Natanya Reviews A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke

Title/Author: A Year in the Merde, by Stephen Clarke
Publisher/Date: Random House, 2004
Where I got it: Gibert Jeune, a Paris bookstore chain
Why I read it: I’m studying in Paris, and it’s about an English man who spends a year in Paris, so it seemed up my alley

From Amazon:
Brit Paul West escapes his homeland to take a job in Paris marketing English tearooms to the French. Over a year's cycle he discovers that the French way of doing business thrives on maneuvering nimbly through a minefield of unique, demanding personalities. An inveterate womanizer, he finds plenty of skirts to chase and conquer. After a comic search for an apartment, he settles in the city's trendy Marais district. Urban stress in general, combined with a need to escape the upstairs family whose every move reverberates to distraction, forces West to escape to a Norman getaway featuring all the bucolic charms and a cast of neighbors and townspeople to rival Peter Mayle's Provencal rustics. West disdains French food for its love of organ meats and its fascination with revoltingly smelly cheeses. Francophobes will find much here to reinforce their prejudices; more balanced observers will find Clarke's caricatures of the French simply very funny reading.

I bought this book because the title amused me so much and I couldn’t believe I was finding a book like this in Paris. Overall, it was quite funny, and I was not disappointed. Since I’m studying in Paris this semester, I really related to a lot of the problems Paul faced in Paris, particularly early on—the dog poop all over the sidewalks (it’s really everywhere), making sure to say hello or goodbye correctly (bonjour/bonsoir/bon journee/bon soiree…), the metro system, et cetera. But Paul did also clearly get a lot of things wrong, so if you do read this, take everything with a grain of salt—he has a pretty skewed perspective.

A lot of this novel is also very over-the-top. No, the French do not go on strike every single month. In fact, the only significant strike I’ve experienced this semester was a transit strike in Rome, not Paris. But the descriptions of how foreigners view Parisians are quite accurate (as in, I know there are a lot of visitors who feel this way about Parisians), regardless of whether these stereotypes are true, so if you have a negative opinion about Parisians, this will certainly uphold it.

However, Paul’s experiences with finding housing in Paris are pretty accurate, though his ultimate subversion of the system is probably more infrequent than he makes it seem. I did love how Paul felt the need to go buy a house in the countryside after just a few months; although this seems excessive, I can attest to the fact that after a few months in this city—which has very few grassy areas, unless you happen to live right near a park—some time out in the countryside sounds fantastic (there’s a reason I hung out with sheep in Ireland for half of my spring break).

However, Paul can be fairly arrogant and ignorant, and I think a lot of readers would find him pretty annoying. Honestly, probably part of the reason I didn’t mind is because I read this over spring break, when I was off discovering how much more I prefer the rest of Europe to Paris.

So if you’re looking for a quick, entertaining read, pick this up (particularly if you’ve visited Paris), but if you’re looking to actually improve your knowledge of the French/Parisians, you should probably avoid it.

3 stars

Natanya Reviews Vaclav and Lena by Haley Tanner

Title & Author: Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner

Publisher/Date: The Dial Press (Random House), 2011

Where I got it: Amazon for kindle

Why I read it: I think I found out about it from a Goodreads newsletter a few months ago, and it sounded interesting. I also thought the papercut design on the cover was really pretty!

Summary (from Goodreads):

Vaclav and Lena, both the children of Russian émigrés, are at the same time from radically different worlds. While Vaclav's burgeoning love of performing magic is indulged by hard-working parents pursuing the American dream, troubled orphan Lena is caught in a domestic situation no child should suffer through. Taken in as one of her own by Vaclav's big-hearted mother, Lena might finally be able to blossom; in the naive young magician's eyes, she is destined to be his "faithful assistant"...but after a horrific discovery, the two are ripped apart without even a goodbye. Years later, they meet again. But will their past once more conspire to keep them apart?

This is a story about things that change and things that don’t change; things that are known, things that aren’t known, and things that shouldn’t be known. It’s about love and beauty and ignorance and pain and sorrow. This book was so good, I cried a bit when I finished it. I hadn’t read a book this touching in a long time. Vaclav and Lena are so cute, and I loved that, while this could have just been a cute love story, Tanner made it so much more complex—to the point where at times I wasn’t sure if I was really rooting for Vaclav and Lena to be together or not. Vaclav’s love for Lena is heartbreaking, and it is so difficult during parts of the novel to watch Lena take advantage of him and manipulate him. And while this makes Lena seems horrible, she’s just messed up, and no matter what she says or does, we know that she still loves Vaclav.

Anyway, going past the nonsensical gushy stuff and onto some specifics. The novel is split into four parts, two of which follow the characters while they’re together, and the other two detailing their time apart (from an omniscient third-person perspective), and I think that this was a great way to split up the novel. I also loved Vaclav’s obsession with magic, which continues even once the story switches to him as a teenager. The concept of not letting go of the characters’ childhood is a big theme throughout the novel, and Vaclav’s magic really helps with this. The one thing about this theme that got kind of annoying is that, even when they were 17 years old, Vaclav and Lena still seem very naïve and immature, to the point where they really sound exactly the same as they did at age 10. At times this wasn’t very believable, but at the same time, I do think that part of the point is to contrast the ways the two characters do and don’t change, so that aspect certainly doesn’t ruin the novel for me.

Beyond that, there were certainly problems with the novel—the end is a bit abrupt, and there’s a side of Lena that keeps resurfacing but that Tanner never fully deals with, making it hard to guess what happens after the end—but honestly, I don’t even care, because all of the good parts of this novel are just so good.

I’m sure Vaclav and Lena isn’t for everyone, and I may very well just be a sap, but especially as the author’s debut novel, it really is wonderful.

4.5 stars

Natanya Reviews For One More Day by Mitch Albom

Title/Author: For One More Day by Mitch Albom

Publisher/Date: Hyperion, 2006

Where I got it: Library on ebook

Why I read it: I read The Five People You Meet in Heaven a couple months ago and loved it, so I wanted to read another Mitch Albom book

Summary (from Goodreads):

For One More Day is the story of a mother and a son, and a relationship that lasts a lifetime and beyond. It explores the question: What would you do if you could spend one more day with a lost loved one?

Charley (Chick) Benetto, his life ruined by alcohol and regret, returns to his hometown with plans to kill himself. There, he makes an astonishing discovery: His mother, who died eight years ago, is still living in their old house, and she welcomes him back as if nothing had ever happened.

For One More Day follows the one ordinary day so many of us yearn for: a chance to make good with a lost parent, to explain family secrets, and to seek forgiveness.

In November, after reading The Five People You Meet in Heaven, I spent so long trying to figure out what to write about it in a review that I eventually gave up and never reviewed it. Fortunately, I have a bit more to say about For One More Day, but, again, it’s pretty difficult to review. The novel, told from Chick’s point of view, flips back and forth between his memories of his parents and what he calls the “ghost story,” which depicts his experiences with his mother following his attempted suicide. Albom seamlessly weaves together all of these memories, throwing in a number of mementos, like little notes from Chick’s mother, which fit in well and provided a nice way of switching between the stories.

Albom is a fantastic storyteller, and he knows how to really make you feel the emotions of the character. Even though Chick really isn’t a likeable person, it was a great experience getting to watch him transform and recognize his faults and everything he did to make his mother’s life difficult. I enjoyed slowly learning about his mother, his father, and his sister, and watching Chick gain different perspectives on his life and learn after many years what really happened to his family.

