still feel she's an excellent female role model with many, many fine qualities, even if she is guilty of selfishness. Her two love interests, I'm less sure of. Peeta is the only character who really doesn't change. He's still the boy next door, goodhearted and in love with Katniss, the same boy you meet on the train to the Capitol as a scared tribute. Gale hardens, although you know him less intimately at first. Once he hears of the rebellion, he's all about it. He has no problem sacrificing ohter people's lives for it, either. I thought the resolution of the 'love triangle' was a bit of a cop-out, although at least no one died.
If you made it this far, you've probably already read the books, so I'd like to know, what did you think of them?
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Sensation: The Hunger Games
So, my library inexplicably did not have any of The Hunger Games trilogy of books. I was pretty excited, then, to get the first book for Christmas from my sister. Before I was into the third chapter, I'd already made two decisions: I was going to read the rest of the trilogy, and I was going to purchase, rather than try to borrow, the books.
"The Hunger Games" is set in a dystopian, future-America called Panem. Every year, each district is forced to send a boy and a girl to participate in The Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live television. It's treated as a celebration, the victor is taken care of for life, and in some districts, it's actually an honor to be chosen. Not in the district Katniss comes from. It's the poor, former Appalachia area, and those kids are usually among the first to die.
But when her little sister gets chosen against all odds, she steps in anyway, and becomes a contender, also against all odds.
The book is totally engrossing. Katniss is an ideal heroine and a great feminine role model: very smart, very brave, very clever. She also has a lot of heart and compassion. It would be a wonderful thing if a generation of girls grew up trying to emulate her. The plot alone would be enough to create solid momentum for the book, but Suzanne Collins is adept at keeping us turning the pages during those stretches where Katniss is mostly trying not to be found, or not to dehydrate. I can't wait to read the rest of the trilogy. In fact, I'm heading out to the bookstore now!
"The Hunger Games" is set in a dystopian, future-America called Panem. Every year, each district is forced to send a boy and a girl to participate in The Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live television. It's treated as a celebration, the victor is taken care of for life, and in some districts, it's actually an honor to be chosen. Not in the district Katniss comes from. It's the poor, former Appalachia area, and those kids are usually among the first to die.
But when her little sister gets chosen against all odds, she steps in anyway, and becomes a contender, also against all odds.
The book is totally engrossing. Katniss is an ideal heroine and a great feminine role model: very smart, very brave, very clever. She also has a lot of heart and compassion. It would be a wonderful thing if a generation of girls grew up trying to emulate her. The plot alone would be enough to create solid momentum for the book, but Suzanne Collins is adept at keeping us turning the pages during those stretches where Katniss is mostly trying not to be found, or not to dehydrate. I can't wait to read the rest of the trilogy. In fact, I'm heading out to the bookstore now!
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Like, OMG! Sweet Valley High Comes to the Silver Screen
So, I guess I tend to live under a rock a bit. In the break room at my *new job* are old Entertainment Weekly magazines. I picked up one from September, and fucking hell, I actually learned something from it. Diablo Cody, of "Juno" fame, has acquired the rights to film the Sweet Valley High series by Francine Pascal.
Like all good children of the 80s, I read these books. Who didn't? As Cody pointed out in her article, it had all the elements. Warm California climate, with the movie-star glamour of California, too. Identical twins, which always seem to fascinate kids for some reason. But the main point she hit on was that the books were about high school students.
I'll be honest, I can't recall the books very clearly in terms of plot or anything. Elizabeth was the smart, goody-two-shoes one who wrote the gossip column for the school paper. Jessica was the bad one, although I'm not sure why. She had glamourous, bitchy friends. It was implied that she was slutty and bitchy, too, although you didn't see a whole lot of that from her. But I don't think that these books were targeted as Jessica and Elizabeth's age peers. Rather, they were for little girls that wanted to be grown up, and to be seen as grown up. By the time you were Jessica and Elizabeth's age, you'd realize just how unglamorous high school can be. Not all of your friends will have Porsches or be cheerleaders.
It makes me wonder, too, who will see this movie and how Cody will pull it off. To me, the most obvious audience is women my age, who remember the books. But let's be honest: won't it be more of a guilty pleasure for most of us than a movie we sincerely want to see? Are we supposed to be taking our daughters? Are tweens supposed to want to go alone? And, do tweens even know Sweet Valley High? I tried to find out more information about the series on the web. I turned up the most complete wikipedia article you'd ever want to see (OMG, remember when Regina Morrow died of a coke overdose? So sad.) I found numerous fan sites devoted to cataloging all things Sweet Valley (there were at least seven different series, including a university one). I learned that during the 90s, someone had made a stab at producing a television show for a couple of seasons. I failed to turn up the one piece of information that I wanted: whether these books are still being churned out, and if not, when they stopped.
Will I go see this movie? Probably not. But when it comes to RedBox, I'll definitely be there!
Like all good children of the 80s, I read these books. Who didn't? As Cody pointed out in her article, it had all the elements. Warm California climate, with the movie-star glamour of California, too. Identical twins, which always seem to fascinate kids for some reason. But the main point she hit on was that the books were about high school students.
I'll be honest, I can't recall the books very clearly in terms of plot or anything. Elizabeth was the smart, goody-two-shoes one who wrote the gossip column for the school paper. Jessica was the bad one, although I'm not sure why. She had glamourous, bitchy friends. It was implied that she was slutty and bitchy, too, although you didn't see a whole lot of that from her. But I don't think that these books were targeted as Jessica and Elizabeth's age peers. Rather, they were for little girls that wanted to be grown up, and to be seen as grown up. By the time you were Jessica and Elizabeth's age, you'd realize just how unglamorous high school can be. Not all of your friends will have Porsches or be cheerleaders.
It makes me wonder, too, who will see this movie and how Cody will pull it off. To me, the most obvious audience is women my age, who remember the books. But let's be honest: won't it be more of a guilty pleasure for most of us than a movie we sincerely want to see? Are we supposed to be taking our daughters? Are tweens supposed to want to go alone? And, do tweens even know Sweet Valley High? I tried to find out more information about the series on the web. I turned up the most complete wikipedia article you'd ever want to see (OMG, remember when Regina Morrow died of a coke overdose? So sad.) I found numerous fan sites devoted to cataloging all things Sweet Valley (there were at least seven different series, including a university one). I learned that during the 90s, someone had made a stab at producing a television show for a couple of seasons. I failed to turn up the one piece of information that I wanted: whether these books are still being churned out, and if not, when they stopped.
Will I go see this movie? Probably not. But when it comes to RedBox, I'll definitely be there!
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Party Like It's 1994
Well, as you can see, I took a breather from this after NaBloPoMo, for several reasons. One is that I'm just busier. I was playing in two orchestras this season, so I had two rehearsals a week to make, plus job hunting, getting ready for the holidays, etc. But I guess mostly it's because NaBloPoMo just wasn't that enjoyable for me this year and that it sort of killed some of the fun of the blog for me. Also, I haven't been reading anything spectacular. I've got For Whom The Bell Tolls going, but it's going kind of slowly and I couldn't really even state an opinion about it at this point.
