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Book Review: Hang Wire by Adam Christopher
Summary:
Ever since his birthday party when a fortune cookie exploded in his face, professional blogger of all things San Francisco, Ted Hall, has been passing out, sleeping 12 hours, and waking up exhausted. It’s disconcerting, especially since there’s a serial killer on the loose.
The circus is in town, and the highwire workers are frustrated with the star of the act, who never rehearses and periodically disappears. And no one understands why the manager isn’t reporting their missing highwire wire to the authorities, especially since the serial killer is stringing up his victims with a strong, thin wire that sounds an awful lot like a highwire wire.
Bob the beach-living, ballroom-dancing attraction, used to be the god Kanaloa, but the immortals have abandoned humans to their own devices, and he’s not supposed to interfere. But he just may be the key to all the mysteries occurring in San Francisco.
Review:
I picked this up because it sounded like an urban fantasy serial killer mystery, which is just my speed. Unfortunately, I found a book with a discombobulated world and plot that builds confusion rather than tension.
If my summary above seems disjointed and confusing that’s because that’s precisely what this book is. Multiple different extremely odd plots are going on that ultimately do have some relation to each other, but the relation takes far too long to establish or understand. The book starts with a flashback to the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and introduces us to Bob/Kanaloa. It then jumps forward to the completely dull Ted and the exploding fortune cookie. It then jumps backward in time again to an entirely different character, who is tied to the circus, eventually. It takes quite a while to find out what his relation is. These three disparate storylines that seems to have no relation to each other continue throughout the book. Bob/Kanaloa’s journey from immortal god to just immortal beach bum would be an interesting book. But his plot keeps getting abandoned for the other two plots, so all tension and interest is lost. Similarly, the evil circus organizer would be interesting, but only if his plot was handled with more detail and finesse. As it is, what he is doing and why he is evil is just confusing, not interesting. Ted’s plot would not be interesting, even on its own with more detail, because Ted is a two-dimensional, boring character.
Beyond the three disjointed, confusing plots, nothing in this story is ever fully fleshed-out. There’s the vague idea that immortals were once on Earth and involved but now have left, but the details of the hows, whys, and how this has affected Bob/Kanaloa is left out. We’re told the organizer of the circus is evil, but we never see his fall from grace. We see him as a poor pioneer then later as an evil circus worker. The interesting part of how he got sucked into this evil is left out. Similarly, two people ultimately become human hosts for gods, but this is basically just announced and moved on from. The intricacies of how this feels for the human and for the god, why it might be effective or not, etc… is all left out. This is a bare-bones, confusing plot with little development, which ruins all possible tension.
Just as the plot is created in broad, sloppy strokes, so are the characters. The closest any come to being three-dimensional is Bob/Kanaloa, which at least made the story readable. But the rest are quickly laid out with broad character traits, and the story moves on. There is, for instance, no depth to Ted’s relationship with his girlfriend. We’re told she’s his girlfriend and he loves her, but we never truly see them together and functioning as a couple. We get no flashbacks to times prior to the supernatural craziness to see them in a non-stressful situation. Ted’s girlfriend is there as a plot device, nothing more.
I understand that this is an advanced copy and there will be another editing pass, etc…, however this is the most errors I have ever seen in an ARC. It was rife with typos, use of the wrong word, and format issues. Most egregious to me is the Britishisms used by American characters, such as “prawns” for “shrimp.” ARCs should have already had at least one editing pass. A reasonable amount of errors could slip through, but not this many. There were errors on approximately every other page. Hopefully the final version received a heavy final edit. Check reviews of the final version to be certain.
This book reads like an extremely rough first draft that badly needs an editor to come through and fix, not just minor typos and grammar, but also plot and characters problems. It could be an interesting story if it was more fleshed-out, with some storylines dropped in favor of a more solid main one, and with at least a couple of three-dimensional characters the reader can really relate to and root for. As it stands, there are certain scenes that are well-written and engaging, but together they do not make an engaging, readable mystery. I normally love books published by Angry Robot, so I found this particularly disappointing.
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2 out of 5 stars
Length: 373 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: NetGalley
Book Review: The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan (Audiobook narrated by Suzy Jackson)
Summary:
India Morgan Phelps, Imp to her friends, is sure that there were two different Eva Cannings who came into her life and changed her world. And one of them was a mermaid (or perhaps a siren?) and the other was a werewolf. But Imp’s ex-girlfriend, Abalyn, insists that no, there was only ever one Eva Canning, and she definitely wasn’t a mermaid or a werewolf. Dr. Ogilvy wants Imp to figure out for herself what actually happened. But that’s awfully hard when you have schizophrenia.
Review:
I’d heard that this book was a chilling mystery featuring queer characters and mental illness. When I discovered it on Audible with an appealing-sounding narrator, I knew what I was listening to next. This book is an engaging mystery that also eloquently captures the experience of having a mental illness that makes you question yourself and what you know while simultaneously giving a realistic glance into the queer community.
