Who I'd Save: Friday the 13th

If a horror movie is worth a damn, you inevitably have victims that you wish would have survived.  Maybe you connected with the character in some way, maybe they were sympathetic, maybe you just think the death they received was gratuitous or especially horrible.  Hell, maybe you just think they are attractive and hope for an appearance in the sequel.  Whatever the reason: you want them to survive, but they didn't.  So I thought it might be fun to go through several of the franchises I own and pick out who I would save.  And what better to start with then the most prolific of the horror movie franchises (give or take Hellraiser)?  So, without further ado, here is the character I would save from each of the twelve Friday the 13th films.

Friday the 13th: Brenda

This was a hard one: there are at least three that I would spare from their fates:  Annie, who was just excited to cook for and work with kids and Bill, who just seemed like a solid guy, were the other two I considered.  But for me, Brenda strikes me as the most unfair of the kills in the first movie.  Mrs. Voorhees is punishing the counselors for not protecting Jason, but she kills Brenda who runs out into a storm (in her nightgown!) when she hears a child crying for help?  If anything, Brenda should have been deliberately spared - it's not like the camp was going to open with the five other murders that had already occurred.  Brenda deserved better!  Also: how often is a non-nerd character shown just reading for fun in a horror movie?

Friday the 13th Part II: Vickie

This one was fairly easy: Vickie is a sweetheart and the gusto with which she pursues Mark (pictured above with her) is probably the most relatable subplot from amongst the doomed counselors.  She at least gets to last the longest of those left behind.

As an aside, I think most people would pick Mark since it kind of sucks to be stuck in a wheelchair with a murderer stalking about, but I kind of appreciate the chutzpah of killing him - given the period in which the film was made, it feels slightly taboo, particularly with how graphic it is compared to the other deaths.

Friday the 13th Part III: Vera

Vera gets the shit end of the stick.  The first of the main group to get killed (though Shelly is the first to encounter Jason, he lives long enough to die in front of Chili), she's an add-on brought along to potentially hook up with Shelly.  Even then, when she very kindly turns him down, he still calls her a bitch.  She's even trying to get some of Shelly's stuff that fell into the lake out when Jason comes along and kills her.  Vera deserved better.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter: Mrs. Jarvis

Another character done dirty.  Mrs. Jarvis lives on the lake with her two children - why does Jason suddenly go after them?  Is it because of the teens next door?  That isn't her fault!  Plus, it sucks that our final two - Trish and Tommy Jarvis - are orphans at the end of the movie.  Plus, she doesn't even get an onscreen death or even an acknowledgement of it during the movie.

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning: George

I was tempted to go with Joey, if only because preventing his death would have saved the entire cast, but that feels a bit like cheating.  Instead, I'll go with George, the grandfather of Reggie who seems like such an odd kill.  Granted, almost all of Roy's kills don't make sense (Vic, the one who kills Joey, is ironically one of the few survivors of Roy's rampage), but for all appearances, George was very kind and helpful to all of the troubled kids, so killing him seems more like increasing the body count than out of any real motivation for Roy.

Honorable mention to Vinnie and Pete, who I have as a gay couple in my head-canon.  They were just passing by, no reason to murder them.

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives: Lizabeth

This one was an easy call: Lizbeth saw Jason standing there threateningly, and was very quick to say 'Let's GTFO' - if only her companion, Darren, had heeded her advice.  Instead, they both bite the dust.

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood: Melissa

An odd choice, to be sure, but we stan an unapologetic bitch.  Melissa wears it like a mark of honor, and even has one of the most honest reactions to someone telling her about Jason - thinking it is a crazy story.  Granted, he is very real, but can you blame her for not believing Tina or Nick?

Honorable mention on this one goes to Eddie - a victim of Melissa's machinations.  But that has more to due with nerd sympathy than anything else.

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan: Colleen

There were several victims I would spare in this film, but Colleen tops the list:  The kind teacher to final girl Rennie, Colleen doesn't even get the dignity of dying by Jason's hand - instead dying in a car explosion after Rennie hallucinates a kid Jason in the middle of the road and crashes their vehicle.

Honorable mention to Eva, whose death always seemed especially brutal to me (I think it had to do with how Jason threw her to the ground after strangling her) or J.J. who just wanted to play her guitar.

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday: Vicki

The second Vicki on our list!  She's much more of a badass though - when the Robert-possessed Jason starts murdering everyone at the diner, she quickly busts out a shotgun and also impales him with a metal rod.  Not bad for a non-final girl!  She also is just an all-around helpful person, and it sucks when she gets killed.

Jason X: Sergeant Brodski

Guy sacrifices himself to stop Jason and save the remaining people from the Grendel.  Just an all-around badass, and one of the few characters to have a normal name.

Freddy vs. Jason: Linderman

This has more to do with the actor - Chris Marquette - being on Joan of Arcadia, than anything to do with the character.  I guess there is some nerd solidarity in there, but most of my sympathy belongs to Mark.  However, Mark is a Freddy victim, not a Jason one, so Linderman gets the tiebreaker.