But I picked up an old favorite this week, and felt like writing about it. I remember when I first got Girl by Blake Nelson. It's hard to believe that was almost fifteen years ago. I really enjoyed the book, and I'm pleased to say that I still do.
I don't know how much other people would like the book anymore. For teenagers today, it would probably seem like an artifact. Maybe in the future, it will be routinely assigned in history classes for students to learn about life in the 1990s, although there is an awful lot of fucking in it.
At base, it's a coming of age story. It's written in the vibrant voice of Andrea Marr, exactly as she'd tell the story verbally. Andrea's just a cool person. the back of the book says that it "chronicles Andrea's jittery journey from suburban mall to Portland's thriving underground rock scene -- and back again, as she discovers sex, betrayal and even love." And I guess that's as good a summary as any. Andrea is very energetic, and her run-on, breathy sentences tingle with such excitement that even a routine trip to the local after-school hangout seems like a momentous event. In her life, it is. Similar to The Perks of Being a Wallflower, it's about someone in the process of becoming who she's going to be, and seeing the whole world open up before her, bit by bit.
I was a little older than Andrea when I read the book, but it still resonated for me. I was also buying lots of clothes from thrift shops, going to see local bands, hanging out in coffee shops and meeting lots and lots of interesting people. I didn't then and don't now agree with all of her choices. I think she sort of "sold out" towards the end, as she started spending more time with a more conservative preppy crowd. I also think that she let her best friend Cybil go too easily, after Cybil's band took off and scored a record deal in Seattle. She played fast and loose with some of the men in her life, too.
But it never kept me from enjoying the book. Andrea reminded me somewhat of my best friend at the time, and when I gave her the book and told her that, she was a bit offended by the comparison because she thought Andrea was a slut. But what attracted me to Andrea -- and to Karen too -- was her energy and her love of life. Andrea's a character that pops right off the pages and inspires you, even if you're not exactly sure how. Karen was a lot like that too, and I think she felt better once I told her
that.
I was interested to see what had become of Blake Nelson, and how others viewed the book. Amazon.com shows that he's written several other books about teenagers since Girl's debut. There were two editorial reviews that completely opposed each other. One pointed out that it was more authentic than many teen books which came off more like catalogues than anything else ("Jenna called me on my iPhone and wanted to go to Starbucks, and I told her I was watching Surivivor but she insisted so I threw on my Gap jeans and my favorite American Eagle t-shirt and finished my Coke and ran downstairs to find my sketchers and beg my parents for the keys to the Jetta..."). They also pointed out ("they" being Publishers Weekly, I should have said that from the start) that the book didn't encourage judgement and captured the inconsistency of emotion.
Kirkus Review was fairly scathing, accusing Nelson of "bad valley girl parody" and superficiality. They also stated that the Cybil character wasn't developed enough, for allegedly being andrea's best friend. Some of these are valid criticisms, but I had an issue with the way they kept saying the book was about "teenage rebellion." Like the "teen angst" tag they tried to hang on Wallflower, it trivializes the experiences. I guess it's an easy way to dismiss a book you don't care for, but I thought it was horribly inaccurate in this case. There's little hint of Andrea wanting to 'rebel'. She doesn't spend a lot of time around her parents, but she does value the opinions of most of the adults she encounters. There's an early scene where she wears one of her thriftstore dresses out to Cybil's first big show. Her mother sees her and is horrifed. She ultimately lets her wear it, with a parting shot along the lines of "If you want to dress like a clown, that's your problem." It rings in Andrea's ears the entire way to the club, and she's a wreck by the time she gets there. That's not the point of view of someone who's out to 'rebel'.
Andrea is just seeking out alternative ways of living. When you're a teenager, the way most adults live looks mind-numbingly boring. They spend a lot of their time at some job, a good chunk of the rest of it doing things like maintaining the house and paying bills, and most of their so-called "free time" watching TV or reading stuff. Andrea's asking the age-old question "Is that all there is?" in her own way.
But I picked up an old favorite this week, and felt like writing about it. I remember when I first got Girl by Blake Nelson. It's hard to believe that was almost fifteen years ago. I really enjoyed the book, and I'm pleased to say that I still do.
I don't know how much other people would like the book anymore. For teenagers today, it would probably seem like an artifact. Maybe in the future, it will be routinely assigned in history classes for students to learn about life in the 1990s, although there is an awful lot of fucking in it.
At base, it's a coming of age story. It's written in the vibrant voice of Andrea Marr, exactly as she'd tell the story verbally. Andrea's just a cool person. the back of the book says that it "chronicles Andrea's jittery journey from suburban mall to Portland's thriving underground rock scene -- and back again, as she discovers sex, betrayal and even love." And I guess that's as good a summary as any. Andrea is very energetic, and her run-on, breathy sentences tingle with such excitement that even a routine trip to the local after-school hangout seems like a momentous event. In her life, it is. Similar to The Perks of Being a Wallflower, it's about someone in the process of becoming who she's going to be, and seeing the whole world open up before her, bit by bit.
I was a little older than Andrea when I read the book, but it still resonated for me. I was also buying lots of clothes from thrift shops, going to see local bands, hanging out in coffee shops and meeting lots and lots of interesting people. I didn't then and don't now agree with all of her choices. I think she sort of "sold out" towards the end, as she started spending more time with a more conservative preppy crowd. I also think that she let her best friend Cybil go too easily, after Cybil's band took off and scored a record deal in Seattle. She played fast and loose with some of the men in her life, too.
But it never kept me from enjoying the book. Andrea reminded me somewhat of my best friend at the time, and when I gave her the book and told her that, she was a bit offended by the comparison because she thought Andrea was a slut. But what attracted me to Andrea -- and to Karen too -- was her energy and her love of life. Andrea's a character that pops right off the pages and inspires you, even if you're not exactly sure how. Karen was a lot like that too, and I think she felt better once I told her
that.
I was interested to see what had become of Blake Nelson, and how others viewed the book. Amazon.com shows that he's written several other books about teenagers since Girl's debut. There were two editorial reviews that completely opposed each other. One pointed out that it was more authentic than many teen books which came off more like catalogues than anything else ("Jenna called me on my iPhone and wanted to go to Starbucks, and I told her I was watching Surivivor but she insisted so I threw on my Gap jeans and my favorite American Eagle t-shirt and finished my Coke and ran downstairs to find my sketchers and beg my parents for the keys to the Jetta..."). They also pointed out ("they" being Publishers Weekly, I should have said that from the start) that the book didn't encourage judgement and captured the inconsistency of emotion.
Kirkus Review was fairly scathing, accusing Nelson of "bad valley girl parody" and superficiality. They also stated that the Cybil character wasn't developed enough, for allegedly being andrea's best friend. Some of these are valid criticisms, but I had an issue with the way they kept saying the book was about "teenage rebellion." Like the "teen angst" tag they tried to hang on Wallflower, it trivializes the experiences. I guess it's an easy way to dismiss a book you don't care for, but I thought it was horribly inaccurate in this case. There's little hint of Andrea wanting to 'rebel'. She doesn't spend a lot of time around her parents, but she does value the opinions of most of the adults she encounters. There's an early scene where she wears one of her thriftstore dresses out to Cybil's first big show. Her mother sees her and is horrifed. She ultimately lets her wear it, with a parting shot along the lines of "If you want to dress like a clown, that's your problem." It rings in Andrea's ears the entire way to the club, and she's a wreck by the time she gets there. That's not the point of view of someone who's out to 'rebel'.
