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Book Review: Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
Summary:
In the near future those who’ve committed a serious wrong for which most would feel guilty are given an animal by the spiritual world. They are known as Zoos, and the animals attempt to guide them back to the straight and narrow as well as keeping the Undertow at bay. Separation is painful and almost impossible. If the animal dies, the Zoo dies. Zinzi December of Johannesburg is one of these Zoos. Her animal is a sloth, and her magical power is finding lost things. Normally she sticks to everyday objects such as keys in the sewer, but when a music producer approaches her via his assistants for help in finding a missing teen Afropop star, she bends the rules. She just may come to regret that decision.
Review:
Beukes excels at world-building, setting a vivid example of how to use showing not telling to its best, fullest extent. I was instantly swept into this fantastical version of a nation I’ve never been to, yet somehow was able to quickly decipher which elements were pure fantasy and which based on the realities of modern South Africa. The reader comes to understand how Zoos first showed up and why they exist without even really realizing she is acquiring this information.
Similarly, the character of Zinzi was a refreshing change from the typical urban fantasy female lead. While she is clever and fairly fit, she is neither abnormally strong not incapable of making bad decisions. She is a three-dimensional character with both positive and negative qualities. She is not simply the put-upon dark heroine. Her struggles are real and current, not simply in the past. At first it appears that Beukes is going to fall into the completely redeemed heroine trope, but instead Zinzi still has demons to face. She must repeatedly fall and get back up, something that rings as far more real than one epic fall followed by heroine perfection.
The one draw-back is that the plot is a bit confusing. I had to re-read the climax to fully understand exactly what had been revealed as the big secret Zinzi was discovering. Part of that was due to a couple of elements of the plot that seemed not to mesh well with the rest of it. Some of the important fantasy parts of the plot should have, perhaps, had a bit more explanation. There is a lot going on in this novel and sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming for the reader who is new not only to the fantastical elements of the tale, but to the South African cultural elements as well. Although the plot is ultimately decipherable, it is not immediately easy to follow.
Overall this is a creative, unique piece of urban fantasy that simultaneously presents a truly flawed heroine and takes the genre into a city many modern readers are not familiar with. I recommend it to fans of urban fantasy as well as fans of African literature.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Gift
Friday Fun! (I’m Being Boring Lately So Here’s Some Wishlist Highlights)
Hello my lovely readers! I hope your weeks went well. Last weekend I went to a collegiate hockey game with a friend. It was crazy fun and full of adorable 10 year old boys in Bruins jerseys rooting for BC. It also was surprisingly warm for a building housing an ice skating rink. That could be the Vermonter in me talking though. I also hung out with one of my friends and watched trashy horror movies.
Other than that, my week has been quite normal. Well. Aside from having finally done my taxes and seeing I get moneys back for having been in graduate school last year and also being poor. Yay! I suddenly feel totally justified in getting my Xbox Kinect. So. Since I’m being an epically boring vegetarian librarian alternating between reading a shit-ton, weight lifting and doing chin-ups at the gym, and watching mini-marathons of Teen Mom 2 (for the schadenfreude aspect), I think today I’ll give you all a glance at some books on my wishlist. (Ok, some of them have yet to make it onto my LibraryThing wishlist, but they’re on my wishlist in my head, ok?!) I will probably not be able to afford them anytime soon or justify buying them since I currently have a pile of 79 physical books to read in my tiny apartment. *shuffles feet* Anywho. Here we go.