Friday the 13th (2009 Remake): Jenna

Given the fact that most of the characters suck in the remake (a product of the tendency in the late aughts to make all of the victims assholes), Jenna is pretty much a no-brainer.  While Chewie and Lawrence aren't too awful, they also don't do anything to help Clay find his sister, so Jenna gets the save.  Her death was honestly shocking to me when I first watched the film, so losing that fake-out is a bit of a bummer, but again, I'd like the non-crappy character to live.

And that covers all of the films!  What series should I do next?

Review: Halloween Kills

 

What an absolute and total piece of shit. That alone could be my entire review for this movie, but even that simple sentence - as all-encompassing as it is in my complete disdain for this self-important crime against the franchise - is not enough to satisfy me.  This movie both does and doesn't deserve the time and effort I am going to put into this review.  I am so angry at this film - and imagine that word used in its most pretentious form, because the director and writers very obviously refer to this movie in such a way - that merely dismissing it is not enough.  This is the cinematic equivalent of a festering boil sitting a half-inch from an unwiped asshole - pulsating and leaking pus - and I am going to lance this motherfucker.

Set immediately after the events of 2018 Halloween, this movie looks at what worked and didn't work in the previous entry, and doubles down on every single part that didn't work and tells the audience 'You will appreciate it his time!'  It's fitting that a key piece of imagery in this movie is a baseball bat, since director David Gordon Green and writer Danny McBride metaphorically beat the audience into submission with their 'vision' of what should be enjoyed when watching a Halloween film.  Not what people actually enjoy, mind you, what they think you should enjoy, and it's your fucking problem if you don't.

(As an aside, I realize that there is a third person credited with writing the screenplay, but I am confident that all the worst instincts of this script can be traced to McBride, with an assist from Green, so Scott Teems escapes my wrath for now)

They think they have done something so special - so subversive and hardcore and never-before-seen - when they have done something so utterly basic and trite and predictable.  "Look, we brought back a whole bunch of characters from the original movie - played by their original actors! - and you don't know who will live and who will die!"  Wow, just like how Halloween 6 brought back Tommy Doyle (played in that film by Paul Rudd in his debut) or how H20 brought back Marion Chambers as it's opening fucking kill.  Wow, how brave and different, you guys.

It's not even shocking when they kill the (vast majority) of those characters off - it's so obvious that the whole reason they were brought back for this movie was for that very reason.  If anything, they used those characters as a crutch to carry the weight of their 'message' (a stupid been-done-a-thousand-times-and-better-by-any-Living Dead-movie message: Who are the real monsters?) In fact, the whole major plot point of Tommy Doyle starting a lynch mob that goes after the wrong person (spoilers, fuck you) is so completely unnecessary to the plot of the film that it feels added in to give the movie a proper runtime more than to do anything worthwhile.  Well, a proper runtime and another needlessly gory death to add.

Jesus Christ, the gore in this movie.

I appreciate good gore effects - I will sing the praises of 1980's The Thing or 2010's Piranha 3-D to anyone willing to listen - but this movie goes right past excessive straight into exploitative.  It's one thing to show a brutal head crush or stab wound, it's quite another to linger on the suffering of the victim, or to all but caress the visual with the camera.  There's a difference between 'look at this cool shit we did with a gore effect' and what this movie does.  This movie enjoys the suffering it inflicts on the mostly-nameless victims.

And understand, this movie has a high kill count, and precious few are ones we have any connection with.  This is why bringing back the original characters all but assures their doom: The movie does nothing to make you care about any of the victims.  It's counting on nostalgia to make you care about these characters, given how precious little we get of them prior to the mayhem.  The only characters to get any sort of character work are the black couple seen getting into their car from the first film and the gay couple.

And now we are going to talk about that gay couple.

Played by Michael McDonald and Scott MacArthur, it is very obvious from the get-go that you are supposed to laugh at these characters.  The affectations, the ridiculous behaviors, the fact that they refer to each other as Big John and Little John - these characters are ridiculous and on the same level as Deputies Nick and Tom from Halloween 5 - the two deputies that famously had clown music accompanying their every appearance.

This movie so thoroughly ridicules the two - spending as much time on them as they do several of the returning characters, which is damning on multiple levels - that when Michael appears to inevitably kill them (they live in his original house) the audience at the theater I was at laughed as they were stalked.  They even laughed as they were murdered, which was a real comfort to me as I sat watching the movie with my boyfriend.

I can tell with these characters and the gratuitous kill of the possibly-gay child in the 2018 film that, again, they think they are doing something different and edgy with their movie.  And it might've been if this film had come out sometime during the first two seasons of Family Guy, since that is about the level of edge it actually is.

