Kelly's Review of "The Crimson Petal & the White" by Michel Faber

Title: The Crimson Petal and the White
Author: Michel Faber
Published: Canongate Books Ltd, 2002
Where I Got It: Bought it online
Why I Read It: Simply put, I felt like it

"Watch your step. Keep your wits about you; you will need them."

There has never been truer first lines in any other book I've read. The Crimson Petal and the White takes us on a journey through 1870s London. This isn't a place in the likeness of an Austen or Bronte novel; this is a dirty, corrupted city full of perverse men, poor children, and most abundantly, prostitutes. Our protagonist is Sugar, a nineteen year old veteran prostitute. She is infamous around London for doing anything and everything you please. Sugar is intelligent beyond her profession; she spends her free time writing a rather sadistic novel. Because of her brains and inability to say 'no,' she manages to become the secret mistress of a wealthy man. This man showers her with everything she's ever wanted, making her free of prostitution. Sugar's sugar-daddy is hiding some other secrets at his own house (namely, an insane wife). When these two worlds of his collide, many lives are changed forever, all leading to a rather shocking, yet spectacular ending.

While reading this book, there were times I felt I needed to get up and go take a shower. After copious amounts of descriptions of certain bodily functions, sickness, smells of back alleys, and the too-often sex scene, I seriously felt dirty. While that may have bothered me, the author certainly achieved his goal. Michel Faber did not set out to write a romance novel full of innocent virgins, dashing men, and days graced with sunshine and butterflies. He brought to life a story of less than perfect characters in the underbelly of society.

If you are willing to sit through 900 pages of what I described above, I promise you it'll all be worth it in the end. The characters are at times vile, heartless and mean spirited, yet you will fall in love with them in some twisted way.  My emotions were truly a part of this reading experience.

The Crimson Petal has been labeled a neo-Victorian novel, yet I don't think it is. Victorian novels are usually neatly tied up in the end, practically with an "and they all lived happily ever after" to boot. This one does not, which makes it so perfect. 4.5 stars.

Julia on Harry Potter and the College Age Kid

I still remember where I was when I heard about the phenomena that is Harry Potter . I was in the living room and my sister was reading a book so of course I asked what it was. She told me it was a story about a boy wizard and I thought I would give it a shot. That one moment led to years of fan-fiction, speculation (I wrote my junior year research paper on the art of guessing what would happen next in Harry Potter book), endless rereads, release parties (complete with costumes) and midnight movies.

I grew up with Harry. The first time I read each book, I was never more than two years older than Harry was and really could relate to him and his emotions. When I reread them as a college student, I was astounded at the literary depth I had missed the first go around and how she could make so many references tie together almost seamlessly across seven books. I read them in a whole new light that made me appreciate them even more.

I've been following Mark Reads Harry Potter, a guy in his 20s reading the Harry Potter series for the first time relatively spoiler free and blogging his each chapter. Experiencing them again with him as he read them combined with the first part of the last Harry Potter movie coming out has put me in a nostalgic mood. So I got curious to other's experiences with Harry Potter and asked the group.

Daisy said:

When I first discovered the Harry Potter books, 1-3 were in print and I got them from my parents. I loved them so much that while waiting for the Goblet of Fire to come out, I reread them over and over again. For about 4-5 months. I must have read them over 8 times in that period, my parents thought I was crazy.

I also read loads of fanfiction while waiting for the next book to come out, most of them centered around Harry's parents' time at Hogwarts. It gave me my Sirius fix anytime, he's my favourite character. I have to admit I even wrote some myself, one of those is a story I never finished, a cross-over between Harry Potter and Charmed, which I was also obsessed with at the time.

I have so many great memories from that time and just reading the books, the anticipation when the next one was almost coming out.. It's what made me start reading books in English, it took way too long for them to get translated!