Imp is an unreliable first person narrator, and she fully admits this from the beginning. She calls herself a madwoman who was the daughter of a madwoman who was a daughter of a madwoman too. Mental illness runs in her family. She states that she will try not to lie, but it’s hard to know for sure when she’s lying. This is due to her schizophrenia. Imp is writing down the story of what she remembers happening in journal style on her typewriter because she is trying to figure out the mystery of what exactly happened for herself. The reader is just along for this ride. And it’s a haunting, terrifying ride. Not because of what Imp remembers happening with Eva Canning but because of being inside the mind of a person suffering from such a difficult mental illness. Experiencing what it is to not be able to trust your own memories, to not be sure what is real and is not real, is simultaneously terrifying and heart-breaking.
Imp’s schizophrenia, plus some comorbid anxiety and OCD, and how she experiences and deals with them, lead to some stunningly beautiful passages. This is particularly well seen in one portion of the book where she is more symptomatic than usual (for reasons which are spoilers, so I will leave them out):
All our thoughts are mustard seeds. Oh many days now. Many days. Many days of mustard seeds, India Phelps, daughter of madwomen, granddaughter, who doesn’t want to say a word and ergo can’t stop talking. Here is a sad sad tale, woebegone story of the girl who stopped for the two strangers who would not could not could not would not stop for me. She. She who is me. And I creep around the edges of my own life. Afraid to screw off the mayonnaise lid and spill the mustard seeds. (Part 2, loc 55:35)
The thing that’s great about the writing in the book is that it shows both the beauty and pain of mental illness. Imp’s brain is simultaneously beautiful for its artistic abilities and insight and a horrible burden in the ways that her mental illness tortures her and makes it difficult for her to live a “normal” life. This is something many people with mental illness experience but find it hard to express. It’s why many people with mental illness struggle with drug adherence. They like the ability to function in day-to-day society and pass as normal but they miss being who they are in their own minds. Kiernan eloquently demonstrates this struggle and shows the beauty and pain of mental illness.
Dr. Ogilvy and the pills she prescribes are my beeswax and the ropes that hold me fast to the main mast, just as my insanity has always been my siren. (Part 1, loc 4:08:48)
There is a lot of queer representation in the book, largely because Kiernan is clearly not just writing in a token queer character. Imp is a lesbian, and her world is the world of a real-to-life lesbian. She is not the only lesbian surrounded by straight people. People who are part of the queer community, in multiple different aspects, are a part of Imp’s life. Her girlfriend for part of the book is Abalyn, who is transwoman and has slept with both men and women both before and after her transition. She never identifies her sexuality in the book, but she states she now prefers women because the men tend to not be as interested in her now that she has had bottom surgery. The conversation where she talks about this with Imp is so realistic that I was stunned. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a conversation about both transitioning and the complicated aspects of dating for trans people that was this realistic outside of a memoir. Eva Canning is bisexual. It’s difficult to talk about Eva Canning in-depth without spoilers, so, suffice to say, Eva is out as bisexual and she is also promiscuous. However, her promiscuity is not presented in a biphobic way. Bisexual people exist on the full spectrum from abstinent to monogamous to poly to promiscuous. What makes writing a bisexual character as promiscuous biphobic is whether the promiscuity is presented as the direct result of being bi, and Kiernan definitely does not write Eva this way. Kiernan handles all of the queer characters in a realistic way that supports their three-dimensionality, as well as prevents any queerphobia.
The plot is a difficult one to follow, largely due to Imp’s schizophrenia and her attempts at figuring out exactly what happened. The convoluted plot works to both develop Imp’s character and bring out the mystery in the first two-thirds of the book. The final third, though, takes an odd turn. Imp is trying to figure out what she herself believes actually happened, and it becomes clear that what she ultimately believes happened will be a mix of reality and her schizophrenic visions. That’s not just acceptable, it’s beautiful. However, it’s hard to follow what exactly Imp chooses to believe. I started to lose the thread of what Imp believes happens right around the chapter where multiple long siren songs are recounted. It doesn’t feel like Imp is slowly figuring things out for herself and has made a story that gives her some stability in her life. Instead it feels like she is still too symptomatic to truly function. I never expected clear answers to the mystery but I did at least expect that it would be clear what Imp herself believes happened. The lack of this removed the gut-wrenching power found in the first two-thirds of the book.
The audiobook narration by Suzy Jackson is truly stellar. There are parts of Imp’s journal that must truly have been exceedingly difficult to turn into audio form, but Jackson makes them easy to understand in audio form and also keeps the flow of the story going. Her voice is perfect for Imp. She is not infantilized nor aged beyond her years. She sounds like the 20-something woman she is. I’m honestly not sure the story would have the same power reading it in print. Hearing Imp’s voice through Jackson was so incredibly moving.
Overall, this book takes the traditional mystery and changes it from something external to something internal. The mystery of what really happened exists due to Imp’s schizophrenia, which makes it a unique read for any mystery fan. Further, Imp’s mental illness is presented eloquently through her beautiful first-person narration, and multiple queer characters are present and written realistically. Recommended to mystery fans looking for something different, those seeking to understand what it is like to have a mental illness, and those looking to read a powerful book featuring queer characters whose queerness is just an aspect of who they are and not the entire point of the story.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 332 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Audible
Counts For:
Book Review: The Coin by Glen Cadigan
Summary:
When Richard’s physicist professor uncle dies tragically in a plane crash and leaves him his coin collection, he is shocked to find a brand-new dime from 2012. The only thing is, it’s 1989. A note from his uncle states that the coin is important. Richard thinks the answer to the mystery might be in his uncle’s personal diaries he also left him, but he’s not a physicist and can’t decipher them. As the year 2012 approaches, Richard increasingly wonders what the coin is all about.