- Meat is for Pussies by John Joseph
This is marketed as a going vegan book for men written by a vegan male martial arts fighter. It’s supposed to blow the myth of being a male vegan equating being weak and/or not masculine out of the water. Since it’s a perpetual problem that veg*nism has a hard time appealing to the men of humanity, I’m very curious to check this out. - Supermarket Vegan: 225 Meat-Free, Egg-Free, Dairy-Free Recipes for Real People in the Real World
by Donna Klein
Fact: I am poor. Further Fact: I don’t have a car. Even Further Fact: The nearest grocery store to me is crazy cheap and mainstream so it’s not always easy for me to find obscure ingredients often listed in vegan recipes. (I do take the time to order vital wheat gluten and nutritional yeast in bulk from Amazon though. That shit is awesome). Anyway, I’m very intrigued by the concept of this book. I hope the recipes are creative and not just like “pasta, veggies, rice, have fun.” We’ll see! - Canning for a New Generation: Bold, Fresh Flavors for the Modern Pantry
by Liana Krissoff
This comes across to me as the Stitch n Bitch for canning. I’m very intrigued by canning but am put-off by how old-fashioned most of the recipes and methods in the cookbooks are. Why am I into canning you ask? Hey. Ya’ll know how into local food and preparing for the zombie apocalypse I am. - Dead in the Family
by Charlaine Harris
Ok, so I could own this already, but I own the previous books in the Sookie Stackhouse series in mass market paperback, and the SERIES MUST MATCH. Also, I can’t suddenly switch to ebooks for the series at this point in the game, but I would if I could. - Handling the Undead
by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Besides having the most difficult to spell name of any author on this list, Lindqvist also wrote Let the Right One In, which I think is a wonderful twist on/addition to vampire lore. I can’t wait to see what he does to zombies. - The Loving Dead
by Amelia Beamer
All you need to know about this book is that the zombie plague is an STD in it. AN STD. MUST READ. - Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?
by Max Brallier
I was completely obsessed with Choose Your Own Adventure (CYA) stories when I was a kid, even the craptastic fundy Christian ones my parental units made me read. This is a CYA set in the ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE. It’s like a zombie videogame. Only it’s a book. COVET - The Secret Feminist Cabal: A Cultural History of Science Fiction Feminisms
by Helen Merrick
I’m just obsessed with feminist scifi and any study of or collection of feminist scifi I’ve read in the past has been motherfucking awesome. Can’t wait to see what new authors and stories I’ll discover through this book.
There’s your glimpse at my wishlist! Hope you enjoyed! Hopefully I’ll have more real life stories for you next week. Also I’m just noticing that this is an interesting mix of zombies, sex, feminism, and veg*ism. Huh. I’m *coughs* a unique one, eh?
Book Review: The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (Series, #1)
Summary:
Todd grew up on New World knowing only the constant Noise of other men’s thoughts all around him. He’s never known a world where a boy couldn’t hear his dog talk or where women weren’t all killed off by a horrible plague. Now, mere days before his 13th birthday when he will become a man, his world is turned upside down when his adoptive parents, Ben and Cillian, tell him to run. Run past the swamp. Run and find another settlement. A settlement he never knew existed on New World. He runs with his dog, Manchee, and on the way, they find a creature. A creature whose thoughts they cannot hear.
Review:
This book came recommended to me by three different friends, and I can see based on the summary why they would do so. It’s a dystopia on another planet with talking animals and a narrator who speaks in a mix of rural Americana and British English. The fact is though, I wound up not enjoying this book, and it probably would have been a “did not finish” if I’d had a print copy I could re-sell instead of an ebook I couldn’t. So what’s wrong with it?
Not the world-building. That was truly excellent. The wordle-like clouds of Noise that Todd can hear really bring that aspect of New World to life. Similarly, what the animals say are appropriate to their various evolutionary levels, from Manchee’s partial toddler-like sentences to the herd of elephants who simply say “here” over and over to keep the herd together. Every single scene on New World is easily imaginable in spite of it being quite a foreign location from the buildings to the presence of Noise.
The plot itself isn’t bad but also isn’t amazing. There’s a secret in Todd’s village that we discover at the end of the book that, frankly, did not live up to the build-up. However, that in and of itself doesn’t make me dislike a book. The plot was enough to keep me intrigued, which is the important part, even if in the end it is a bit disappointing.
After much thought I’ve realized that it’s the characters that kept me from enjoying the book, particularly Todd who is also the narrator. I just cannot relate to him at all. I’ve managed to relate to first person narrators ranging from lunatics to serial killers to girly girls to devout Catholics, but Todd is utterly unrelatable to me. He is just so incredibly fucking stupid. Not stupid in the mentally handicapped way. Stupid in the willfully ignorant way that makes me just want to slap him upside the head. For instance, he has this book the whole journey that Ben tells him will explain everything, yet he never sits down to read it. He takes forever to admit he struggles with reading and ask someone else to read it. This is information he needs, and yet he persists in willfully ignoring it. He reminds me of the kids in highschool who wouldn’t do their homework because it wasn’t “cool.” Similarly, I’m sorry, but he’s kind of a pussy, and that irks me. He is fighting not just for himself but for the safety of his dog and another person, but he refuses to man up. I found myself siding with the villains in this regard, and I’m sure that’s not what the author wanted. Similarly, I do not understand why it takes him so long to come around to appreciating Manchee even though he can hear his thoughts from day one and knows that Manchee loves him unconditionally. What the hell, Todd? How are you such an unfeeling idiot, eh? In the end, I simply could not enjoy the book, because although I felt appropriate loathing for the villains, I also loathed the hero and just could not bring myself to care about his plight. The only character I was rooting for at all was Manchee, and that’s not enough to carry a dystopian adventure.