(And for those that might try to defend the child murder in the 2018 film, it is implied that Michael kills another in this one - but it is only implied, not shown - and you will not convince me that the sexuality of the two characters didn't play a part)

This movie also makes goes to Thorns levels of stupidity with Michael's apparently supernatural powers.  He teleports, he has ninja skills, he is impervious to gunshots and stab wounds - it's a miracle they kept him contained for 40 years, given his superhuman abilities.  And this isn't a few minor instances, like in the 2018 - there are major points in the film where Michael is able to apparently fight off 8+ people - all of who are wielding weapons of their own - with ease.  And in both of these cases, he has been stabbed/shot/beaten/burned beforehand.  There's even a scene where he expertly kicks a door to knock a gun so it faces the person shooting it as it fires.  And it is just as ridiculous as it sounds.

I fucking hated this movie.  I don't think a horror movie has completely and utterly pissed me off to this level since 2014's Tusk.  That movie was terrible because it was obvious that everything about it was half-assed.  This movie obviously had lots of effort put into it, but apparently no one around to throw ice water on the production crew to keep them from masturbating to their own awesomeness.  At least Jamie Lee Curtis and Judy Greer got paid (and they both gave performances far better than this movie deserved ).

Oh, also: fuck the ending.  We all knew there was going to be a third one, but ending it they way you did?  Fuck the director and fuck the writers for thinking that was acceptable.

Book of the Month: December 2018

 

Offered Books:

The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay

One Day in December by Josie Silver

An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen

Severance by Ling Ma

No Exit by Taylor Adams

Selected:

No Exit by Taylor Adams

Others Purchased:

Severance by Ling Ma

Sometimes a novel is hard to review through no fault of its own: maybe it was a genre that the critic is overly familiar with, so twists and turns are more easily spotted.  Maybe they couldn't connect with the main character for whatever reason, so they didn't get as invested in the action.  Or maybe the reviewer is just not in a reading mood, but still forces their way through the book out of a sense of obligation.  That final point colors my opinions on this book.

I am a big proponent of reading what you like (get 30 pages into a novel and not enjoy it?  Shelve it and move to something else!) and have thankfully reached a point where I will not force myself to continue reading a book that I do not enjoy just because I have finished it.  Life is too short to turn a leisure activity into work.

The problem with this book is, when I started it, I very much enjoyed it.  It follows Darby Thorne as she drives back to her dying mother, but gets caught in a snowstorm in Colorado and is stuck at a rest stop with several other people.  While there, she discovers a kidnapped child in one of the other vehicles, with no idea who drives it.

Great premise, right?  I got to around the point where Darby finds the child when I suddenly hit a wall:  I just didn't feel like reading.  And not just this novel - any other book I picked up was quickly set aside.  This is not a rare occurrence in of itself, but for it to happen in the middle of a novel is rare.  To make matters worse, despite forcing myself through this book, it still took me around two months to finish it (for context, a novel of this length is normally something I can read within a day or two).

Which is why reviewing this book is hard - so much momentum was lost just in the process of reading it that I don't know if the novel was draggy in areas, or if it was a symptom of my reader's block (for lack of a better term).  Thinking about it, I do think it was a bit slow towards the beginning, but once the main action started, it was a solid read.  The characters were believable, the villain was appropriately threatening, and Darby is an all-around great protagonist: I just had a hard time reading the book, so it is hard for me to say that I loved it, or even give it a full-hearted recommend.

It's worth a read, and maybe you'll enjoy it more than I did.

2.5 out of 5

If No Exit was a novel that just had the misfortune to be read at the wrong time, then Ling Ma's Severance is one that benefited greatly from the timing of its reading.  It follows Candace Chen, a millennial working an office job that she does not love - but pays well - when there is suddenly a worldwide plague that is killing off the majority of the population.  While initially everyone thinks 'Shen Fever' will be easily handled, it soon upsets the global supply chain and Candace finds herself essentially alone in New York City.

This was released in December of 2018.

It boggles my mind how prescient this novel ended up being when I finally read it in March of this year.  While it was initially categorized as a satire, it's hard to read it as one in a post-COVID world.  And it makes me glad to have read it later: I was already the in target audience for this novel and reading it this year gives me an appreciation for how well Ma crafted not only her protagonist, but how well Ma understood how a global pandemic would effect people.

Candace is an outstanding character - the novel is told entirely from her perspective, and Ma allows the reader to see both the good and the bad of her without having Candace be too knowledgeable of other character's motivations or softening Candace's harder edges.

The first half of the novel primarily focuses on getting to know Candace and how she arrived at her current job, with a bit of alluding to the world at large and the growing problems also.  The second and meatier half focuses on Candace after she meets with a group of survivors and starts traveling with them.

The part of the book focusing on the group is where the novel really shines.  Bob, the antagonist of the novel and the leader of the group, is a perfect villain: banal in his cruelty but savvy in his leadership.  The other members of the group have enough personality that you can differentiate them from one another, but not so overwhelming in idiosyncrasies that it detracts from the novel.  I might've liked more of the group dynamic to be explored, but - without giving too much away - it is understandable that Candace wouldn't be able to expand on that aspect.