Review:
I had previously reviewed a book by Glen Cadigan, Haunted
Richard’s first-person narration follows a style similar to that used often in older scifi; it reads as if the main character is writing everything down in his journal for longevity. It’s a cozy narration style that works well for the slow-moving mystery it tells.
This narration style also helps establish Richard into a well-rounded character quickly. The reader almost immediately feels an intimacy with Richard as he discusses his sorrow at his beloved uncle’s sudden death, why he was close to his uncle, and his thoughts on the mysterious coin. The uncle is, perhaps, less well-rounded but only in the sense that the reader comes to know him only through the eyes of a loving relative. It thus makes sense that mostly his good qualities come through.
Cadigan artfully maneuvers Richard’s handling of the mystery from the days before the internet to present. Richard first employs old-fashioned research techniques to try to figure out the mystery then loses interest. With the advent of the internet, though, he regains interest and starts researching again. This is completely realistic and reads just like what a person might have done.
Some basics physics of time-travel and time-travel theories are included. They are written at the right level for a general audience reading a scifi book, neither talking down to nor being too technical.
What really made me enjoy the book was the resolution to the mystery. I should have seen it coming, but I did not, and I always enjoy a surprise that feels logical when I think back on it.
So why four stars and not five? The novella left me wanting something more. It felt almost too short. Like there was something left out. Perhaps more time spent on Richard’s researching of the mystery or snippets from the uncle’s journals or some photos of the uncle and his airplane might have helped it feel more fully fleshed-out and real. The old-school narration style was enjoyable but some additions of some of the types of things a person might put in their journal would help it feel more complete. Even some simple sketches or perhaps a poem by Richard about his uncle, since he’s in the humanities, would have helped.
Overall, this novella is a fun new take on the storytelling method of having a character write in their journal about a mystery. The science is strong enough to be interesting but not too challenging, and the result of the mystery is surprising. Some readers might be left wanting a bit more to the story. Recommended to fans of scifi classics such as The Time Machine
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 41 pages – novella
Source: Kindle copy from author in exchange for my honest review
Book Review: The City of Time and Memory Part I by J. A. Childress (Series, #1)
Summary:
Zak wakes up from a night of drunken revelry to find himself in his apartment but not his apartment building. His apartment is now part of a massive structure of multiple different architectural styles that looks like it goes on forever. Plus his bathroom is missing. Shreya wakes up in her car in a parking garage to Hungry Eyes playing on the radio and an ominous car nearby nicknamed “Die Pflaume.”
Review:
This first entry of a new serial does a quick job establishing a strong setting but just when the action gets going, it leaves the reader hanging.
When I accepted this review copy, I must admit that I didn’t realize it was the first entry in a serial, I thought it was in a series. Serials offer small episodes of an overarching story in bite-size chunks the reader picks up. Think of it as reading an episode of your favorite tv series. I think it would help if this was marketed more clearly as a serial, since certain readers love that reading experience and others aren’t too keen on it. Making it clearer that it’s a serial will help it better reach the right readers.
A good serial entry will read much like an episode in a tv show with a large, overarching plot, but also a smaller plot that can be told in one episode that is, ideally, tied to the overarching plot in some way. This gives the reader the satisfaction of completing a piece of smaller plot but also keeps them engaged in the series as a whole. This serial does a good job setting up the overarching plot. People are waking up in what appears to be an alternate universe that is possibly punishing them for something they did that they can’t remember with sinister beings chasing them or tormenting them from afar. It’s a good mystery, but it is just getting going when the serial entry stops. This would be ok, but the big weakness of the serial entry is that there is no self-contained smaller plot. Thus, instead of feeling any sense of satisfaction of having learned something or completed one mystery, the two main mysteries of the overarching plot are just getting going and then stop abruptly. Without the presence of a second, self-contained, smaller plot for this entry in the serial, this just leaves the reader feeling cheated out of getting the whole story, rather than the dual experience of satisfaction at the wrap-up of the smaller plot and intrigue at the larger plot.
The setting of the alternate universe is well-established and delightfully creepy. Everything being just a little bit off is creatively written without being in the reader’s face. The author also includes a drawing of a mysterious symbol that Zak sees, which helps build the atmosphere.
In contrast, Zak and Shreya feel a bit two-dimensional, but this is possibly because they have such a short time in which to be established. Similarly, the demonic character who chases Zak comes across as corny, straight out of a B movie, not frightening like he is, presumably, supposed to. The world building is so good that the two-dimensional good guys and cheesy bad guys stick out like a sore thumb.
The one flaw in the writing style is there are way too many similes. At times it feels that every other sentence contains one. Any descriptor used too much can go from artful to annoying. A lighter hand on these would be helpful in future entries.
Overall, this first entry in the serial establishes a delightfully creepy alternate universe where everything is just off. The lack of a smaller, self-contained plot in addition to an overarching plot will make this frustrating to read, unless the reader has the next entry at hand to read immediately. Recommended primarily to horror fans who like their horror in small bites and enjoy the concept of a serial who won’t mind waiting a bit for the conclusion to the mystery in future entries.
