People should remember teen readers aren't stupid

Seeker
Arwen Elys Dayton
448 pgs
Copy: ARC
Read: Ides of March. Ish.
Spoilers: Lots: it is hard to criticize in loose terms.
Recommend to: People who liked Matched and Divergent

I didn't hate this book. In fact, I found it a decent read: entertaining, if not thought provoking; interesting, if not entrancing. Set in a vaguely futuristic world, with vaguely mystical elements, Seeker features Quin Kincaid as the intrepid, yet suffering heroine. Quin has been raised by her family in an isolated estate in Scotland, trained to become a Seeker. What Seekers seek and why is purposefully shrouded in confusion at the beginning of the novel. Unfortunately, even after her lover John's dismissal from the training program, a grim truth has been revealed to Quin and her (second) cousin Shinobu, "after [which] there is no going back" (back matter). Acting as a watcher and occasional interference for the young people is an unaging figure called Young Dread; named Maud she is plotting the downfall of the abusive Middle Dread and causing mischief while awaiting the return of Old Dread.

The adventure is good, propped up by the well-written and interesting sections featuring Maud. However, the world-building, character-building, and, indeed, set-building, fall down at the slightest hint of a breeze. The story is told in alternating third-person points of view; the world, close to our own, features weapons which open doorways to different places, which are owned by families of Seekers. (A major issue in the novel: it is never made clear what exactly they are supposed to be Seeking)

Let the spoilers begin.

Firstly: Quin. Her character development relies mainly on a forced, wooden kind of passion (portrayed by a repetition of fact, rather than sentiment, without any backing of emotional cues). Upon escaping--barely--from an attack upon the estate (instigated by John, her love-interest) Quin chooses to forget all that she has done and her past. While I am not against amnesia as a plot point, Dayton treats the issue with the same cookie cutter attitude as the evolution of Quin's romances ("I love him!" "I love him, but he attacked my family!" "I kinda remember who he is, even though I have amnesia!" "I love him now that I kinda remember him!" "I love my (second) cousin, I have all along!"). 

This clunky character development extends to John and, to a slightly lesser extent, Shinobu. John spends most of his life thinking a set series of thoughts, all boiling down too: "I'm not doing anything too bad, not if it is for the sake of good." Shinobu is given a few more interesting plot/character developments. I appreciated his drug addiction phase--he actively chooses drug use as means of forgetting (while Quin passively forgets everything in the middle of being mystically healed: a pattern of male vs. female agency that repeats throughout the novel).

The book is redeemed by the aforementioned Young Dread, whose well-written and almost lyrical passages make the other chapters fail in comparison. Maud is patient, clever, complex, and driven; she easily steals the stage from the flighty Quin. One can believe Maud has been trained over centuries to become the killer and victim that she is; picturing Quin with her "whip-sword" (a device which changes into different weapons on command) is almost impossible.

The ending of the novel leaves it open for a sequel (because God forbid we have a stand-alone YA SF story). It is a book that some teens will like, while others will feel cheated by the shallow characters and the bare-bones world-building. Since the movie rights have been sold, and the publisher (Penguin Random House) has spent a great deal of time and money promoting this book, one can only wonder if today's teen readers are nonintellectual and incurious or if writers, publishers, and movie executives merely think they are.

Crossposted: Life Piled on Life, Librarything

Two or Three Things I Know for Sure
Dorothy Allison
94 pages
Copy: mine (used)
Read: April 13, 2015 (for school)
Spoilers: vague details, but nothing specific

I read this book this morning, in one sitting. It was homework for my Feminist Rhetoric Pedagogy class (wow, that sounds elitist, doesn't it), and I'm very pleased it was assigned. I'll admit I've struggled with this class a bit. I'm a feminist in practice, but not so much in theory (more on that soon--I'm planning to write about my feminism in the near future). This class has, obviously, been heavy on feminist theory (and feminist rhetorical theory...). At any rate, I appreciate Allison's book, and I'm glad that I had this chance to read it.

This slim volume is not for the faint of heart. Allison details her traumas, her sex life, and her mental health, all of which is heart-wrenching. Understand that when you read this book you will encounter rape, sex, and rage. I'd be careful about recommending (or assigning) this book--this is not an easy book to read.

That being said, Allison does a glorious job. The book is expertly crafted. It loops in circles--or perhaps squiggles. We don't quite get the same scenes over and over; rather we move through time, looping between different eras in Allison's life. These loops always make sense and it was only at the very beginning, when I was still meeting people, that I was at all confused.

I think my only complaint about the book is its brevity. I finished it still wanting more. That being said, I would never want to force Allison to dwell on her life events for longer than she wants. I just wish she had taken the opportunity to talk about her mom and her aunts more--and her sisters. The inclusion of pictures definitely helps, but overall I put down the book with very little sense of the other women in Allison's life. I might understand her better, but I'm not sure I know anything substantial about the other women in her life.

