Going Bovine

Going Bovine is a YA novel by Libba Bray which I read thanks to positive feedback I heard from various sources (it actually won the 2010 Printz Award for excellence in young adult literature), and though it hasn’t become a new personal favorite by any stretch of the imagination, I can say reading it was quite an experience (sorry for the less than ringing endorsement). Going Bovine is about 16 year old Cameron Smith, an indifferent high school slacker floating through life without really living it. Cameron is an underachiever or maybe he just seems that way compared to his twin sister Jenna (“perfect hair, perfect grades, perfect social standing”). Cameron on the other hand just wants to do some pot in the school bathroom with his “sort of friends…if getting high in high school bathrooms and occasionally sharing a table in the caf counts as friendship,” sure he could care more, but you have to concede that when your dad is a college physics professor and your mom teaches in the local community college, you have a lot to live up to.

It’s in English class discussing Don Quixote that Cameron suffers the first of the hallucinations (at first thought to be marijuana-induced), where he briefly glimpses flames licking at the walls of the room as his body seemingly on fire with pain like every touch was connecting with raw nerve endings causes him to lash out and strike another student, namely Chet, Jenna’s boyfriend. This episode earns him not only a five day suspension but also a visit to a drug counselor and a shrink. Unfortunately, despite some nasty psych meds, the hallucinations continue until the last one lands him in the hospital undergoing a battery of tests wherein a specialist finally diagnoses him with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fatal neurological disease more commonly known as the human form of Mad Cow Disease.

Hospitalized after yet another incident, Cameron’s condition is quickly deteriorating when he is initially visited by Dulcie, a hallucination (or angel?) with pink hair, boots, a riveted breastplate and wings; she informs Cameron of his mission, which is namely that he can both save his life and the world if he finds the mysterious Dr. X, a time traveling physicist. Though at first unswayed by Dulcie’s request, Cameron quickly changes his mind and with the help of his hospital roommate, Gonzo, a death-obsessed, video-game loving dwarf, the two take off on their quest to New Orleans, Florida, and more as we tag along for the adventure of Cameron’s life; as he learns the difference between existing and living.

The book jacket describes this as a dark comedic journey, and while there were laughs to be had during this surreal adventure, I still found it more a tragedy than anything else. As a reader, I could never quite shake the thought that Cameron’s adventure, for all its farce and mayhem, was in fact the hallucination (or maybe heavenly sent escapade?) of a young man on his deathbed. In fact, you really can’t forget, as interspersed amongst the fun the author wrote in unexpected passages, sometimes only a sentence or two in length, that gave the reader a glimpse of Cameron’s true reality; so you’d be chuckling about some asinine hijinks or another, and the scene would switch back to the grim hospital room where a nurse is caring for his IV or his mom is heartbreakingly sitting by his bedside, gently stroking his hair and crying.

While the author’s message to live life to the fullest while you can comes through loud and clear, my heart could never quite fully get in on the fun; I think it was like a self-protective mechanism on my part because of the inevitable heartbreak I knew was coming. One other complaint is that parts of the book (mainly in the middle) are at times a little confusing. The novel heavily references Don Quixote, a book which I never read, so maybe that’s part of the problem. I will say that the ending is incredibly touching and poignant, and I also liked that in the end, you’re left with just a little bit of doubt as to what really took place: real or not, hallucination or heavenly dream.

I think I’ll leave it by saying that Going Bovine is a judge for yourself kind of book; for me, it wasn’t horrible, it wasn’t great; but in the long run, I’m glad for the experience.

The Good Luck of Right Now

I’ve been batting a thousand lately in my book selections, and this offbeat and uplifting gem is no exception. The Good Luck of Right Now is the latest novel from Matthew Quick, the acclaimed author of The Silver Linings Playbook, who has once again brought us a cast of quirky and original characters for whom to root and love.

Bartholomew Neil is 39 and newly alone since the death of his mom with whom he’d lived his entire life and whom he’d cared for after she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Bartholomew’s mom had been Richard Gere’s biggest fan and after the chemo and brain surgery failed and dementia set in she took to pretending he was Richard. By the time she was confined to the sofa bed in the living room with a morphine pump in her arm, Bartholomew was playing Richard twenty-four hours a day. As Bartholomew tells it, she pretended he was Richard Gere and Bartholomew “pretended Mom wasn’t losing her mind…pretended she wasn’t going to die…pretended I (he) wouldn’t have to figure out life without her.”

