Reading...Forgive me, Leonard Peacock

I knew going into it, that Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick was going to be a tough read in some ways. After all, you find out within the first few pages that Leonard Peacock is planning to shoot a classmate then kill himself. This plot point on its own is heavy stuff, not to mention the likely revelation of what event or events are motivating Leonard to walk toward this choice. However, having read Matthew Quick's novel Silver Lining's Playbook, I was confident in Quick's ability to handle serious subjects. Thankfully, my confidence was rewarded. Quick sheds light on subjects like depression, severe loneliness, bullying, abandonment, and abuse, and puts them in a context of hope. He tells a story that is respecful of pain, trauma, and despair, but approaches it from the viewpoint of someone who believes that people can help each other through these desperate situations.

Now, I'm not going to lie: this book was heartbreaking, and it's not going to be for everyone. Kids being abused isn't exactly easy to read about, even in past tense. It would be easy to get bogged down thinking about how there are real kids going through this kind of stuff (and more) every day. And the ending isn't exactly "and they all lived happily ever after." Of course...that all depends on how you look at it.

Clearly, I connected with the tone and heart and themes of this book. But more than that, Quick is a talented writer. Leonard's voice rings true, and each character is distinctive. And something that stood out to me personally: Leonard strikes up a slightly odd relationship with a teenage girl who hands out Christian tracts at the train station, and I appreciate that Quick writes this character respectfully. Lauren is very firm in her faith and beliefs, but it's a blind faith -- the faith of a teenage girl who hasn't delved deep into the things she's always been taught. Leonard asks her some valid and tough questions, and she doesn't really have satisfactory answers (in fact, she gets a little upset at Leonard's challenges). As a Christian, I wanted to sit down with Leonard and answer his questions -- they were good questions! Perfect for some honest dialog about faith and God. And I wanted to sit down with Lauren and say -- look, sweetie, I appreciate your determination and doggedness, but you need to step back and really THINK. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid of a deeper look.

Anyway, that stood out to me, but probably won't to other readers in quite the same way. The bottom line is: this book is heartbreak and hope. A wake-up call and a challenge.

Reading...The Dream Thieves

 The Dream Thieves, by Maggie Steifvater is the oh-so-delicious sequel to Raven Boys. I kind of wish I'd re-read Raven Boys just to help me remember some of the details of the story, but I still thoroughly enjoyed this latest adventure with Gansey, Ronan, Adam, Noah, and Blue (and Blue's family....and the Grey Man...not Kavinsky, because he's just CRAZY and super creepy and pretty much a sociopath). So here are some thoughts...

1. Ronan takes center stage in this book, and becomes more than the slightly unhinged, rough around the edges, unpredictable one. He's a kid who is confused and hurting and lost.

2. As much as I despised Kavinsky, he's kind of the anti-Ronan. By that, I mean that Ronan could have been Kavinsky. They have some striking similarities....but Ronan has his brothers (ok, he has Matthew. What's Declan good for at this point?), he has Gansey and Adam and Noah. And before his dad died, he had a mom and a dad who loved him. And in a lot of ways, I think it's these relationships that really ground Ronan and help him take a healthier path.

3. Love all the relationships in this book and how they're alive (you know...like real live relationships). Adam and Gansey, Adam and Blue, Blue and Gansey, Ronan and Gansey, Blue and her mom and her aunts/cousins....

4. Still fantastically atmospheric. I was there in the hot, summertime Virginia mountains. In Gansey's parent's mansion.

5. For some reason during this book I kept picturing Logan from Gilmore Girls as Gansey.

6. The Grey Man = nice addition to the cast of characters.

All in all, a great sequel. It was great spending time with the kids of Henrietta and Aglionby.

Reading...The Bookman's Tale

The Bookman's Tale: A Novel of Obsession, by Charlie Lovett was given to me by a friend who knows my bookish weaknesses. The book opens in a bookshop in Hay-on-Wye, Wales (see: bookish weakness, stories set in Great Britain), where an antiquarian book dealer stumbles upon a Victorian painting that looks exactly like his recently deceased wife. Peter Byerly is not dealing well with his grief and the loss of his wife, and this picture lights a fire inside of him, urging him to figure out where it came from, who painted it, and who is pictured. His quest leads him into a mystery surrounding a history-making rare manuscript, a centuries-old family feud, a blackmail scheme and murder.

As Peter's present-day story unfolds, the author uses alternating chapters to also tell us the story of the manuscript and more of Peter and Amanda's story. I enjoyed the alternating time periods and point of views, the reveal of more layers to both Peter and the mystery. The author is also clearly a rare books officianado himself, because this story is as much a story about books and the love of books (the older the better) as it is about the characters and plot. It's a book for booklovers.

For a mystery, the pace was a bit slow, but personally I don't think that detracted from the story at all. I actually enjoyed it. Reading the book brought to mind chilly, rainy days, crackling fires, musty libraries, and good strong cups of tea. In a word: yes, please! (okay, that's two words)

Books!