Andrea is just seeking out alternative ways of living. When you're a teenager, the way most adults live looks mind-numbingly boring. They spend a lot of their time at some job, a good chunk of the rest of it doing things like maintaining the house and paying bills, and most of their so-called "free time" watching TV or reading stuff. Andrea's asking the age-old question "Is that all there is?" in her own way.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Of Djinn and Magicians
Languishing on my TBR list for years was The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud. I just finished it a few days ago, and it was pretty enjoyable, although I'm undecided about reading the rest of the trilogy.
One unusual thing about this book is that it doesn't have a strong protagonist. The story is told from both the perspective of young apprentice magician Nathaniel and the djinni Bartimaeus that he summons. Bartimaeus seems to hold most of the personality, although that may partially be a function of his parts being told in the first person: he is witty, funny and tricky, at once disdainful of his audience and enjoying its rapt attention. Nathaniel is childish in all the negative senses of the word: he dislikes being told what to do, he feels that no one can see his potential, he is quick to anger and holds grudges.
He summons Bartimaeus to get revenge on a magician who had insulted him during a gathering at his master's house. His plan is to steal a piece of contraband from the man, then embarass him by exposing him. But all goes wrong when Bartimaeus learns his real name, giving the djinn power over the boy. Nathaniel is quick to react by slapping a post-dated indefinite confinement charm on him, thus binding the pair together. Like a couple in a bad marriage, neither one can walk away because each has something the other needs. Nathaniel's fears -- of his master finding out what he is up to, of Bartimaeus betraying him, of the whole plot blowing up in his face in one manner or another -- and Bartimaeus's resentment of his forced servitude are what drives the plot.
The one real criticism I have of this book is that I thought the plot dragged a bit. Beyond that, I'm not sure why it failed to capture my imagination. It certainly is different from many books involving magic: for one, the magicians operate in the open and are accepted by society, for another, there's the lack of an obvious sympathetic figure. There's nothing noble about Nathaniel at all, and Bartimaeus is intriguing, but too misanthropic to really warm up to. You certainly wouldn't want one of your own. All in all, though, it was a decent and enjoyable read, very funny in some parts, and intriguing for the bits of Bartimaeus's life and backstory that filter through. I probably will read the rest of the trilogy at some point, but I'm in no rush to do so.
One unusual thing about this book is that it doesn't have a strong protagonist. The story is told from both the perspective of young apprentice magician Nathaniel and the djinni Bartimaeus that he summons. Bartimaeus seems to hold most of the personality, although that may partially be a function of his parts being told in the first person: he is witty, funny and tricky, at once disdainful of his audience and enjoying its rapt attention. Nathaniel is childish in all the negative senses of the word: he dislikes being told what to do, he feels that no one can see his potential, he is quick to anger and holds grudges.
He summons Bartimaeus to get revenge on a magician who had insulted him during a gathering at his master's house. His plan is to steal a piece of contraband from the man, then embarass him by exposing him. But all goes wrong when Bartimaeus learns his real name, giving the djinn power over the boy. Nathaniel is quick to react by slapping a post-dated indefinite confinement charm on him, thus binding the pair together. Like a couple in a bad marriage, neither one can walk away because each has something the other needs. Nathaniel's fears -- of his master finding out what he is up to, of Bartimaeus betraying him, of the whole plot blowing up in his face in one manner or another -- and Bartimaeus's resentment of his forced servitude are what drives the plot.
The one real criticism I have of this book is that I thought the plot dragged a bit. Beyond that, I'm not sure why it failed to capture my imagination. It certainly is different from many books involving magic: for one, the magicians operate in the open and are accepted by society, for another, there's the lack of an obvious sympathetic figure. There's nothing noble about Nathaniel at all, and Bartimaeus is intriguing, but too misanthropic to really warm up to. You certainly wouldn't want one of your own. All in all, though, it was a decent and enjoyable read, very funny in some parts, and intriguing for the bits of Bartimaeus's life and backstory that filter through. I probably will read the rest of the trilogy at some point, but I'm in no rush to do so.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
When magic misses the mark
I recently picked up The Alchemyst at Central. It piqued my curiosity because it was all about Nicholas Flamel and his wife Perenelle, who made an off-stage appearance in the first Harry Potter book. I had no idea they were real people or even established mythological figures, so I checked out the book partially to find out which.
My disappointment is probably evident from the title of the post. The story centers around teenaged twins Sophie and Josh Newman, who get sucked into the centuries-old battle between the Flamels and a man named John Dee. Josh works for Nick and Perry (as they've styled themselves in the 21st century) at the bookstore they own; Sophie works at the coffee shop across the street. The battle (briefly) is over control of the Codex of Abraham the Mage, which is a copper-bound book that is part instructional and part prophetic. The Witch of Endor, Bastet, Heckate and the Morrigan all have their roles to play in the tale, as do some less familiar figures, such as the mythological female warrior Scathach.
By all rights, it should've been a compelling tale, but it just didn't have that X-factor. I finished it while I was riding home from a wedding across the state, so I've had plenty of time to ruminate on its shortcomings, and I think it lies with the characters. The Harry Potter books can trace much of their success to its character development. True, there are a few cardboard cutouts in there, but at least they're archetypes. You look at Draco Malfoy and you see the snotty rich kids who used to make fun of your Payless sneakers. You see in Fred and George the class clown that you would've had somewhat of a crush on but could never quite take seriously. Cho Chang was the one you desired without really even knowing anything about. But you just can't warm up to Josh and Sophie, or even to Nick, Perry, Scathach or the others, in any way, shape or form.
The book teems with emotions, but they're shown, not described. You know Josh is hurt and angry because the text says "Josh felt hurt and angry," when showing him slamming the door or kicking a pebble would've conveyed the message. The twins are so passive it's hard to feel anything for them. They get caught up in the saga and continue to essentially do as they're told without questioning it. They're so slow to cotton on to some things that it angers the reader (quick, tell me what you think of an island known as Danu Talis that sunk beneath the ocean in ancient times? ever hear a story like that anywhere else bfore?). You get a bit bored waiting for them to play catch-up, and you've read enough similar books to know how it will all turn out anyway.
Actually, there was one surprise waiting for me at the end. It turns out that the author intends to make this a franchise, and apparently has part of the next book already written. No doubt, the author is seeing dollar signs and a movie deal in his future. Whenever anything new becomes popular, it always spawns a variety of imitators. Nirvana and Pearl Jam had their Candlebox and Stone Temple Pilots, and so the renewed interest in J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and the success of J.K Rowling and Phillip Pullman have spawned much new work in the fantasy genre. But if you're in search of the next Harry Potter, you can cross The Alchemyst off your list of hopefuls.