Bartholomew has never worked or really been part of the outside world; before his mom’s illness his days were limited to home, church, and the library. Now on his own, Bartholomew has no one except for Wendy, the young grief counselor (in training) who’s got issues of her own and Father McNamee, a friend and father figure who has been a constant throughout his life. Wendy urges him to fly “You need to find your flock now. Finally leave the nest, so to speak;” and sure, it sounds good but he is at a loss as to where to start, that was until he received a cosmic clue. Prepping his mom’s clothes for donation, Bartholomew finds in her underwear drawer a “Free Tibet” form letter from none other than Richard Gere himself and he sees in it a sure sign that maybe Gere was meant to help him now that his mom is gone, and so begins a one sided conversation as Bartholomew writes soul-baring letters to Richard Gere on a wide range of topics.

It is through these letters that we get a window into Bartholomew’s fledgling new life and growing hodgepodge family whose members include newly defrocked priest Father McNamee, struggling with alcoholism and bipolar disorder; the Girlbrarian, whom Bartholomew has loved from afar forever, and Max, her foul-mouthed brother currently grieving the loss of his cat. But what story could be complete without a road trip? Well, there’s one of those too, as this madcap bunch of flawed yet lovable human beings decide to hit the road in a road trip to end all road trips, making their way to Canada to visit cat Parliament, find Bartholomew’s long lost dad, and so much more.

I love this book! The Good Luck of Right Now is a charming, original and sweet tale of loss and grief, love and hope, and friendship and acceptance where it’s never too late to reach for your dreams. In Bartholomew Neil, Matthew Quick has given us a struggling hero (we’re never told of Bartholomew’s limitations, but I think it might be autism or Asperger), whose innocent vulnerabilities encompass a kind soul willing to put others before himself. A poignant tale where each character’s past hurts and loneliness is erased with the caring and understanding of new friendships and simple kindness.

While I was touched by each character, I must say it is Bartholomew who won my heart. I think it’s because I felt like I could so relate and empathize with his loss. Sure, I don’t have Asperger, though given my social awkwardness and anxiety sometimes I wonder, but I felt his grief and I understand the impact of losing a mother; of losing someone you not only love, but who was your life and gave your life purpose. Bartholomew’s love was evident in every shared memory of his mom; in the simple statement that “mom could make small things seem miraculous. That was her talent.” Equally apparent and endearing was Bartholomew’s goodness as through sheer kindness and grace he helped cobble together a family from these misfit strangers that somehow in this great big world were able to find each other.

The Good Luck of Right Now is a feel good story that is funny and touching; filled with your fair share of F-bombs thanks to Max, though that didn’t bother me in the least since each usually came with an at times offensive but always hilarious rant. Let me tell you that there is a humanity and heart in this tale not found in many books. The Good Luck of Right Now reminds us that love and friendship can be the light that illuminates our path on our darkest days and the courage that helps us face our deepest fears.

A Land More Kind Than Home

In 2013 I read a total of 46 books over the span of the year (an unprecedented number for me), so this past January I decided to up the ante and set a goal of reading 52 books in 2014; one for every week of the year. While I was going strong straight through April, work and other distractions threw me off my pace but thanks to my TV shows summer hiatus and a number of true gems which I was able to plow through in less than a day, including this book, I’m slowly but surely making up for lost ground. In fact, counting Mr. Mercedes, which I’m currently reading and more than half way through, I’ve read a total of 24 books. Woo-hoo! On a related note, thanks to a friend’s suggestion, I’m using Shelfari as a motivating force for staying on track; as you might have noticed I even added the widget here on the blog. I don’t know if you guys use it, but I just love perusing my virtual book shelf and giving myself a little pat on the back for every book I add to it.

Onto the true subject at hand, which is a review of A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash. Back in February I read Cash’s latest novel, This Dark Road to Mercy, which proved a wonderfully engaging coming of age tale and thriller rolled into one. Though I just found this mesmerizing tale, A Land More Kind Than Home is actually Wiley Cash’s 2012 debut novel; an engrossing thriller, character-based novel, and Southern tragedy all in one that so deeply immerses you in its setting, story, and protagonists that it reads more like a memoir than a fiction novel.