For One More Day is a touching and heartbreaking account of a son’s regrets and a mother’s sacrifices. It’s short and sweet, with a really great ending. Definitely a worthwhile read.

4 stars

Natanya Reviews Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

Title/Author: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

Publisher/Year: Little Brown & Co, 2004

Where I got it: Library on ebook

Why I read it: I’ve heard Sedaris is good, and this was the only one of his books available at the library when I needed a book to read

Summary (from Goodreads):

David Sedaris returns to his deliriously twisted domain: hilarious childhood dramas infused with melancholy; the gulf of misunderstanding that exists between people of different nations or members of the same family; and the poignant divide between one's best hopes and most common deeds. The family characters his readers love are all here, as well as the unique terrain they inhabit, strewn with comic landmines. 'The Rooster' is back, and getting married in the funniest wedding ever described. David attends a slumber party and gets the upper hand in a unique version of strip poker. 'Rubber or plastic?' The strangest questions can tear people apart. A skinny guy from Spain, wearing a bishop's hat and accompanied by six to eight men, invades your house and pretends to kick you. Is this any way to spend Christmas? With this new book, Sedaris's prose reaches breathtaking new heights and marks off a territory that is unmistakably his own. Read it and weep tears of humane laughter.

The word “hilarious” in the above summary combined with my previous knowledge of David Sedaris led me to believe that this book would be very funny. Perhaps I just don’t understand Sedaris’ style of humor, but while I was often somewhat amused, I found very little of this book “hilarious,” which is odd since I’ve read reviews of this book saying it is quite funny. But for me, many of the stories were interesting, but not at all laugh-out-loud funny. In fact, most often they were just plain disturbing, and many also didn’t seem believable. Maybe some of the problem is that I read this as my first Sedaris book instead of Me Think Pretty One Day or When You Are Engulfed in Flames, but I don’t know.

Again, however, I’m not saying that the stories weren’t interesting. They were. Sedaris is a great storyteller, and I enjoyed hearing about his siblings and getting to compare how they were as kids and adults. In fact, stories about the siblings were considerably more interesting to read about than the stories just about Sedaris, who, quite frankly, is a bit of an obnoxious douchebag. Sedaris jumps around in time a lot in this book, which both makes it interesting and kind of confusing – there are stories where he appears to be in his 20s, and others where he’s in his 40s, but it was hard for me to develop a timeline of when things happened once he got beyond stories about his childhood, so many of the stories ended up blending together.

Overall, this was the kind of book that I would recommend not reading all at once, and instead reading one or two stories at a time over a few weeks. I think I would have liked it more had I done that, when instead I got sick of it about 4/5 of the way through and stopped reading (and then my Kindle loan from the library expired, and it doesn’t seem worth it to renew). I’m not yet ready to write off Sedaris altogether, but I don’t know if I’ll ever finish this particular book.

3 stars

Natanya Reviews Candide, ou l'Optimisme

Title/Author: Candide, ou l'Optimisme by Voltaire
Year Published: 1759
Where I got it: Library
Why I read it: For my French class

From Amazon (slightly modified):
Penned by that Renaissance man of the Enlightenment, Voltaire, Candide is steeped in the political and philosophical controversies of the 1750s. But for the general reader, the novel's driving principle is clear enough: the idea (endemic in Voltaire's day) that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and apparent folly, misery and strife are actually harbingers of a greater good we cannot perceive, is hogwash.

Telling the tale of the good-natured but star-crossed Candide as he travels the world struggling to be reunited with his love, Lady Cunegonde, the novel smashes such ill-conceived optimism to splinters. Candide's tutor, Dr. Pangloss, is steadfast in his philosophical good cheer, in the face of more and more fantastic misfortune; Candide's other companions always supply good sense in the nick of time. Still, as he demolishes optimism, Voltaire pays tribute to human resilience, and in doing so gives the book a pleasant indomitability common to farce.

I haven’t read many reviewable books this semester. Educational? Sure. I-want-to-shred-this-up-and-throw-it-in-the-gorges difficult? Certainly. But reviewable? Not so much. This is due to the combination of early modern French literature and literary theory classes that have taken over most of my reading time this semester. While I’m sure the last thing you want to read in your free time is a summary (which I don’t even think I could write) of Derrida’s arguments in Of Grammatology, a few of my French lit books have been pretty good, among them Candide.

Candide is, certainly, filled with politics and philosophy, but don’t let that scare you away. It is quick-paced, funny, and often completely absurd, and I thoroughly enjoyed it—and actually read it in entirety, which says a lot given my poor track record this semester with my class readings. Most of what happens in the novel is completely illogical, but that’s the point, and it didn’t seem forced. Voltaire parodies practically everything, and while most people now (including myself) may not be familiar with the particulars, for some reason that didn’t seem to make much of a difference. I would say, however, that you should make sure to get an edition of the novel that has a good set of notes in the back that explain some of the background information; while I usually don’t read the notes in the backs of my school books, in this case reading them really did improve my understanding of and interest in the novel.

I loved the numerous different settings in the novel—unlike all of the 17th century theatrical tragedies that I’ve spent my semester reading, Voltaire was not afraid to have his characters jump from place to place (even when these places were not located on the characters’ route), and this kept me from getting bored and allowed Voltaire to convey and satirize many different cultures. I enjoyed watching Candide react to the different people he met and pick up people along his way, like Martin the pessimistic philosopher. Perhaps one of the most illogical aspects of the novel was the extent to which Candide found people from his past all over the world—Voltaire seemed to really want to make sure that Candide could both travel the world and still interact with the same characters, which was a bit bizarre, particularly when this involved supposedly dead people being found alive.

So if you’re looking for logic, look elsewhere, but if you’re looking for a highly sarcastic, humorous, and quick adventure, I’d definitely encourage you to check out this 18th century satire.

4 stars

Natanya Reviews When She Woke

Book/Author: When She Woke by Hillary Jordan
Publisher/Date: Algonquin Books, 2011
Where I got it: Amazon for my Kindle
Why I read it: I happened to come across a sample of it and enjoyed it, and I had a couple free days coming up, so I bought it

Summary (from Goodreads):
Hannah Payne’s life has been devoted to church and family, but after her arrest, she awakens to a nightmare: she is lying on a table in a bare room, covered only by a paper gown, with cameras broadcasting her every move to millions at home, for whom observing new Chromes—criminals whose skin color has been genetically altered to match the class of their crime—is a new and sinister form of entertainment. Hannah is a Red; her crime is murder. The victim, according to the State of Texas, was her unborn child, and Hannah is determined to protect the identity of the father, a public figure with whom she’s shared a fierce and forbidden love.

When She Woke is a fable about a stigmatized woman struggling to navigate an America of a not-too-distant future—where the line between church and state has been eradicated and convicted felons are no longer imprisoned and rehabilitated but chromed and released back into the population to survive as best they can. In seeking a path to safety in an alien and hostile world, Hannah unknowingly embarks on a path of self-discovery that forces her to question the values she once held true and the righteousness of a country that politicizes faith.