My disappointment is probably evident from the title of the post. The story centers around teenaged twins Sophie and Josh Newman, who get sucked into the centuries-old battle between the Flamels and a man named John Dee. Josh works for Nick and Perry (as they've styled themselves in the 21st century) at the bookstore they own; Sophie works at the coffee shop across the street. The battle (briefly) is over control of the Codex of Abraham the Mage, which is a copper-bound book that is part instructional and part prophetic. The Witch of Endor, Bastet, Heckate and the Morrigan all have their roles to play in the tale, as do some less familiar figures, such as the mythological female warrior Scathach.
By all rights, it should've been a compelling tale, but it just didn't have that X-factor. I finished it while I was riding home from a wedding across the state, so I've had plenty of time to ruminate on its shortcomings, and I think it lies with the characters. The Harry Potter books can trace much of their success to its character development. True, there are a few cardboard cutouts in there, but at least they're archetypes. You look at Draco Malfoy and you see the snotty rich kids who used to make fun of your Payless sneakers. You see in Fred and George the class clown that you would've had somewhat of a crush on but could never quite take seriously. Cho Chang was the one you desired without really even knowing anything about. But you just can't warm up to Josh and Sophie, or even to Nick, Perry, Scathach or the others, in any way, shape or form.
The book teems with emotions, but they're shown, not described. You know Josh is hurt and angry because the text says "Josh felt hurt and angry," when showing him slamming the door or kicking a pebble would've conveyed the message. The twins are so passive it's hard to feel anything for them. They get caught up in the saga and continue to essentially do as they're told without questioning it. They're so slow to cotton on to some things that it angers the reader (quick, tell me what you think of an island known as Danu Talis that sunk beneath the ocean in ancient times? ever hear a story like that anywhere else bfore?). You get a bit bored waiting for them to play catch-up, and you've read enough similar books to know how it will all turn out anyway.
Actually, there was one surprise waiting for me at the end. It turns out that the author intends to make this a franchise, and apparently has part of the next book already written. No doubt, the author is seeing dollar signs and a movie deal in his future. Whenever anything new becomes popular, it always spawns a variety of imitators. Nirvana and Pearl Jam had their Candlebox and Stone Temple Pilots, and so the renewed interest in J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and the success of J.K Rowling and Phillip Pullman have spawned much new work in the fantasy genre. But if you're in search of the next Harry Potter, you can cross The Alchemyst off your list of hopefuls.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Another TBR book vanquished!
Books can join a TBR list in a variety of ways. Maybe it's one that a friend recommended, or a professor assigned the week you had three papers and two projects due, or that you heard about on NPR or in the New Yorker or someplace equally tony (I certainly never put books on my TBR list after hearing about them in People magazine or on Craigslist, not that I even know what these things are!!!) Others may come into your life in a more passive way: you receive them as gifts, or your parents were going to donate them to the library and you decided to keep them. The Book of Changes by Tim Wynne-Jones, came into my life in about the most passive way imaginable. Six years ago, I presented at a librarians' conference about the services my museum offered to school libraries. Each conference participant got a goody bag. I would imagine it was the librarian's version of the goody bags guests to the Oscars receive: in addition to the boring branded letter openers and tape dispensers, there were notecards with animals encouraging people to read, this roll of shiny silver tape, and best of all, the chance to receive one book from a selection of seven or eight. They had extra bags, so I got this book.
Your first question may be, does this Tim Wynne-Jones have anything to do with Diana Wynne Jones? After looking at about fifteen different websites, I still can't tell you for sure. I visited both of their official websites and read their autobiographies. They don't match. Diana is much older (hers dwells mostly on memories of her childhood during World War II), whereas Tim has young children. However, Tim does have a sister named Di, which could be short for Diana, so she could be a relative. None of the websites mentioned any relation between the two, but how many "Wynne-Jones" can there be out there?
Tim does have an interesting background, though. He grew up in England (Diana is British, too...) and emigrated to Canada with his family as a little boy. He played in a rock band and wrote music for "Fraggle Rock." How terrific is that? He's an author and editor of children's books, and designed his own home.
The Book of Changes is a book of short stories, aimed at older children. There are seven stories in the book, and each deals with themes that kids can relate to. "The Clark Beans Man" is about negotiating the complexities of the social scene at school. The kid in "Madhouse" feels his family stacks up unfavorably to that of his friend -- until he takes a closer look. The kid in "Hard Sell" learns how good it can feel to defend someone else.
My favorite was "The Ghost of Eddy Longo", for its supernatural element. It was the tale of a teenaged hockey phenom, a goalie who had never been scored on, a third-generation local hockey great. His grandfather was so famous in town that there was a statue of him outside the local arena. His father, however, for all his promise, had disappeared the night of the unveiling of the statue...or had he? It was much less "lessony" than some of the other stories, and more human, but still conveyed its central moral: that it's not about winning or losing, but about how you play and how much fun you have.
The title story, "The Book of Changes", was also clever, and evocative. The main character had to do a project on some aspect of Chinese culture. The day before it was due, he still hadn't started. The girl who presented that day was presenting on the I Ching, and he boldly asked the I Ching what he should do for his project. It actually had an answer for him, too, although it wasn't apparent right away. As he sweated through the night, made false start after false start, procrastinated, worried, I was right back there in fifth grade (or grad school, or NaBloPoMo) facing an impossible deadline.
But yet, I feel I missed Tim Wynne-Jones's target audience. I don't know if kids would like these or not. I didn't dislike them, I just felt that they weren't aimed at me. Which they weren't, but still, I don't feel that way when reading the Harry Potter books, or books by Phillip Pullman.
If anyone can enlighten me on whether a connection exists between Tim Wynne-Jones and Diana Wynne-Jones, please do so!
Your first question may be, does this Tim Wynne-Jones have anything to do with Diana Wynne Jones? After looking at about fifteen different websites, I still can't tell you for sure. I visited both of their official websites and read their autobiographies. They don't match. Diana is much older (hers dwells mostly on memories of her childhood during World War II), whereas Tim has young children. However, Tim does have a sister named Di, which could be short for Diana, so she could be a relative. None of the websites mentioned any relation between the two, but how many "Wynne-Jones" can there be out there?
Tim does have an interesting background, though. He grew up in England (Diana is British, too...) and emigrated to Canada with his family as a little boy. He played in a rock band and wrote music for "Fraggle Rock." How terrific is that? He's an author and editor of children's books, and designed his own home.
The Book of Changes is a book of short stories, aimed at older children. There are seven stories in the book, and each deals with themes that kids can relate to. "The Clark Beans Man" is about negotiating the complexities of the social scene at school. The kid in "Madhouse" feels his family stacks up unfavorably to that of his friend -- until he takes a closer look. The kid in "Hard Sell" learns how good it can feel to defend someone else.
My favorite was "The Ghost of Eddy Longo", for its supernatural element. It was the tale of a teenaged hockey phenom, a goalie who had never been scored on, a third-generation local hockey great. His grandfather was so famous in town that there was a statue of him outside the local arena. His father, however, for all his promise, had disappeared the night of the unveiling of the statue...or had he? It was much less "lessony" than some of the other stories, and more human, but still conveyed its central moral: that it's not about winning or losing, but about how you play and how much fun you have.