Set in Marshall, a small town in North Carolina, A Land More Kind Than Home tells the story of 9-year old Jess Hall and his older brother Christopher, a mute that everyone calls Stump. Dad, Ben, grows tobacco on their farm, while mom Julie is a devout follower of Pastor Carson Chambliss and his River Road Church of Christ in Signs. More cult than church with newspaper covered windows in their storefront locale, the parishioners handle snakes and perform laying of hands to cure their ills. Though Jess is the younger brother he’s always looked out for his older brother, but despite being frequently warned by their mom about snooping, one day one simple act of curiosity on Stump’s part has tragic consequences that lead to his death and set off a chain of events that pits good vs evil and changes one family and town forever.

A Land More Kind Than Home is a truly engrossing page-turning tale that I enjoyed from the first page to its tragic yet foreseeable conclusion. Inspired by a true story which took place in Chicago in which an autistic boy is smothered during a church healing service, the author transplanted our fictional tale’s setting to a place closer to home and as a product of the South and of North Carolina in particular, he perfectly captured the local color, the landscape and the culture of rural life in Marshall and made it an integral character in this tale. A bittersweet tale of faith, love and redemption; while the tale focuses on the tragic consequences surrounding the Hall family, our three narrator’s shared memories and truths reflect on their entire Appalachian community and tell their collective story.

Our story is told through three main narrators who each offer a unique perspective of events as they take place over the course of six fateful days; Jess Hall, Stump’s young and naïve brother, innocent to the evils of man and as such oblivious to the consequences of their actions on that momentous day or the result of ultimately divulging his secret; 81-year old Adelaide Lyle, the local midwife and moral conscious of the church, and the person solely aware of the venomous snake in their midst in the form of Carson Chambliss; and lastly, Sheriff Clem Barefield, the local sheriff tasked with investigating Stump’s death, whose life is intrinsically linked with the Hall family due to the death of his own son many years ago.

Each one of these characters is fully fleshed out with evocative back stories and memories shared through flashbacks that bring each more fully to life and movingly inform the reader as to the driving force which has shaped each of their lives. Adelaide and Clem are the more compelling voices; a fact which is undoubtedly due in part to the fact that they are older characters with more life lived and in turn more wisdom and insight to share. They’ve each lived lives scarred by pain and loss, yet equally touched by love and joy and those palpably conveyed emotions make them relatable and real.

Despite its heartache and loss, in the end the author redeems the tale’s darkness and its main characters with a sense of hope and healing. A Land More Kind Than Home is a powerful and poignant novel dealing with themes of faith and family which are brilliantly conveyed through three unforgettable voices.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Have you ever read a book that so charmed and enchanted you that you read its every page with a smile on your face? Such was the case for me with this wonderful and unforgettable novel. I smiled with joy, I smiled through laughter, and I smiled through my tears, as this tale’s words worked their magic and wrapped themselves around my heart like a dear friend's warm embrace. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry is a little book with so much heart, whose every page reminds me why I love to read. "No man is an island; every book is a world." Believe me, visit A.J. Fikry's world as soon as you can, because you won't regret it.

A.J. Fikry is the widowed owner of Island Books, a small bookstore on Alice Island. Embittered by life and loss, A.J. has successfully pushed away all those who care about him - Ismay, his sister-in-law; Ryan, her author husband and A.J.'s best friend, and even Chief Lambiase, with whom A.J. shares the painful memories of the night he lost his beloved wife, Nic. A.J. is lost; his bookstore is struggling, his life is a mess thanks to nights spent drinking himself into oblivion, and he can't move forward - living his life wrapped in memories of the past.

Life has moved on despite his loss, and he gets such a reminder when he meets Amelia Loman, the new sales rep for Knightley Press and the replacement for recently deceased Harvey Rhodes. A.J.'s pain and frustration come to a head on the fateful day of their meeting, and the grumpy and at times acerbic A.J. isn't very kind to the quirky and idealistic young Amelia. If possible, things get even worse for A.J. when the night of their meeting his treasured copy of Tamerlane, a rare collection of poems by Edgar Allan Poe, intended to serve as his retirement fund is stolen from his home.

Flummoxed by the theft and consternated by the steady stream of curious Alice Island citizens (aka gawkers) trudging through his door, life and fate (as they are wont to do) throw A.J. a little curveball when he finds an unexpected package in his store when he returns from an evening run. This small in size yet monumental in impact package changes his life forever.