I really enjoyed this book.  Maybe it hit me a bit harder than it normally would have due to COVID, but every millennial should give this one a go, or just any lover of post-apocalyptic literature.

5 out of 5.

Author Links:

Taylor Adams

Ling Ma

Book of the Month: November 2018

 

Offered Books:

A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

For Better and Worse by Margot Hunt

The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver

Selected:

The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory

Others Purchased:

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

One of the goals I set for myself when I first signed up for Book of the Month was to force myself to try and read books in genres I normally skip.  With Jasmine Guillory's The Proposal, I finally ventured into a genre I still, to this day, only rarely go to: Romance.  I greatly enjoyed this foray into the genre - enough so to take another venture into it with another (future) Book of the Month selection - but, at the same time, feel woefully unsure of how to approach a review for a genre that I am so unfamiliar with.  Nevertheless, I will try.

I would venture to guess that one of the most important aspects of this sort of novel would be likeable characters - and our two main protagonists (Nikole and Carlos) have charm to spare.  Really, that would be a good one-word description of this book: charming.

I know the plot is a bit pedestrian - I could easily tell where the story is headed and what would happen next, even with my unfamiliarity with the genre - but the charm mentioned early easily buoys it as it progresses.  It does have one banger of an opening, and the resolution works well.  I can't really point to any aspect of the novel that doesn't work.

I think it is common when discussing books to look down at certain genres - YA, romance, non-Stephen King horror, among others - and often it is overlooking the fact that not every book needs to be the next Great American Novel.  Sometimes you need the literary equivalent of cotton candy - something sweet and fluffy to enjoy.  And there is nothing wrong with either reading or enjoying these types of novels.

Which might sound like long-winded way of saying I liked this book, and recommend it, but nevertheless, both of those facts are true.

3.5 out of 5

It feels a bit late to get to this review - he says writing this review almost 3 years after getting the book - especially with a limited series now airing for it (which I have not watched, but might try out).  But all of these reviews are late, so why let something like that stop me?

Nine Perfect Strangers follows... well, nine strangers, as they go to Tranquillum House, a health resort that promises to fix whatever it is that ails them.  Run by the enigmatic Masha, the book does a good job of following not only the journeys of each of the nine strangers, but also Masha and her employees.  There is not a single underdeveloped character in this book, which is a bit of a surprise given the size of the cast and how much happens during the novel.

I had heard of but not read any of Moriarty's previous novels, so I cannot compare it to her other works, but I can say that I was a fan of this one.  It's well paced, all of the characters are interesting - I cannot remember actively disliking any of them! - and the plot goes to exciting places without ever feeling histrionic or contrived - a tight rope to walk, given the events of the novel.

In fact, one of the greater issues I have reviewing this book is that it is best to go into knowing as little as possible.  Any deeper into the a summary of the plot would give too much away, and the most I feel like I could get away with is that Masha has unusual methods and things escalate.

However, anyone who loves high-stakes fiction is likely to enjoy this.  It's an easy recommend - and it is probably better to read this before watching the show.

4 out of 5

Author Links:

Jasmine Guillory

Liane Moriarty

Book Review: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon follows Trisha - the titular girl - as she wanders off a hiking path and finds herself lost in the woods after attempting a shortcut and falling down an embankment.  While lost, she believes herself pursued by the malevolent God of the Lost - which may or may not be a hallucination - as she tries to find her way back to civilization.

Right out the gate, this is a promising premise for King to tackle , but in customary King style, he adds to it beautifully and both uses and subverts the tropes of this well-worn story type to explore self-reliance, loneliness, and wonder.

This is a shorter King novel - only 219 pages - but he uses each page wisely: Almost the entirety of it is focused on Trisha, with only a few bits here and there to let the reader know what is happening with her family and explaining how the search is going.  This allows King to really delve into her thoughts and feelings in a way that many of his other novels - with their large casts and multiple subplots - cannot hope to.

And Trisha is a great character.  While King definitely struggled with his women and girl characters in his earlier works, Trisha doesn't have any of those issues.  He manages to credibly make her self-reliant while still maintaining her childishness (Trisha is 9 years old).  This allows him to grow the character in interesting ways as she is forced to survive, and helps with the ambiguity of the supernatural events she may or may not be experiencing.

The supernatural aspects - though sparse - are also well done, especially since King never lets the reader know for certain if Trisha is truly experiencing them or hallucinating due to malnutrition and sickness.  Her first experience with it reads as both a dream and reality, and it is a harrowing read even if you do ultimately come down on the side of it being her imagination.

While this isn't listed as one of King's best novels - and, indeed, I'm not quite sure where I would rank it out of his 70+ books - I do think it might be one of his more underrated ones.  Whether because of its simplicity or because it found itself released between two more prominent of his novels (Bag of Bones and Hearts in Atlantis), I think it is often overlooked.  Which is a shame, because I would definitely recommend it - especially for first-time King readers.