The title story, "The Book of Changes", was also clever, and evocative. The main character had to do a project on some aspect of Chinese culture. The day before it was due, he still hadn't started. The girl who presented that day was presenting on the I Ching, and he boldly asked the I Ching what he should do for his project. It actually had an answer for him, too, although it wasn't apparent right away. As he sweated through the night, made false start after false start, procrastinated, worried, I was right back there in fifth grade (or grad school, or NaBloPoMo) facing an impossible deadline.
But yet, I feel I missed Tim Wynne-Jones's target audience. I don't know if kids would like these or not. I didn't dislike them, I just felt that they weren't aimed at me. Which they weren't, but still, I don't feel that way when reading the Harry Potter books, or books by Phillip Pullman.
If anyone can enlighten me on whether a connection exists between Tim Wynne-Jones and Diana Wynne-Jones, please do so!
Saturday, July 21, 2007
The Seventh and Final Installment in the Epic Saga of Harry Potter
First off, let me state to my loyal readers: if you have not yet completed the book, and don't want to see any spoilers, please stop reading now. Otherwise, scroll down.
OK. I hope I've gotten it far enough down so that those who don't want to see any spoilers have been able to opt out. I received my copy from Barnes and Noble at 1:15 AM, and finished reading around 6:15 this evening. I really do believe this was the best installment in the series, and brought it to the perfect conclusion.
For nearly two years now, I've been bragging to anyone who would listen that I knew the whereabouts of one of the Horcruxes Harry was looking for. I was pleased to see that I was right: the locket had been stolen by Sirius's brother, Regulus A. Black, and was kicking around Grimmauld Place (the Order encounters it at the beginning of the 5th book, when they are cleaning the house.) It, in turn was stolen by Mundungus Fletcher, who used it as a bribe for...well, it's not that important. The point is that I was right. I am very clever!
Or maybe not. I was one of the very few in the anti-Snape camp. I thought he was just being himself when he killed Dumbledore. The truth is that "himself" was sadder than I'd ever imagined. The pro-Snape crowd was right about him. A sad and lonesome life he led, and the full story will cause readers to view his actions in previous volumes much differently.
Other than the location of the Horcrux, I really didn't know what was going to happen in this book. I couldn't even speculate. While I couldn't see it ending with Voldemort triumphing, I knew from previous installments that Rowling would not flinch from killing Harry if she felt that was the way the series needed to end. My one prediction was that this volume would have an extremely high body count, and it did. I count nine deaths on the Order side alone. As any reviewer will tell you, or any mildly observant reader will know, the books get progressively darker, and it's all been leading up to this, to war. Right from the beginning, it's clear that playtime is over and that the Death Eaters are prepared to be more aggressive than at any point in their shameful history. Harry suffers a loss right away, and a terrible loss for the Order follows quickly on its heels.
One strength of this series is that it presents Harry, and the other heroes, as human. They fight. They demonstrate remarkably bad judgment on many, many occasions. Sometimes, they act selfishly and thoughtlessly. One hero, however, had always seemed to be above it all. Albus Dumbledore was a mix of the ideal teacher, the ideal parent, and even a bit of God himself thrown in there. He was wise, kind, and powerful, an asset to anyone on his side and a threat to anyone who wasn't, not just in terms of strength but in terms of morality. Dumbledore seemed to be an ideal to which the rest of us could only hope to aspire, yet in this book, it's revealed that he was not so perfect after all. He, too, had selfishness and pride in his past that led to the death of an innocent.
Good fantasy needs to be about more than the artificial world in which it exists. To me, the take-home message of this series is the power of love, all kinds of love. All kinds are demonstrated in this book. There's the love that exists between friends. There's the love that comes from a warm and loving family. The slavish, hero-worship love for one who's saved you from a terrible fate, that would cause you to lay down your life for that person. The kind of ill-advised, ill-conceived, wildly romantic love that, on occasion, ends up working out despite all odds. The love that you develop for one you respect and admire. Even the unrequited, desperate love that you're alone with in the dark can be a powerful and remarkable force. Given the situation in my personal life right now, which is still very much on my mind and which has another half which I haven't posted about here, it was a message that helped me a lot and made me feel better.
I think that most Harry Potter fans will be satisfied with the conclusion to which his saga has come. I suspect that I'm not alone among fans, however, in saying that I'll miss all this. I can't think of anything else in pop culture that has really generated this same type of excitement, at least not in my lifetime. Everyone from kids who barely outweigh the heftier installments of the series, to stuffy-looking stockbrokers, to grandparents, have gotten in on it. I will miss the excitement and the anticipation, but I loved the journey. I sincerely hope that we have not heard the last from JK Rowling.
OK. I hope I've gotten it far enough down so that those who don't want to see any spoilers have been able to opt out. I received my copy from Barnes and Noble at 1:15 AM, and finished reading around 6:15 this evening. I really do believe this was the best installment in the series, and brought it to the perfect conclusion.
For nearly two years now, I've been bragging to anyone who would listen that I knew the whereabouts of one of the Horcruxes Harry was looking for. I was pleased to see that I was right: the locket had been stolen by Sirius's brother, Regulus A. Black, and was kicking around Grimmauld Place (the Order encounters it at the beginning of the 5th book, when they are cleaning the house.) It, in turn was stolen by Mundungus Fletcher, who used it as a bribe for...well, it's not that important. The point is that I was right. I am very clever!
Or maybe not. I was one of the very few in the anti-Snape camp. I thought he was just being himself when he killed Dumbledore. The truth is that "himself" was sadder than I'd ever imagined. The pro-Snape crowd was right about him. A sad and lonesome life he led, and the full story will cause readers to view his actions in previous volumes much differently.
Other than the location of the Horcrux, I really didn't know what was going to happen in this book. I couldn't even speculate. While I couldn't see it ending with Voldemort triumphing, I knew from previous installments that Rowling would not flinch from killing Harry if she felt that was the way the series needed to end. My one prediction was that this volume would have an extremely high body count, and it did. I count nine deaths on the Order side alone. As any reviewer will tell you, or any mildly observant reader will know, the books get progressively darker, and it's all been leading up to this, to war. Right from the beginning, it's clear that playtime is over and that the Death Eaters are prepared to be more aggressive than at any point in their shameful history. Harry suffers a loss right away, and a terrible loss for the Order follows quickly on its heels.
One strength of this series is that it presents Harry, and the other heroes, as human. They fight. They demonstrate remarkably bad judgment on many, many occasions. Sometimes, they act selfishly and thoughtlessly. One hero, however, had always seemed to be above it all. Albus Dumbledore was a mix of the ideal teacher, the ideal parent, and even a bit of God himself thrown in there. He was wise, kind, and powerful, an asset to anyone on his side and a threat to anyone who wasn't, not just in terms of strength but in terms of morality. Dumbledore seemed to be an ideal to which the rest of us could only hope to aspire, yet in this book, it's revealed that he was not so perfect after all. He, too, had selfishness and pride in his past that led to the death of an innocent.
