goodreads, crazy goodreads

Oh, Goodreads.

If you don’t know, Goodreads is basically an online platform where readers can keep track of books they read and want to read, and rate them, and write reviews, and communicate with other readers and (in some instances) authors. I don’t really hang out there much, but I’ve been poking my nose in a bit over the past few months because SHIT is going DOWN and I love a good train wreck.

It’s pretty much insanity. I’m not going to link to any of the incidents because I don’t want to give any of them more traction, but take my word for it when I say shit is cray cray. Authors have been calling Goodreads reviewers cows and bitches in emails and on Twitter; authors and their friends have been going on massive negative rants on Twitter and blogs about Goodreads and reviewers in general or specific; authors and their agents and their friends have publicly stated they’re going to try to skew review rankings. The list of stupidity pretty much goes on and on.

Dear authors: we remember this shit. Really. I will read any book, regardless of author actions, if it is amazing enough, but if I see you being an asshole I will remember it and I will read your book last and I will get it from a bargain bin because I don’t like giving money to assholes. Especially if you’re an asshole to other bibliophiles. It’s just not cool, guys.

In the name of promoting peace and decreasing stupidity throughout the internet, I offer a few guidelines for the world of online book reviewing. Not all of these are directed at authors.

1. Authors should not comment on reviews of their own books. The only possible exception is to thank the reviewer. But no trying to explain something the reviewer missed, or telling them they’re wrong or missed the point. And no getting your friends to do it for you. You’re not going to convince anyone to change their mind, and you look bad. Just don’t.

2. Authors should not ask their friends to help skew review rankings, either on Goodreads or Amazon or wherever. It’s totally understandable to want to “sink” bad reviews, so that the good reviews are near the top to help sell your book, but ethics aside you don’t want to deal with the public backlash if you’re found out. And seriously, have the sense to not talk about it on Twitter, and be careful with emails. Once you hit “send,” it’s no longer yours.

3. A reviewer not finishing a book does not make that review invalid. I hate when I see people say this. Hate. Basically, the sentiment is “your review is invalid because you didn’t finish the book so you don’t know everything that happened—you can’t judge the entire thing.” Well, no. Not finishing the book is kind of a judgment in itself. If a person dislikes a book enough that they stop reading, what happens at the end does not matter because the rest of the book wasn’t strong enough to carry the reader to the end. I want to stop seeing this argument.

4. No personal attacks, by reviewers or authors. File under: be nice on the internet. (Or, you know, everywhere.) Just don’t be that person.

Basically, it all boils down to this: authors, don’t shit on reviewers. Reviewers aren’t simply book-lovers (i.e., the target audience of an author), they’re hardcore book-lovers, they’re people who love books enough that they want to critique them and analyze them and talk about them with their friends. They’re the book-lovers other book-lovers look to for guidance. And they will remember.

mini book review: The Trial of the Flash

Just finished reading my first book of the new year, Showcase Presents: The Trial of the Flash. It covers a bunch of issues from 1983-85, when the Flash (Barry Allen) is on trial for murder.

We all know I love me some Flash, and overall I loved this (even though it wasn’t my boy Wally), but man were the Carmine Infantino layouts hard to follow sometimes. Like, headache-inducingly difficult.

And it’s not like a few issues in you could figure out the method behind the madness. No, Infantino would use the exact same panel layouts (usually involving diagonals) and expect you to read them in different directions on different pages with no indication as to which. I’d be halfway through a page or panel and realize I was reading things out of order. It got kind of frustrating, but I’m glad I persevered because the story rollicked right along. It was fantastical at times, and I’m not sure all the law checked out, but hey. I can deal with some over-the-top 80s-era stories and some Perry-Mason-esque legal squibbles if the story is great. Which it was.

Also, there’s one panel where Barry has a really nice butt. It was pretty exciting.

Yes, here at Gracetopia we cover the most important parts of a book in our reviews.

book review: 33 snowfish

It’s been a long time since I read a piece of fiction that made me cry. I can actually only remember one—an Evelyn Waugh short story.

Now we are at two.

33 Snowfish, by Adam Rapp, was recommended to my by the lovely Libba Bray. I had met her at SCBWI New York, and I had said something vague about how I didn’t know if what I was writing was really YA, since even though the characters were the right age it seemed really dark, and she said that you could be a lot darker in YA nowadays, for instance had I read the brilliant 33 Snowfish?

So I read it.

And it was brilliant.

And I cried.