When She Woke is basically a futuristic version of The Scarlett Letter, with The Handmaid’s Tale (and perhaps some other dystopian novels) mixed in. I’m not sure if the Atwood connection was purposeful (that connection is more in the backstory of this dystopia), but it is exceedingly clear that the author intended the parallels to The Scarlett Letter—ex. with the names (Hannah Payne, Reverend Dale, etc), and Hannah’s unwillingness to identify the father of her child. By later on in the story, plot of When She Woke did diverge to an extent from The Scarlett Letter, which I was glad for, having spent a bit too much time early on comparing the two novels.

I enjoyed the plot of this novel, and it was clear that Jordan put in a lot of effort to make everything make sense (the color changing, the things Hannah does, etc.). It would have been easy for this novel to spin off into fantasy, but Jordan kept it pretty well-grounded. The only thing I could have used was more backstory as to how the US politics switched entirely to fundamentalist Christianity—while Hawthorne’s novel was based on Puritan New England, Jordan’s novel derives from the US in its current state, which I guess is kind of in flux religiously. It would have been interesting to know how much of Jordan’s US population actually believed in and agreed with the Sanctity of Life laws and the melachroming, particularly since something like a quarter of the US isn’t Christian, and since our politics have spent most of the US’s lifetime switching back and forth between liberal and conservative. I also had trouble figuring out when this takes place—at times, it seems like it’s only maybe 10 years into the future, but at other times it could be 30 or even 50 years in the future; Jordan doesn’t focus very much on technology, and instead will occasionally throw in references to things like “servbots” or “netlets,” leaving it up to the reader to figure out what they are.

As far as characters go, Hannah can get kind of annoying, but I found her struggles interesting. Though I had a hard time relating to them, I did feel like I understood why she felt the way she felt, even if I thought she or her thoughts or actions were stupid or naïve at times. The secondary characters in the novel were generally pretty secondary, but Jordan goes into just enough detail about them that I had an understanding of who they were and what their roles were. I loved Kayla in particular, who is funny and witty and balances out the annoying aspects of Hannah.

As a note, while there is a ton of focus on religion in When She Woke, I definitely wouldn’t describe it as “Christian literature.” It doesn’t preach, rather it presents the conflicts that arise with extreme religion and extreme conformity—essentially, it is a dystopia where the dystopian aspects happen to focus on religion. There is a lot of moral conflict in this novel, but there are also a lot of extremes—too many extremes, in my opinion. Hannah’s fundamentalist life is a bit over the top, with a complete lack of women’s rights and a severe patriarchy. It became a bit unrealistic.

While this novel isn’t amazing, it is the kind that really transports you into another world. I read for hours not noticing the time, completely caught up in Hannah’s world and her adventures. Jordan does a great job at weaving together Hannah’s past and present. She does at times seem to try a little too hard to create a novel deeper than this one could be, and it could have used better editing (I saw at least a few typos) but overall, I thought that When She Woke was an interesting and worthwhile read.

4 stars

Natanya Reviews A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

Title/Author: A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
Publisher/Date: HarperCollins, 2006
Where I got it: Library
Why I read it: A friend of mine recommended it to me a couple years ago, and I’ve been meaning to read it since then

From Amazon (slightly modified):
For beta male Charlie Asher, proprietor of a shop in San Francisco, life and death meet in a maternity ward recovery room where his wife, Rachel, dies shortly after giving birth. Though security cameras catch nothing, Charlie swears he saw an impossibly tall black man in a mint green suit standing beside Rachel as she died. When objects in his store begin glowing, strangers drop dead before him and man-sized ravens start attacking him, Charlie figures something's up. Along comes Minty Fresh—the man in green—to enlighten him: turns out Charlie and Minty are Death Merchants, whose job (outlined in the Great Big Book of Death) is to gather up souls before the Forces of Darkness get to them. While Charlie's employees, Lily the Goth girl and Ray the ex-cop, mind the shop, and two enormous hellhounds babysit, Charlie attends to his dangerous soul-collecting duties, building toward a showdown with the underworld…

I read half of A Dirty Job while sitting outside a Starbucks, and after a while people started staring at me, likely because I was laughing my ass off. I haven’t laughed this hard while reading a book since…ever. While I wouldn’t say the entire book is hysterical—some of the jokes seem a little too forced, stupid, or offensive to be funny—the funniest parts are so funny that they make up for it. Really. Read the chapter where Charlie tries to get rid of the hellhounds and tell me you kept a straight face. (You won’t.) Even the chapter titles are funny: “Darkness Gets Uppity,” “Cry Havoc, and Let Slip the Gogs of War!” et cetera.

Charlie Asher is the most boring but most entertaining character ever. His reactions to his new “job” are priceless, and Moore’s narration of and commentary on Charlie’s thoughts and actions make them even better. This narrative commentary—in which Moore repeatedly explains why each of Charlie’s actions relate to his status as a “beta male”—is a great element of this novel, with these constant categorizations making Charlie seem even more pitiful, with his actions following the mold set out for him (but of course, they make him even funnier). Unfortunately, they do get a bit repetitive by later in the novel (yes, I know he’s a beta male, give me something new already!), but that didn’t do any serious damage to my opinion of the novel.

As for the plot, it’s bizarre, to say the least (and I’m pretty used to bizarre, thanks to Haruki Murakami). It’s kind of a mystery, where you spend a good chunk of the novel trying to figure out how different aspects of the plot are connected because so many random things are going on. But despite the randomness, I loved every new development. The role of Charlie’s daughter, Sophie, is fantastic. I love how she becomes such a crucial part of the story, but how laid back she is about all of the weird things that happen to her and Charlie—like when the hellhounds show up when she’s a baby, she calls them her “goggies” (doggies) and sits there whacking them on the heads with her toys. She’s a pretty minor character overall, but a great character.

One of the things that annoyed me was that time moves really quickly, and there aren’t any real indications of the passage of time until a while after it’s occurred, when Moore will mention Sophie’s age or what Lily’s up to. It’s just kind of awkward how much it jumps ahead, and I could have used a little more detail of what happened during the gaps.

But overall, A Dirty Job was a very fun, quick read. It can be pretty crude at times (and be prepared for an occasionally excessive amount of swearing), some things are over the top, and it certainly isn’t the deepest novel, but it’s just so damn funny and so riveting that I don’t really care. I can’t wait to read more of Moore’s novels (uh, no pun intended).

4.5 stars of awesomeness and humor

Natanya Reviews The Eyre Affair

Title/Author: The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde

Publisher/Year: Viking Penguin, 2001
Where I got it: Library
Why I read it: Who doesn’t love a book about books?

From Goodreads:
Welcome to a surreal version of Great Britain, circa 1985, where time travel is routine, cloning is a reality, (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem, militant Baconians heckle performances of Hamlet, and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection, until someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature. When Jane Eyre is plucked from the pages of Brontë's novel, Thursday must track down the villain and enter the novel herself to avert a heinous act of literary homicide.

When I finished The Eyre Affair, my first thought was, “This book is awesome.” Fforde wrote a fun, witty satire, taking place in a world in which literature is treated with such high regard that it’s hysterical. I loved all of the different lit references, and I loved how Fforde literally brought the novels to life. Of the classic literature mentioned in this novel, I’d only actually read Jane Eyre, but for the most part it doesn’t really matter if you’ve read the books referenced. While it was beneficial that I had read Jane Eyre because the version of that novel in this story is slightly different than the actual one, The Eyre Affair has so many different plot lines that it isn’t a huge deal if you haven’t read Jane Eyre. There is actually a short summary of Jane Eyre two-thirds of the way through the novel, though, so if you don’t want it spoiled for you, you may want to read it first.