Good fantasy needs to be about more than the artificial world in which it exists. To me, the take-home message of this series is the power of love, all kinds of love. All kinds are demonstrated in this book. There's the love that exists between friends. There's the love that comes from a warm and loving family. The slavish, hero-worship love for one who's saved you from a terrible fate, that would cause you to lay down your life for that person. The kind of ill-advised, ill-conceived, wildly romantic love that, on occasion, ends up working out despite all odds. The love that you develop for one you respect and admire. Even the unrequited, desperate love that you're alone with in the dark can be a powerful and remarkable force. Given the situation in my personal life right now, which is still very much on my mind and which has another half which I haven't posted about here, it was a message that helped me a lot and made me feel better.
I think that most Harry Potter fans will be satisfied with the conclusion to which his saga has come. I suspect that I'm not alone among fans, however, in saying that I'll miss all this. I can't think of anything else in pop culture that has really generated this same type of excitement, at least not in my lifetime. Everyone from kids who barely outweigh the heftier installments of the series, to stuffy-looking stockbrokers, to grandparents, have gotten in on it. I will miss the excitement and the anticipation, but I loved the journey. I sincerely hope that we have not heard the last from JK Rowling.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Marlene Carvell II, as promised
Sweetgrass Basket did not take me very long to read at all. I picked it up on Thursday and finished it last night. It was excellent, though, and I can understand why it won several awards and is on the recommended reading list of a group that monitors Native American portrayals in literature.
Sweetgrass Basket is the tale of sisters, Mattie and Sarah Tarbell. Mattie and Sarah are Mohawk Nation and their mother has passed away. They were sent to Carlisle Industrial Indian School, which was a real place that existed in the early 20th century.
The white man's war on the Indians did not end with the signing of the peace treaty (incidentally, the document with the most signatures of leaders known to human history -- over 500 -- and held in the collections of a museum I used to work for). Although the shooting part of it may have been over, the beliefs that they posed some kind of a threat did not die so easily. These "Indian schools" were an attempted antidote to the threat. The overt idea behind them was that the schools would teach them useful skills needed to function in society. the real intent was to extinguish group identity and culture. Members of the same tribe were separated. They were not allowed to speak their native languages, nor were they allowed to have any "Indian things" from home. They worked extremely hard. Although truancy laws were a few years in the future and the average white child may have left school after 8th grade, some people stayed at these schools into their 20s, especially those who were older when they came to the schools.
None of this is in the book, exactly. Rather, it tells through Mattie and Sarah's eyes (in alternating chapters, and in Carvell's trademark free verse style) their experiences at the school. Mattie is the elder of the two, and although she is an immediate social and academic success, she has a hard time following the rigid, military-style rules at the school and constantly finds herself in trouble. Sarah is better at doing as she's told, but struggles with her classes and takes longer to fit in. Neither girl is happy -- none of the students seem happy -- but they are fitting in well enough when a small incident gets blown out of proportion by the truly sadistic school head, and leads ultimately to tragedy.
My copy of the book was signed by the author. She signed it: "Children everywhere have stories that need to be told" and I think that sums up this book very well. One thing that angers me about the story of the Native American and the white is that we whites have never been honest about it, the same way we have about slavery. You learn about slavery and civil rights in grade school, but often have to wait until college to learn about the attempted extermination of Native American tribes. You hear vague allusions to the whites and the Indians not getting along terribly well, but they never really sit you down and tell you why. And as a result, Native American reservations are among the most desolate places in the country. Name any social problem: alcoholism, suicide, teenage pregnancy, unemployment and you'll always find it at a much higher rate on a reservation than in the general population. Carvell's books would be excellent tools for bringing the story into a classroom. They are both classified as "young adult" and both very readable and as enjoyable as is decent given the subject matter.
Sweetgrass Basket is the tale of sisters, Mattie and Sarah Tarbell. Mattie and Sarah are Mohawk Nation and their mother has passed away. They were sent to Carlisle Industrial Indian School, which was a real place that existed in the early 20th century.
The white man's war on the Indians did not end with the signing of the peace treaty (incidentally, the document with the most signatures of leaders known to human history -- over 500 -- and held in the collections of a museum I used to work for). Although the shooting part of it may have been over, the beliefs that they posed some kind of a threat did not die so easily. These "Indian schools" were an attempted antidote to the threat. The overt idea behind them was that the schools would teach them useful skills needed to function in society. the real intent was to extinguish group identity and culture. Members of the same tribe were separated. They were not allowed to speak their native languages, nor were they allowed to have any "Indian things" from home. They worked extremely hard. Although truancy laws were a few years in the future and the average white child may have left school after 8th grade, some people stayed at these schools into their 20s, especially those who were older when they came to the schools.
None of this is in the book, exactly. Rather, it tells through Mattie and Sarah's eyes (in alternating chapters, and in Carvell's trademark free verse style) their experiences at the school. Mattie is the elder of the two, and although she is an immediate social and academic success, she has a hard time following the rigid, military-style rules at the school and constantly finds herself in trouble. Sarah is better at doing as she's told, but struggles with her classes and takes longer to fit in. Neither girl is happy -- none of the students seem happy -- but they are fitting in well enough when a small incident gets blown out of proportion by the truly sadistic school head, and leads ultimately to tragedy.
My copy of the book was signed by the author. She signed it: "Children everywhere have stories that need to be told" and I think that sums up this book very well. One thing that angers me about the story of the Native American and the white is that we whites have never been honest about it, the same way we have about slavery. You learn about slavery and civil rights in grade school, but often have to wait until college to learn about the attempted extermination of Native American tribes. You hear vague allusions to the whites and the Indians not getting along terribly well, but they never really sit you down and tell you why. And as a result, Native American reservations are among the most desolate places in the country. Name any social problem: alcoholism, suicide, teenage pregnancy, unemployment and you'll always find it at a much higher rate on a reservation than in the general population. Carvell's books would be excellent tools for bringing the story into a classroom. They are both classified as "young adult" and both very readable and as enjoyable as is decent given the subject matter.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
The End Is Nigh!
The End of Harry Potter, that is. And theories abound as to what Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will contain, and how JK Rowling will end the series. Hell, in my own family, there's even debate over whether the title contains an adjective or just a proper noun (I say proper noun, that the Deathly Hallows is a place, just like the Whomping Willow or Shrieking Shack. My sister thinks it's an adjective and says that titles aren't supposed to have them. I don't know why.)
Someone has even collected all of his theories and written a book. Damn, I wish I'd thought of that idea. I'd be out drinking now and sleeping in tomorrow if so. This guy's a famous writer, though, so perhaps he had a leg up. His name is David Langford, and his book is called The End of Harry Potter?. If you want to read a real review of it, I recommend GrrlScientist's. Anything she writes is usually pretty good, but since she's read the book and I haven't, it's definitely best to check with her here.
As I said in her comments, I'm a bit conflicted over whether or not to buy it. I looked at it tonight and I really, really want to read it. But I know that once I read it, I won't want it anymore. Once the 7th book comes out, I REALLY won't want it anymore.
Nah, I'm just using the existence of the book as a jumping-off point here. I'm simultaneously pleased and disappointed to see confirmation of my theory as to where one of the remaining Horcruxes is located. I kind of wanted to be the only one who'd noticed, but I'm kind of glad to see that it wasn't an out-there theory. (If you don't know where it is, I will give you a general hint. Look in Book 5. Re-read the beginning. If you haven't found it by the time school starts, you've missed it.)
