Of Romance, Peaches, and The Chicago Cubs

When it comes to Sarah Addison Allen, I'm a bit of a homer. You know, someone who's so blinded by their love and devotion that they don't necessarily see the draw-backs. Apparently "homer" is a sports term almost entirely created for Chicago Cubs fans. Okay, not actually, but it is really a sports term.

When people ask me what my favorite book of hers is, I can never give a straight answer. I like them all for similar reasons. Great characters, charming setting, believable romance, and sublimely understated word-smithing.

Truth be told, I don't think I've ever taken longer than 48 hours to read any of her books. I devour them. And The Peach Keeper was no exception. I actually think I did it in about 20.

My only complaints with her books is that sometimes (ONLY SOMETIMES) I wish a darker theme would sneak in the story. I think Garden Spells and the abusive ex-boyfriend was as good as it got. I never asked for creepy. I think that would betray who she is as an author. But something slightly sinister. I have said this for a while now. And it paid off because SARAH LISTENED! There is finally the element of mystery. Real, honest, police-are-involved mystery.

One of her strengths as an author is weaving the fates of broken people together and The Peach Keeper is no exception. I really liked Paxton. Her southern socialite gig could have gotten old really quick, but early in the story the author dove right under the surface of that character, making her immediately identifiable. I spent most of the book really rooting for her. Even more than the other main character, Willa.

I think the thing I appreciate most about Sarah Addison Allen though, is her subtlety. I mean, that woman can craft similes that stick with you like the fondness for a kindergarten crush. But she never rubs your nose in it. There are some authors in the women's fiction genre *coughJodiPicoultcough* that pound their "art" into their manuscript with the dedication of a mean-faced nun at a Catholic boarding school.

Unlike her other books, which all had very appropriate titles, this title only makes sense if you hold it far away from the story and squint at it. And if you replace the word Peach with Promise...maybe. And as far as I can say, I think that is my only qualm with the book. It was a truly beautiful read.

When Angels Fall, Sometimes They Go: SPLAT

 I am so super-duper way ahead on my reading for 2011. Yay me. Part of the reason that I’m ahead is because I’m not tackling books like The Decline and Fall of the Roman empire or anything like that. Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock was quite fluffy and sweet. Don’t get me wrong, it’s everything that a YA coming of age in Wisconsin should be, but it was a very quick read. Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick was also a quick read. However, unlike Dairy Queen, I did not feel like this novel lived up to its potential.

***BLOGGER’S NOTE***

I think this blog is going to be a bit spoilery. I tend to do that with books I don’t like because I don’t want anyone wasting their time on it. No, I mean it—once, a girl updated her facebook to "omg, so excited to start reading Breaking Dawn!" So I posted the entire plot in the comments section. I ended my message with something like “There, now you don’t have to waste your time. You'reWelcomeVeryMuch”

Yeah, I was in cyber-purgatory working that one off for a while. But in this blog I will try to warn you if spoilers are headed your way. You'reWelcomeVeryMuch.

***END BLOGGER’S NOTE***

Nora Grey (I really just sat here staring at my screen trying to come up with the main character’s name for about 45 seconds. I’m sure that speaks to how memorable she was since I finished the book 2 days ago and it should still be fresh in my mind.) Nora Grey is as normal as any other Mary Sue at the beginning of a paranormal YA romance girl in her high school. She is uninterested in boys, gets dragged around by her cartoonish best friend, and is about as dynamic as a paper clip.

Nora's pesky Biology teacher (who is also a basketball? Coach, thereby “Coach” to the kids in the class) suddenly forces the students to rearrange their seating to sit with someone completely random. The purpose of this exercise? To use the powers of investigation (which is “all science is”) to get to know someone new. The chapter that they are studying that would predicate this activity? Sex-Ed. Someone please explain to me what teacher would encourage students to cozy up to a stranger better as a method of teaching them about sex. Anyone who has spent time with teenagers wouldn’t touch that one with a 39 ½ foot pole.

The author does try to explain this one away several hundred pages later by throwing a line of “yeah, I put that idea in Coach’s head, because I wanted to sit next to you” from Patch, the luv interest. It just didn’t feel like enough to justify the amount of time that was spent in that stupid class.

So of course, Nora is paired up with the sexy, brooding, and all-too interested Patch. His eyes are black, his skin is olive and his manner is genuinely terrifying at times. He starts to tell Nora lots of things about herself that a stranger shouldn’t know. What kind of music she likes (classical—oh, sorry Baroque), what school she wants to go to (anything snotty: Harvard, Yale etc), and what her greatest fear is (heights). She is, by turns angry about this and sexually drawn to him.