33 Snowfish is the heartbreaking yet hopeful story of three runaways, Custis, Boobie, and Curl. Alternating sections are told by each one (Boobie’s are told in picture form). It’s a dark story. These kids have not had happy lives. One was basically a sex-slave to a pedophile, one is a prostitute, and one killed his parents—all this is what they’re running from, with a kidnapped baby.

But it’s so beautiful. Rapp’s language is vivid and intense, and all the characters are so real. He is not quite as good at Curl’s (the girl’s) voice as he is at Custis’s, I don’t think, but they are all real people. You very quickly understand them and where they’re coming from, even though for most readers it is as if the children live in a foreign land. The strong relationship between young Custis and the older boy, Boobie, is especially well-drawn.

The book is so short and wonderful that to say much about it would be doing it and the reader an injustice. But if you are interested in beautiful YA literature, you should pick this up. Just know that it’s dark.

book review: Wobble to Death by Peter Lovesey

First of all, this is like the best name for a mystery ever. Wobble to Death? Really? Awesome.

Written by Peter Lovesey, who you may know as the writer of the Inspector Diamond mysteries, and first published in 1970, Wobble to Death is the first in a short series of Victorian-era mysteries. Victorian England? Mystery? I’m so there. Why had I never heard of this before?

Frankly, it’s not the most brilliant of mysteries, in the mystery sense. I mean, it’s perfectly okay. I wondered who did it, and at the end I was like, “hm, okay, I get that.” But there wasn’t any overly brilliant detective work. The detectives—Cribb and Thackery—were just fine. Nothing particularly interesting about either of them, maybe they (or at least Cribb, it’s advertised as the “Sergeant Cribb mysteries”) become more sparkly as the series progresses.

However.

The Victoriana. Now that sparkled.

The setting of the book is a 6-day race walking competition, called a “wobble.” The first corpse doesn’t fall until page 61, but I didn’t care because the 60 pages of wobble were absolutely fascinating. It’s just so weird. Sixteen men just walking and/or running in circles for six days, many of them collapsing, their feet bleeding, exhausted. It’s so Victorian. It’s so fabulous. Beyond the wobble, the entire book is just drenched in details of the era.

I don’t know how fascinating this actually is. I’m pretty much a Victorian nerd of epic proportions. Reading this book felt like walking the streets of 19th-century London, and I loved every minute. If that doesn’t excite you, you maybe should skip the book.

So, as a mystery, average. As an outlet for my Victorian desires, fabulous. I’ll be reading more just for that.

P.S. According to the blurbs on the back, lots of people thought this was a much better mystery than I did.

P.P.S. And apparently it’s also been made into a tv series??! Who knew?

Book Review: Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon

A couple of months ago (May, to be exact) my friend Cindy Pon published her debut YA novel, Silver Phoenix. It took me this long to get around to reading it, because I am a bad friend. But it was totally worth the wait.

At seventeen, Ai Ling should be married, or at least betrothed. But nobody wants her. A free spirit in a land of order and restriction, she almost prefers it that way, except for the shame it brings to her family. Soon, though, she has bigger problems than her social status: her father goes missing and she begins to realize she has a power that she doesn’t understand.

Thus begins Ai Ling’s quest, a quest to find her father and herself.

Aiding her on this journey is Chen Yong, a half-foreigner with major problems of his own, and Chen Yong’s charming, womanizing younger brother Li Rong, as well as a host of other characters. The story is a basic quest/journey tale, but set in a land of such wonder and mystery that you cannot help but be enthralled. Ai Ling meets gods and monsters, some of them in human form, finally arriving at the Emperor’s Palace to battle perhaps the worst of them all: the one that loves her.

The book is just… beautiful. It is breathtakingly beautiful. Cindy also does some fabulous brush paintings, and reading this book was sometimes like looking at one of her paintings. You can see her artist’s eye in the description, even in the language itself. The book also made me incredibly hungry. The food Ai Ling consumes is described in such loving, delectable detail that I could almost smell it wafting from the pages. Cindy is welcome to invite me to her house for dinner anytime. ;)

Anyway, a great book; you can order it here and I highly recommend you do so.

On another note, I have decided that Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, etc.) needs to be in charge of the movie version of this book, and he needs to get on it stat. It has the kinds of mysterious creatures he specializes in, and the type of strong heroine he appreciates, and the sense of wonder that he is a master of. Really. Miyazaki, get to work.

To end, one of Cindy’s paintings:

The disclaimer: I feel like I always need to add this when I review a friend’s book, even though I’m probably just being silly. Yes I know Cindy, but that did not in any way influence the writing of this review. Except possibly for the part where I invited myself over to her house.

bookgasm

So I am currently reading two books: Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick and Conquest of the Useless by Werner Herzog. Both are basically fabulous. Today I want to talk about the Herzog book because I’m basically bookgasming on every single page.