Snape is the real wild card going into HP7. As Langford points out, his actions at the end of HP6 don't make much logical sense, no matter where you think his loyalties lie. It's also hard to believe any of the possibilities for Dumbledore's fate: that he's really dead but engineered it himself; that he's really dead as a result of getting caught in the trap; that he's not really dead after all.
In a few more weeks, the country will grind to a virtual stand-still as everyone calls in sick to work to stay home and read their copies of HP7, and the greatest publishing phenomenon most of us will ever witness will come to an end, and we'll know the answers to all of our questions. Until then...
Someone has even collected all of his theories and written a book. Damn, I wish I'd thought of that idea. I'd be out drinking now and sleeping in tomorrow if so. This guy's a famous writer, though, so perhaps he had a leg up. His name is David Langford, and his book is called The End of Harry Potter?. If you want to read a real review of it, I recommend GrrlScientist's. Anything she writes is usually pretty good, but since she's read the book and I haven't, it's definitely best to check with her here.
As I said in her comments, I'm a bit conflicted over whether or not to buy it. I looked at it tonight and I really, really want to read it. But I know that once I read it, I won't want it anymore. Once the 7th book comes out, I REALLY won't want it anymore.
Nah, I'm just using the existence of the book as a jumping-off point here. I'm simultaneously pleased and disappointed to see confirmation of my theory as to where one of the remaining Horcruxes is located. I kind of wanted to be the only one who'd noticed, but I'm kind of glad to see that it wasn't an out-there theory. (If you don't know where it is, I will give you a general hint. Look in Book 5. Re-read the beginning. If you haven't found it by the time school starts, you've missed it.)
Snape is the real wild card going into HP7. As Langford points out, his actions at the end of HP6 don't make much logical sense, no matter where you think his loyalties lie. It's also hard to believe any of the possibilities for Dumbledore's fate: that he's really dead but engineered it himself; that he's really dead as a result of getting caught in the trap; that he's not really dead after all.
In a few more weeks, the country will grind to a virtual stand-still as everyone calls in sick to work to stay home and read their copies of HP7, and the greatest publishing phenomenon most of us will ever witness will come to an end, and we'll know the answers to all of our questions. Until then...
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Forever
Over the weekend, my boyfriend bought me the new Traveling Pants book. I finished reading it two nights ago. This more than likely marks the end of the series, because the Pants get destroyed at the end of the book (you learn this on the first page, so I am not giving much away).
It's hard to say too much about this book without making constant reference to the rest of the series, or without ruining it for those who haven't yet read the book. And since the book was released within the past six weeks, I'm sure there are some of you out there.
I think that if you liked the rest of the series, you will like this one too. It was a good, and realistic, ending to what has been, overall, a good and realistic series. I've written before about how Bridget, Tibby, Lena and Carmen appear as real people, not archetypes. But there's also a consistency of character there. Despite changes in their lives, you see them grow as people and experience ups and downs. When the book opens, we see (much to our surprise) that of the four, it's the emotional, outgoing Carmen who has not adjusted well to university life, whereas the two less outgoing girls of the group (Tibby and Lena) both successfully carved out niches for themselves.
At some points, the book dragged. And there were a few parts that felt less than realistic. We know from the other books that the girls grew up in Maryland, in the DC-Metro area. Tibby spent this summer taking classes at NYU, yet several of the characters repeatedly and spontaneously make the journey up there, only to talk to her for a half hour. There were a few times when I was practically screaming "Come on! That's a 600 mile round trip!"
But overall, the takeaway lessons of the series are positive: be true to your friends. Rely on yourself, but don't forget the people who care about you, either. It's OK to fuck up -- everyone does it occasionally. Things don't always work out for the best, but every situation you'll be in will ultimately resolve itself one way or another, and there's nothing so bad you can't move past it. Don't be afraid to take chances. And above all, as the series shows, have fun while you're doing your thing! This series, for all of its morals, was a lot of fun. I will be interested to see what's next for Ann Brashares.
It's hard to say too much about this book without making constant reference to the rest of the series, or without ruining it for those who haven't yet read the book. And since the book was released within the past six weeks, I'm sure there are some of you out there.
I think that if you liked the rest of the series, you will like this one too. It was a good, and realistic, ending to what has been, overall, a good and realistic series. I've written before about how Bridget, Tibby, Lena and Carmen appear as real people, not archetypes. But there's also a consistency of character there. Despite changes in their lives, you see them grow as people and experience ups and downs. When the book opens, we see (much to our surprise) that of the four, it's the emotional, outgoing Carmen who has not adjusted well to university life, whereas the two less outgoing girls of the group (Tibby and Lena) both successfully carved out niches for themselves.
At some points, the book dragged. And there were a few parts that felt less than realistic. We know from the other books that the girls grew up in Maryland, in the DC-Metro area. Tibby spent this summer taking classes at NYU, yet several of the characters repeatedly and spontaneously make the journey up there, only to talk to her for a half hour. There were a few times when I was practically screaming "Come on! That's a 600 mile round trip!"
But overall, the takeaway lessons of the series are positive: be true to your friends. Rely on yourself, but don't forget the people who care about you, either. It's OK to fuck up -- everyone does it occasionally. Things don't always work out for the best, but every situation you'll be in will ultimately resolve itself one way or another, and there's nothing so bad you can't move past it. Don't be afraid to take chances. And above all, as the series shows, have fun while you're doing your thing! This series, for all of its morals, was a lot of fun. I will be interested to see what's next for Ann Brashares.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
"Men's genitalia have no place in quality literature!"
So says a librarian who is seeking to keep this year's Newbery Medal winner, The Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, off her shelves. Apparently, there is a passage in the book where the main character overhears someone talking about how a rattlesnake bit their dog "on the scrotum." Unlike the thematic concerns with the Harry Potter books or Catcher in the Rye, the firestorm over this particular book seems to center around this one word.
In reading this article, I find it striking that several of the librarians who aren't stocking the book are doing so over fear of parental backlash, not because of their personal objections. While there may be some parental backlash, I don't think it's right to deny all the kids in the school a chance to read the book. The book is aimed at children aged 9-12, so it seems age-appropriate to me. Kids are learning about sex and reproduction at that age, and they probably already know several slang expressions for "scrotum". What's wrong with teaching them the real word?
There are also creative ways to teach it without going into graphic detail. When I was in college, I was staffing the table for the Center for Womyn's Concerns. We had brochures, buttons, stickers and free condoms. For some reason, there was a 10-year-old boy on campus and he was looking at amy stuff and asked me what the condoms were. I told him that people who didn't want a baby used them to make sure they didn't get one. And you know what? He was satisfied with that. I didn't have to launch into a lengthy explanation about what sex was and how the condom was used. And if I, as a 20-year-old who hadn't been around kids that age since they were my age peers, could come up with that, shouldn't someone who spends all day with kids and holds a master's degree in teaching them be able to do just as well?
I would be interested to hear from anyone who has actually read this book, or has a differing opinion as to whether or not it belongs in schools.