I mean, really, this whole cycle of lust/hate that went on for about 200 pages was riveting. And groundbreaking. And totally unlike anything that already exists in the genre. Like, totally.

Gag.

When I read Nora’s narration, I felt like there were three different versions of her. And those versions never overlapped.

1) There was the Nora who tragically lost her daddy to a random act of violence the year before. I liked this Nora. In fact, it was the only iteration of the character that I connected with. She really missed her dad and had to deal with panic attacks and gripping fear that something similar might happen to her. I wish the author had spent a little bit more time exploring how this affected Nora and her relationships. If it had been done right, I think it would have actually made her a sympathetic character.

The way it read to me was like the author threw her father’s murder into the character’s background and proceeded to forget about it while actually writing the story. Yet somehow, at the same time it was painfully obvious that the death of her father is not because of a random act of violence. I hope that’s a plot point in book number two and becomes something that actually affects Nora. Truthfully, that's probably why the author was avoiding the issue in the first book. Maybe I should go on Amazon and see if that's actually the case with Crescendo...

2) There was the Nora who felt threatened and violated by Patch. I identified with this Nora. If some kid in school had black eyes and knew lots of creepy details about me, I would tell him to take a hike also. Animal magnetism and sex ed class aside.

3) Then there was the Nora who was so super-duper intrigued by this smoldering hunk of man-flesh. I think most of my issues with this character lay here. I guess if you’re prone to panic attacks and you feel threatened and violated by a guy, there’s no reason for you to want to jump his bones. Seriously, if Timothy Olyphant was running around doing half the things Patch was, I would have no problem going to the cops and getting a retraining order against him. His uber-hotness would be completely eclipsed by the fact that HE’S A CREEPER.

And Patch didn’t stop being a creeper when she started hanging out with him alone. She would just trot off to wherever he was and get all giggly and tingly and hot—she got warm and flushed a LOT and I just found that a little weird.

Truly, I’m okay with all of these elements being a part of the character. I like complex depictions of people in the stories that I read, the problem is that none of these pieces seemed to interact. When a new scene started, I never knew which Nora to expect. She was very rarely (if ever) at war with herself or wrestled with the decisions she made.

I’m almost done, I promise:
*deep breath*

I wasn’t crazy about her best friend either. Things start to feel a little too contrived for me if the main character who has no interest in boys whatsoever, mind you, is constantly hounded by their boy-crazy yet slightly less attractive best friend. I don’t buy that Nora and Vee (Yep, just Vee. Not short for anything that I could gather.) would ever hang out. Maybe if there had been a line about explaining some history between the girls, it would have been an easier pill to swallow. They were just incredibly different and seemed to have different outlooks on boys, school, fashion, you name it. Vee was, as I mentioned earlier, cartoonish. She was the type of character that simply ran her mouth for the sake of it. It was a contrived and tired feeling plot-device.

Now that I feel like I have sufficiently blasted what I didn’t like about the book, let’s talk about what I did like:

The sexual tension. Character consistency issues aside, there were some scenes with great chemistry between Patch and Nora. This didn't really feel like romance to me, though, so his giant sweeping gesture of love at the end of the book felt a bit contrived. But this is the section about what I DID like: so the sexy level was good.

The mythology. Patch fell from heaven way-back-when because he was in love with a girl.  Aww. How very Manny Sue of him. I won’t give away too much incase you want to read the book after all of the wonderful things I had to say about it, but the mythology was interesting. Unfortunately, there just wasn’t enough of it to float the wishy-washy narrator and the contrived scenes.

I was underwhlemed ("can you ever just be welmed?")  and I think if Nora had been more consistent and the story had been a bit more mythological, I would have been welmed at least. I might thumb through the next book, Crescendo, to see if it picks up at all.

Then again, probably not...

Laughed so hard I cried

http://www.losteyeball.com/index.php/2007/06/19/56-worstbest-analogies-of-high-school-students/

Poor America. This is why crap like Twilight is popular.

June is a good month for books. A really good month.

I don't want to ever come across as "I work at a publisher and get books before you do, nanny nanny boo boo." But in the same breath, I will admit to you that I'm the kind of person that isn't good at keeping secrets. My own, at least. Okay, and other people's sometimes too. I grew up with siblings and we were always forced encouraged to share toys, clothes, and information. So it's the sister in me that is going to tell you about this wonderful book that you can't buy until June (nanny nanny boo boo).

Speaking of sisters:

Rosamund Lupton has written a stunning book exploring that exact subject. And murder. And genetic testing. And suicide. And the intricacies of human relationship. And the strength of love between siblings.