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3 out of 5 stars
Length: 37 pages – novella
Source: Kindle copy provided by author in exchange for my honest review
Book Review: The Big Time by Fritz Leiber (Series, #1)
Summary:
It’s the Time War, and the Spiders and Snakes are battling each other up and down the timeline in an attempt to give time the ultimate outcome they each are hoping for. Nobody knows precisely who the spiders and snakes are, but they briefly resurrect humans and ask them if they want to participate in the war. Those who say yes become the soldiers, nurses, and the Entertainers who provide rest and relaxation for the soldiers in the waystation. One waystation is about to hit a ton of trouble when a package shows up and a soldier starts talking mutiny.
Review:
I’m a fan of time-travel as a scifi trope, and I liked the concept of a time war, so when I saw this sitting on my virtual ARC pile, I figured it would be a quick, appealing read. The book is less about time-travel, and more a type of scifi game of Clue, with everyone trapped in a waystation instead of a house trying to figure out who turned off the machine that connects them to the galaxy, rather than solve a murder.
The book takes place entirely within the waystation. The waystation exists outside of time to give the time soldiers a place to recuperate without the pressures of time travel. All but one of the soldiers are men, and most of the Entertainers are women. The one female soldier is from ancient Greece, the clear idea being that her era of women are the only ones tough enough to be soldiers. This definitely dated the book and led to some eye-rolling on my part. On the plus side, the book is narrated by a woman, and she is definitely one of the brains of the bunch. There thus is enough forward-thinking that the sexist distribution of time soldiers doesn’t ruin the book; it’s just irritating.
The crux of the book is the soldiers wondering who, exactly, is telling them what to do up and down the timeline and worrying that they are ruining time, not to mention the planet Earth they once knew. The soldiers are told they’re on the side of the good guys, yet the good guys are insisting that Russia must be stopped at all costs, even if that means the Germans winning WWII. Thus, the soldiers are awkwardly paired up with Nazis in the fight. It’s interesting to force the Allies to attempt to see Germans in a different light. However, the whole idea that Russia (and Communism) will ruin the world is just a bit dated. It’s easy to get past, though, since the dilemma of how to know if who you are following is making the right choices is a timeless one.
The attempted mutineer ends up trying his mutiny because he falls in love with one of the Entertainers.
I decided they were the kind that love makes brave, which it doesn’t do to me. It just gives me two people to worry about. (loc 10353)
The attempted mutiny against the cause is thus kind of simultaneously blamed on love and on the woman behind the man starting the drama. It’s true that love makes people do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do, but I do wish the characters were more even-handed in dealing out the blame for the mutiny to both halves of the couple. On the plus side, it is left unclear if the mutiny is a good or bad idea, so whether the idealistic couple in love are right or not is up to the reader to decide.
The final bit of the book dives into theories about time-travel, time, and evolution. It’s a bit of a heady side-swipe after the romping, Clue-like plot but it also shows how much of an impact the events of the book have on the narrator. At the beginning, the narrator states it was a life-changing sequence of events, and the wrap-up deftly shows how it impacted her.
Overall, this is a thought-provoking whodunit mystery set in an R&R waystation in a time-travel war. Some aspects of the book did not age particularly well, such as the hysterical fear of Communism and the lack of women soldiers, but the heart of the book is timeless. How do you know if those in charge are right or wrong, does love make you see things more or less clearly, and does evolution feel frightening and random when it’s happening. Recommended to scifi fans with an interest in a scifi take on a Clue-like story.
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3 out of 5 stars
Length: 128 pages – novella
Source: NetGalley
Book Review: Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer (Series, #3) (Bottom of TBR Pile Challenge)
Summary:
When Charlotte goes away to boarding school for the first time, she’s very excited to get the bed with the particularly pretty wheels right next to the window. When she wakes up, though, the view from the window looks different, and people are calling her Clare! She discovers she’s traveled back in time to the same bed in the same boarding school, but during World War I. The next morning, though, she wakes up in the present again as Charlotte. This pattern continues, meaning both she and Clare are Charlotte….sometimes.
Review:
I picked this book up because I have an affinity for both boarding school books and time-travel books. This looked like the best of both worlds to me. A fun middle grade book that introduces to the reader to two different past time periods–the late 1960s of Charlotte’s present and the nineteen-teens of Clare’s present.
This book is the third in a series, but it is completely possible to read it as a standalone. No mention is made of the events in the first book, and the second book is actually about what Charlotte’s little sister does while she’s away at boarding school.
The concept is intriguing, because instead of time-travel happening once and landing the person stuck in the past (or future), Charlotte keeps switching, spending every other day in the 60s and every other day in the teens. (I get a migraine when the barometric pressure changes….I can only imagine how I’d feel if I time travelled! Do you think I could bring my green lamp therapy with me?)
In addition to the usual issues time-travel books bring up, such as what stays the same and what is actually different throughout time, it also brings up the key question of identity. What makes Charlotte Charlotte? Is she still Charlotte when she’s being called Clare? Why does hardly anyone notice that Clare has changed? Or Charlotte for that matter? The book thus addresses identity issues that middle grade readers might be going through, but in a subtle way through the time-travel trope.