In reading this article, I find it striking that several of the librarians who aren't stocking the book are doing so over fear of parental backlash, not because of their personal objections. While there may be some parental backlash, I don't think it's right to deny all the kids in the school a chance to read the book. The book is aimed at children aged 9-12, so it seems age-appropriate to me. Kids are learning about sex and reproduction at that age, and they probably already know several slang expressions for "scrotum". What's wrong with teaching them the real word?
There are also creative ways to teach it without going into graphic detail. When I was in college, I was staffing the table for the Center for Womyn's Concerns. We had brochures, buttons, stickers and free condoms. For some reason, there was a 10-year-old boy on campus and he was looking at amy stuff and asked me what the condoms were. I told him that people who didn't want a baby used them to make sure they didn't get one. And you know what? He was satisfied with that. I didn't have to launch into a lengthy explanation about what sex was and how the condom was used. And if I, as a 20-year-old who hadn't been around kids that age since they were my age peers, could come up with that, shouldn't someone who spends all day with kids and holds a master's degree in teaching them be able to do just as well?
I would be interested to hear from anyone who has actually read this book, or has a differing opinion as to whether or not it belongs in schools.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Dragon FEVER
I just finished a two-week long project, Eragon, by Christopher Paolini.
The title character of Eragon is a young farm boy who finds a strange stone in the woods while hunting. He tries, unsuccessfully, to sell or trade it. Then, it hatches into a dragon (which he names Saphira). Eragon and his fellow townsmen live under the rule of a totalitarian leader, Galbatorix, and his henchmen come in search of him, and torch his house, killing his uncle and forcing Eragon and Saphira to depart on an epic journey, along with the town storyteller, Brom, who soon reveals himself to be more than what Eragon had guessed. Eragon learns that he is the first of a new generation of Riders, and will be a key player in the struggle between the Empire of Galbatorix and the free people who oppose him, the Varden.
At 450 pages long, this book is rather slow-moving. It took me a very long time to get into it. I'd seen the movie first. When my boyfriend and I returned from seeing it, a friend of his who had read all three books said that he thought the movie sucked and that they'd cut so much from it, he didn't see how they could make a second movie. Naturally, they'd have to make some cuts, but they did leave out some key scenes.
The book is populated with wonderful characters: Brom, the storyteller; Angela the herbalist and her werecat Solembum; Murtagh, with a dark heritage; Ajihad, leader of the Varden; and of course Saphira herself, who is no dumb animal, but a highly intelligent creature with as much of a consciousness as person. Yet, Eragon himself is not among the wonderful characters. Eragon is bland, defined only by external events. Perhaps Paolini did this deliberately, to allow young readers to project whatever they wanted onto Eragon. If so, it was unneccesary -- Harry Potter is a pretty defined character and that series hasn't suffered in popularity because of that.
The book was also rather geeky. If you've ever drawn a map of Middle Earth or attempted to hold a conversation in Elvish, you'd love that aspect of these books. In fact, many of the ideas are borrowed from Tolkien: the dwarves in this book are mostly miners and metalworkers, the elves are respected for their intelligence and knowledge of magic, there's an ancient language, there's a race of fighters which much resembles Orcs Paolini calls them "Urgals").
But it wasn't terrible. The book picks up towards the end, and often the first book in a trilogy is the weakest because of all the exposition. I will probably give the rest of the series a chance.
The title character of Eragon is a young farm boy who finds a strange stone in the woods while hunting. He tries, unsuccessfully, to sell or trade it. Then, it hatches into a dragon (which he names Saphira). Eragon and his fellow townsmen live under the rule of a totalitarian leader, Galbatorix, and his henchmen come in search of him, and torch his house, killing his uncle and forcing Eragon and Saphira to depart on an epic journey, along with the town storyteller, Brom, who soon reveals himself to be more than what Eragon had guessed. Eragon learns that he is the first of a new generation of Riders, and will be a key player in the struggle between the Empire of Galbatorix and the free people who oppose him, the Varden.
At 450 pages long, this book is rather slow-moving. It took me a very long time to get into it. I'd seen the movie first. When my boyfriend and I returned from seeing it, a friend of his who had read all three books said that he thought the movie sucked and that they'd cut so much from it, he didn't see how they could make a second movie. Naturally, they'd have to make some cuts, but they did leave out some key scenes.
The book is populated with wonderful characters: Brom, the storyteller; Angela the herbalist and her werecat Solembum; Murtagh, with a dark heritage; Ajihad, leader of the Varden; and of course Saphira herself, who is no dumb animal, but a highly intelligent creature with as much of a consciousness as person. Yet, Eragon himself is not among the wonderful characters. Eragon is bland, defined only by external events. Perhaps Paolini did this deliberately, to allow young readers to project whatever they wanted onto Eragon. If so, it was unneccesary -- Harry Potter is a pretty defined character and that series hasn't suffered in popularity because of that.
The book was also rather geeky. If you've ever drawn a map of Middle Earth or attempted to hold a conversation in Elvish, you'd love that aspect of these books. In fact, many of the ideas are borrowed from Tolkien: the dwarves in this book are mostly miners and metalworkers, the elves are respected for their intelligence and knowledge of magic, there's an ancient language, there's a race of fighters which much resembles Orcs Paolini calls them "Urgals").
But it wasn't terrible. The book picks up towards the end, and often the first book in a trilogy is the weakest because of all the exposition. I will probably give the rest of the series a chance.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
In happier book news, a release date for HP7
I seriously doubt that any of you are hearing about this for the first time here (it's July of this year, in case you are) but I'm very excited about it! When Half-Blood Prince was released, I was doing my internship in western Massachusetts. I bought my copy at The Book Loft in Great Barrington and I went over at midnight to pick it up. It was a great event. They'd decorated the whole store. They had a picture frame covered in a black cloth, and an employee hid behind it and yelled shit at you when you went past. There was the Mirror of Erised and the seven vials of potion from the first book. There were dried willow branches all around and a sign to "Beware of the Whomping Willow." People came in costume. To get to the register, you had to walk through a black veil, like in the 5th book.
The best part, though, was that they had a dementor working the register. When I bought my book, he gave me a Hershey's kiss! How great is that?! People came in costume and lined up through the whole plaza. It was the best Harry Potter release event I've ever even heard of. I want to go back there this summer with my sister (although she doesn't know it yet) to get my copy. Does anyone else have a tale of a good HP release event?
Pictures from that night:
A family of uber-fans waits in line
At the entrance to the store
Hagrid, a dementor, and a Muggle, working late to get everyone their HP!
Dumbledore appeases the fans
The best part, though, was that they had a dementor working the register. When I bought my book, he gave me a Hershey's kiss! How great is that?! People came in costume and lined up through the whole plaza. It was the best Harry Potter release event I've ever even heard of. I want to go back there this summer with my sister (although she doesn't know it yet) to get my copy. Does anyone else have a tale of a good HP release event?
Pictures from that night:
A family of uber-fans waits in line
At the entrance to the store
Hagrid, a dementor, and a Muggle, working late to get everyone their HP!
Dumbledore appeases the fans
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