American Gods 2

""...when I was still of an age where a book could change me forever." -Gaiman in Acknowledgements for American Gods"  

I love that quote.  Gaiman is talking about Harlan Ellison's Deathbird Stories in here and the impact it left on him "burned... onto the back of [Gaiman's] head."  It's sad that books, movies and other items can't have that effect on me anymore but is to be expected.  Sure, every once in a while something will come along and surprise and delight me.  Without that feeling I might as well just stop consuming all together.  But... but it is not like it was when I once put down a book or left the theater and thought, "Shit, what the hell was that?" in an excited way.  Too much deconstruction, symbol hunting and simple over thinking have generally left me with "I liked what they did with that, that was new" when I walk out of something I like.

Maybe that is why I drift toward comedy.  There's still a surprise element in comedy.  A life and breath.  Passion for the absurd or the simple turn of phrase.  And it's fun to laugh.  There's always that.

So I finished American Gods, Mr. Gaiman has guided Shadow through trials and tribulations, through life and death and all around the gods.  I will have a full review up soon, but I want to take the time right here to thank the author personally.  This has been a difficult week and his book has provided both inspiration and distraction.  No one should ask more of fiction than that.

I recommend if you are going to purchase a copy of American Gods, get the author's preferred copy with a nice interview, essay and extra bits. 

American Gods 1

Today I met a man named Shadow who in turn met a man named Mr. Wednesday.  Shadow lost something dear to him, his life, after leaving prison after a 3 year stint.  Now embarking on a new career, Shadow is following Mr. Wednesday in the driver’s seat.  He has met the dead, played checkers, and robbed a bank.  I wonder what he will get up to next.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book and by extension series left me wanting more yet fulfilled at the same time. So begins my review of the most hard to read book I have enjoyed in a long time.

Beware, thar be spoilers in the following, you have been warned.

The basic plot is a direct continuation of Catching Fire. Katniss has been liberated from the Quarter Quell and is smack in the middle of the head of the rebellion, District 13. In the militaristic environment, she struggles for independence and individuality while attempting to assimilate so she can survive. The plot is the same as the other two: Katniss stumbles around a new environment, is hungry, fights with someone about something, excels at whatever she needs to, then goes into battle and triumphs in a backhanded way. There, I did that without really spoiling anything.

All our favorite characters are back, with the point of view squarely in Katniss’s eye. She hems and haws through most of the story, looking for her place in the world that has been thrust upon her, blah blah blah. Looking at the mechanics as a whole, nothing has really changed about the structure of the story which makes the characters that much more important. And, I have to say it, I’m kinda done with Katniss. Most of the way through this book, I was bored with her. She’s a reactionary character for the majority of the time, having greatness thrust upon her over and over. I was much more interested in the side characters as more was revealed about them, but the novel only gave information as Katniss received it so we got very little and then her projections of that information. This made the reading really frustrating as you were thrust into her mindset so much that I did not feel empathy as much as I wanted to control her as a puppet. Go over there! Talk to that guy! This makes it kinda jarring when she does act, throwing off the dynamic of how much we are actually told about her state of mind versus what she plans to do next. I do not think I have ever had that in a book, a character where I know their thoughts except when he or she is actually thinking.

So this book is at its heart about Katniss’s struggle within the rebellion and her place in it. Is she a figurehead or a leader? A soldier or a vengeful being? In the end, none of this is really answered. Yet, it is. She’s just Katniss. I can get behind that, except that there is no application of that beyond what I stated above: she reacts when we know what she’s thinking and we get jack when she decides on a course of action. Also, key points in her story are placed off screen, fueling the reaction. The rescue of Peeta and the rebels winning the war all happen when she is unconscious. This is bullshit. Realistic, but bullshit. I equate this with Leia getting knocked out and coming to with some random we just met telling her Luke saved the galaxy. As a reader, this is frustrating as hell, yet I do admire Collins’s commitment to follow Katniss’s story, no matter how boring it may be.

At the end of the day, this trilogy I would put on par with The Lovely Bones. A great series that tells an epic journey in a realistic way that defies expectation to a fault. Sometimes realism is great, but I felt fairly disappointed through much of the novel. That being said, I thought it had one of the most touching and perfect endings to a character’s story I have read. I would not have been surprised if Frodo had shown up at the end to take her to the Grey Lands.

View all my reviews

Z is for Zenz, Aaron "The Hiccupotamus"

The Hiccupotamus by Aaron Zenz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Summary
A hippopotamus gets the hiccups and his "friends" decided to help him out.

I can only start this review with one question: If a hippopotamus got hiccups, who would give more than two shits? After much research (AKA, repeated viewings of the movie Congo) I have found that hippopotami are complete and total assholes. The first half of this book proves this point as the hippopotamus (from the latin "monster douche"), runs from friend to friend disturbing their lifestyles to the point that they must solve the problem or perish.

The elephant, centipede, and rhinoceros (yeah, you just read that right) all start attempting various cures from scaring and wrapping him with licorice and spinning him around. Cause that happens in a jungle. At one point, it seems they also secure the talents of a damn American buffalo, tie the hippo to him, then I guess they just jump around. There’s also a bit with vinegar that I do not understand.

I am going to let you folks into a little secret: This month might as well have broken me like a dry twig on a cold winter night. Children’s books sounded so fun. What could be more fun and easy than reviewing motherpunking picture books? Yeah, if I had only known. I feel like the next time I am forced to do a story time I am going to start yelling at the children how their culture is disintegrating. This book had a buffalo with a hippo tied to his back. Those creatures do not even exist together in god’s creation outside of mankind’s animal jails that are zoos. I am going to drop some truth bombs on these little sons of bitches and they will not see it coming. This month is going to make children cry. I hope you are happy, A to Z challenge. Bless.