Were you some particular person only because people recognized you as that? (page 66)
The time-travel itself is left as a fantastical mystery, rather than being given a scientific explanation. There’s something magical about the bed that only makes Charlotte and Clare switch places, but no one else. This works without an explanation because the young girls being subjected to the time-travel just accept it without explanation. This is their reality, and it doesn’t matter why it’s happening, they just have to deal with it. Some readers, though, might struggle with the fact that the time-travel itself is never explained.
The one thing that disappointed me about the book, and that I think would have made it a classic and a five star read, is that the book only explores what happens to Charlotte when the girls switch places. Clare, her experiences, and her perspective are only heard about through third parties. The book, while in third person, is entirely Charlotte’s perspective. Clare, a reserved, proper girl from the nineteen-teens must have been shocked by both the technology and the mores of the 1960s she suddenly found herself in. So much more could have been explored by telling both Charlotte’s and Clare’s story. The book misses an opportunity by only focusing on the modern day girl going back in time. The girl being thrust into the future, a future where she finds out Britain wins the war, and there is suddenly no food rationing or flu epidemic, that is such a cool story in and of itself, and Farmer just never ventures out to tell it.
Interestingly, the British band The Cure released a song called “Charlotte Sometimes” that they admitted was pulled directly from this book. Not just the title, but song lyrics are pulled from the first couple of lines of the book. Even the music video features scenes from the book. It seems to be quite a mystery who the actress was who played Charlotte in the video. She wasn’t credited, and there’s a lot of posts on the internet with people speculating about who she might be. In any case, Penelope Farmer was…not amused by the whole thing. But back to the book.
Overall, this is a book that sets up a fantastical world of time-travel within a boarding school. It utilizes the switching of two girls with each other in time to explore questions of identity in a way that surely will appeal to many middle grade readers. The book does not fully explore the story the way it possibly should have, but the young reader will probably enjoy filling in those gaps themselves. Recommended to all fans of boarding school, time-travel, or historic fiction set during World War I’s homefront.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 174 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: Better World Books
Previous Books In Series:
The Summer Birds
Emma in Winter
Edit note: Thanks to Vicky for pointing out it was published in 1969.
Book Review: The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood (Bottom of the TBR Pile Challenge)
Summary:
It’s the 1960s in Canada, and Marian McAlpin is working writing and analyzing surveys for a marketing research firm. She has a feminist roommate she doesn’t quite understand, and hangs out with the three office virgins for lunch. Her boyfriend is comfortable and familiar. When he proposes to her, the office virgins think she’s hit the jackpot, her roommate questions why she’s following the norm, and her married and very pregnant friend seems hesitant about her fiancee. None of this really bothers Marian, though. What does bother her is that, ever since her engagement, there are more and more things she simply can’t eat. First meat then eggs then even vegetables! She thinks of herself causing them suffering, and she just can’t stomach them. What will happen to her if there’s eventually nothing left for her to eat?
Review:
I’m a fan of a few Margaret Atwood books, and the concept of this book intrigued me. Since I run the Mental Illness Advocacy Reading Challenge, I was also wondering if this might actually be a new take on anorexia. Unfortunately, Marian is not really anorexic, it’s more of an elaborate, overdone metaphor. Perhaps the plot is simply dated, but the interesting concept, when fleshed-out, comes out rather ho-hum.
The novel is divided into three parts, with Marian using first-person narration for the first and third parts, with third person narration taking over for the second. This is meant to demonstrate how Marian is losing herself and not feeling her own identity. It’s an interesting writing device, and one of the things I enjoyed more in the book. It certainly is jarring to suddenly go from first to third person when talking about the main character, and it sets the tone quite well.
It’s impossible to read this book and not feel the 1960s in it. Marian is in a culture where women work but only until marriage, where women attending college is still seen as a waste by some, and where there is a small counter-cultural movement that seems odd to the mainstream characters and feels a bit like a caricature to the modern reader. However, the fact that Marian feels so trapped in her engagement, which could certainly still be the case in the 1960s, doesn’t ring as true, given the people surrounding Marian. Her roommate is counter-cultural, her three office friends claim to want a man but clearly aren’t afraid of aging alone and won’t settle. Her married friend shares household and child rearing with her husband, at least 50/50. It’s hard to empathize with Marian, when it seems that her trap is all of her own making in her own mind. She kind of careens around like aimless, violent, driftwood, refusing to take any agency for herself, her situation, or how she lets her fiancee treat her. It’s all puzzling and difficult to relate to.
The Marian-cannot-eat-plot is definitely not developed as anorexia. Marian at first stops eating certain meats because she empathizes with the animals the meat came from. As a vegetarian, I had trouble seeing this as a real problem and fully understood where Marian was coming from. Eventually, she starts to perceive herself as causing pain when eating a dead plant, bread, etc… The book presents both empathizing with animals and plants as equally pathologic, which is certainly not true. Marian’s affliction actually reminded me a bit of orthorexia nervosa (becoming unhealthily obsessed with healthy eating, source) but the book itself presents eliminating any food from your diet as pathologic. Either Marian eats like everyone else or she is going off the deep-end. There is no moderate in-between.