As I said, this book has a lot going on. It really has it all—time travel, exotic animals, crazy cults, bizarre superhuman powers, et cetera. It’s over the top, both in quantity and the nature of the content. I read a couple reviews saying that it was too much, and in retrospect it was a bit excessive, but it didn’t really bother me while I was reading it (perhaps because I read it right after reading A Dirty Job, so I was in the mindset for over the top plots). I enjoyed keeping up with the different mysteries and storylines, and constantly wondered what was going to happen next, though it was a bit unfocused as a whole. While the multitude of storylines may have resulted in some not being explored to the extent they could have been, I still felt satisfied when I finished the book. Plus, it’s the first in a series, so I’m assuming Fforde further explores all of this stuff in the future novels.

One thing I didn’t really understand was the role that the Crimean War plays in this novel. In Fforde’s alternative universe, the Crimean War—which really ended in 1856 after lasting for 2.5 years—has been going on for about 130 years, and it’s the norm to have fought in it. I don’t know very much about this war, so I don’t really understand why Fforde opted to make this such a big part of the novel. If anyone would like to enlighten me, please do.

On the whole, I think The Eyre Affair has a great balance of humor and drama. It is very humorous and very satirical: every name in the novel is deliberately cheesy and reflective of the character, and before each chapter are quotes by the characters—generally from their biographies, journals, etc—which were a funny twist on the normal quotes before chapters or epigraphs at the beginning of books. While the novel didn’t really have much of a lasting effect on me (I’m writing this review about a week and a half after reading it and have had a difficult time remembering what I really thought about it), it was a fun read, and I definitely want to continue the series.

4 stars

Natanya Reviews A Visit From the Goon Squad

Title/Author: A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Publisher/Date: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010
Where I got it: Library
Why I read it: I kept hearing about it everywhere, and then Goodreads started a summer challenge for this book, so I put it on my summer reading list.

From Amazon:
We begin in contemporaryish New York with kleptomaniac Sasha and her boss, rising music producer Bennie Salazar, before flashing back, with Bennie, to the glory days of Bay Area punk rock, and eventually forward, with Sasha, to a settled life. By then, Egan has accrued tertiary characters, like Scotty Hausmann, Bennie's one-time bandmate who all but dropped out of society, and Alex, who goes on a date with Sasha and later witnesses the future of the music industry. Egan's overarching concerns are about how rebellion ages, influence corrupts, habits turn to addictions, and lifelong friendships fluctuate and turn. Or as one character asks, “How did I go from being a rock star to being a fat fuck no one cares about?” Egan answers the question elegantly, though not straight on, as this powerful novel chronicles how and why we change, even as the song stays the same.


While the plot is certainly interesting (and I think the above synopsis sums it up well), what really makes A Visit From the Goon Squad stand out is its structure, which I loved, in part for its uniqueness. The novel is a series of linked vignettes, where each story tells about a period in the life of someone, generally a person who was a minor character in the previous story. While this structure has the potential to end up choppy, I think Egan did a great job at telling us just enough and then smoothly moving onto the next person, though I did sometimes get the people mixed up. She also often switched to a completely different time—one chapter may take place when these people (many of whom are about the same age) were teenagers, and the next may take place when they’re middle-aged—so the fact that the book read pretty smoothly was all the more surprising.

On top of that, within each chapter Egan often suddenly explains what will happen to a certain character later in life. It made me really see these people from a different perspective, knowing what they would do and feel like in the future. I thought this was a really interesting stylistic move, and I think it allowed Egan to say a lot more about each person than she could just say within the story she was telling. However, I did find it a little odd how bluntly she threw out these details of people’s futures. The story would be going along, and then suddenly she’d say something like, “and then 20 years later so and so got addicted to crack.” It’s a very “these are the facts and that’s just how it is” kind of description, which I both liked and disliked. It was interesting because, without any emotions connected to them, I could work through how they got to that point myself, which was kind of fun. But it was annoying because it made the narration fall flat a bit…it just seemed odd to have such an emotionless narration.

The final interesting structural element—and one which I think, at least according to a poll on Goodreads, a lot of people love the best, including myself—is the “slide diary,” which is a chapter consisting entirely of powerpoint slides with diagrams, making up a piece of the diary of a 12-year-old girl. I thought it was an awesome idea, and it actually got a lot of the emotions and themes of the book through better than the prose did at times. I also think Egan made a good decision in only making these slides a single chapter of the novel because I think a lot of their appeal is in their suddenness and uniqueness. The only problem is that the transition back from these slides into the final chapter of the book doesn’t work very well. Though really, in my opinion the final chapter of the book just didn’t work very well as a whole. This chapter tells us what happens to a lot of these people, but—except for the very, very end (which is good)—it doesn’t seem like an ending, just another story.

Overall, A Visit From the Goon Squad was a quick, worthwhile read. It’s kind of all over the place thematically, and as you can tell I found the cool structure more remarkable than the actual plot, but I enjoyed it. Some characters were more annoying than others, but they all were fascinating and unique, and Egan’s style of storytelling is quirky and fun. And if you’re interested in reading a somewhat non-standardly structured novel, I would definitely recommend this one.

4 stars

Natanya Reviews Room by Emma Donoghue

Title/Author: Room by Emma Donoghue
Publisher/Date: Little, Brown and Company, 2010
Where I got it: Amazon, for my Kindle
Why I read it: It’s been on my to-read list since last fall, when I kept hearing about it everywhere, and it sounded really interesting

From Goodreads:
To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits. Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough...not for her or for him.

So first of all, the above synopsis is actually only half of the one posted on Goodreads because I feel that the full synopsis gives away too much of the book. If you’re going to read this, you should go into it not knowing much more than the premise. So don’t read the back, and don’t read the full summaries on Goodreads or Amazon.

Anyway, on to the review:

My expectations for Room were very high, but at the same time I was a little worried about a novel with a 5-year-old narrator. While this was partly what attracted me to the book, I thought it might be difficult to both convey enough information and still have the narrator really seem 5 years old. But ultimately, I think that Donoghue handled this wonderfully. Jack is a superb narrator and I do not think that this novel could have been told from any other point of view. His perspective is so unique, and while he may be a bit more descriptive than the average child, I did not have a problem believing that he was so young. Certain aspects of the novel do seem oversimplified, though: some things work out too easily, and others just aren’t as complicated as they should be. But I don’t think there is very much that Donoghue could have done to explain these while staying in Jack’s perspective; Jack couldn’t understand everything that was going on—and indeed, much of the novel focuses on Jack’s totally skewed perception of the world, resulting from growing up in the Room and from what his Ma told him. It’s heartbreaking but very interesting to see how Jack perceives the world. To that end, I loved how much detail Donoghue included regarding Jack’s perceptions and the various aspects of the world that he did not know or did not understand. I think she thought of many things that I would have never considered, like the fact that at age five Jack has never worn shoes before because there is no reason to within the confines of the Room.

I did find the middle of the book kind of boring. While I didn’t have any trouble getting through it, that chunk of the book just doesn’t stand out to me. And in fact, while I enjoyed Jack’s narration and reading everything that happens to him and his Ma, I guess I was expecting more. I can’t say that I was really disappointed, but I will say that I didn't love Room as much as I expected to, nor was it the emotional roller coaster I anticipated (I feel like it moved too quickly to be extremely emotional). I really, really wanted to love this book. I wanted it to shred me up then piece me back together. But my expectations were too high. It was very interesting and compelling, with a fascinating premise, and I do consider it a worthwhile read, but it was not quite what I expected.