4 out of 5

Stats:

Pages: 219

Movie?: None yet, though one is supposedly in the works with Lynne Ramsay set to direct
Dark Tower?: Like Carrie, this is the rare King novel that has no obvious connection to the Dark Tower

Child Deaths?: None, though this isn't surprising given the small cast

Book Review: Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

Max Brook's Devolution follows the citizens of the small community of Greenloop - primarily told through the diary of Kate Holland, with occasional interviews from people outside of the community - as they deal first with a volcanic eruption, then the invasion of their community by a large tribe of sasquatch seeking food.

Brooks makes quite a change in narrative style in this novel, compared to his previous two: The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z.  Rather than it being a collection of recollections like the latter, this is a straightforward story, albeit one that has interviews interspersed that harkens back to it.  The structure suits him, and the story is engrossing and remarkably well-researched.

The main conceit of the novel is making this small community believably cut off from the rest of the world, and Brooks sets about explaining that quickly and efficiently:  Greenloop is a new type of village, intentionally set away from large cities and built to be as eco-friendly as possible.  Food is delivered by self-driving vehicles or by drones, the buildings are powered with solar panels and from recycled waste - any detail the reader could think of for this small group of people (all told, the town has 11 people) has an explanation ready and - more importantly - delivered naturally through the novel.

Because of this 'low carbon footprint,' the city lacks many necessities the one would normally have present, and once the volcano erupts and starts the main action of the story, they realize the folly of this type of idealized living.

Not that they are completely helpless.  While the main organizers of the community, Tony and Yvette, become rather unhelpful, one of the more fascinating members - Mostar - takes charge.  While much of her story is a mystery - aside from one interview (pre-Greenloop) towards the end of the novel, Kate never brings herself to delve too much into Mostar's past, enough is hinted at that both Kate and the reader get a good idea of what she has survived and how she will use her history to help the community.  And that's before the titular sasquatch make their appearance.

If there is one shortcoming to the novel - and this is minor at best - it is that we don't get much of the other residents due to the story told entirely through Kate's diary.  Aside from Kate and Mostar, the only other developed character is Kate's husband.  Some of the characters are enough of 'personalities' that the reader can do the heavy lifting of characterization, but most of them fade into the background.

Which is fine - this novel is Kate's story and her growth throughout is a wonder to read.  Brooks manages to do this subtly despite it being Kate's own recollection of what happened.  When discussing her with friends, it became a game to guess who would play her in the inevitable movie (this is lean enough that it could be a film fairly easily, rather than a miniseries).

While some might complain that the novel takes too long to get to the actual beasts of the title, I think Brooks does a good job of setting the scene and building to their appearance.  After all, there aren't that many people in Greenloop, and if a massacre is going to happen (and indeed, it does), one cannot jump into the action too quickly.  I think Brooks manages this tightrope fairly well - having interactions with the creatures that are both thrilling and scary without having too much occur that the reader cannot keep up.  He paces himself, and reader is rewarded with several different encounters - no repetition here - that increase the stakes for the characters.

I cannot praise this novel enough, and would recommend it to anyone that likes strange creatures and horror.

4.5 out of 5

Author Link:
https://www.maxbrooks.com/

Book Review: The Body in the Woods

The Body in the Woods, by Joshua Burleson, follows William and Diana after the married couple hits a man while driving home one night.  Rather than call the police, they opt to bury the body in the woods.  What follows is how the couple deals with the aftermath, grappling with guilt while also struggling to act as if everything is normal.

The book is split into two parts, one focusing on William and the other focusing on Diana - both told from that character's perspective.  Without hesitation, I will say that William's half is much stronger.  William, as the one driving, feels the bulk of the guilt for what has happened, and Burleson does a great job of writing the character's growing guilt.  There's some structural issues that hurt the Diana half, but William's half is solid from beginning to end.

Diana's half, while interesting, suffers a bit from Burleson needing to expand the story outside of Diana's perspective.  So, rather than the entire half being told from her point of view, the reader is forced to essentially step outside of her story to see what is happening with the investigation into the dead man's disappearance.

I think the novel might have been stronger with a triptych structure, rather than just a split: Keep Diana's section completely focused on her reactions, then have a third part focusing on the detective's.  This would not only give the two of them fuller characterizations - having to jump back and forth between the two shortchanges both of them - but it would also allow Burleson to approach scenes where the characters interact from multiple angles, which would further enrich the story.

The detective character, Charon, is the only part of the novel not told in the first person - another reason I think three divisions would work better than just 2 - and these parts feel almost awkward compared to the others.  The character isn't a bad one, but losing that inner perspective while also having him drive the bulk of the action in the final parts of the book doesn't quite work, structurally.

