2010 January » Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog

Review: A Crack in the Line by Michael Lawrence

Posted by Anastasia on January 20, 2010 No Responses »

Jan 202010

8. A Crack in the Line (Withern Rise #1) by Michael Lawrence
Publication: Greenwillow Books (August 23, 2005), Paperback, 323pp / ISBN 006072479X
Genre: Sci-Fi, YA
Rating:
Read: January 15, 2010
Source: Bought
Summary from Amazon:

A Boy
Alaric’s life has unraveled in the two years since he lost his mother in a terrible train crash. He and his father are barely speaking, and their home, Withern Rise, is in shambles.

A Girl
Naia tries not to dwell on the accident that nearly killed her mother two years ago, now that life with her parents at Withern Rise has returned to normal.

One and the Same
Alaric and Naia do not know each other, or that they are living nearly identical lives. But when they meet, their resemblance to each other is unmistakable. As their lives entwine, they uncover a truth that has the power to rearrange, or even erase, their very existence.

Review

I bought this in a book splurge back in November because of this Tor.com post, and I am so glad that I did! It’s just made up for the last two weeks of mostly-mediocre books I went through. Yay!

I won’t go into too much detail, mostly because I think it’s better if you read it for yourself and figure out things without me telling you about them before hand. There’s some excellent twists and exciting scenes that happen, and while I really want to talk about them because they’re wonderful, I think that’d be doing you a disservice. So I’ll just be somewhat vague but full of praise.

The focus of the book at first isn’t necessarily on the alternative world thing, but on the characters, their lives, feelings, problems, etc. Mostly on Alaric’s feelings and problems, actually, because he comes from the world that has gone wrong. Naia is in the “better” world, and so she doesn’t have much else to fixte on except this weird thing that’s happening to her.

I would probably normally feel annoyed by Alaric, because surely the fact that he’s moving through realities warrants a cessation of the self-pity that he’s is trapped in, right? But he doesn’t stop, and in fact it just gets a bit worse. And I’m probably being a little unfair, calling it self-pity, because at this stage in his life he’s not in the most healthy of environments or emotional/mental well-being. It’s deeper than that, see: he’s in mourning for his mother and having a hard time moving forward. So when he gets sucked into a world where she’s not dead…I can see becoming rather obsessed with the differences between his world and Naia’s. And so I never became annoyed with him.

Actually, I rather liked that Alaric didn’t immediately become entranced with moving-through-realities-what-does-this-mean stuff. It’s a terrifying prospect, when you really think about it, and I just think that the way Alaric (and Naia, for that matter) dealt with the whole thing was kind of refreshing. And it made for a really engrossing read, too.

I think I’ve started to go into spoilers. Um. Let’s try this: Naia is a great heroine. She’s strong and smart, and while she keeps pushing Alaric emotionally she also knows when to back off and let him breathe. I wish she had been able to do more, though. She seems to have had more of the science-y, theorizing parts and Alaric was left with the practical applications and experimentation bits. That wouldn’t have been so bad, but because Alaric is so jealous of Naia he kept some stuff from her and ignored her, and now he knows things she doesn’t and I’m sure something bad is going to happen because of that. It’s making me nervous about the future two books, actually.

Anyway, one of the themes in A Crack in the Line was, basically, “what you choose to do now affects multitudes of things in the future.” I really like that idea, though if you think about it for too long it can become terrifying. How could anyone make a choice if it might negatively affect someone else later on, even if that choice seemed like a good one at the start? There’s some really excellent questions in that line of thinking, and as soon as I track down some sci-fi nerds I’m going to open up a discussion.

If you like A Wrinkle in Time but get bogged down in the science talk, try this one. It’s just as emotional and scary and exciting, but maybe less intimidating. And, okay, less beautifully written. (It’s hard to top Madeleine L’Engle in writing style.) But, still, it’s very, very good. I can’t wait to read the next two books– it’s a trilogy– and I hope I’ve convinced you to try out this book for yourself. It’s utterly wonderful, and I had a great time reading it.

And

Find your own copy @ Amazon or IndieBound or BookCloseouts

Other reviews: Chicklish | Bookielicious

Is anyone else absolutely terrified of being sucked into another reality besides me? Anyone?

Book Trailer Tuesday: Magic Under Glass

Posted by Anastasia on January 19, 2010 No Responses »

Jan 192010

Book Trailer Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by me, Anastasia. It’s very simple to play along: find a particularly awesome book trailer, embed it in a post, then proceed to coo all over it. Or, y’know, talk about whatever you want to talk about. Why did this book trailer catch your eye? Why do you want to share it with people? Did it make you want to read the book? Why was it effective (or not)?

I know I haven’t posted a trailer in a while, but that’s because I refused to do so until I found one that I truly liked. Or, in this case, until I found one that was important in some way.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFvAq2lgrZ4]

This isn’t the best trailer I’ve ever seen, but it is important. Remember the controversy a while back about Justine Larbalestier’s Liar cover? Well, the same thing is happening again, this time to a debut author called Jaclyn Dolamore who doesn’t have the same speaking power as Ms Larbalestier does. And the horrible thing? It’s being done by the same company.

