100 Books: Friday Night Lights

Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H.G. Bissinger

My rating: 3 of 5 stars




Summary
Friday Night Lights is the study of a town in the thrall of high school football. The players, parents, coaches, teachers all get a story component while the economic and racial pain looms in the background.

Is it good?
Well, yes and no. This is a well crafted book that is given to great tension and flowery language but can also shift gears to chapters of dry commentary and history. When comparing the game descriptions to the exposition about Texas oil, one can see the clear distinction in writing styles. When the book is good, talking about the people that play the game and the controversey's around them, the book is very good. When the book goes off topic into the economic turmoil of the region (a topic that does inform the story) it falls flat. I can see teenagers skipping large parts of this book to "get to the good stuff." I almost did it myself. Special mention to the author's technique of spilling people into the narrative. When it works, such as the former players in the last game, it gives a tension and gravity to the story. When it does not, such as when it gives backstory to people not involved with the program at all (fans) during the last game, it pulls you from the story and creates quagmires to slog through.

Why Was It Banned?
The language (especially the racially motivated speech) is unfiltered by these West Texas folk. The teenagers speak like teenagers and the racists speak like racists. Multiple quotes are more than enough to see why this book was objected to being taught in the classroom or included in a high school library.
Some themes may also be seen as objectionable, particularly the racism. While the book makes its position clear on the wrongness of judging a man by his cover, impressionalbe minds could turn a blind eye to the opposing arguments. Some parents may also be unwilling to let their progeny know of the good and bad sides of being a local celebrity. The passages of players running wild and getting off with little more than a slap on the wrist could be encouraging to some like-minded individuals. Conversly, I could see how the failures of these kids could lead to some students giving up both on and off the field.

Conclusion
A good book with a multitude of dry pages. Skates the line between a book a high school football player would finish and a book a high school nerd would read to take the piss out of their jock counterparts. As I said above, had I not been reviewing it, I would have skipped several parts of this book.

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Book Review: Ghost Story by Jim Butcher

Ghost Story by Jim Butcher

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Caution: I may spoil major events of the book and the book series as a whole. This is book 13 of the series, I strongly advise reading the rest of the series before you read this book. Okay... here we go.

Summary:
Harry Dresden is back from the dead after being shot through the chest at the end of Book 12: Changes. He, along with the ectomancer Mortimer and various other friends, must solve his murder and stop a dark power that is rising in Chicago.

What I Liked:
It's a Dresden Files book. That means it includes the action, charm and snark (BOO!) that comes with every Harry Dresden adventure. Reading this series is a delight as each book returns the reader to a world that has evolved from page one. Each character, faction and landscape has been altered by the adventures in organic and wholly real ways. As each book pounded our heroes, some grew stronger and some broke.
My favorite part about Mr. Butcher's writing is the characters (and the cultural references, but can I claim that as his?) Each person in these books is laid out in great detail and it has been fun watching them change from book to book. Special reservation goes to Molly, Murphy and Mortimer for the dramatic shifts each has made from their first appearances.

What I Didn't Like:
The villians. The Corpsetaker from "Dead Beat" (one of my favorite of the series) has returned in ghostly form to once again grow in power and become a real Corpsetaker again. Or something. On the other side of things is some douche sorcerer with a gang. Both felt really tacked on in this one, almost slowing down the story. The Corpsetaker serves as a good enough ghostly villian while the doucherer is low level for our mighty group of dudes who have toppled whole vampire courts. I know this is suppposed to be a more personal story, but the absence of a real good villian hurt the story.

What I Eh?
The end. In a story where the main premise is the guy coming back from the dead to solve his own murder, I feel kinda cheated that it was him all along with a little brain wipe. This kind of twist is a little beneath the Dresden Files, especially with the unreliable narrator being pulled just two books back in "Turn Coat" when Harry did something else without letting the reader know. I could buy it if we were given a bookend as a reason for the narration (and therefore why some stuff is left out,) but the reader is just supposed to accept these books as his case file notes? How incomplete to not mention that, oh yeah, you were the person who put a hit out on you? The ending also included a "look at your past life" montage of chapters that while engaging (especially the bit with Mouse and his daughter) also felt a little tacked on.
The new character. Fixt (who we will see again about two books from now, I bet, if not sooner) is a bland, young copy of Dresden who will probably become either one of the Alphas or Morty's apprentice.

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100 Books: In the Night Kitchen

In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In the Night Kitchen is the story of a little boy who dreams of some pretty horrific stuff. A child of the 60s-70s psychedelic acid rock craze, this children's book reminds me an awful lot of the creepy Raggedy Anne and Andy movie that came out a few years later.

Summary (spoilers)

Okay, stay with me here cause I am gonna run through this. A kid hears a noise in the night which leads him to falling into darkness. He falls into some batter and three cooks then decide to bake him into a cake. He makes a plane out of the batter and promises to get them milk for the batter instead of him. He does so, prompting an odd "milk in the batter" sequence before the kid wakes up and finds there is cake in the morning.


Why Banned?

Did I mention he does most of this nude? On at least three separate occasions you get a full monty shot of this kid's junk. This horrifying issue of baking children into cakes is brought up as well and is done so with pretty straight forward intent. If you want to go out on a limb, you could tie the nudity and the milk to get a symbolic wet dream scenario, but honestly that is kinda gross and I do not want to think too hard on the subject of this kid's junk. Also, there are probably some parents that will object to the giant red "Cock a Doodle Doo" written at one point in the book.


Final

In the Night Kitchen is a fun acid trip of a story, and that is okay because it is all played as a dream sequence. While some symbolism is there if you really try, this story is a fairly simple tale that will delight most readers. However, the odd addition of nudity may turn some folks off, as stylized as the art is. I would not have a problem showing this to my kid, but be careful showing it to anyone else's, if you know what I mean.


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