Another reason I would push for Charon to have his own section is that several breadcrumbs for a future sequel feel forced in rather than a natural part of the story, and the dynamic he has with his partner feels underdeveloped, especially with some of the leaps the story takes in the last third.

Even with those criticisms, this is a solid debut from Burleson.  I'm willing to read whatever novel he self-publishes next.  I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to support independent (and local!) authors.

3 out of 5

Book of the Month: October 2018

 

Offered Books:

The Clockmaker's Daughter by Kate Morton

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

The Lies We Told by Camilla Way

In the Hurricane's Eye by Nathaniel Philbrick

Winter in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand

Selected:

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

Others Purchased:

None - yet

I felt pressured to like this book when I first selected it.  It had been highly recommended to me by a good friend - one that I had disagreed with before, though that was on movies moreso than books.  I did still select it, however, and read it fairly quickly after it arrived.  Did I like it?  Yes, for the most part.

The book quickly received a few strikes against it: The main character's name is April May, which it acknowledges as cheesy, but I still found it to be a bit too precious.  This was exacerbated by the 'voice' of April - the novel is told almost entirely from her perspective - driving home that somewhat-twee tone that I worried would dominate the novel.  Following that was a tendency in the early chapters to Drop Hints about what would happen later - mostly as chapter cliffhangers - and boy howdy was I about ready to write the novel off even as I forced myself to finish it.

Thankfully, April matures as the plot of the novel goes forward.  She and her friend Andy make a recording of a 10-foot tall sculpture in the middle of New York - which April dubs Carl - and it is soon discovered that these figures have appeared all over the world.  Not only that, but people also start experiencing a shared dream filled with puzzles.  As the first to document the existence of the Carls, April is thrust into the limelight as people discuss what to do about them and the shared dream.

One thing I appreciate about Green's plot structure is that he doesn't have everyone approach these two phenomena with benevolence: a main plot of the novel concerns April pushing back against Peter Petrawicki and his 'Defenders' who believe the Carls are malevolent and that the shared dream is an infection meant to destroy/enslave the human race.  This was released pre-COVID, and the threats/harassment April goes through is very reminiscent of how certain leaders treated those sounding the alarm about that disease.

Another aspect I want to give Green credit for is his ability to describe characters through April's perspective but still have them be strong enough that they feel independent of her narrative.  Maya, Andy, Robin, and Miranda - even Peter - all feel like actual characters.  And through subtle writing, Green allows the reader to have different opinions about those characters than April, which is quite a feat for a first-person narrative.

The novel also stands alone well despite being part 1 of a 2-parter.  In fact, the ending is kind of a perfect cliffhanger - so different from the early chapters that it feels almost unreal for both to be in the same book - and had me actually excited for the follow-up novel.  And I loved April by the end of it too.

An easy recommend.

4 out of 5

BONUS REVIEW!

So, as noted above, I was excited for this follow-up.  So much so that I made my first ever non-Stephen King preorder of a book.  While I had my criticisms for An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, it was an enjoyable book overall, and I had faith that Green would write a stronger second novel.  And I was correct.

Set shortly after the end of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor manages to expand on the previous novel in almost every conceivable way: The story is told through the perspectives of multiple characters instead of just April and expands the action so that the stakes feel appropriately epic in scale.  This novel has a book giving orders to people, a person trapped inside a simulation, and a character casually becoming a billionaire and none of it feels forced.  I cannot stress how wild that is to write: that's not even everything crazy that happens in this novel.

If Green had done a phenomenal job in the first novel of making the side characters independent of April despite it being her perspective - and he did - then this opportunity to delve into each of those character was not one to be wasted.  I can't fault a single one of them: every decision they make - even the bad ones - feels character appropriate as they make them.

The plot, without giving too much away, expands on the first novel with the Carls being a test - one that humanity didn't exactly pass - and the response to that 'failure.'  Each of the characters responds to their various circumstances without having a clear idea of what is happening to the others, which keeps the greater plot mysterious enough that the reader doesn't become frustrated even as they learn new things along with the characters.

If I have any critiques, they would primarily be some ideas being under-explored while spending too much time on subplots that, while necessary, feel overly-long.  I'd like to not only know more about the simulated world and how it works and less about the funding for/attempt to purchase said world.  Trust me, that sentence will make sense once you've read the actual book.

A great sequel, one that makes me hope we get more from Hank Green.

4.5 out of 5

Author Link:

Hank Green

Book Review: Carrie

 

Back in 2015, I decided to read all of Stephen King's books - in their order of publication - and write reviews for them along the way.  I managed to read the first 42 of his books, but only managed reviews for the first 8.  Mostly because I was able to read on the job at that time, so I was able to continue reading even as I was unable to actually review.  I've decided to take up the project again, with a few modifications - namely that I will not be reading them in publication order.

Still, I wanted to start with Carrie, King's first published book.  Part of it is that I genuinely enjoy the book and wanted an excuse to re-read it.  I also wanted to see how my review would change over the 6(?!) years since I had last sat down to write about it.