3.75 slightly hesitant stars (it was hard enough to get myself to drop this below 4, but I just don’t feel like it really was a 4…)

Natanya Reviews Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Title/Author: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
Publisher/Year: Kodansha International Ltd., 1991
Where I got it: Libraryyy
Why I read it: I loved Murakami’s Norwegian Wood and Kafka on the Shore, so I wanted to read more Murakami books!

From Goodreads:
This is a narrative particle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey Whiskey and Bob Dylan, unicorn skulls and voracious librarians, John Coltrane and Lord Jim. Science fiction, detective story and postmodern manifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel, "Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" is the tour de force that expanded Haruki Murakami's international following, tracking one man's descent into the kafkaesque underworld farce, compassion and detachment, slang and philosophy. The result is a wildly inventive fantasy and a meditation on the many uses of the mind.

[Note: I’m trying not to say too much about what actually happens in this novel because it’s really better to go into it not having any idea what’s going on, so sorry for the choppiness of this review. Also, Murakami puts my mind all over the place…he just has this amazing way of doing that. So that also contributes to the messiness of this review.]

So I’ve only read two of Murakami’s books (plus part of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle), but I do think it is safe to say that Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is Murakami through and through. It is structured with two different plotlines in alternating chapters, one taking place in modern-day Japan, and the other in “the Town,” which is a strange, utopic town in an unknown location. I loved having these two plotlines because they each maintain a certain degree of mystery, but it was clear that the reader would eventually understand how they are linked. I actually had a lot of fun making little connections between the two storylines, and the line between the two worlds gets blurrier and blurrier, even once you learn what the second world is. Both worlds have fantastical elements, but I love that Murakami’s fantasy is more like a quirky magical realism, where it exists but it doesn’t turn the novel into a hardcore fantasy novel. Murakami’s magic is so small but so powerful; it’s barely present, but he gives us glimpses into the possibility of a whole magical world. It kind of reminded me of a light (in terms of the amount of fantasy, not in terms of the book as a whole) version of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere (which I reviewed last summer and didn’t like as much as I liked Murakami’s novel).

While this novel has aspects of both sci fi and fantasy, I really hesitate to categorize Murakami’s novels because they have so many different things going on. I’d put them in their own category, really, and because of that I think that they appeal to a broad audience. Of course, you do have to be prepared to be confused at times, and Murakami definitely does not tie up everything totally neatly at the end. By the end, there were a number of things that still didn’t make sense, and that bugged me. I’m assuming it was purposeful, but it would have been nice to have gotten just a little bit more explanation. I also wasn’t crazy about the ending. I’m not sure if it’s that it wasn’t what I wasn’t expecting because I really don’t even know what I was expecting. I knew things wouldn’t end up perfect, but I felt somewhat unsatisfied by the ending. But again, I really don’t know how else I could have expected it to end.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is the kind of book that gets you thinking-- thinking about thinking, and about the mind, which is a major focus of the novel. I was exhausted by the time I finished reading it (exhausted in a good way, though), and though it wasn’t absolutely amazing, it was certainly a great book. Depressing, but great. So basically, as I said at the beginning of this review, it was very Murakami.

4 stars

Get to Know The Broke and the Bookish: Interview with Natanya

Hey guys! I’m Natanya, a 19-year-old rising junior double majoring in Comparative Literature (with what I guess is a specialization in French lit) and Sociology. I’ve been reading and writing my whole life and blogging on and off for many years, so book blogging seemed like a pretty natural transition, and I’ve had a great time doing it this last year! (And thanks for bearing with my Margaret Atwood obsession!)

Anyway, here are some things about me…I’ll try not to ramble too much. :)

1. What were some of your favorite books as a child?
My absolute favorite book was The Two Princesses of Bamarre, by Gail Carson Levine, which I have probably read more times than any other book in my life, and I read every other one of her books too. I also loved the Shadow Children series (Among the Hidden, Among the Impostors, etc.) by Margaret Peterson Haddix, though sadly by the time the last couple came out I had outgrown them too much to fully enjoy them. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin was also one of my favorites. I used to read a lot of mystery novels (I was a bit of a Nancy Drew nerd), and The Westing Game was my favorite.

2. How do you balance reading and school/work?
Oy. Well, since I’m a comparative literature major, I actually read a TON of books for school, which makes it even more difficult to read books for fun. While many of the books I read for class are really good, having to read a full novel in 2 days kind of dulls the wonderfulness of what I’m reading, as well as my desire to read anything else. So, in short, I really don’t balance them. I try to read as many books as possible over breaks because I know that I won’t have the energy to read any more than required during the semester. It really sucks.

3. Are there any types of books you WON’T read?
I don’t read trashy romance novels, and I’ve never been very interested in the majority of historical fiction, though it depends on the time period and type of novel. I’m also not a fan of long series. I used to read series when I was younger, but by the end, I’d just get bored with them. In particular, I really have no desire to read any of those really long series of sci fi or fantasy novels. Also, much to my best friend’s chagrin, I refuse to read manga. Maybe I’d like it, but seeing how caught up manga-readers get in that world, I don’t want to find myself never reading anything else, especially because there are SO many books I want to read. And finally, while through high school my reading was split about 50/50 YA and adult fiction, I now rarely read YA. I know there are some very good ones, but I’ve read enough not very good ones that I lost my desire to read them, except on rare occasion when I’m in a reading rut (ie. when I can’t find anything to hold my interest—YA novels tend to be especially good at grabbing my interest, even if they don’t leave me with much to think about afterward).

4. What is your dream bookish job?
I want to be a book editor at a small publishing company. That is both my dream bookish job and my actual dream job. I love reading and editing, so this just seems perfect. More specifically, I want to be at a small publisher in Vancouver, BC, because Vancouver is amazing (the picture to the right is at Stanley Park in Vancouver…so pretty!). I don’t really want to work for any of the publishing giants in NYC or San Francisco…that world really just doesn’t appeal to me, even though they publish plenty of fantastic books. It’s just too businessy. I’d prefer to not work for a corporation if I can help it.

5. Favorite place to shop for books?
I don’t buy very many books (life of a broke and bookish collegiate), but I love small used and independent bookstores. I love the cozy atmosphere, and I love getting lost between the bookcases. Also, there is a bookstore in Seattle that has cats, which is awesome because I love cats. And the first time I went there, the mama cat had just had kittens, which were the cutest little things ever.

Five random things about me:

1. I love reptiles and amphibians, but my mom never really let me own any, and now that I’m away at school, I don’t live in one place for long enough to have a real pet. I had a couple African Dwarf Frogs during high school (they’re aquatic and are only a little more difficult to care for than goldfish), but I can’t wait until I have my own permanent home so I can get frogs, a snake, a lizard, or something like that.
   
   
2. I was born in Virginia, then spent 2 years in North Carolina, and then moved to just outside of Seattle, Washington when I was 6. My parents are both from New York City, though, and all of my extended family is still in the NY/NJ area, so that is largely how I ended up in New York for college. I’m in upstate NY (Finger Lakes region), which is pretty disconnected from the world, but is absolutely gorgeous, especially right now during the summer.
   