Lori said:

I was 10 years old when I first read them. My grandma ordered the first three for me from Amazon. (I'd never received anything from Amazon before, so I remember it well) I don't recall expressing a desire to read them; they just showed up one day. But I did read them because I loved reading. I fell in love with them. Then I spent the next ten years of my life waiting for the rest of the books to come out. I never went to any watch parties or anything, but we always reserved/preordered the books. I started joking with my mom that the series is really about what was supposed to happen to me because I have a scar on my forehead. A couple of days ago we were talking about how I got it and I swore I saw a bright green light and heard screaming. She wasn't amused. I was 12 when the 4th book came out. I snuck it to summer camp with me, against my mom's expressed wishes. I cried when the 7th book came out and I read the dedication because it was, in part, dedicated to me.

Each new book that came out, I read and read and read and finished in a couple of days. I don't think that people who start reading now really understand because they don't have to wait two years in between each book. They don't have to resort to speculation; they just pick up the next one. My eleven year old cousin is reading them and all I can do it shake my head at her because she just doesn't get it and takes them for granted in a way. Yeah, that totally sounds crazy, but Harry Potter has been over half of my life.

Jess said:

I received Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone when I turned 10, from my uncle's then-girlfriend (now wife). I distinctly remember it; she purchased it from the Village Toy Shop, which I knew because it had a small sticker covering the price. I devoured the book within a day, and hopped on my family's first computer to see if there were more books. I found two websites (very bare bones by today's standards), one of which was the beginnings of the Harry Potter Lexicon. I heard rumors of a sequel, but it wasn't for sure. In the time between reading the first book and the release of the second, I read and reread the first book constantly. Something about the characters and the world J.K. Rowling constructed captured my attention. To this day I continue to reread the entire Harry Potter series at least once a year, often taking one of the shorter books on vacation as comfort reads. I'm also incredibly proud that neither of my copies of the Sorcerer's Stone and the Chamber of Secrets say "Book #" on the spine. (I was an original reader before Pottermania, I like to think.)

Jessi said:

September 22, 1999. I turned ten that day. My aunt was in town and she’s been one of my best friends since I was a little girl. For my birthday, I got a cassette tape of Britney Spears “Hit Me Baby One More Time,” and my aunt gave me a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone. God help me, but I was more excited about Britney Spears than Harry Potter. In all honesty, I wasn’t too thrilled about Harry Potter. This was before all the hype, and I really didn’t know too much about who this Harry kid was. Plus, at that age, fantasy books weren’t really my thing.

Hah. What did I know then?

Well, about a week later, I sat down with the book. I ate it up. And then ate it up again. And again. I loved Harry! Were there more books? I had to know. I went to school and we always had those Scholastic book order things, and I was big on those. I was so excited the day I saw Chamber of Secrets for sale! It’s been a love affair ever since. I bought the second and third books from the book order. I pre-ordered the fourth book, the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh, and I’ll be sure to pre-order anything else J.K. Rowling ever puts out.

I also decided to find out why people had not read Harry Potter or if there were any stories about that.

Stephany said:

I too have never read them. In all honesty, I don't know why I haven't. My friend Andrea is forcing me to read them. So, maybe someday!

Jen said:

I think I was in middle school when the Harry Potter craze began.  At first I didn't want to read the books because wizards and stuff like that didn't really interest me.  Then I think a couple more books came out and I just didn't want to give into the masses and I resisted the craze once again.  Then I felt that the books were hyped up so much that I was afraid of a letdown.  Now I'm a little more curious about the series...but unfortunately I've heard many spoilers so I don't think I'd be as engaged in the story since I kind of know what happens.  Lastly, I'm afraid of reading the books and not liking them.  I feel like I should read them and love them...but what if I don't?  Who knows, maybe one day I'll finally pick up the first book!

Jamie said:

I just wasn't into wizards or fantasy when they first came out. I started to read the first one and really liked it but I don't remember why I put it down. I just never picked it back up despite so many people telling me should. I think I've just felt like it would be as great as an experience for me because I wasn't young anymore. If you see our list of future Top Ten Tuesday's, you'll see one called "Top Ten Books I Resolve to Read in 2011"..you can bet HP is on the list for me. I need to see what I'm missing.