And honestly?  It doesn't change much.  This is still a solid book - King's fourth written, though the other three had not been published at the time.  I don't feel the need to summarize - who doesn't know the basics of the story at this point?  Instead, I want to point out a few things I didn't notice from the first go-around because I wasn't as familiar with certain tropes.

The main thing I noticed this time is how King used the framing device - a series of interviews with residents/excerpts from books written about 'the White incident' - to push forward the story in a decidedly different way than he has used since.  I won't say he uses it as a crutch - he was far too talented a writer even at this early stage to use it in a lazy way - but he definitely changed how he normally writes stories for this one.

The other aspect I noted this time was his definite unfamiliarity with writing women characters.  I've come across multiple 'how a man writes a woman/how a woman writes a woman' breakdowns that King, unfortunately, falls into - notably in his having several of his characters think about their breasts in a very 'male' way.  Not anything book-ruining, but once I was made aware of this particular trope, it was hard not to notice it.

Otherwise, this is still a great book - not one of King's greatest, but definitely a great 'coming out' moment for King.  The characters of Carrie, Sue, Chris, and Margaret all resonate still, and even lesser characters like Billy, Miss Desjardin, and Tommy still feel well-rounded.  A definite recommend.

4 out of 5

(Original review)

Stats:

Pages: 199

Movie?: Carrie (1976), Carrie (2013)

Dark Tower?: This might be the only non-Bachman book that is not connected to The Dark Tower in some way

Child Deaths?: All of the teens killed during Prom Night. Not mentioned in the book, but possibly some killed when Carrie destroys parts of Chamberlain

Book of the Month: September 2018

Offered Books:

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
Cross Her Heart by Sarah Pinborough

The Mermaid & Mrs. Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar

November Road by Lou Berney

#FashionVictim by Amina Akhtar

Selected:

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

Others Purchased:

None - yet

Sometimes a book sticks with you long after you have read it.  Maybe not all the details, or even all the characters, but the story imprints on you so much that you know it will be something you read again throughout the years.  This category of book is a special one - books that will last you a lifetime are the best ones to read, though this is, sadly, not a universal experience for any book.  However, Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls is one of those books for me.

The books follows Briseis - a former queen of a small nation conquered by the Greeks and now the forced concubine for Achilles as the Greek army attacks Troy.  Told entirely from her perspective, it expands on the Trojan War story that so many are familiar with by allowing one of the many woman who are ignored in the original tale to have a voice.

This is not a happy novel: Briseis is a prisoner, and though her relationships with Achilles and Patrocles warm throughout, it never glosses over or forgets that fact.  Still, it is not a parade of misery as Briseis learns how to survive her situation and bears witness to several major events from the original text.

Barker walks a tightrope of expanding the original story without taking it too far away from it.  Several of the major events are given interesting originations through this novel by virtue of allowing a character ignored in it to tell their side of it.  I'm not sure it works every single time - I'd say she tries to explain the Patrocles/Achilles relationship without committing to either of the popular interpretations of it, to the novel's detriment.  But this is a minor quibble at best.

For me, this is an easy recommendation to anyone who likes Greek legends and modern takes on them.  For anyone who enjoyed Circe, this should scratch that particular itch.  I'm not sure I'd say this is a better novel than that one, but I definitely connected to it more.

4.5 out of 5

Author Links:

Pat Barker

Book of the Month: August 2018

 

Offered Books:

The Air You Breathe by Frances de Pontes Peebles

Sweet Little Lies by Caz Frear

The Dinner List by Rebecca Serle

The Line That Held Us by David Joy

Goodbye, Paris by Anstey Harris

Selected:

The Dinner List by Rebecca Serle

Other Purchased:

None - yet

Sabrina arrives at a dinner with her best friend, but finds 4 extra guests there, including Audrey Hepburn.  Having made and kept a 'dinner list' of 5 people for ages, she suddenly finds herself in the surreal situation of actually participating in one.  Thus starts The Dinner List, by Rebecca Serle

First and foremost, I want to commend Serle for managing the not-inconsiderable feat of making a 290 page book that is primarily people sitting and talking to each other interesting. I was a bit skeptical when selecting this book - it was primarily an attempt to push myself into genres I normally don't read.  However, Serle delivered an interesting romantic fantasy that made me appreciate the choice.

One of the challenges of this sort of novel is making the conversation interesting, but also believable.  The dreamy fantasy of the situation is addressed quickly, and it allows the characters to plow into the meat of the novel: why she selected each of the guests, and what she wants to say to them.

While the presence of Hepburn is a selling point for the novel, Serle is wise in her use of the character.  Hepburn is not the main focus, but the interactions with the other characters aren't forced, and having what in normal circumstances would be the 'unbiased observer' character instead be a world-famous actress allows Serle to play with the trope in refreshing ways.

The only downside to the book is that it is hard to review, as the presence of certain people are inadvertent spoilers, so delving too much into their interactions is hard to do.