What the Marian-cannot-eat-plot is actually used for is as a metaphor for how Marian’s fiancee (or her relationship with him) is supposedly consuming her. The more entwined with her fiancee she becomes in society’s eyes, the closer the wedding comes, the less Marian is able to consume, because she herself is being consumed. This would be quite eloquent if Marian’s fiancee or her relationship with him was actually harmful or consuming, but it certainly does not come across that way in what we see of it in the book.
Marian presents herself to her boyfriend then fiancee as a mainstream person, and he treats her that way. He does one thing that’s kind of off-the-rocker (crashes his car into a hedge) but so does she on the same night (runs away in the middle of dinner, across people’s backyards, for no apparent reason and hides under a bed while having drinks with three other people at a friend’s house). The only thing that he does that could possibly be read as a bit cruel is when she dresses up for a party he states that he wishes she would dress that way more often. It’s not a partner’s place to tell the other how they should dress, but it’s also ok to express when you like something your partner is wearing. Personally I thought the fiancee really meant the latter but just struggled with appropriately expressing it, and Marian herself never expresses any wants or desires directly to him on how they interact, what they wear, what they eat, how they decorate, etc…, so how could he possibly know? In addition to never expressing herself to her fiancee, Marian also cheats on him, so how exactly the fiancee ends up the one being demonized in the conclusion of the book is a bit beyond me. He’s bad because he wanted to marry her? Okay…… The whole thing reads as a bit heavy-handed second-wave feminism to me, honestly. Marriage seems to be presented in the book as something that consumes women, no matter if they choose it or are forced into it by society. It is not presented as a valid choice if a woman is able, within her society and culture, to make her own choices.
In spite of these plot and character issues, the book is still an engaging read with an interesting writing style. I was caught up in the story, even if I didn’t really like the ideas within it.
Overall, this is a well-written book with some interesting narrative voice choices that did not age well. It is definitely a work of the 1960s with some second-wave feminism ideas that might not sit well with modern readers. Recommended to those interested in in a literary take on second-wave feminism’s perception of marriage.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Better World Books
Book Review: Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams by Alfred Lubrano
Summary:
What do you call the approximately 1 out of 5 working class American kids who go to college and move into the white collar world? Journalist Alfred Lubrano calls them Straddlers, and the world they live in Limbo. Through interviewing experts on social mobility and class, therapists, and Straddlers themselves, Lubrano seeks to establish the unique challenges and triumphs of moving up the social ladder from blue to white in America.
Review:
I picked this up because I happen to be one of the Straddlers Lubrano is talking about, and I was curious to know both what about my experiences are common among all Straddlers and pieces of advice on navigating the interesting experience of being a Straddler. The book brings to light the often overlooked issue of how changing classes impacts a person’s life, as well as real cultural differences among the blue-collar and white-collar classes in America.
Lubrano begins his book by defining blue and white collar. A blue collar person can make more money than a white collar person (think of a successful plumber versus a struggling journalist). Blue versus white collar isn’t about how much income a person generates, according to Lubrano. What really makes the difference is 1) education level and 2) type of work. The blue collar person may have an associate’s degree or a trade degree or certification. The white collar person will have, at minimum, a bachelor’s degree. The blue collar person generally works with their hands or in service industries. The white collar person works in an office or on a computer. Thus, what generally begins the change from blue to white collar is attending a four-year college.
The book next establishes the blue collar background the Straddler comes from, as well as establishing statistics on class mobility and class differences. By establishing firmly the blue collar background the Straddler comes from and how that affects their thought patterns and approaches, Lubrano lays the groundwork for highlighting the unique struggles Straddlers go through in college and later at their white collar jobs and in their white collar surroundings. The blue collar class elements Lubrano highlights include: being taught that working hard will get you what you want (the ideal of a meritocracy at all levels of society), distrust of the boss/upper-levels of management, intense loyalty to community and fellow workers, high value on obedience and conformity to community, patriotism, straight talking, and emotions being close to the surface and easily erupting.
The next section deals with the blue collar kid starting college. Both blue collar families that push college and those that degrade it are discussed, as well as the reasons for both reactions by blue collar parents to college. On the one hand, there are the parents who view college as a straight-shot meritocracy to a better job, better life, and better ability to live your dreams. On the other hand, there are the parents who are afraid that they will lose standing in their own home if their child outsmarts or outshines them. By and large, however, most blue collar parents fall in the former category. Lubrano points out that blue collar parents don’t intimately know or understand the white collar world they are sending their children into, and thus unknowingly often give them bad information or false hopes. To the blue collar parent, a college degree is a golden ticket, and so the blue collar child is pushed into a culture they are unprepared for.