In case I didn’t make it clear enough above, I love this book! It’s a story of love, loss, hope, and redemption. In A.J. Fikry we find the perfect protagonist; one whom like all of us is just a little screwed up. There is an honest humanity and frailty in A.J. that you can’t help but love; he’s loved and lost and like a little hermit crab whose thin skin needs protection from the elements, A.J. has chosen to hide his heart behind a tough external crabby (pardon the pun) shell in order to protect himself from the cruel world that has wrought such suffering on his soul.

Along with a beautiful story that like life itself has ups and downs, joys and tears, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry is a book filled with simple truths. Each chapter in the book is preceded by the title of a short story or a book and a note from A.J. describing what he liked about it and in those words of wisdom he shares universal truths about books but also about life. In one such note, A.J. states "my latter-day reaction speaks to the necessity of encountering stories at precisely the right time in our lives...the things we respond to at twenty are not necessarily the same things we will respond to at forty and vice versa. This is true in books and also in life."

A.J. wisely reminds us all that in reading books we are not isolating ourselves in our own little insular worlds, but instead trying to connect; to find a shared common bond with others, one that binds us and affirms that we are not alone. In A.J.’s world of books, he’s found the perfect definition of our lives “We are not quite novels. We are not quite short stories…In the end, we are collected works.”

Words cannot fully express how much I loved this book. The characters (A.J., Amelia, Maya, Chief Lambiase, etc.) became beloved friends that I hated saying goodbye to at the story’s end. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry is a true gift to readers of all ages and one that I will treasure always.

That Night

Back in 2010 I read Chevy Stevens' debut novel Still Missing which proved to be a gut-wrenching and gripping psychological thriller and my favorite book for that year (check out this old post). Despite my initial admiration for this talented new author, I subsequently skipped both of her follow up books but I was instantly intrigued by That Night's (her latest novel) book description when I came across it back in January when I was drafting my 2014 book preview post. After reading That Night I can eagerly report that it was a phenomenal read; a suspenseful and well-paced story that hooked me and held me in its grip from the first page to the last.

That Night introduces us to 34-year old Toni Murphy who is being released from prison, having served 16 years incarcerated for a crime she didn't commit. Toni and her boyfriend Ryan were only 18 when they were arrested, tried and sentenced for the brutal murder of her sister Nicole. Out on parole, Toni is determined to stay out of the hell that was jail. After a tense and eventful stay at a half-way home for just released convicts, Toni is finally allowed to go back to her hometown, where she tries to slowly rebuild her life - finding a job, connecting with her dad, and even adopting a dog, Captain, the best thing to happen to her in a long time.

Life at 18 had been miserable thanks to a clique of high school mean girls whose leader, Shauna, had made it her mission to torment Toni at every turn, but nothing had prepared her for the daily struggle and brutality of jail. Now free, Toni is determined to keep it that way, a less than easy feat when Ryan, the love of her life, with whom she's allowed no contact as a condition of her parole, shows up convinced he can figure out the truth of Nicole's murder and determined to enlist Toni's help in proving their innocence.

As Ryan starts to ask questions, it becomes apparent that those mean girls know more about that night than the lies they testified to on the witness stand and someone has dark secrets for which they might be willing to kill again in order to keep them silent. As truths are revealed, Toni will have to decide if she's willing to risk it all to find out what really happened that night.

What a great book! That Night was enthralling from beginning to end and once started I could not put it down. No lie, I started it at 6 pm on a quiet Sunday night and did not put it down until just passed midnight after reaching its satisfying conclusion. As much as the tale is one of murder, mystery and suspense, it packs an equally compelling emotional wallop in its depiction of teenage bullying and even more powerfully prison life - the fear, solitude, and incredible sense of loss and isolation.

The story alternates between past and present so the reader is witness to Toni's developing transformation and growth from a scared kid to a tough woman ready to face her life and fears head on. The chapters which reach back into the days and months preceding Nicole's murder offer a scary look at the effects of bullying; a life lived in fear and uncertainty, in which the victim doesn’t know what comes next and is seemingly helpless in stopping their aggressor. Each day becomes a non-stop struggle where peace can’t be found at school, home or even at work. The narrative surrounding high school was perfectly written to incrementally ratchet up the tension as the reader drew ever closer to the actual night of the crime when our protagonists lives were changed forever.