Not sure this is a book for everyone, but it is a nice little novel that I would recommend.

3.5 out of 5

Author Links:

Rebecca Serle

Book of the Month: July 2018

Offered Books:
The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager
Summer Wives by Beatriz Williams
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
Ghosted by Rosie Walsh
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Selected:
The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager

Others Purchased:
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Having been a big fan of Riley Sager's previous novel, Final Girls, selecting The Last Time I Lied was a no-brainer for me.  Even if it didn't live up to the previous novel (spoilers: it did not), he had more than earned my interest in his follow-up.  So, without hesitation, I selected this book.

I wouldn't say I was disappointed - I still enjoyed the book enough to get his next two novels, Lock Every Door and Home Before Dark - but it was a slight let-down after the high of the previous novel.

The Last Time I Lied follows Emma Davis, an artist experiencing her first big opening when offered a job teaching art at Camp Nightingale - the same camp where Emma experienced a traumatic event that greatly influences her art.  Taking the job to both confront her demons and to find out what happened to her three friends all those years ago, Emma finds herself learning about the dark history of the camp while also finding various clues left behind by the ringleader of her friend group, Vivian.

Sager does a great job with the premise, but falls into a bit of a repetitive pattern through the greater part of the book: Emma discovers something, confronts the person whose past she just learned about, then has said past explained away as mundane.  One would expect some of these explanations to be gaslighting, but they aren't - and Emma repeats herself as she discovers yet another fact/detail.  It doesn't ruin the experience, but I kept wondering why Emma - who is by no means a dumb character - continually made the same mistake over and over again.

Despite this, the story does move at a brisk pace, and the mystery still casts a shadow over everything Emma does - a silver lining to the repetitiveness is how it makes Emma come across as much more determined a character.  Her determinedness to solve the riddle of her past makes the various confrontations at least feel plausible.

Another weaker aspect of this novel was the relationships between the characters.  The flashback scenes between Emma, Vivian, Natalie, and Allison are quite economical in how they show the burgeoning friendships between the girls, but the present day scenes don't work quite as well - if not for a very late plot twist, one would wonder why anyone would spend time with Emma.  Even worse, the campers in her care are much more invested in Emma than one would expect, given how little time is spent on her interactions with them.  Nothing rings entirely false, but the character interactions to feel contrived at times.

Sager does do a good job with the setting - Camp Nightingale is mysterious and spooky enough (at least through Emma's perspective) to keep the reader's interest, without stretching believability as to whether or not anyone would attend said camp.

Despite my critiques - this review might be another that reads more negative than I actually felt about the book - this is a solid novel.  The opening - told from Emma's perspective as she paints on of her pieces - is beautiful:  it explains so much about the character while hinting about her past without giving too much away.  And the solution to the main mystery is satisfying - I did not expect the resolution, but it didn't feel like a cheap surprise that a lesser writer might have gone with.

While it doesn't reach the highs of Final Girls, this is still a definite recommend.

3.5 out of 5

Spinning Silver was a book I initially overlooked when it was first offered.  It wasn't until I started seeing it on various 'Best of 2018' lists - and the lucky happenstance of a free selection with Book of the Month - that I decided to give in to my curiosity and read the novel.  I am very glad I did.

Set in a fantasy world that feels adjacent to ours, the novel follows multiple characters, but primarily focuses on Miryem - the daughter of moneylenders who finds her family on the cusp of poverty.  Doing what her father could not, she starts collecting on the debts owed to her - developing a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold.  She boasts about this ability near the forest of the Staryk - elf-like creatures - and their leader forces her to make good on her supposed ability.

If this sounds similar to Rumpelstiltskin, trust that Novik only loosely uses that story, and before long the novel has passed the basic plot of that story and expanded into a tale that affects kingdoms both human and magic.  Novik expertly creates this world and the characters inhabiting them without getting so lost in the details that reading becomes a chore.

As the story widens, Novik also starts focusing on various characters affected by Miryem's journey - shifting Miryem's perspective to theirs.  Each of these characters is defined quickly, and Novik uses them to deepen the world she has created.  Whether focusing on the poor daughter of an abusive drunk or the well-off daughter of a minor lord, Novik brings nuance to their telling of the story.

The only quibble I would have with this method is that it feels like a few of characters are more of a plot device to explain parts of the novel that would otherwise make no sense - but it is a small one given the amount of intrigue going on in the story.

For fans of fantasy, I'd say this is a must-read.

4 out of 5

Author Links:

Riley Sager

Naomi Novik

2021 Movie List

The Movies:

Antlers

Army of the Dead

Bingo Hell

Black Widow

Bo Burnham: Inside

Candyman

Encanto

Eternals

Free Guy

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Godzilla vs Kong

Halloween Kills

Jungle Cruise

Lamb

Malignant

The Mitchells vs. the Machines

Mortal Kombat

Raya and the Last Dragon

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Willy's Wonderland