   
3. I have a horrendous memory, which, when combined with my state as an organizational freak, means that I have post-it notes everywhere and set reminders on my phone for everything. My friends kind of like my bad memory, though, because it means that they can tell me the same story multiple times and I won’t remember the first time (and, of course, when I was younger, my friends told me all of their secrets because they knew I’d forget them, which I generally did).
   
   
4. Lately, I’ve been dreaming of working on a little organic farm for the rest of my life. Or at least for part of my life. I’d love to take a year off after I graduate, before starting my “career,” and working on a farm in California. Alternatively, it would be awesome to go live on a kibbutz in Israel for a year, especially because I’d love to re-learn all of the Hebrew I’ve lost after taking 6 years of French.
   
   
5. I decided to be a vegetarian my freshman year of college, and have kept up with it partly just because it seems weird to go back to eating meat, even though it’s been less than 2 years. While I do sometimes miss meat, I’ve eaten so many new types of vegetarian dishes, many of which I probably wouldn’t have tried if I wasn’t a vegetarian!

Well, if you've made it to the end of this massive post, thanks for reading!

Natanya Reviews Life...With No Breaks

Title/Author: Life…With No Breaks by Nick Spalding
Publisher/Year: Racket Publishing, 2010
Where I got it: Amazon, for my Kindle
Why I read it: I for some reason downloaded a sample of it at some point, and I liked the sample enough to shell out the $3 for the full book

From Goodreads:
"I'm Nick Spalding and I had an idea. What if I tried to write a book about life...with no breaks? An entire book, in one go. Could I do it? And how would it turn out?"

Join author Nick Spalding as he wends his merry way through an odyssey of non-stop writing, covering a variety of subjects in a selection of riotous anecdotes, comedy asides and humorous stories...dredged up from a brain functioning on caffeine, nicotine and the occasional chocolate biscuit.

The book is written as a conversation with YOU, the reader...and with Nick you'll venture into the thorny topics of love, life, death, sex, money, horribly timed bowel movements and a deathly fear of sponges (amongst other things).

After finally actually buying a book from the Kindle store (up until now I’d refused to actually pay money for e-books), I was hoping to be in for a fun adventure. Spalding’s book starts out funny and witty, with a crazy story from a time he was drunk, and continues for the rest of the book as a series of random stories and musings. He suddenly goes off on tangents, which I often enjoyed, and these topical shifts are not too sudden, so it does work. His storytelling manner is humorous and not too drawn out, making his stories easy to read, and I liked how he addressed the reader directly, pretending like the reader is sitting there next to them. For the first third or so of the book, I was thoroughly amused.

But by the time I got halfway through, I wasn’t entirely sure why I was still reading it. While the beginning was funny, the book got kind of boring after that. I guess it’s because I’m not accustomed to reading books with no plot. This book really is a series of tangents, rambles, and musings, which Spalding wrote down as he thought of them over the course of the 30 solid hours in which he wrote this book. Because of this, the reader has absolutely no idea what he will talk about next, which meant that I didn’t have any real motivation to continue reading—I didn’t have any reason to care what happened later.

Furthermore, Spalding occasionally veers off from his storytelling into ramblings on things like religion or advertisements, and his thoughts on those are pretty typical—he doesn’t provide many new or interesting insights, but instead just restates some of the usual complaints in a slightly funnier manner. His stories are definitely better than these parts, and the funniest stories are generally the ones having to do with sex or alcohol, like his depiction of the awkwardness of losing his virginity. However, even the stories didn’t all hold my attention for long, which I think may in part be due to my inability to relate to some of them. As a whole, the book is pretty easy to relate to, but his discussions of certain aspects of life, like becoming a father, were things that aren’t relevant to me, yet he presented them as if I was supposed to be going through the exact same thing.

On the whole, I can best relate this book to an extremely long blog post, in which Spalding rambles on about many different aspects of his life. While a number of instances in the book are legitimately funny, others seem forced or just not interesting enough topics to be worth discussing. I do understand why some people may like this book, but for me, it wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t funny enough to hold my attention for long and, for a short book, it just went on and on (especially at the end). It wasn’t horrible, but was just…blah.

2.5 stars

Natanya's Giddy Account of Meeting Margaret Atwood

As you may know, I adore Margaret Atwood. At the beginning of the semester, when I learned she would be coming to my university, I nearly jumped with glee. I told everyone I know. They didn’t really care (I’m friends with too many pre-med people), but whatever. What’s more, I learned through the grapevine (aka the English Club list-serv) that I could sign up for a Q&A the morning after the talk! Basically, I was in heaven.

[Note: I didn’t take notes at the reading—though I did during the Q&A—because I didn’t want to miss anything, so that is why my discussion of her reading isn’t going to have very much detail. For slightly more detail, check out this article (which reflects my sentiments exactly) from the Cornell Sun about her reading.]

I waited and waited, and finally March 30th rolled around. I got to the auditorium nice and early, snagging myself a seat in the third row (nice and close, but not so close I have to crane my neck). Atwood was introduced by J. Robert Lennon, an author and Creative Writing professor here who wrote a fantastic article last fall about Atwood for The Walrus. And then…Atwood came out onto the stage. I literally held my breath. I was in complete disbelief that she was actually standing there, just a few yards from where I was sitting. I thought I was going to pass out. But I didn’t. And then she started talking, and started reading. She read a few absolutely hysterical stories from The Tent (including one depicting her cat’s discussion with God, and another called “Three Novels I Won’t Be Writing Soon,” such as “Worm Zero,” in which all of the worms in the world die), a couple non-humorous but still amazing poems, and an excerpt from The Year of the Flood. She then took a few questions, which she answered wittily and thoroughly, going so far as to ask one girl what more she would like to know.

Basically, I left Atwood’s talk thinking that if it was even possible for me to adore her even more, I now did.


The following morning, I woke up bright and early for a student Q&A, and this time, I was literally 3 feet away from her. It took a lot of self-restraint to keep myself from jumping up and hugging her.

I did take notes during the Q&A, so here are some of the questions and her (paraphrased, sorry) responses. Sorry these are kind of random/disorganized. She covered a lot in her responses, and I thought you guys might want to read some of them.

• Someone asked her what her favorite part of The Handmaid’s Tale was, but she said that she doesn’t like reading her own work because she knows what will happen. Instead, she discussed the origins of the novel: she wrote it in Poland, Czechoslovakia, where no one could talk about anything anywhere for fear of being overheard, and Alabama, in the hometown of the KKK. She also explained that if she wrote the novel now, it would be much different because of all of the new technology we have.
  
  
• Why are science fiction covers so embarrassing? The creators of the covers think that you need to be able to classify the book, even though these books often transcend the genre.
  
  
• I asked a question about why there are so many YA dystopian novels being written these days, and she said that it’s because kids are concerned about the future. In the 19th century, there were tons of utopian novels because they allowed people to disappear into a better world, but now we read these dystopias because we like seeing that, as bad as our lives are, “at least we’re not in The Road.”
  
  
• Writing tips:
  - Write every day, no matter how bad it is – there aren’t any shortcuts
  - If you’re stuck when writing, change the voice (1st to 3rd, etc). She explained that Alias Grace began in 3rd person, but then she started over in a different voice because she realized that the narrator knew too much.
  - Take into consideration the relationship between the speaker and their audience. For example, Jimmy in Oryx & Crake doesn’t keep a journal because there isn’t anyone to read it!
  - The stumbling block to dystopia is that the writer can try to explain too much, and then we get bogged down.
  