The jail related chapters depicted not only the dark side of jail but also the humanity to be found there. The human connections made as strangers grasped for friendship and commonality in an effort to build a family away from their own. A sad statement probably true of many inmates was the fact that Toni had to grasp camaraderie and compassion from fellow inmates and guards, since her own family – mostly her mom – turned away from her due to doubts of her innocence.

I fully connected with Toni. Her character was so well written – human and real; she wasn’t perfect by any means, but I could nonetheless empathize with her false imprisonment, her early innocent bewilderment and later resignation as freedoms and rights were stripped away from her making her question her own sense of self as she paid the price for a heinous crime of which she was innocent. While Ryan’s role in the book is minimal given that Toni is the book’s sole narrator, the relationship between the two nonetheless felt real and strong, whether they were 18 or 34. The author portrayed in their relationship a simple bond of love and friendship that remained unbroken by time or distance.

That Night is a book that touches your heart and tests your nerves, featuring a petite heroine whose strength is forged in the fire of pain and grief and whose steely resolve and hopeful spirit the reader can’t help but admire.

Boy, Snow, Bird

Why, hello there! I have been totally unmotivated to post of late. Life continues. Still working, still reading, and still watching TV and movies, but the summer heat has brought the usual case of the lazies, which means I’d rather be anywhere but in front of the computer blogging. Nonetheless, whenever I find a truly great book and I’ve found one or two gems lately (The Good Luck of Right Now, That Night, and The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (my 2014 favorite, so far)), the need to share the news with family and friends outweighs the lethargy and helps to motivate me to exert a modicum of effort in order to catch you guys up with some reviews.

I’m so behind on my posts, so I’ll start with Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi, a small book and quick read which I finished four or five novels ago. I picked up the book mainly thanks to a generous review from Entertainment Weekly that described it as a retelling of the classic tale of Snow White. I’ll warn you right now though that if you’re looking for the next Wicked or even Maleficent then this book is not for you. The similarities between the fairy tale classic and this book are miniscule to say the least, and I’d say in all honesty the comparison was more a ploy to sell books than anything else.

Boy, Snow, Bird begins its tale in the winter of 1953 in NYC when Boy Novak, the rat catcher’s daughter, escapes the clutches of her sadistic father and makes her way to a small town in Massachusetts. Boy meets and marries Arturo Whitman, a widowed jeweler who has a beautiful young daughter named Snow. Boy is enchanted by the winsome girl and hopes to be a good mother to her husband’s child, but circumstances quickly change when Boy gives birth to a daughter of her own, Bird, who is dark-skinned and exposes the Whitman’s long guarded secret that they are in fact light-skinned African Americans passing for white.

Here’s where the comparison to Snow White comes in, for Boy takes on the role of the wicked stepmother shipping off the beautiful Snow to be raised by Clara, Arturo’s dark-skinned sister who had also been sent away to remain hidden like a guilty sin. Time passes and the story takes some unexpected twists and turns as the characters attempt to give us insight into the subjects of race, beauty and self-identity.

I know this book has received rave reviews from some, including the New York Times, but I just did not connect at all with Boy, Snow, Bird. The book is divided into three parts, narrated by Boy, Bird, and then Boy again, respectively. I found the earliest parts of the book the most compelling read; where we meet Boy, our heroine; a sympathetic figure (initially) cast in the role of lost, mistreated, and unloved waif. Boy’s early freedom and initial forays into discovering both herself and love held some emotional resonance, but then the tale quickly grinds to a halt.

The narrative holds no tension, drama, or emotion, and as such the tale dragged both in pacing and character development. I felt the plotline surrounding Snow could have proved interesting and held some potential, but the author made it nearly a non-issue by shipping her off to live with her aunt and not reintroducing both her views and insights until a teenage Bird connects via letters with her long missing sister. Familial jealousies and the racial prejudices of the time were highlighted in the story, but unlike other books dealing with the racial divide (like The Help or The Invention of Wings, both of which I loved) I felt so disconnected from the characters with no sense of emotional investment in their circumstances (whether good or bad), that in all honesty I was rushing through the last two chapters not because I couldn’t wait to find out what happened to the characters, but because I just wanted to finish the darned book, and don’t even get me started on the end which is totally out of nowhere.

Boy, Snow, Bird proved a disappointing read to me, but given the high praise lauded on the book’s young author I’ll definitely give one of her other novels a try in the future.