First, some background. Werner Herzog is one of my favorite directors; you’ve probably heard of Grizzly Man, that was his. But back in the ’70s and ’80s he was making movies with a man named Klaus Kinski, a brilliant madman of an actor. Aguirre: Wrath of God is one of the famous collaborations. Also: Fitzcarraldo.

Fitzcarraldo, set in the early 20th century, is about a European opera-lover (Kinski) in the Peruvian jungle who decides to become a rubber baron (also he wants to build an opera house). He gets his parcel of land for rubber harvesting, but for some reason—my memory gets a bit sketchy on the details here—he has to get a steamship from one river to another in order to get to the land, and he decides the best way to do this is to drag it over the top of a mountain. Here’s the trailer if you want the flavor:

So Herzog decided the best way to film the steamship being dragged over the top of a mountain in the Peruvian jungle was to actually drag a steamship over the top of a mountain in the Peruvian jungle. From the book, a conversation with the movie bosses:

The unquestioned assumption is that a plastic model ship will be pulled over a ridge in a studio, or possibly in a botanical garden that is apparently not far from here–or why not San Diego, where there are hothouses with good tropical settings. So what are bad tropical settings, I asked, and I told them the unquestioned assumption had to be a real steamship being hauled over a real mountain, though not for the sake of realism but for the stylization characteristic of grand opera. The pleasantries we exchanged from then on wore a thin coating of frost.

That ended up being an adventure. Throw in a totally crazy leading man and the making of Fitzcarraldo becomes the stuff of legend. There was a documentary made of the making of the film (Burden of Dreams) which I like almost as much as the film itself.

Here is what the filming of Fitzcarraldo looked like, from another famous documentary, this one by Herzog, called My Best Fiend: Klaus Kinski. Herzog is the dude with the bandana headband near the end; you’ll figure out Kinski on your own. (even if you skipped the last clip you should watch this one…)

Which led to this, one of the most famous stories to come out of Fitzcarraldo:

So that’s what Herzog was working with. The book I’m reading is his diary from the time of filming, recently published for the first time. I haven’t even gotten to Klaus Kinski yet and the book’s already a firecracker. And so beautifully written, it’s like poetry on every page (it was translated from German, but still). Peru is “a sleepy country at which God’s wrath has cooled.” The room he is using at Francis Ford Coppola’s house has “windows that are filled with this demented light.” And I love all his little stories.

In the Rio Santiago the body of a soldierwho had been shot came floating along, on his back, swollen, the legs bent at the knees and the arms bent likewise; he looked as if he were raising his hands. Birds had already hacked out his eyes and eaten away part of the face. The comandante here advised letting him float by—so as to avoid any trouble; they would have to deal with him farther downstream. He gave the swimmer a gentle nudge with his boot, and the corpse spun around once before the current took hold of him.

Basically you should read this book. I mean, I’m barely 20 pages into it, so obviously this isn’t a proper review at all (see all the youtube videos?) but wow. So good. Bookgasm.

In closing, one more video that you should watch even if you don’t care about anything else in this post. See, Kinski wasn’t originally the lead, it was some other guy who got fired or quit or something so they had to totally restart filming. This video shows a scene first done by the original actor and then by Kinski, and wow. Oh yes, and the reason you should watch it? Mick Jagger’s in it. Good thing Herzog changed his mind about that.

gogol bordello

So last night I went to see Gogol Bordello at the House of Blues in Boston.

I’m pretty sure it was the best show I’ve ever been to in my life. Like, not just best concert. Best of anything. Plays, dance, movies, whatever else might qualify. I can’t even believe how much fun it was. Probably an illegal amount of fun.

Man Man opened. I’d never heard of them, but my brother was like, “wow Man Man!” So maybe they’re famous? Anyway, I would definitely pay money to see them on their own—they were a concert in themselves. Each member of the band played like 4 different instruments, and the lead singer reminded me of Freddie Mercury somehow. The mustache? I think it was his level of awesome. Here’s a clip:

So they opened and got the crowed going crazy. Whenever there’s a mosh pit for the opening act, you know the night’s going to be good.

And oh. my. god.

I don’t even know how to describe it. I mean, the music was fantastic. That’s always a prerequisite for a good show, and yes their music was excellent. But Gogol Bordello just went up on stage and worked their asses off. They had so much energy and they looked like they were having so much fun and they were just working so fucking hard. They were drenched in as much sweat as the audience. But at the same time, it was like they were at the party with us, instead of for us. If that makes sense.