Straddlers’ parents have such plans for their kids. With strong hopes but scant information, many push their progeny toward the vague realm of Something Better–the glorious middle class. Imbued with these dreams, Straddlers lurch awkwardly out of sheltering enclaves into unknown realms. On their sometimes troubled way, they become educated and awaken to class differences between the past and their would-be future. Priorities shift. Some values change, while some remain constant. Unlike many they meet in the new, white-collar world, these people are hybrids. That duality is their strength and their struggle, and will comfort and vex them throughout their days. (loc 611)
Next, the book tackles the blue collar / white collar culture clash that begins to occur when a blue collar person attends college and will continue throughout their life as a Straddler. Lubrano does an eloquent job of addressing both how the Straddler struggles to understand the white collar world she now inhabits, as well as how the Straddler starts to change and no longer fits in among her family and blue collar people she grew up with. The changes that often make a Straddler no longer fit in among her family include: language, leaving religion, and dietary choices. College makes the blue collar kids change, and often their families are not expecting that. Suddenly, the child speaks like a stranger, eats like a stranger, and no longer feels attached to the family religion. The culture clash between the working class college student and her new peers is perhaps a bit more obvious. The monetary differences are clear immediately. Peers often don’t understand the need to work or the high value of a dollar to their blue collar classmate. More subtle and far-reaching than the different approaches to money, though, are the different approaches to life. White collar kids are raised with self-esteem and feelings of entitlement that blue collar kids never knew existed. They navigate campus with a sureness of belonging, and that surety will aid them throughout their careers.
The book next tackles how these class differences affect the Straddler’s career. This is the most fascinating part of the book. Most people probably expect that a blue collar kid going to college will experience some culture clashes and struggles with the family, but the idea that these struggles will continue past college is not obvious. College is supposed to prep everyone for a career, but the fact is, oftentimes colleges leave the Straddler student floundering on their own. There are generally no classes on how to be white collar, you’re just supposed to know. And it’s not always easy for the Straddler to just pick this up on their own. Lubrano highlights the key areas in which the blue collar culture the Straddler was raised with clashes with the expectations of a white collar job and can hurt a career.
If you come from the working class, you haven’t got a clue how to conduct yourself when you first land in an office. You’re lost if you can’t navigate the landscape–if you follow blue-collar mores and speak your mind, directly challenging authority. Without tact and subtlety, without the ability to practice politics amongst the cubicles, an executive with a blue-collar background will not rise. (loc 2473)
Among the issues Lubrano highlights as frequently arising for Straddlers are a tendency to be lacking in tact, an innate disgust for and inability to handle the inauthenticity demanded by office politics, and a lack of understanding of the manner of dress expected in white collar jobs. Additionally, blue collar homes often denigrate the boss or the man, demanding only loyalty to fellow workers. White collar culture, on the other hand, demands loyalty to firm, not your coworkers, as well as an expectation that you will automatically desire to rise up the ladder and become the man. Perhaps the most difficult skill for Straddlers to learn and appreciate is networking. Blue collar homes teach you to leave work at work. Family time is a sacred space. White collar jobs expect extraneous socializing in the form of networking, additionally they expect the white collar workers’ whole family to participate in their career, when needed. (Think of a networking dinner in the worker’s home). This entire concept rubs the Straddler the wrong way. Networking feels inauthentic and wrong, and the family space feels violated. Additionally, the Straddler was raised believing hard work advances you, not who you know. The idea that you advance farther by networking than by working hard can often sicken a Straddler.
I didn’t realize that doing a job well is no guarantee of advancement and opportunity. There are ways to get ahead that have nothing to do with hard work. But blue-collar people are taught that that’s a person’s only currency–you sell your labor and give the boss an honest eight hours….Along with blatant kissing up, networking and socializing with bosses and colleagues also are dirty words to some Straddlers. It all smacks of phoniness and is antithetical to their blue-collar backgrounds, which emphasize honesty in human relations–”real” relationships. (loc 2735)
The book next discusses Straddler’s romantic lives and experiences parenting their own white collar children. Unless a Straddler dates another Straddler, they will end up dating someone who does not communicate the same way they do. If they date a blue collar person, the same issues they have with their own family arise. If they date a white collar (born and raised) person, then issues in communication similar to the ones they experience at work come up. If the Straddler marries a blue collar person, that person will often feel threatened by their academic interests. If the Straddler marries a white collar person, communication is often an issue. White collar people are taught to manage their emotions and shut down when upset. The Straddler was raised with emotions at the surface in a passionate manner. This can freak out the white collar person, and in turn, the relative calm of the white collar partner can drive the Straddler crazy.
When it comes to kids, most Straddlers talk a lot about trying to keep their kids from having a sense of entitlement. They want them to connect to their blue collar roots, to appreciate blue collar work, and to have blue collar values. The Straddler wants their child to have to struggle, because they value the personal growth they themselves got out of it.
The book closes out with a discussion of what makes a successful Straddler. Ideally, the Straddler will become bicultural. Able to navigate both blue and white collar worlds, and appreciate the positive in both. Unashamed of where they came from and unashamed of where they ended up.
The more successful Straddlers–and by this I mean people who are comfortable with their lives–embrace their middle-class reality while honoring their blue-collar roots. Though they live in limbo, they choose to concentrate on the upside and what makes them unique. (loc 4175)
The book addresses a topic that badly needs to be addressed. If one in five working class kids becomes a Straddler, that’s a huge sociological group that is often not discussed. However, there are some weak points in the book. Although Lubrano acknowledges that Straddlers can come from the city or rural areas, since he grew up in Brooklyn, he tends to focus in on those who come from the city. He could have sought out more Straddlers to interview who grew up rural poor to get a firmer grasp on what their life experiences are like. There are some subtle differences between city and rural blue collar. Similarly, Lubrano mostly interviews people of the same generation as himself. He conducts one series of interviews with three people from a younger generation, but primarily he interviews people from the same age-range. Although it’s obvious these issues are consistent across generations, it would be a stronger book with multiple generation’s voices. Similarly, the book came out in 2005, and an updated edition would be nice.