So what is your Harry Potter story? Have you ever read the books? Do you just watch the movies? Have you even heard of Harry Potter? (ha). I want to hear your stories, any and all (though I would like to keep the comments spoiler free, thanks)! As of this writing I am heading out to the midnight showing in a few hours and I am starting again to feel that anticipation that I've come to love... a new Harry Potter experience

Tahleen review: "Fractured" by Joanna Karaplis

Title: Fractured: Happily Never After? 3 Tales

Author: Joanna Karaplis

Publisher: McKeller & Martin, 2010

How I got it: It was sent to me from the author for review.

Rating: ★★★★

Fairy tales have been told and written down for centuries. Throughout the years, they've not only been told, but retold, and many have been completely revisioned. Fractured gives us incarnations of Snow White, Cinderella and The Little Mermaid, all old favorites, but with a very different twist. They're modernized: Snow White is Yuki (meaning "snow" in Japanese) White, budding graphic designer and friends of the seven dorks who hang out in the computer room. Cinderella is Cindy, fangirl extraordinaire and texter to the extreme—who manages to snag tickets to see her reality-TV crush at a Halloween party. And the little mermaid is Adrianna, a girl with a beautiful voice but the perceived impairment of a gigantic schnoz—thank goodness YouTube can get her an audience without her having to show her face.

All three tales are completely rewritten and re-imagined in ways I have never seen before, but they all retain the structure and basic story of the original fairy tales collected by the Grimm Brothers and written by Hans Christian Anderson. Karaplis manages to make everything work incredibly well—Snow White's apple, Cinderella's fairy godmother and the ball, and the little mermaid's impairment keeping her from her love (in this case, it's not a prince at all, but fame as a singer).

So let's break it down by story.

"Snow White and the Seven Dorks" is about, as I said, Yuki White, new girl in school, slightly badass, and awesome artist. She eventually falls in the geek crowd, not necessarily as one of them, but as their hang-out buddy, someone who also happens to use the computer room. Yuki is seriously awesome—she's got a sassy, sarcastic air to her that is just great (funny and charming) and it makes her incredibly likable. I wanted to be her friend. I also really liked how the story alternates between the present at the dance she's at with her crush and how she got to that point. There's a lot of development within the 30 pages of the story, not only in Yuki's character, but in her relationship with Kevin, head dork and all-around nice guy. This was by far my favorite, if only because I loved Yuki so much.

"Cyberella" is, of course, the Cinderella story. But this story is told completely in texts and blog posts (which are done by Trevor, fan blogger for the reality show True 2 Life). Some might find the texting to be a bit annoying, but I quite liked looking at the story through them. It's a new sort of epistolary telling, along the lines of ttyl by Lauren Myracle. Karaplis completely captures the language tweens and teens use in texting, accidental misspellings included. It makes it real. At times they seemed more like IMs than texts, but then again I'm sure there are people who text that frequently. My one problem was that the "prince" of the story, the True 2 Life star, says his Mystery Girl left something behind at the party, but then we never find out what it is. But all in all it's a cute story and I enjoyed it.

"Swan Song" is the story of the Little Mermaid, Adrianna (nicknamed Adi), who has a beautiful and professional voice, but a nose that she is incredibly self-conscious about. Her friend Fiona convinces her to create YouTube videos after a particularly awful encounter with a bully who targets her nose, and Adi agrees, as long as she doesn't face the camera. But looks aren't everything, and she makes a decision that will change the course of her life forever. It's a story about self-acceptance, even if Adi might not accept herself as she is—we can learn from her, as the story's title page indicates. And the ending gave me goosebumps, by the way. It's a great retelling, even if I didn't quite identify with Adi or agree with the decisions she makes. I kept telling her NO DON'T DO IT. But she did anyway. And if she didn't, we wouldn't get a Little Mermaid story.

One quick note about Jenn Brisson's illustrations. Each story began with a title page that included a tag line and an illustration. I loved them all. They look like pencil drawings, and they're set in a white oval on a black background. They all have this surreal quality, which goes very well with the fairy tale theme, and are all slightly creepy. Again, I especially love the Snow White one, a girl holding a circle with an apple on it and looking slightly anxious, with a crow in a top hat swooping under and around. Very nice.