I’m sure there are people out there who can either identify with Todd or empathize with him. For those people who can do so and also enjoy a dystopian adventure, I recommend this book. Anyone who thinks they’ll be even remotely irritated by Todd should stay far away though.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Amazon
Movie Review: The Nightmare Never Ends (1980)
Summary:
A devout Catholic woman married to an atheist professor who has just published a book called God is Dead starts having nightmares about Nazis and dead people in the water. Meanwhile, a Jewish hunter of Nazi war criminals shows up mysteriously murdered with his face ripped off and the numbers “666” tattooed on his chest. The tenuous connections between these two soon reveal a dark presence on the planet.
Review:
This movie can best be summed up in the phrase: Satan at the Disco. Satan is not just alive and beautiful (not handsome, beautiful) but is a disco-going playboy complete with a harem of hypnotized women who actively participated in Nazi atrocities back in the day. In spite of Satan’s presence at the disco, I found myself wanting to go there. I have to say, it certainly seemed more appealing than Tequila Rain on Lansdowne Street.
This film is an odd mix of things done well and things done horribly badly. The special effects are surprisingly good for the time with certain scenes managing to surprise and/or gross out my friend and myself. Of note is one particular scene where a character’s eyeball pops out from his head. Quite gruesome for the special effects of the time. On the other hand, the actress playing the Catholic woman cannot act to save her life. She can, however, scream quite well, which is apparently what she was hired for. The plot is creative and features a fun twist at the end, but it wanders around a bit too much and is confusing for about the first 40 minutes of the film. It needed some serious editing before being filmed. Similarly, the set designers clearly had no comprehension of Jewish culture at all as they decided to show that the Jewish man’s ethnicity by randomly having a fully-loaded menorah ever-present on his nightstand. *face-palm*
In spite of these shortcomings though, the story is still unique enough that the film is enjoyable, particularly if you enjoy bad horror with a touch of classic 1970s disco. I therefore recommend it to the tiny percentage of the population for which both of those statements holds true.
3.5 out of 5 stars
Source: Gift
Friday Fun! (Post Grad School)
Hello my lovely readers! I hope your weeks have been lovely with lots of time for reading crammed in. My week has been decidedly uneventful, which I am totally ok with after the insane eventfulness of the last 6 months or so. I’m settled into a post-grad school routine of work, friends, gym, cooking, professional job hunting, etc… It’s great to actually have the time to see my friends more often now than when I was in school. We’re managing to find fun ways to occupy our time in spite of the bitter cold, whether that’s Asian fusion food or hockey games. (Go BC kick UNH’s ASS). In fact, I’m so busy doing fun things that by the time I get home at night, I generally grab a quick snack or dinner then climb into bed to read and fall asleep doing so. I woke up with my glasses still on this morning. Luckily I was reading on my ipod so it turned itself off at some point in the night so no electricity was wasted. This does mean that I’m watching far fewer movies, except for when I have friends over to get drunk and watch trashy old horror movies together. ;-) Of course there are the normal post-grad school money worries and the stress of trying to fit everything in to your work week, not to mention actually making the time to wash your laundry so you have clean clothes to wear, but overall, life is good. *looks around* *knocks on wood*
Oh! I also got an xbox 360 and played a Kinect game for the first time and dudes. It is so fucking cool. The future of gaming if I do say so myself. Playing a game with your body and no controls? It’s like something out of a fucking scifi movie. The only annoying part is having to move my furniture every time I play.
There’s really not too much else to say right now. I’m striving for various goals, but I plan on only updating ya’ll on them once I’ve achieved them. I prefer not to jinx myself. ;-) In the meantime, I hope to keep encouraging everyone’s love of reading and story-telling. Happy weekends!