Overall, this is an engaging read that addresses the sociological issue of moving from blue collar to white collar class. Interviews with both Straddlers and experts brighten and enlighten the text, although the book would benefit from a bit more variety in the Straddlers interviewed. Recommended to anyone who is a Straddler themselves, as well as those who may educate or work with Straddlers and those with an interest in class differences.
4 out of 5 stars
Length: 256 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: Amazon
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Giveaway: The Second Lives of Honest Men by John R. Cameron (INTERNATIONAL)
This giveaway is now over! Thank you all for entering!
It’s time for the third giveaway of 2014 here at Opinions of a Wolf. Lots of the indie authors whose books I accepted for review in 2014 also were interested in me hosting a giveaway at the time of my review, so there will be plenty more coming up in the future too.
There is ONE ebook version of The Second Lives of Honest Men
What You’ll Win: One ebook copy of The Second Lives of Honest Men
How to Enter: Leave a comment on this post stating what historical person you would bring up to the present, if you could.
Who Can Enter: INTERNATIONAL
Contest Ends: May 3rd. Two weeks from today!
Disclaimer: The winner will have their ebook sent to them by the author. The blogger is not responsible for sending the book.
Book Review: The Second Lives of Honest Men by John R. Cameron
Summary:
Professor Jacob Wentworth is the last of his kind, the only humanities professor at the university. With his retirement at the end of the year, the humanities department will officially be closed. But when the university’s star genius student, Bryce, takes a liking for Jacob and what he can teach him, Jacob stays on indefinitely. Jacob has refused to ever use the Interface directly. He won’t put in the contacts or earbuds that open up a whole virtual world. He doesn’t want to give the Company that much control over his life. In spite of his tutelage, years later Bryce is working on improving the Interface, making it into a brain implant instead of contacts. But Bryce’s connection with Jacob has done something to him, and he finds himself distracted by building a time machine and not wanting to help the Company anymore. Together they decide to bring Abraham Lincoln to the present, replacing him with a double just moments before his death. Maybe it will take a man out of time to save the future.
Review:
When this book was submitted to me during my annual review copy open submissions, I was immediately intrigued by the combination of a dystopian future with time-travel and history. Cameron’s story didn’t disappoint. The book gives a unique flair to the concept of fighting an overpowering dystopian government with the addition of time-travel and a historical figure that makes it engaging and highly readable.
The futuristic setting is both well-imagined and evoked in a non-intrusive, showing not telling way. It is easy to relate to Jacob immediately on his walk to work, and the futuristic elements are introduced gradually. It helps that Jacob is a bit of a luddite, as it gives him a bit of an outsider’s perspective to describe things to the reader. The futuristic tech described in the book is well-imagined. High tech contact lenses are definitely the wave of the future, and jumping from that to a neural interface makes total sense. Cameron also takes into account other elements of the future beyond the science, such as climate, politics, and trends. It’s a fun world to visit in spite of it being a dystopia.
Jacob and Bryce start out a bit two-dimensional but grow to be three-dimensional over the course of the story. The addition of the female biologist who assists them manages to add both diversity and a romance, which is nice. She also much more quickly takes on a three-dimensional quality. Having her and the romance around really kick the whole story up a notch. Abraham Lincoln was probably the most difficult character to handle, since he is obviously based on a real person. He is presented respectfully, yet still as a flawed human being. When he speaks, his words are accessible yet sound just different enough to provide the reader with the consistent cue that he is a man out of time.
The plot mostly works well, moving in a logical, well thought-out manner. The end has a bit of a deus ex machina that is rather disappointing.
*spoiler*
A main character is saved from death via time travel, thus making all of the main character “good guys” survive the battle with the Company. Stories about battles of one ideal against another are generally better if at least some casualties are had. I do not count a minor secondary character who dies, since that is akin to killing off a red shirt in Star Trek.
*end spoiler*
Some readers may be bothered by the level of anti-tech found in the book. The Interface isn’t just bad because the new neural version will give the Company control over people. It also is bad because it supposedly inhibits the development of the users’ brains, rendering them to an elementary level of intelligence. The book also strongly argues the idea that friends in virtual reality aren’t real friends, and that old tech, such as print books, are better. Even television is lauded as better than any virtual reality activity. I’m fine with not agreeing 100% with the protagonists in a story. It’s not necessary for me to enjoy it, and I appreciate seeing their perspective and the freedom fight that follows. However, this perspective may bother some readers, so they should be aware it exists within the story.
Overall, this is a well-written, original take on the idea of fighting a dystopian future with an advisor ripped out of time. The book is weakened a bit by a deus ex machina ending. Some readers may not like or enjoy the anti-tech position of the protagonists. It is still a fun frolic through a richly imagined possible future. Recommended to fans of dystopian scifi and US History.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Kindle copy from author in exchange for my honest review
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