If you like fairy tales, especially fractured ones as I do, I would definitely check out this one. Completely original tellings in a modern context—fabulous!

This is day four on the Fractured blog tour—see what other bloggers had to say about Fractured and some interviews of Jo at the other blog stops:

Nov. 15: Steph Su Reads and Word bookstore
Nov. 16: Word of Mouse Book Reviews and Bella’s Bookshelves
Nov. 17: The Reading Girl and Between the Pages
Nov. 18: Page Turners and Tahleen’s Mixed-Up Files
Nov. 19: YA Addict and YA Book Shelf

R holds forth on Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor

This is the first contact, as it were, that I've had with the works of Flannery O'Connor. I believe the Southern Gothic genre, of which this is a quintessential example, is one that is uniquely linked to the culture and geography of its country of origin... which may serve to explain why I (a non-American) had never heard of this title until I came across it on Goodreads. (I suspect that, internationally, lists of "classic" English language novels tend to be biased against American literature in favour of British writers... but I digress.)

Anyway, I've heard Wise Blood described as a comic novel - but if you approach it anticipating a barrel of laughs, you'll probably be sorely disappointed. That's not necessarily a bad thing, mind; it hasn't necessarily failed as a humourous work. The thing is, the humour here is in the uneasy semi-reality of the scenes, with the characters doing outrageous things that you could almost imagine someone doing in real life, although the very thought of it remains deeply unnerving. Wise Blood is chockfull of genuinely weird stuff that strays to the farthest end of dark comedy. If it causes any laughter at all I can only imagine that it manifests very occasionally, and primarily in nervous, slightly horrified little giggles.

Beyond that, if I'm honest, I scarcely know what to think about it. In that case, you may wonder, why bother to attempt to review it at all? Well, there aren't many books that leave me as bewildered as Wise Blood did. Generally speaking, the books I've read can be broadly categorized into two distinct categories - Books I Liked or Books I Didn't Like. My bewilderment at this book belongs to a unique category of its own; I rarely read a book that I think I like, though I find the memory of it vaguely unsettling.

It's a showcase of the dark side of religion, an exhibition of individuals for which religion and penitence act as a conduit for madness. Basically it's just fantastically bleak and now, having given it 3.5 stars, I might go off and stare at a wall for a moment to clear my mind.

Top Ten Tuesday – Paula gets evil with Villains/Criminals/ and other Nasties

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created here at The Broke and the Bookish. This meme was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list complete with one of our bloggers answers. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND sign Mister Linky at the bottom to share with us and all those who are participating. If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Don't worry if you can't come up with ten every time..just post what you can!

Next week Kimberly talks about the top ten best books to read during for the holidays..you know ..all those books that get you in the holiday spirit!  Kids books, adults books, all of them!

So I was pretty excited about putting this together. We may enjoy the good guys but it’s my thought that a great baddy is really what makes a story. There has to be something pretty evil to motivate the hero to defeat them, otherwise…what’s the point? What would Harry Potter be without good ol’ Voldykins? There would be no story, because without Voldemort, there would be no boy who lived, and there would be no issue. So, here’s my Top Ten List of super bad guys. Awesome!

10. Humbert Humbert from Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov – I love this novel. It gives me the creeps. It puts you in the mind of a bad guy who could really exist. It’s a difficult novel to read because the reader has to face a pretty intense internal struggle to keep reading it. Humbert Humbert doesn’t have magical powers or plans to destroy the world, but he is evil to the core. And the entire time you read the book, he is trying to convince you that it wasn’t his fault. Because his Lolita tempted him. Rating = Yucky.

9. President Snow from The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins – Leader of the Capital that is making everyone’s life a living hell. Constantly threatening Katniss, her friends and her family. He’s a baddy to the max. And I don’t think he ever really felt bad about anything he did, but he was right about the new President being just as bad.   Rating = A jerk.