And then they came out for an encore which was long enough to basically be another set. Eugene Hütz was wearing no shirt and a sparkly sombrero thing that pretty much made my life. I thought they were never going to go home, and then when they finally did they danced off the stage. Still going strong.

So basically, I do not care what kind of conflict you might have, if you ever have the chance to see Gogol Bordello live drop everything and go.

book review: The Tourist

The Tourist, by Olen Steinhauer

So I read two NY Times reviews of this book. The first, by Janet Maslin, raved about it. Best thing since sliced bread, basically. Based on that review, I bought the book. Then I read the other Times review, by Marilyn Stasio. She thought it was dreadful and confusing, and wrote more about how George Clooney bought the movie rights than about the book itself. Well. Okay then. So I was slightly dubious when I finally opened the book.

Note to self: in future, we’re going with Janet Maslin’s opinion.

Our hero Milo Weaver used to be a Tourist, a member of a covert CIA division so covert nobody outside the Department of Tourism knows about it. Now he’s retired from active duty, working a desk at the Department’s office in New York City.

Until one of the world’s deadliest assassins, a man known only as the Tiger, is arrested in Tennessee for beating his girlfriend. Milo, who has been chasing the Tiger from his desk for years, heads out to question him, not knowing that he is about to be drawn back into his former life as an operative—and with his life at stake.

So first of all, just to get this out of the way, if I ever read of a woman crossing her arms under, or over, or on top of her breasts ever again, I may strangle someone. (Really, Steinhauer? She couldn’t just cross them? We all know that’s where women keep their breasts, really we do.) But overall the writing is quite good, both in the beauty of the language (a terse, spy-thriller type of beauty) and its ability to pull the reader quickly through some complex plotting.

It would be doing this story an injustice to go into too much detail about this plot. Careening through the labyrinth Steinhauer has constructed is part of the excitement of this book. I had trouble keeping up sometimes, but then when the “solution” finally arrives, it seems so pure and simple and perfect.

But really, the best part of this book, the reason you should read it, is for the world-weary former op Steinhauer has created in Milo Weaver. Milo is a veteran of this spying nonsense. He knows all the tricks, and once his body has turned back “on” into operative mode, he goes through the motions mechanically. He knows all the bullshit, and can see through layers of it in an instant. And he doesn’t want to deal with it.

See, in between the brief Part I (September 10-11, 2001, in Slovenia) and Part II (July 4, 2007, Tennessee) Milo has acquired a wife and a stepdaughter and a small sense of normality. And he doesn’t want to lose it. He’s good at being  a Tourist, but it isn’t what he wants to do, but it’s what he has to do in order to keep his family safe, but being a Tourist is inherently unsafe, but… etc. And Steinhauer makes Milo’s problems and emotions real and intense. You feel him. You relate to him, even as he’s doing spy things that we normal citizens could never imagine. You want him to win, but first he needs to figure out what “win” means.

So yes. I enjoyed this book. I’m not going to call it one of the greatest books ever, but it is very good, and the character of Milo really makes it. So. You should read it. Yes.

Book Review: Handcuffs by Bethany Griffin

She runs out of the room crying.
Let me start over.
My mom runs out of the room crying.
Um, let me start over.

Bethany Griffin’s debut novel, Handcuffs, follows the story of Parker Prescott, an “ice princess” with problems. Her parents are unemployed and about to lose their house, the local high school blogger is spreading rumors that she’s a whore, her sister’s marriage is falling apart right on top of her, and–oh yeah–her ex-boyfriend came over and there was that incident with the handcuffs.

This ain’t Sweet Valley High, folks.

Griffin’s writing is taut and quick, moving through this high-school hell at breakneck speed as Parker tries to fix her life. I could not put the book down–it totally stole an entire Saturday from me.

While the plot is a good one—fast-paced, twisty—it was really the characters that grabbed hold and wouldn’t let me leave. They are exquisitely drawn, fresh and real. I loved Parker, and I was definitely rooting for her very early on. And I may have occasionally said “no! no! Parker don’t!” aloud to the book. Yes, that may have happened. Parker and her problems are easy to relate to–her everyday problems as well as her extraordinary ones. And the ex, ohhhh the ex. He’s mysterious and dangerous… and nameless. Throughout the book he is referred to only as “him” or “my ex-boyfriend” and so on. A cute gimmick? I don’t think so. It focuses the story on Parker. It’s Parker’s feelings for the boy that are important, not necessarily the boy himself. An interesting literary choice on Griffin’s part, and I think a good one.