I am not entirely sure who I would recommend this book too. It is intense and it is painful. It is also shockingly well-written. Certainly anyone interested in Allison ought to read it. Perhaps people who have suffered from trauma (especially sexual trauma) might find Allison's example helpful. She struggled with her experiences, which might be of help to anyone struggling with their own experiences. Honestly, I'd take this book on a case-by-case basis. I would talk to the person, explain what the book is about, and let them decide.

The Perfect Garden

Italian Villas and Their Gardens
Edith Wharton
250 pages
Copy: mine; a super ugly used copy from the '70s that I bought off the internet
Read: April 3-10, 2015
Spoilers: there is literally nothing to spoil (unless "hates English gardens" is a spoiler?)

My only problem with this book is that I have absolutely no idea to whom this book is aimed. It isn't detailed enough to help you construct your own Italian villa and garden. There are no detailed garden plans. There isn't enough advice about gardening--so this isn't a manual.

It also isn't really a tour guide. Wharton is obviously interested in how gardens complement villas, but that interest does not necessarily translate to a logical and clear guide around Italy. (The book is divided into sections according to region, but her movement through a region isn't necessarily logical, nor is her movement between regions particularly clear.) She points out some history, describes some bits and pieces (too much for a tour guide, honestly--the details seem too thorough to be for people who are looking at the gardens currently), and then moves on.

So here's what I think--this book is for people making long term plans. Thinking about redesigning your garden? Here's a book that will tell you exactly which places to visit in Italy to go see gardens that might function as proper models. When you return home, this book has enough detail to remind you about what you saw so you might be able to recreate certain aspects of the gardens.

This book may also be for stir crazy gardeners who are slowly being driven nuts by winter weather.

At any rate, I really enjoyed this book. Wharton's complete dislike of English gardens is deeply amusing. Her all-consuming love of Italian architecture and gardening (and even, to some extent, Italian culture) is almost equally amusing. (She also really hates French gardens, which made me giggle a bit, considering her later love affair with France.) I also vaguely feel that her book is a time capsule. She first published this in 1903--I can't imagine many of the villas or their gardens survive today. Hers may have been the last recording of some of these buildings.

Her nascent environmental argument also intrigued me. The perfect garden harmonizes not just with the building it surrounds (indeed, some of Wharton's favorite gardens had little to do with their villas), but also with the nature it usurps. The best gardens incorporate natural features (especially hills and gorges), rather than altering them or eliminating them. She seems to reserve a special degree of scorn for those who work against nature, or think they can do better than nature (ahem, English gardens). Also, she hates lawns, something I appreciated in particular (I have a deep hatred of lawns, personally).

So who ought to read this book? Primarily people who are interested in the history of gardens, honestly. (I'm reading this because I am starting to draw up my comps lists and because I'll be writing my dissertation on 19th century garden-writing.) I'm not sure I'd even recommend this to Wharton fans--maybe only if you're a completist. Certainly her wit shines through in places, but overall this is a pretty straightforward text, without her trademark descriptions, diction choices, or even attention to detail. (If you want to try out some Wharton nonfiction, I'd recommend France, from Dunkerque to Belfort, her book on France during the early days of World War I. It is a truly glorious piece of war reporting, and deeply under-appreciated.)

Non Timetus Messor

On March 12th, 2015, in the early afternoon, I learned that Terry Pratchett had died. The news hit me right in the chest—for a moment or two, all I could do was sit and stare at the headline. In some ways, I’d been bracing myself for this (he’d been declining for quite some time), but seeing it, actually seeing the word “dead,” was so unexpected and so final that I couldn’t quite accept it. There’s no way, I thought to myself, but the evidence was overwhelming.

I never met Terry Pratchett—and now, obviously, I never will. This means that I don’t necessarily have the right to mourn him, as his family and friends do. But Terry Pratchett was a rebel, and he wrote about rebels, so I think I’ll follow his example and ignore societal expectations. He is a man worth mourning, after all. (He used to wear a shirt to fantasy conventions that read, “Tolkien dead. J K Rowling said no. Philip Pullman couldn’t make it. Hi. I’m Terry Pratchett.” The world needs more men like this.)Thus, after I had told the people who needed to be told, I turned my attention to mourning.

Mourning authors, in some ways, is easier than mourning close family members and friends because a) often the only connection you have to an author is their books, so what you’re really mourning is the fact that you will never have a new book by Terry Pratchett or Maya Angelou or P.D. James (or whichever literary light you’re most attracted to) and b) you still have their books. It’s a big decision, of course, which book you’ll read right after an author’s passing. Did I want to read Going Postal, a book I tend to read when I’m stressed and overwhelmed? Did I want to read Guards, Guards, which I tend to read when I’m happy and relaxed? Perhaps I ought to do the obvious thing and read one of his books about Death, the only character who appears in every Pratchett book. Eventually I stumbled onto the proper book, with a little help from my best friend (who, by the way, choose to read Reaper Man in the wake of Terry Pratchett’s death). I am currently reading the first Terry Pratchett book I ever read: Good Omens.