8. Gideon Graves from The Scott Pilgram Series by Bryan Lee O’Malley – Oh Gideon. Jealous boyfriend to the max. He can’t get over Ramona so he puts together a league of evil exes in order to give her new boyfriend hell. That’s not very nice Gideon. Rating = He’s a pretty bad guy.


7.  Alex from A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess – Once again we have the main character of the story, Alex is living it up with his droogs and getting into ultra violence for fun. He thrives off of hurting other people, and that’s just not okay. Although once the government starts “treating” him with the Ludovico technique, you do feel kind of bad for him. They take his favorite thing, Classical Music, and make him feel pain whenever he hears it, which ultimately leads to his demise. That doesn’t change the fact that he still commits crimes. Rating = an ultra hooligan.


6. Big Brother/ World State/ Mechanical Hound  from 1984/Brave New World/Fahrenheit 451 (respectively) – So I grouped these all together because they kind of have the same theme. Government gone wrong. In all of these dystopian novels, the government has taken control of the citizen’s lives and placed them into a world of fear. Big Brother places anyone who questions their power in Room 101, a room where you are harmed by your worst fear. World State over pleases their citizens, so that if they question anything they are given too many pleasures (most often the drug soma) and they overdose themselves, and in Fahrenheit 451, your neighbors and friends are willing to sell you out to the fire fighters who will burn your home and set the terrifying Mechanical Hound on you that chases you until it has the chance to deliver a fatal syringe of drugs to you. Rating = I am SO glad I don’t live there!

5. Ben Cortman from I Am Legend by Richard Matheson – The leader of the vampires that are dying (hah) to kill the last remaining human. His one mission on the planet is to make life a living hell for Robert. Everyday when the sun goes down, he is outside Robert’s house trying to break in, or destroy Robert’s things as much as possible. Rating = pretty terrifying.

4. Mrs. Coulter from His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman – I think what is so scary about her is that she gets Lyra to trust her. When the books start, you think something is wrong with her, but she’s so sweet you just can’t quite figure out what is wrong. Like Lyra you begin to think she’s okay. Then she turns out to be crazy and evil. This is more about the first book, because her character does develop throughout the series, but no matter how much she did change, she always scares me. Rating = I TRUSTED YOU! You’re so evil though.

3. Hook from Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie – So I almost put Hook in the top position. He probably is my favorite, but he isn’t the MOST evil, so that kept him down here at 3. As much as Hook hates Pan and the Lost Boys, he isn’t really a threat to anyone else, and that makes him a little less intimidating. But he DOES have a HOOK for a HAND! Augh. Rating = He’s a pirate, that’s scary.


2. Voldemort from The Harry Potter Series by J.K Rowling – Don’t hate me for not giving him the top spot. Honestly, I think it’s a tie between these two. Man what isn’t evil about Voldemort. Killed thousands of people. Split his soul into 7 parts. Killed Harry’s parents. Killed a unicorn. Man, he just oozes evil. Rating = …um…he’s VOLDEMORT.


1. Saint Dane from the Pendragon Series by D.J. MacHale – Ok, um. I about to say something that a lot of you may hate. I like Pendragon more than I like Harry Potter. Augh. Don’t hurt me! I started reading Pendragon before I started Harry Potter and just finished the last one this year (I put it off because I didn’t want it to end). Anyway. Saint Dane… think Voldemort but he can shape shift and he is out to control the entire universe. Saint Dane goes onto territories (basically planets) right when they’re at a turning point in their history and tries to influences them (that’s where the shape shifting comes in) to end badly in order to control that world. He’s bad. He’s really bad. And the shape shifting really messes things up for Bobby Pendragon more than once. Rating = Shape shifting evil demon and the number one villain on my list.


Who do you think deserves top spot? Tell us your top ten villains!

Bookish Jobs For Bookish People (01)

* New Feature Alert! * This is a feature I wanted to start ever since we started this blog in June.  After a couple months of developing it and interviewing people..here it is!