Oh, and the art’s pretty fun to look at.

Each day in the month of April 2012 (starting the first Sunday, then excluding every other Sunday) we will blog using the alphabet as our guide. I will link each post to the letter and you can find them all on this page. If you want to keep up with the challenge for my fellow bloggers, check out the A to Z Challenge Page.

Y is for Young, Ed “Lon Po Po”

Lon Po Po by Ed Young
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Summary
Three children are left alone at night so they murder a talking wolf.

I can only surmise that the setting of this book is supposed to be Narnia due to the talking animal. This takes me right out of the story as I do not believe in talking animals or locations where they exist. I find the entire notion ridiculous.

The characters are shallow adaptations of classic fairy tales, in this case an amalgamation of Red Riding Hood. We are told much about each character, only to then have that trait shown. The best example of this is when the “clever” oldest child murders the talking wolf by tricking him.

This story is supposed to be a tale about not trusting strangers, but it comes off as a horrible murder tale. At no point are we given evidence that the wolf wishes the children any harm. Sure, he notices how plump and sweet they are, but so does my grandma and I doubt she’s gonna kill me any time soon. No doubt cause I can take her, but I digress. In fact, when the wolf is invited in the house, he hangs out with them, crawls in bed with them, even talks to them. This poor lonely bastard was just looking for warmth and immortality and these crazy children killed him for it.

So what do we learn from this book? Don’t go asking for help when kids parents are away. The children will go all Home Alone and kill you.

I will give this book high marks for the watercolor art design. Each page floats by in a dream state of color and emotion. The picture of the wolf in the sheet outside the house is just unsettling. The images are beautiful renditions of classic Chinese art, too bad the words got in the way.

Each day in the month of April 2012 (starting the first Sunday, then excluding every other Sunday) we will blog using the alphabet as our guide. I will link each post to the letter and you can find them all on this page. If you want to keep up with the challenge for my fellow bloggers, check out the A to Z Challenge Page.

X is for X-Men

So... um... awkward... I could not find a children’s book with “X” in the title to review so I’m just going to use this post to push our sister blog, Penultimate Issues, on you. It’s run by a great friend of mine and wonderful reviewer of all things comics. You should go there right now and read it!

 Below is everything I can remember right now about the X-Men!


Characters
Wolverine
Angel
Cyclopes

Gambler
Blue Fur Guy
Icicle Boy
Demon Guy
Steel Dude
Hot Chick
Spandex Lady
Mrs. Boobs
Metal Control Man
Fireman
Steve

Story
The story revolves around a bunch of X-Men and their fight to not be oppressed and stuff. They are really good at doing this because they have magical powers. Sometimes they have to fight people with other magical powers and there’s always some problem with time travel. Think Days of Our Lives meets Terminator.

I’m just kidding. You should read the X-Men comics, especially anything written by Chris Claremont. And check out Penultimate Issues (www.pissues.com)! Marc’s doing a great job over there and deserves respect!

Each day in the month of April 2012 (starting the first Sunday, then excluding every other Sunday) we will blog using the alphabet as our guide. I will link each post to the letter and you can find them all on this page. If you want to keep up with the challenge for my fellow bloggers, check out the A to Z Challenge Page.

W is for Ward, Helen “The Dragon Machine”

The Dragon Machine by Helen Ward
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Summary
George is a little boy who is lonely until he starts seeing dragons everywhere. When the dragons become a problem, he builds a machine to take them home to the wilderness.

The art is okay, but the story and characters make up for it only because they bring to mind a story. I want to tell you that story.

Once there was a little boy named Evan. Evan had a very active imagination. He made up little men, kinda the size of the Brownies (picture here played by Kevin Pollack and Rick Overton) from the movie Willow. These Brownies had no names, but they acted out every movie that Evan saw, every book Evan read. The Brownies drove time machines, rode horses, fought Dracula, and solved mysteries. Over time, the Brownies moved out of these pre-formed plotlines and acted on their own. Evan wrote down what they did, laughed at their jokes and was upset when one of them was hurt or died (as the plot required).

The problem came when the Brownies started to show up when Evan did not think about them. This was most horrible when it happened at church, because Evan would not pay attention to the preacher and would get into trouble. He could not explain to his parents about the Brownies because that was silly. As Evan grew up he made a decision and abandoned the Brownies. They would attempt to crawl back in his mind at church, but he would not write down their stories or even pay attention to what they did. The preacher and his stories about God were the only stories that mattered. The Brownies were a distraction and the devil sent distractions, the preacher said. Evan devoted his mind to the church and the baptismal waters washed away the Brownies for good.

A while later, Evan got in an accident. Nothing serious, but he started questioning. Why did God let that happen? Why did God let anything bad happen, particularly in His name? The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, slavery: all done in one god’s name or another. Evan started to think that maybe God was just as made up as all his little Brownie friends. If that was true, maybe his little Brownies were not so bad after all. So he called them back.

But the Brownies would not come back. Evan had pushed them away, far back in his mind and they would not tell him wonderful stories anymore. Evan tried and tried, reading more and watching more and looking for the types of stories his Brownie friends had made for him, but he could not find them inside or out. Then Evan just started writing and writing, hoping to make what he had lost. He has found some peace in the writing, but everyday he reads and watches and writes, always looking for his little Brownie friends to tell him one last great story.

Thanks.

Each day in the month of April 2012 (starting the first Sunday, then excluding every other Sunday) we will blog using the alphabet as our guide. I will link each post to the letter and you can find them all on this page. If you want to keep up with the challenge for my fellow bloggers, check out the A to Z Challenge Page.