(In some ways, this is a terrible choice, since Pratchett only co-wrote it, but it is still the book that introduced me to Pratchett-land and it holds a very special place in my reading world.)

Of course, there is another way to mourn. An event like this always sends people out to stores to amass more of an author’s work—and I am no different. The day after, I got myself to my local used bookstore—and discovered a blank shelf where the Pratchett books would have been. This actually pleased me more than if I had been able to buy myself some more Terry Pratchett books. I would have been sadder if I had been able to buy Pratchett books, because that would have meant that no one cared he was dead.

One of Terry Pratchett’s characters has the family motto “Non Timetus Messor,” which translates roughly into “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” A lot of people have referenced this motto in the wake of his death as a particularly appropriate one. I certainly think it is. But, just as with his books, it is impossible to simply have one favorite Terry Pratchett quote. So I’ll leave you with another, one that I think clearly demonstrates Terry Pratchett’s wisdom and humor. “Getting an education,” he writes in Hogfather, “was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.”

Good-bye, Sir Terry Pratchett. You’ll be fervently missed.

-Benvolia

Crossposted on: Readers' Books Facebook

Over-scheduled girls are the new bored boys

The Lost Track of Time
Paige Britt
320 page
Copy: ARC, publication date: 31 March 2015
Read: not sure; probably back in January
Spoilers: A fair bit, including ones for The Phantom Tollbooth
Crossposted: Life Piled on Life, Librarything

I adored this book. Scholastic has really hit it out of the park for the 2015 (more on this in later reviews), but this one has the making of a classic. Remember The Phantom Tollbooth? Or, at any rate, hopefully you remember it? (When I finished reading this book, and gushed about it to my best friend, she informed me that she hadn't actually read Tollbooth, and if she were living near me, I would have thrown copies at her. As it was, I just mailed one)

Most of the point of Phantom Tollbooth, aside from the word-play--complete with vocabulary: that's how I learned words like dodecahedron and din and doldrum and a lots of words starting with letters other than d--and the sheer adventure of the story, was that one needs to use one's mind. It was aimed at teaching young readers that boredom is laziness and that intelligence creates the best kind of adventure. It is, in short, truly inspiring.

But in multiple re-readings over time, I came up with a few quibbles. Firstly, the main character Milo is a boy. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with being a boy. I suppose we need a few of those hanging around, and, frankly, at this point in children's literature, it is actually becoming more and more difficult to find books for intelligent boys who don't like spaceships or Greek gods. However, Tollbooth was published in 1961, and the only female characters are the Princesses of Rhyme and Reason, who have disappeared and are waiting to be rescued up in their Castle in the Air. Although I love the book, we don't need more princesses-in-need-of-rescue and, to be perfectly frank, why the fuck didn't a pair of sisters named Rhyme and Reason rescue themselves? (In more sympathetic moments, I suspect that they were taking a nice vacation and Milo's rescue was something of a nuisance). So: feminism is quibble one.

Quibble two: from what I can see, as neither child nor parent, kids don't seem to have any time to be bored. Sports, and lessons, and enforced hobbies; camps, clubs, classes; the horror that is smart phones: I don't actually think that middle class kids with well meaning parents actually have time to get bored. Getting bored is really important--as long as one doesn't get too bored, of course. Getting bored is what makes one's imagination kick into gear, it's what makes us go on adventures. No one goes on a true adventure because it would look good on a college transcript.

The Lost Track of Time addresses both of these quibbles. To be honest, my beef with Tollbooth was mostly subconscious until I came across this book. Penelope, the intrepid adventurer, suffers under a well-meaning organizational development type mother who runs her daughter's life like Penelope is another event to plan. Their various schedules--during which every fifteen minutes is accounted for--might be humorous to the target audience (8-12), but was verging on tear-jerking for me. To never have any free time! It is bad enough as an adult(ish), but for a child! Heartbreaking and all too much a part of reality.

Penelope, like Milo, escapes her predicament into an allegorical world of word-play and adventure, complete with anthropomorphized puns (my favorite was the Wild Bore), and a mythic figure to be rescued (The Great Moodler, moodling being day-dreaming). Her journey teaches the reader that schedules, just like boredom, can always go overboard.

Recommended for over-scheduled girls (if they can sneak away from their mothers to read it); for grandmothers to give to over-scheduled girls; and for anyone who has been an over-scheduled girl (warning: in that case, there could be tears.)

-Mercutia