If there is genetic testing, compelling interpersonal relationships, cute doctors and a crime scene it usually takes a lot to talk me out of liking a story. But that aside, Sister is breathtaking.

Like, actually. I got to a certain part of the story and gasped. Have I ever shared with you how difficult it is to get me to be stunned by a plot twist?

Case in point: Pretty Little Liars There is a popular YA series that has been made into a TV show. I watched the pilot of the show, decided it wasn't worth my time and promptly ordered the first in an eight book series from the library, just to see if the strong premise was played out any better in the books. Books are always better than the TV interpretations anyways. Halfway through the book, I decided that there was a crazy twin running around making people's lives miserable. Wikipedia to the resuce and EIGHT BOOKS LATER it was revealed that there was, indeed, a crazy twin sister.

Sigh. At least I didn't waste my time on more than 100 pages of it.

Maybe I read too many mysteries as a kid. Maybe I just read too much as a kid in general, but there was absolutely nothing about that series that warrants how popular it is...other than the lack of imagination from pop culture these days, and how they would rather see pretty people running around on screen instead of being told a compelling story.

*Glances backwards and takes a cautious step off soap box. Grins.* I digress...

This book was rich. Texture, grief, weather, relationships, everything described in this book will evoke emotion from you. I walked around for three days feeling like my guts had been ripped out. I wanted to call my little sister every 2.5 minutes just so she was sure that I love her. I highly recommend this book to anyone that has a close relationship with their sister.

I think one of my favorite things about this book was the gradual way that Bee (the older sister) found herself sliding into Tess' life. To the point that their mother even comments on how similar she looks to the little sister. It makes you realize that no matter the seeming distance between you, the bond between siblings is something profound that doesn't exist anywhere else.

Sister from Rosamund Lupton was originally released in the UK and makes it's US debut in June 2011. It's the kind of book that I will purchase simply so I can loan it to people.

The Sweetness of a Very Good Read

This week, I finished The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. This was yet another free Random House ebook. (Yay, Uncle Random House!) But unlike a few other books I have tried to read lately, this one was a home run.

From the flap copy, I was charmed on several levels:

1) It's set in England in the wake of WWII

2) The main character is 11

3) She is a brilliant little chemist

4) She has a giant vocabulary

5) She has a flare for the dramatic. Who doesn't love that in their narrator?

This was one of the very small number of books our there that hooked me from the first sentence: "It was  as black in the closet as old blood." As the chapter progresses, you learn that it is her sisters that are behind this inhumane torture of hog-tying.

I really enjoyed the writing in this book. The characters were relatable. The setting was warm. But the truth is, Flavia de Luce is what makes this book worth reading. She ended up being one of my favorite narrators in a long time time. She was precocious, snarky, transparent, real, and a brilliant little chemist.

What I have heard/read from Flavia's critics is that they couldn't connect with her. That she was cold, selfish, mean, and larger than life. Somehow, they think this makes her unreliable. But I have to disagree. What I really liked were the moments that you remembered that she was a kid. For most of the book, you don't think of her as a 11 year old girl. She's just your narrator. What keeps her from tipping into "unreliable narrator" territory are the moments that her youth shines through. Times that she fights with her sisters, or has the desire to throw herself into her daddy's arms, or for about 40 pages at the end, she really is simply a brilliant 11 year old girl who hasn't fully figured out who she is. (Forgive the cryptic nature of parts of that sentence, but I don't want to give away too much.)

I really liked her relationship with her sisters. It was strained at the best of times, as with most sibling relationships thought adolescence, but even more than Flavia knows, her sisters are a part of her. Not in an overt way, but they flit in and out of her narration in the most charming fashion. Feely (Ophelia) the oldest and the boy crazy one is the brunt of Flavia's calculated wrath through a good chunk of the book. What struck me about this sister was: isn't it so easy for a brilliant mind that has not yet gone through puberty to pigeonhole emotion as "crazy"? Feely's passion for life makes Flavia incredibly uncomfortable.

And then there's Daffy. Quiet and bookish Daphne. She is a direct foil to the chemist in Flavia. Where Flavia is more comfortable in her lab cooking up the perfect poison, Daffy would rather have her nose in a book; in a reality that doesn't truly exist. Through her frustration with her sister's bookishness, Flavia's own hermit-like tendencies are thrown into full relief.

I think what I liked so much is that Flavia is trying to find who she is in relation to them, in spite of herself.

Gorgeous.

So, all of that to say: READ THIS BOOK. It is wonderful.