Book Review: The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
Summary:
Bill wakes up in the hospital the day after a worldwide comet show with his eyes still bandaged from a triffid accident. His regular nurse doesn’t show up and all is quieter than it should be except for some distraught murmurings. Shortly he finds out that everyone who saw the comet show has lost their sight, leaving a random bunch of people who just so happened to miss it the only sighted humans left in the world. A hybrid plant created years ago for its highly useful oil, the triffid, is able to walk and eats meat. Swarms of them are now wreaking full havoc on the people struggling to save the human race.
Review:
This book reads like the novelization of a 1950s horror film. Man-eating plants! Dangerous satellite weapons of mass destruction! Humanity being reduced to the countryside! Classic morals versus new morals! This is not a bad thing, and Wyndham seems to be conscious of the innate ridiculousness of his tale, as it possess a certain self-aware wittiness not often present in apocalyptic tales.
Bill is a well-drawn character who is enjoyable as a hero precisely because he is an everyman who is simultaneously not devoid of personality. He is not the strongest or the smartest survivor, but he is just strong and smart enough to survive. Similarly, his love interest, Josella, impressively adapts and changes over time, and their love story is actually quite believable, unlike those in many apocalyptic tales. In fact, all of the characters are swiftly developed in such a way that they are easy to recognize and tell apart. This is important in a tale with so much going on.
On the other hand, the action is stuttering. It never successfully builds to an intense, breaking point. Multiple opportunities present themselves, but Wyndham always pulls the story back just before a true climax. After this has been done a few times, the reader loses the ability to feel excitement or interest in the characters and simply wants the tale to be over. In a way it is almost as if Wyndha couldn’t quite decide which direction to take the action, so took it briefly in all directions instead. This makes for a non-cohesive story that pulls away from the investment in the rich characters.
Additionally, I do not believe the whole concept of the triffids was used to its fullest extent. The name of the book has triffids in it, for goodness sake. I expect them to feature more prominently and fearfully than they do. Perhaps I’ve just read too many zombie books, but the triffids just seem more like a pest than a real threat. The concept of man-eating plants taking over the world is a keen one, and I wish Wyndham had invested more into it.
Overall, the book is a quick, entertaining, one-shot read that could have been much more if Wyndham had made better choices as an author. I recommend it to kitschy scifi and horror fans looking for a quick piece of entertainment.
3.5 out of 5 stars
Source: PaperBackSwap
Movie Review: Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride (1973)
Summary:
A Satanic cult is doing something evil in a castle above a dungeon full of female vampires. Van Helsing is called in to help, and he insists that the king of all vampires, Count Dracula, is back.
Review:
My friend and I decided we wanted to have an old-school horror movie night. We chose the film before seeing it was shot in the 1970s. I immediately informed her that there would be boobies, mark my words. 1970s films are just *rampant* with boobs. Especially horror films. Sure enough, not even 30 seconds into the film, and there’s a naked woman on an altar having rooster blood (*cough* cock blood *cough*) poured onto her.
I honestly came away from this film with three distinct impressions: tits, blood, and vampire teeth. I honestly cannot explain the plot to you, hence the short summary above. It makes very little sense. There are writhing vampire women, Van Helsing, Dracula, some sort of plot to put a super-uber black plague into the world, and an evil bunch of Satanists. How that all fits together remains a mystery. Yet I still found it immensely enjoyable as a giggle-inducing cult classic.
First, there’s the rampant unnecessary nudity so typical of the 1970s. Then there’s the costumes that are obviously trying to be exotic, but just succeed in looking like the 1970s. The insane plot becomes irrelevant when you’re faced with scene after scene of ridiculous costumes, sentences, and moments. Nothing induces hilarity quite like a dungeon full of half-naked writhing vampire women being taken out by a bunch of sprinklers, because apparently any water works not just holy water.
All of which is to say, while I found this film hilarious and entertaining, you have to have a certain personality type to enjoy it. If you like classic, serious old-school horror films, this isn’t for you. If you like plots that make sense, this isn’t for you. However, if you like 1970s romps full of unintentionally hilarious scenes and nudity, then you’ll certainly enjoy this film. The vampires don’t hurt either.
3.5 out of 5 stars
Source: Gift
Book Review: Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang
Summary:
In this memoir, Jung Chang recounts the lives of herself, her mother, and her grandmother growing up in pre-communist, revolutionary, and communist China. Mixing extensive historical facts with intensely personal remembrances, Jung Chang presents a vivid portrait of real life in China.