And the best part of the Q&A? At the end, I went up to her to get my book signed (The Blind Assassin, which I happen to be reading right now so I have it with me at school), and I mentioned that I write for The Broke & the Bookish and that I had written a piece about her last fall, and she seemed to remember it! Yay!

Sorry if this post was long and rambly. Seeing Margaret Atwood was one of those things I thought would never actually happen, and, honestly, I think I’m still kind of in denial that I really did meet her!

Natanya Reviews Obasan, by Joy Kogawa

Title/Author: Obasan, by Joy Kogawa

Publisher/Year: Random House, 1981

How I got it: Amazon

Why I read it: For my Comparative American Literatures course

Maybe it’s because I’m an American, or maybe it’s because the times I’ve been up there have been for vacation, but I have a very romanticized view of Canada. Growing up in Seattle, I spent a decent amount of time three hours away in Vancouver, BC. In fact, I’ve decided (upon discovering the sizeable book publishing industry there) that I want to ultimately live in Vancouver, which, conveniently, is rated by Businessweek as the #3 “most livable” city in the world. What I never really knew, though, was the history of Vancouver (or BC in general). I still don’t know much about it, but Joy Kogawa’s Obasan opened me up to a history I barely even knew existed—that of the Japanese Canadians during WWII. I initially assumed, like most people I’ve spoken to, that the US’s treatment of Japanese at this time was far worse than the Canadian treatment. I was wrong. While the Japanese Americans were protected by our Bill of Rights, the Japanese Canadians had no such constitutional protections. Unlike in the US, the Japanese Canadians’ land was seized and sold by the government, they were forced to pay for their own food and housing once interned, families were broken up, and, perhaps the worst part, they weren’t allowed to return to the coast of British Columbia until 1949, a full 4 years after the end of WWII.

Kogawa’s Obasan tells the story of the Japanese Canadians through the eyes of Naomi, who was a young child at the time, and her aunt. Kogawa uses various narratives, including Naomi as an adult struggling with her tragic past, Naomi’s memories from her childhood, her aunt’s diary entries from the 40s, and various government letters. I’m not much of a historical fiction person, but I found this novel so interesting, probably because it’s so real—Joy Kogawa is a Nisei, or a second generation Japanese Canadian, and Obasan is based on her own experiences. I loved the varying perspectives, and had little trouble distinguishing between them—Kogawa pieced the different narratives together beautifully to create a poetic and haunting novel.

This is by no means a fast novel, but I found it continuously engaging and beautiful. It is worth taking your time to read. I unfortunately had to read it in 2 days for class, but I really wish I had been able to spend longer on this deep, moving, and heartbreaking piece of literature. While it is not a book I would ever have even thought of reading if it weren’t for my class, I am so glad I got the chance to read it and learn from it.

4.5 stars

[P.S. You may know of my obsession with Margaret Atwood. Well, this week I GOT TO MEET HER! She did a reading at my university, and then I attended a Q&A the following morning (and got her signature!). She's amazing. Keep an eye out for a post about that in the next few weeks! :) ]

Natanya Reviews Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Title/Author: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

Publisher/Year: Random House, 1968

Where I got it: Every year, my university has the incoming freshmen read a book. Last year, I had to read The Grapes of Wrath, and this year the freshmen had to read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? My parents are alumni, and for some reason the university sends alumni free copies of the books, as they do with the freshmen. So I got this from my parents’ house.

Why I read it: It sounded like something I’d like. Well, really, I just liked the title.

From Goodreads:

World War Terminus had left the Earth devastated. Through its ruins, bounty hunter Rick Deckard stalked, in search of the renegade replicants who were his prey. When he wasn't ‘retiring’ them with his laser weapon, he dreamed of owning a live animal -- the ultimate status symbol in a world all but bereft of animal life. Then Rick got his chance: the assignment to kill six Nexus-6 targets, for a huge reward. But in Deckard's world things were never that simple, and his assignment quickly turned into a nightmare kaleidoscope of subterfuge and deceit -- and the threat of death for the hunter rather than the hunted...

I have to admit: I haven’t actually seen the movie Blade Runner, which was based on Dick’s novel. From what I’ve heard, though, Blade Runner is quite the action/thriller. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, though centering around Rick Deckard’s search for and elimination of Nexus-6 androids, is much more about perception, introspection, and the emotional reasons behind humanity. While these traits might not have led to quite as good of a movie, I think that the emotional challenges faced by the bounty hunter Deckard and the “special,” or “chickenhead” J.R. Isidore are what have allowed this novel to stand the test of time.

While the Goodreads summary above doesn’t even mention Isidore, a good portion of the novel centers around him and his struggles as someone deemed too unintelligent to leave Earth. These were the portions of the novel I found the most fascinating. One of the novel’s main themes is the difference between androids and humans, namely the android’s lack of empathetic abilities. While Deckard is supposedly the “normal” human, in comparison to Isidore he could nearly be classified as an android. Isidore has such an interesting way of thinking and responding, and is much more poetic and real than the often petty Rick Deckard, and consequently I loved reading about his thoughts and feelings.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a short novel and a very quick read, but I think that Dick fit in as much character development as possible in such a small space. I loved that the novel is filled with juxtapositions of the emotions and perceptions of Deckard, Isidore, and the androids. While there are, of course, parts of the plot that could have been developed further, such as the nature of the androids (and specifically one android), I still found this to be a great novel, and one that bridges the gap between science fiction and literary fiction.

4 stars

Natanya's Ramblings On the Dystopian Genre

As I said when I reviewed The Maze Runner, the YA genre, and, to a lesser extent, fiction in general, is being flooded with novels falling under the dystopian genre. Thus, I've decided to talk about the genre, what it is and maybe clear up some confusion (though I'll probably just make things even more confusing). While the YA flood is recent, the genre is nowhere near new. Within the dystopian genre fall such classics as H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, George Orwell’s 1984, and, one of my favorites, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Recently in the College Students group on Goodreads we had a discussion about the meaning of the term “dystopian fiction,” spurred by a question about lumping dystopian and post-apocalyptic novels together as one genre.

So, first of all, what is a dystopian novel? I suppose, like with many genres, the definition is subjective. According to Wikipedia, in literature, a dystopia is “an often futuristic society that has degraded into a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian. Dystopian literature has underlying cautionary tones, warning society that if we continue to live how we do, this will be the consequence.” Dystopian novels, though generally revolving around government repression, can involve a wide variety of situations, from the kind of micro-dystopia of The Maze Runner, to a more science fiction-like one in M.T. Anderson’s Feed, to combinations of basically everything, like Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, which includes government repression, corporate control, and a generally screwed up society. I think that dystopian fiction has probably become so popular as of late because of this multitude of possible conditions, as well as the eerie possibility that some of these worlds, like Atwood’s, could truly manifest if we continue our current lifestyles.

As to the question that prompted this post, I believe that, while there are a number of post-apocalyptic books that fall under the category of dystopian (such as Oryx and Crake), an apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic novel is only dystopian if the initial or final society is truly dystopian, as I defined the term above. For example, I Am Legend (though I’ve only seen the movie), portraying the life of one of the few remaining people on Earth after a disease turns everyone into monsters, is definitely post-apocalyptic, but it does not depict any sort of dystopian society. Maybe the society was dystopian beforehand, but we have no way of knowing that. Really, though, I’m getting a bit too technical about this. Like with all art forms (or really, like with everything), the line between dystopia and other genres can be pretty blurry, but, of course, that doesn’t make one genre any less meaningful/significant than another.