Basically, see this?

This is the US hardcover. That’s supposed to be the protagonist, Nim. Nim who’s from the far East. Nim who has dark skin and dark hair. Hm. Something seems amiss. At least the dark hair’s there?

Shame on you, Bloomsbury. I can’t believe you’re trying to pull this same shit again. For full details of this ridiculousness, see here.

Anyway, the trailer is an improvement over the cover because it at least portrays Nim the way she is in the book. Sure, it could be better, but that clockwork bit in the beginning was interesting. And I’m definitely going to make an effort to read the book and support Ms Delamore, even if it means paying Bloomsbury for being an ass.

Edit: Okay, adding a few things since this issue has gone nuclear since I first wrote this post on Sunday.

1. I don’t give a flip if the cover artist never read the book– that’s not the point. The point is that no-one at Bloomsbury looked at that cover, looked at the book (which I assume they HAVE read), and thought “Gee, I wonder if this could be a problem?”
2. I also don’t give a flip if “books with PoC on them don’t sell well.” That is bullshit.
3. I am going to buy Magic Under Glass because I want to support the author and I don’t think it’s productive to boycott her book when it’s not her fault that this sort of nonsense is happening to her. However, I don’t think I’m going to buy any Bloomsbury books again until they sort this racefail mess out.
4. I’ve been trying to make more of an effort to read books starring PoC characters, but now I’m going to double that effort and include books written by PoC as well. At LEAST five books a month. Eva has a great post with lots of recs if you want to do that, too.

Review: The Stolen Blue by Judith van Gieson

Posted by Anastasia on January 18, 2010 No Responses »

Jan 182010

7. The Stolen Blue by Judith van Gieson
Publication: Signet (April 10, 2000), Paperback, 245pp / ISBN 0451200012
Genre: Mystery
Rating:
Challenges: Support Your Local Authors (#1)
Read: January 13, 2010
Source: Borrowed off a coworker
Summary from Amazon:

For the fifty-year-old, recently divorced Claire Reynier, it’s time to start over. But her new direction in life–at a New Mexico university–becomes a detour to murder when an old friend and mentor is found dead.

Review

This review is another one of those ambivalent confusing ones, because on the one hand this takes place in Albuquerque, at my university, in MY FAVORITE LIBRARY. Specifically, in the Center for Southwest Research, which is a thing housed in the main Library. And that’s quite exciting! I can recognize everything she talks about. The landmarks, the way people act, the weather. It’s all very familiar and it was really fun to read about something, like an ugly statue that haunts my campus, for instance, and go “I know that!”

On the other hand, if I had read this and I was still living in Maryland, with no knowledge of the southwest or New Mexico, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have even finished it. The characters, including the protagonist, are really bland. Everyone speaks in short choppy sentences and the dialogue reads like this: “Did you like that thing?” “No.” “What about that other thing?” “Nope.” It borders on parody, and I can’t help but wonder if Ms van Gieson was trying to give it a Western feel– aren’t cowboys supposed to talk like the words are being dragged out of them, or something?

The plot was unfortunately really boring. Nothing happens for about three-fourths of the book, and the conclusion is just sort of plopped there grudgingly. I think most of the book is taken up by descriptions of Albuquerque and New Mexico as a whole, and while that’s not bad in a literary fiction book, it doesn’t make for exciting reading in a mystery. And in fact, the mystery is sort of secondary to everything else. Maybe even tertiary– all I know is that it’s not terribly important in the plot.

I suppose if you’re wondering what Albuquerque is like, this would be a good book to read. I think it captures the idiosyncrasies of my town quite well, especially in small things like how people drive (very angrily) and why they don’t wear coats in the winter (because they dress for the temperature in their car, not the temperature outside). The mystery, what there was of it, has a particular lure to book-lovers because it’s centered around rare books and libraries. I particularly liked the idea that a vital clue was hidden in a book with an extremely small run (30 copies!) and practically all of them are missing. The hunt for a copy of that book was fun to read about.

Anyway, I guess my thing with this book is: I dislike everything but the descriptions of Albuquerque, and those descriptions are giving me such good feelings and hometown pride that I can’t completely hate the book like I think I want to. So, you know. I don’t know. This has turned out to be quite a depressing review. Pictures! That’ll liven things up. Continue reading »

TSS: January 17

Posted by Anastasia on January 17, 2010 No Responses »

Jan 172010

I haven’t done a Sunday Salon post since before Christmas, and I kind of missed it! So let’s talk about how the first part of the year has been going for me so far.

I’ve read ten books so far, and unfortunately the average rating is 3.65 (thanks, Google Spreadsheets). 3.65! That’s not good, is it? I’ve read three really good books, two good books, and five mediocre books. My first ten books from last year had a definitely higher average. To be honest, I’m kind of disappointed in my reading so far. I had been hoping to read more excellent books, more 4 birds and up sort of books. But I seem to be leaping all over the rating scale, and even the ones that I rated 3.5 aren’t looking so hot in retrospect.