Review:
As an American, I was raised being told communism is bad, but not particularly taught much about it. So when Meghan blogged about this memoir, I was immediately intrigued. My history BA taught me to favor first-person accounts over academic ramblings, so a memoir of communist China from a woman’s perspective was frankly ideal.
It has been a very long time since I’ve learned so much from a memoir. Chang was extremely careful to verify the facts of the historical events surrounding her family’s various issues. Starting with her grandmother who had bound feet and was essentially sold by her family as a concubine, Change moves up through the drastic changes in China. From her mother who was part of the communist revolution to herself who ended up an ex-patriot in Britain.
My preconceived notions of communism were frankly tromped upon by this memoir. As a liberal person, I never quite understood what was so bad about communist China. Chang makes it clear throughout the book that the governing body of China never actually lived up to the communist ideals of her revolutionary parents. The passage where Chang best explains the warped version of communism enacted by Mao states:
The Cultural Revolution not only did nothing to modernize the medieval elements in China’s culture, it actually gave them political respectability. ‘Modern’ dictatorship and ancient intolerance fed on each other. Anyone who fell foul of the age-old conservative attitudes could now become a political victim. (page 413)
Thus, communism in China was and is not at all what many hippie Westerners believe and/or believed it to be.
Beyond opening up understanding of communist China, this memoir also distinctly demonstrates the human spirit under pressure. From Chang’s father who stood by his ideals at all costs to her grandmother who simply wanted everyone in her family to be comfortable and happy to neighbors with their own agendas, Chang demonstrates how an oppressive regime s bring out both the best and the worst in human nature.
This is a fascinating book both for its insider’s view of communist China as well as its female perspective on said regime. Similarly, it offers an intriguing commentary on human nature. I recommend it to anyone interested in the history of China as well as those with an interest in women’s studies or political science history.
5 out of 5 stars
Source: SwapTree (now defunct)
Book Review: Farewell by Honore de Balzac
Summary:
Philip, a colonel in the military, lost his love Genevieve in Siberia when retreating from the Russians. Years later, he randomly stumbles upon her in a country house with her uncle, having lost her mind from her horrible experiences in Siberia with the military after they lost each other. She is only capable of saying one word. “Farewell.”
Review:
I decided to read a Balzac work due to a reference in the musical The Music Man. The elderly ladies of the town think the librarian is scandalous because she keeps works of Balzac in the library. Clearly I needed to know what all the fuss was about, so I decided to see for myself.
My first instinct is that this classic work of tragedy shouldn’t actually be that scandlous, which perhaps was the point in The Music Man. These elderly ladies are *so* ridiculous to object to Balzac. In any case, however, in retrospect I can see what is so shocking. The incredible weakness of mind and character demonstrated by both Philip and Genevieve are both irritating and depressing. I’m not sure what point Balzac was trying to make, but all I could think was that both of them needed to man up.
That’s not to say the book isn’t well-written though. The translation is lovely, and I’m sure in the original French it is even prettier. Just imagining Genevieve only being able to say “Adieu” sounds prettier than “Farewell.” The scenes are vividly described, and the reader is certainly engaged.
Overall, it is a well-told tragedy that suffers a bit from weak characterization. I recommend it to fans of tragedies and classic French literature.
3.5 out of 5
Source: Audible app for the iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad
Friday Fun! (Soup Season)
Hello my lovely readers! It’s alternating between a pleasant 40-something degrees and so fucking damn cold that you just want to curl up under your pile of blankets and stay there forever. This clearly means that it is soup making season.
The great thing about soups is not only do they warm you up, but they also actually taste better when reheated than the first time around. Plus when you make a huge pot, there’s enough for dinner, lunch the next day, and some leftover to freeze for a busy evening later in the month. As such, I’ve been making soups non-stop yo.
I have a plethora of options for actual soup recipes, as opposed to what I did in previous winters which was dump boullion, veggies, and pasta or rice in water and call it good enough. No, no. Now I’m making such things as Thai Butternut Squash and Lime Soup or Kale Potato Soup or Root Veggies Red Lentil Dal. It’s divine. It’s awesome. It’s healthy. It’s one of the pluses to cold weather. I mean, seriously, I can’t imagine downing that dal in 90 degree heat. Just would not work.
Of course, when the soup doesn’t cut it to warm you up, gin always also helps. (Yes, I know technically it thins your blood so you get colder, but you still *feel* warmer, and that’s the point, isn’t it?)
Happy weekends all!
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This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Opinions of a Wolf 