I got to attend the Austin Teen Book Festival last weekend. Fun times! I'd never been to a book festival like that before, so it was a cool experience. I went to three author panels and got a book signed (Dream Thieves by Maggie Steifvater. CANNOT wait to read it!). Hubby came along to get a book or three signed by Brandon Sanderson who was there with his new YA book Steelheart which has a pretty cool premise: what if people started getting super powers but did not take the advice of Peter Parker's uncle? What if all the super powered people were jerks and the regular people wanted to fight back. It looks like a quick read, so hopefully I'll get to pick it up soon as well. It's always a good time to hang out with people who share your interests and who get excited about the same things you're excited about.

Reading...The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

I don't read a lot of non-fiction, but The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is my kind of non-fiction. Educating, but entirely engrossing. Skloot weaves a story instead of just laying down the facts. Henrietta Lacks was a poor black woman in Baltimore who died in the early 1950s of ovarian cancer when she was 31. As was a common practice in the 1950s, a doctor took a tissue sample from Henrietta -- one of healthy cells and one of her cancerous cells -- for research. A biologist at Johns Hopkins was attempting to grow cells in culture and asked the doctor for part of the sample for his research. Henrietta's cells -- dubbed HeLa -- did what none of the scientist's cells had done before. They survived, and they grew, and they thrived. They made it possible for scientists to experiment and conduct studies on live human cells, paving the way for amazing advances in medical and scientific research -- from the polio vaccine, to a multitude of medications. Her cells have been in space and have been blased with a nuclear bomb.

But what Skloot does is give you a context beyond just research and science -- she tells you the story of Henrietta and her family. She takes you to a small tobacco farm in Virginia, and to the streets of Baltimore. She shows how Henrietta's death affected her family, while her immortal cells were simultaneously affecting the whole world.

In some ways, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is controversial, because readers are presented with ethical issues of tissue rights and informed consent. Who should or should not profit from tissues taken from a person's body? Who should have say over what research is done with a person's tissue? In an age of genetic research, what are the implications to people's privacy? Race, poverty, education, healthcare, medical reasearch, ethics, and faith are all themes that run through this book. However, Skloot skillfully weaves all of this into a wonderful, fair, and very informative narrative. I learned something, I was outraged, I was inspired, I may have teared up a bit at one point, and I was most of all interested until the last page.

Bottom line: if you like biographies, history, or science and narrative non-fiction, pick up this book.

A few book things I'm excited about

Cole & Isabel get their own story

Only a month(ish) until the release of Across a Star-Swept Sea

Austin Teen Book Festival -- I may actually, finally get to have a book signed by Maggie Stiefvater. Plus...I will finally have my grubby little hands on a copy of Dream Thieves. I AM SO EXCITED!!! (and I wonder if my wallet can stand to get a copy of Spirit and Dust by Rosemary Clement-Moore. Because her books are just cool).

I'm currently trying to furiously read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for work (it's really good, by the way. I'll talk about it more when I'm finished) while also trying to finish the never-ending moving/unpacking to-do list. (tip: it takes much longer to unpack/get things settled and sorted when you immediately start work upon moving. I know, I know....amateur stuff. It's been a few years).

Reading...Siege & Storm and Crown of Embers

The upside of a city commute is the perfect opportunity to listen to audiobooks. The upside of a two day half-way-across the country drive (and the ability to read while riding in a moving vehicle), is the plentiful down-time in which to read. Which means...despite my slow pace through most books lately, I've finished two in the past few weeks, a couple of really enjoyable young adult fantasies (and, oddly enough, both are second books in planned trilogies).

Siege and Storm, by Leigh Bardugo is the second in the author's Grisha trilogy. And I may like this book even more than the first (perhaps helped by the excellent narrator of my audiobook). The Russian-inspired setting still shines -- rich, detailed, and evocative. Bardugo has really ramped up the tension in this book, right from page one. I continue to think Alina is one of the most annoying yet sympathetic protagonists I've met in a while. Mal continues to be awesome, and the Darkling is the creepiest creepster around. There are some really fantastic character additions: Tamar, Tolia, Nikolai/Sturmhond. The pacing was spot on -- the story going deeper, deeper, deeper and with plenty of "What?!" moments.




 

The Crown of Embers, by Rae Carson is another solid sequel. Elisa is now the queen of Joya de Arena, trying to establish her rule, navigate court politics, and learn more about her power as a Bearer. One thing that really struck me while reading this book, is how this series is really a coming-of-age story. Sure, there's plenty of magic, intrigue, political maneuverings, assassination attempts, and adventure. But, at its heart, it's the continuing story of a girl learning that she isn't the fat, ugly, helpless girl she believed herself to be. It's about a girl realizing that instead of just reacting (sometimes ineptly) to what goes on around her, or relying to other people to make decisions for her, she truly has the power to make her own decisions, to take charge of her own destiny, to be a real leader, and to be a queen. I continued to enjoy the world Carson has created, and my only complaint is that it occasionally seemed a bit....much. A bit overly dramatic. Lots of gasping. But overall a really enjoyable and solid fantasy.