Plus it makes reviews really hard to write. I’d prefer to either desperately love or hate a book instead of feeling ambivalent about it. It’s just easier to write a review where I have strong opinions about something, you know? Oh, I don’t know where I’m going with this. I just hope I like the next ten books I read better than the first ten.

The good news is that I’ve gotten back into the swing of blogging! But school starts on Tuesday, so I don’t know how that’s going to affect things. I’m taking three literature classes, but I hope they don’t block me from reading my own books too much. I get really depressed when that happens.

Books read this week (some reviews are linked to but unavailable until next week):
5. Whom God Would Destroy – Commander Pants [rating: 3/5]
6. Died in the Wool – Ngaio Marsh [rating: 4/5]
7. The Stolen Blue – Judith van Gieson [rating: 2.5/5]
8. A Crack in the Line – Michael Lawrence [rating: 5/5]
9. Quant by Quant – Mary Quant [rating: 3.5/5]
10. The Wright 3 – Blue Balliett [rating: 5/5]

Currently reading:
Posted to Death by Dean James. Gay vampire solving mysteries in England! Only 20 pages into it so far, but it seems fun.

APFOL: January 10-16

Posted by Anastasia on January 17, 2010 No Responses »

Jan 172010

Interesting posts and other things that have caught my eye this week. It isn’t actually everything, since I didn’t want to kill myself copy-pasting, so for the entire link collection check out my Delicious page.

Books in General

Black-Eyed Susan’s: Mama Lockdown: Recognition for Black Literature Beyond Historical
“I’m starting off the new year with a rant about an issue you’re probably sick of hearing by now. Well, I’m sick of making it so somebody tell me why this continues to happen: 931 books read and of all the finalists by or about African Americans, the finalists are about slaves or civil rights. What the frack! Is it any wonder why my nephews and countless other children of all colors are less than enthused about getting books with black characters because those books almost always are books about us blacks being hung, sprayed or chased by dogs? Come on.”
Editorial Ass: ethnic writing–what’s ok to say?
“…I value ethnic stories very highly, and can’t support the idea that it’s better not to tell stories than to tell them. Perspective, nuance, and a range and variety of topics would help establish wider-spread racial/ethnic knowledge, but I don’t understand why [Ed Lin]‘s suppressing a funny true story just because it cleaves to an ethnic stereotype would benefit humanity.”
TheHappyNappyBookseller: Mark Your Calendars
An excellent listing of books being published in the upcoming months starring characters of color and/or books written by authors of color. I’ve added about seven books to my TBR list!
From Aya to Zapt!: 24 Graphic Novels for African American History Month – 1/7/2010 – Library Journal
Yet another excellent list. The only one I’m familiar with at the moment is the Static Shock graphic novel– I really enjoyed the TV show when I was younger, and the comic books were really good, too.
Dante’s “Inferno” and Video Games – mediabistro.com: GalleyCat
“eBookNewser reports that Electronic Arts will soon release a video game based on Dante’s “Inferno” and Random House will release a special tie-in edition of Dante’s epic poem, The Inferno to celebrate the game. You can’t make up these headlines.”

Library Loot (#9)

Posted by Anastasia on January 16, 2010 No Responses »

Jan 162010

Library Loot meme Library Loot is a weekly meme hosted by Eva and Marg that encourage bloggers to talk about what books they’ve gotten from their library during the week. Anyone can participate any time during the week, so feel free to write up your own post and link it using Eva’s (or Marg’s) Mr Linky!

I can’t seem to stop myself from grabbing interesting-looking books off the shelf at work, even though I’ve been trying to read more books in my TBR pile, but oh well. Here’s what I’ve found in the last week or so.

Barefoot Gen vol. 1. Barefoot Gen vol. 2 (manga about the history of Hiroshima). Quant by Quant by Mary Quant (Mary Quant’s autobiography from 1966, which apparently is going for a bundle on Amazon).

The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien (the ugliest covers I’ve ever seen, but the only paperback versions available in my library).

The Hellfire Club by Peter Straub.

Santa showed up but I deserve coal, not books!

Posted by Anastasia on January 15, 2010 No Responses »

Jan 152010

What’s that? This is three weeks late? Why, yes. Yes it is. I think this is about the latest I’ve ever been on something. I think I should probably win a gold medal in lateness, if anything. Or just bits of dirt thrown at me, I’m not sure.

Ms. Secret Santa! I have lost the bit of paper that says who you are, but I have not lost your presents. And what wonderful presents they are! I was honestly shocked when they all showed up in the mail last month. Here, take a look:

(Christmas Mouse and Tiny Santa are there to distract you from the lack of LIGHT.)

That’s four books that were on my Amazon wishlist: Shiver, Prophecy of the Sisters, Ruined and Eyes Like Stars. WOW. Thank you so much, Ms. Secret Santa!

I haven’t read any of them yet, mostly because I’m not sure which one to start with. Prophecy of the Sisters, maybe? Or Ruined? Which should I read first?