So overall, I enjoyed this book immensely and I highly recommend it for the YA reader in your life. 

buy it here at amazon.com

Disclaimer: I do happen to know Bethany, she is awesomesauce, but I didn’t let that influence the writing of the review; please don’t let it influence your reading of it.

book review: The Mysterious Benedict Society

(Preface to Post)

So, I’m always a little behind the times as far as pop culture phenomenons go. The Kid Brother and I didn’t start reading Harry Potter til the 3rd book was out. I just began watching The West Wing like a month ago and fell in love (and am now on the 6th season). I was a year or two behind the times on Firefly, too. The list goes on.

This is all to explain why I am about to review a book that was hot stuff last year (2007), a book that was on the NY TImes bestseller list and won all sorts of awards and basically is known about and has been judged by everyone who would want to know about or judge it. So basically, I’m not looking to move any mountains or cause any great stir with this book review. But I read a book I liked and wanted to comment on (the latter being a more important reason to review, I think) so here I go.

~~~

(Post Proper)

The Mysterious Benedict Society, by Trenton Lee Stewart
Young Adult adventure, published by Little, Brown and Company

Reynie Muldoon sets off one day to take an important and mysterious test. He and the other children do not know what the test will be or what they will win if they pass, they are all simply answering an ad in the newspaper: “Are you a gifted child looking for special opportunities?”

And thus begins the adventure of a lifetime. The test-takers are soon narrowed down to four extraordinary children: Reynie, George “Sticky” Washington, Kate “The Great Kate Weather Machine” Wetherall, and Constance Contraire. These kids all possess an impressive combination of intelligence, bravery, and that certain je ne sais quoi that makes a hero, which is good because they pretty much have to save the entire world from Evil.

The plot is perfectly fine, clever but nothing to write home about (evil mastermind, lots of minions, the kids go undercover at a secret institution to infiltrate the minions and defeat the evil mastermind and his evil machine) but the way in which Stewart has crafted this world and this story is fantastic. The book is oddball and clever, filled with puzzles and trickery and fun, memorable characters. The puzzles are such that the reader can play along and applaud Reynie for his wits, and there’s Morse Code on the back cover. How cool is that?

I have seen Stewart compared to various other writers, including Roald Dahl and some named Blue Balliett (who is this? should I look into him? anybody?) but the one who jumped directly to my mind was Lemony Snicket. Not just because of the tone, even though both write in a way that’s kind of dark and uppity at the same time, but because of the way they treat children, both their characters and their readers: with respect.

Writing for children is incredibly difficult. You have to use simple language for sometimes complex ideas, but you can’t talk down to them. Children hate being talked down to and they’re very good at spotting it. Stewart tackles this head-on, having multiple characters (adult and child) observe how nobody ever listens to children, how children and their ideas are disregarded by adult society. And while children are, you know, children, they can also be quite sharp and can tell when they’re being lectured and treated shoddily. A writer who can tell an entertaining story while treating child characters and child readers as children but not in a condescending way–this is a rare and invaluable writer. This is the most powerful thing that I took away from this book, Stewart’s amazing respect for his subject and audience.

There is one other thing that I think Stewart handles particularly well: family. One of the common tropes of children’s literature is the orphaned main character, whether the character is actually orphaned (Harry Potter) or if the family is just absent (Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy from Narnia). There are a couple of reasons for this, the main one being that it is easier to go off adventuring if you don’t have parents looking after you–parents worry a remarkable amount and most of the parents I know would not let their children go off on a life-or-death adventure, no matter how much danger humanity is in. Being an orphan also adds a certain facet to a character, a pain and an emptiness and a loneliness that can be explored throughout a book.

Stewart touches on this loneliness quite often in Mysterious Benedict Society. All four of the children are in some ways orphaned, even if temporarily. Mr. Benedict, the man who has gathered the children together, states frankly that this isolation of theirs is a benefit for the situation in much the way I described above. This idea is built upon as the main characters deal with their lack of family throughout the book, longing for some stability. I like that Stewart faces this subject without hesitation, making family an important part of the story and (not to give anything away) the conclusion. There is always family out there, he seems to be saying, you just have to be brave enough to find it.

One of the questions on Reynie Muldoon’s test is “Are you brave?” His answer: “I hope so.” This light-hearted and exquisitely crafted book shows that there are different types of bravery, each one important, a message wrapped up in cleverness and fun. The 450+ pages fly by but leave you thinking. Really an excellent book.

There’s a sequel out (The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey) but I’m not sure I want to read it even though I liked this one so much. Everything just ended so well. We’ll see.