So, before I totally ramble myself into oblivion, that’s what I have to say on the dystopian genre. I love it because of its endless possibilities: everything from the fully technological society of Feed, where the control and corruption is nearly invisible at the surface level, to the barren (in multiple ways) and blatantly repressed world of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, to the closed society of The Giver, where the inhabitants know nothing of their society’s reality. I’m excited to see what the future holds for the genre!

What dystopian novels have you enjoyed? Anything to add to the difference between dystopian/post-apocalyptic or about the genre in general? 

Natanya Reviews Super Sad True Love Story

Title/Author: Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

Publisher/Year: Random House, 2010

Where I got it: Library

Why I read it: I don’t remember why I originally put it on my to-read list, but I started reading it largely because the title is amusing

Summary from Amazon:

Welcome to the day after tomorrow. In Gary Shteyngart's near-future New York, the dollar has been pegged to the yuan, the American Restoration Authority is on high security alert, and Lenny Abramov, the middle-aged possessor of a decent credit score but an absurdly low--and embarrassingly public--Male Hotness rating, is in love with the young Eunice Park. Like many of the clients of his employer, the Post-Human Services division of the Staatling-Wapachung Corporation, he'd also like to live forever, but all he really wants is to love Eunice. And for a time, despite the traditional challenges of their gaps in age and ethnicity and the more modern hurdle of an oppressively networked culture that makes your most private identity as transparent as the Onionskin jeans that are all the rage, he does.

Yup, it’s another dystopian novel reviewed by Natanya! (Keep an eye out for my soon-to-come musings on the dystopian genre in general.) Like with The Maze Runner, I found the dystopian world in Super Sad True Love Story very interesting. In Shteyngart’s future, every economic, consumerist, and social media problem (or maybe they aren’t problems) we currently are facing in the United States is exaggerated, to the point where people, like Eunice Park, live to shop, and where socialization isn’t for the sake of being social, rather for popularity and hits on video streams. Essentially, it’s like the popularity struggles of high school completely melded with youtube and twitter. More significantly, it’s a world that is terrifyingly and disgustingly plausible, easily evolved from our current society filled with people tweeting what they ate for lunch. In Shteyngart’s New York City, everything is either about appearance or politics, creating a truly aggravating, but compelling, society.

However, beyond that, most of my time spent reading this book consisted of either sheer boredom or aggravation with the nearly insufferable characters. Lenny is a complete moron who doesn’t really understand at all the society in which he lives. Consequently, he lives in his own bubble where the only thing that matters is loving Eunice, whose lifestyle and personality do not in the least mesh well with his own. I did enjoy getting to read the novel from the perspectives of both Lenny and Eunice (though mostly Lenny) through Lenny’s diary entries and Eunice’s emails, but on the whole, the plot moves really slowly, perhaps because of this narrative method. While reading, it is difficult to point out anything really wrong with the book (though Shteyngart’s writing is generally mediocre), but when I stopped reading I realized that not much had happened, and that I could barely even remember what had happened. When I was halfway through the novel, I had no idea where it could possibly be going, and only vowed to plow through it to see whether it got better near the end, and because I liked learning new bits about this dystopian society. It did, in fact, get a little better toward the end, when I finally hit the climax of the novel, but following the climax it went back to being totally bland.

But then, at the very very end, I finally came to the conclusion that everything that bothered me about it was put in on purpose. It was clear that it was a satire, but until this point I was unaware of the extent of this satire. Consequently, despite having spent the majority of the novel considering it a complete waste of time and wishing I hadn’t ever started it, after finishing the final page I was torn. On the one hand, I think it deserves a low rating because, even though it redeemed itself at the end, the rest of it was barely tolerable. But on the other hand, my revelation at the end made me accept and appreciate the rest a bit more. So, frankly, I have no idea what to rate this. But in general, I probably would not recommend Super Sad True Love Story unless you go into it really holding the mindset that everything is on purpose and is supposed to be, to some degree, funny. As for me, I probably shouldn’t have read it.

2 stars? 2.5 stars? 3 stars?

Natanya's Ramblings on The Maze Runner

Title/Author: The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Publisher/Year: Delacorte Press, 2009

Where I got it: Library

Why I read it: It sounded like something I’d like, and I was looking for a quick read

From Goodreads:

Imagine waking up one day in total darkness, unsure of where you are and unable to remember anything about yourself except your first name. You're in a bizarre place devoid of adults called the Glade. The Glade is an enclosed structure with a jail, a graveyard, a slaughterhouse, living quarters, and gardens. And no way out. Outside the Glade is the Maze, and every day some of the kids -- the Runners -- venture into the labyrinth, trying to map the ever-changing pattern of walls in an attempt to find an exit from this hellish place. So far, no one has figured it out. And not all of the Runners return from their daily exertions, victims of the maniacal Grievers, part animal, part mechanical killing machines.

Thomas is the newest arrival to the Glade in this Truman-meets-Lord of the Flies tale. A motley crew of half a dozen kids is all he has to guide him in this strange world. As soon as he arrives, unusual things begin to happen, and the others grow suspicious of him. Though the Maze seems somehow familiar to Thomas, he's unable to make sense of the place, despite his extraordinary abilities as a Runner. What is this place, and does Thomas hold the key to finding a way out?

I do not read a lot of YA these days, but I started The Maze Runner because I was in the middle of a very good, but pretty slow, novel and wanted something I could easily read on the airplane. Suffice it to say, I got exactly what I was looking for. I read the whole novel in the 5ish I hours I was on the plane, spending little time bored. With the YA genre exploding with dystopian novels (Uglies, The Hunger Games, et cetera et cetera), I was glad to find Dashner’s maze unique and appealing, constantly stirring my curiosity and making me wonder what he was going to throw at these kids next.

What the novel lacks, however, is development. The simplicity of the writing and the story indicate that it is written for a younger audience, perhaps of the 11-14 range (Amazon labels it as grades 6-10), but the plot still appeals to older teenagers, and Dashner unfortunately opened a lot of doorways through which he never stepped. I spent the first half of the novel wanting to yell at Thomas because he kept stating the obvious and acting like a whiny brat. I know his situation certainly validated the whininess, but I had a hard time feeling sympathetic. Aside from the final major battle, most of the problems in the novel are solved too easily and quickly—for example, nights which would logically feel to go on forever to the boys end very quickly. I suppose Dashner was trying to keep the story from lagging, but it ended up too simple and unrealistic. This attempt to keep the story moving resulted in a lack of character development and kept him from taking advantage of all of the opportunities his compelling environment offered. In addition, the novel’s ending, which itself was abrupt and clearly thrown in just to pave the way for the sequel, is a bit too much like all of the other dystopian novels I’ve read. However, there is still time for Dashner to make it more distinctive, and I do think I’ll read the next book at some point (maybe on the plane back to school) to see where he goes with the story.

Although I took little away from The Maze Runner, it had a great premise and moved at a quick pace, allowing minimal time for boredom. It was a good choice for reading on an airplane, and also worked well as a break from a slower but more thought-provoking book.

3 stars