As a blog run by college aged kids, the thing most on our minds, aside from books, is what the heck we are going to do with our lives. We all joke and dream about having a job where we could read or blog all day and feel pangs of jealousy when we encounter someone who does just that. In my (Jamie's) job search, I've realized that there are so many different types of bookish jobs out there that I had never even thought about. In college I never thought I could be in the book industry because I never wanted to be an author or an editor or a publisher. I didn't think there was anything else out there. I've come to realize that there so many types of bookish jobs out there for people of varying strengths and abilities and I want to spotlight these jobs... and thus begins our new monthly feature--Bookish Jobs For Bookish People.


I knew for our first Bookish Jobs spotlight that I absolutely had to have Erica Barmash from Harper Perennial. She is ridiculously awesome and, let's be honest, as someone who studied marketing in college I pretty much want her job! :)  So, give Erica a big warm welcome to The Broke and the Bookish!


Name: Erica Barmash
Job Title: Marketing Manager, Harper Perennial
How long you've been in this position: Just over a year, though I have been writing the Harper Perennial blog, the Olive Reader, for longer than that

What prior position(s) did you hold before becoming the marketing manager? Before this job, I was a copywriter/promotions manager in our advertising and promotions department for four years. Before that, I spent six months at a Catholic magazine as the assistant to the book review editor. Before that, I was a publicity assistant for a year and a half at Abrams, an art book publisher. Before that, internships.

What type of higher education or training do you have? What degree would the ideal candidate for  this position hold?  I have a BA in English. Before I switched jobs within HarperCollins, I was super worried that my lack of official marketing education would be a problem, but my boss learned her job from the ground up and had no problem with me doing the same (she started way back when as the assistant to our publisher, back when our publisher was the audio marketing director. Our publisher started out as the assistant to our president, back when he was the head of sales at another company. Lots of respect in our department for the concept of working your way up.) Publishing isn’t rocket science. You can learn what POS is and how to present at a sales conference, but no one can teach you how to work hard, be enthusiastic, be part of a team, and love reading. Those things are more important than degrees, at least in my experience.

That's a really great point. There really is no subsitute for hard work and passion. Describe what a typical day looks like for you: I usually get in around 8:45 or 9 and start tackling emails. I’ll usually spend the first hour or so of the day reading and responding to emails and doing email-related tasks like reading reviews bloggers have sent in, answering questions, etc. A lot of my job involves disseminating information—passing blog reviews on to editors, passing marketing plans on to sales, etc etc.

Then, around 10:30ish, if I don’t have a meeting that morning, I’ll try to tackle one of the bigger things on my to-do list. That could be anything from writing our monthly newsletter to sending out blog outreach emails to preparing my presentations for an upcoming sales conference. (See the attached photos of various to-do lists of mine for a better idea.

I almost always go to lunch around 12:30, and I almost always go with Mark Ferguson, the online marketing manager for Harper hardcovers. After lunch, it’s more emails, more meetings, more to-do lists. There’s almost no typical day, except that most days are busy, and a lot of them are fun.

Three qualities/skills you should have to excel at this job: On the practical side, it helps to be a good writer. Communicating clearly and effectively is really important when you’re a major conduit for information! It’s also helpful to be able to express your enthusiasm for a book in writing, whether it’s to bloggers or to other people in the company. Being aware of and not scared of the internet and social media is also extremely important. But maybe the most valuable skill—and the one that I still work on all the time—is to be thick-skinned. Sometimes that means that, after a disagreement with someone inside the company, you can let it go and continue to work with him. Other times it means that you are able to accept that a book you love isn’t going to do very well, no matter what you do.


What is your least favorite aspect of your job?

Every job has some boring clerical tasks, and this job is no exception. Processing invoices isn’t fun, but it’s necessary! On a more emotional level, it is really, really difficult when a book and author you love don’t get the attention they deserve.

Biggest perk of your job: free books! Knowing what cool books are on their way. Meeting and becoming friends with some of our amazing authors. Working with people who share a passion for books.

Tell us one of your best memories on the job.

I consider many of the people I work with to be practically family, and so we have a lot of great moments together, but a recent one happened when Amy Baker (my boss, our marketing director) and Mary Sasso (harper paperbacks marketing coordinator) road-tripped to the Boston Book Festival.

 
I'm sure it was a good time as I found out how fun you ladies are at the Brooklyn Book Fest. What do you think the biggest misconception is about your position/industry?
I think in general there’s a lot of confusion about what marketing does, partly because it varies from company to company and even imprint to imprint within companies. I’ve often been mistaken for a publicist, even by people within the industry. Outside of the industry, I think a lot of people view book publishing as being about nothing but low pay and long hours. But I think I work the same hours as anyone who cares a lot about his or her job, and while I’m not rolling in money, I’m also not poverty-stricken.

Complete this sentence. This job is not for you if.. you can’t do a million things at once!

What advice do you have for people who are interested in being a marketing manager for a publishing company?

Read as much as you can.

And now for a fun question. Childhood dream job? 
Published novelist. (I’ve got the novelist part down, now just need to get to the published part.)

I'll be reading your novel once it's published for sure! Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. As someone who so very much wants a job doing marketing for the book world, it's really awesome to know that passion and hard work is rewarded!

Paula reviews: Machine of Death: A Collection of Stories About People Who Know How They Will Die

Title: Machine of Death: A Collection of Stories About People Who Know How They Will Die
Editors: Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo and David Malki !
Publisher: Bearstache Books, 2010
How I got my hands on it: bought it on amazon

So I’m not sure how many of you followers are fans of webcomics. I would say I enjoy them quite a bit, I casually read a few – I’ll let their archives build for a month or two then read them all in one day but I routinely read two of them. I cannot start my day without reading Questionable Content (www.questionablecontent.net) or Dinosaur Comics (www.qwantz.com). Seriously, my days are incomplete with out these two gems.

Machine of Death is the brainchild of Ryan North, the writer of Dinosaur comics. Five years ago, T-Rex (the main character of Dinosaur Comics) mentioned how awesome it would be if there was a machine that would draw a small blood sample and then tell us exactly how (not when) we died. The fun part of this machine is that there is no avoiding this death. No matter how much you try, it’s fate, it cannot be changed. If someone’s slip reads DROWNING, no matter how much they avoid water for the rest of their life, they will drown. As T-Rex would say, super fun times!

The brilliance in this book is how it came to be, the writer of the webcomic, only actually has one story in this anthology, this rest is fan written. Pretty cool, huh? After North wrote that comic, the fan response was so positive that he called for Machine of Death Stories. Out of the hundreds received, these are the 30 best.


With all that being said, I’ve got to say, man I love this book. And let it be known, I’m not usually a fan of short stories. I don’t have anything against short stories in particular, but if I’m given the choice between a short story and a novel, I’m going to choose the novel. But these stories are sooo good! And there’s such a wide variety too. It feels like each time I sit down to read it, I think, there can’t possibly be a better story than that last one I read. And it proves me wrong every time! These stories are good because they explore the idea of whether it’s good to know how you die or not. Also, the machine is often cryptic in it’s output, that you may think you know how you die, to realize that you were completely wrong. There are funny stories, like “Torn Apart By and Devoured By Lions” where the character finds out how he’s going to die and becomes so excited about it, because it’s going to be the best moment of his life. There are sad stories, like “While Trying to Save Another”, where the character understands how he’s going to die, tries to get out of it, and realizes at the end that he has to save this person. And there are poignant stories, like “Nothing” which is a sweet story about a 170 year old man who will never die, and he hates it.

I don’t know what else to say. This book is good. Actually it’s great. Every story is good. Ryan North has been nice enough to put up the PDF of it online for free, so if you want to read it RIGHT NOW you can: http://machineofdeath.net/a/. But I encourage you read a sample of it online and if you like what you see, buy a copy on amazon (it’s only $10) because North self-published this beast, and it’s always nice to give back to a project so fantastic. Also, sidenote: the editors of MOD asked fans to buy a copy on the release date so they could get on amazon’s top 100, the response was so great that they got to #1. Let that be a tasty tidbit to give you an idea of how awesome this book is.

If you haven’t guessed: 5 stars.