Sunday Book Review

Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner

Wow, this book is like TheGiver on steroids.  Imagine a world with so little humanity that watching your teacher beat a small child to death feels normal?  This is the horrific world that Standish Treadwell lives in.  His best friend and parents have been "disappeared" and likely murdered so he and his grandfather are left to survive in a lonely row of deserted houses.

This is painful reading.  It's the inside of Nazi occupation, brutal and careless.

If you can handle that kind of story, the writing is breathtaking and Standish wins you heart from sentence one.

In some ways, I wonder if this book is far too cruel for kidlit.  It's violence and deep allegory into the warped abuse of political power and human desperation are heady enough for adults.  Still, it's message is important.

This is one of those books that breaks your heart, stops your breath and makes you pause to consider the atrocities we are all susceptible to enduring, and committing, in times of desperation.

Sunday Book Review

I finished The Round House last week.  

I tend to struggle with stories that ask me to learn about a new world with rules I have to suss out. From science fiction to tales set in cultures I'm unfamiliar with, I am lazy and find it difficult to connect with the main characters.  It's a total flaw in my role as a reader. It is also the only complaint I had with this book.  Really, it's a fabulous story - a Native American To Kill A Mockingbird, complete with an engaging, young main voice, an Atticus Finch-like father and the burden of injustice to remind the reader that real-life complexities around America's oppression of subordinated groups is severe and continuous. 

I would definitely recommend it, especially for readers without my shortcomings.

The "Divergent" Series

Wandering the halls of my husband's old/daughter's current middle school the other night, waiting for our turn to talk to our daughter's English teacher for three minutes, I came across a small table full of books for sale.  I'd just read the recent Tribune article on Veronica Roth - her sweeping success, anxiety issues and the fact that she's a newly married twenty-five year old.  So I picked up the first book of the series, Divergent.

The minute I walked through the door, my daughter eyed the book.  "Mine!" she said.
She reads as fast as I do so I shrugged.  "Fine, but don't give it to anyone else until I read it."
The next morning, Lilly was gushing about this book.  "It's soooooo good!"
A few days later, I got my shot at it.  And it was good.  The premise was deeply interesting, the main character was badass and there was a thin layer of romance threaded through.  I marveled at the fact that the author was so young, but then it occurred to me that a young person was exactly necessary for a premise that divided a post apocalyptic world by people's dress and personality type - just like high school.

Lilly brought the second book in the series home from the library and we read that one too.

Ok, fine.  Kinda repetitive.

And our timing was great because the third and final book in the series had just been released so, while I was reading number two, I downloaded number three onto my Kindle and handed it to Lilly.  At that point, she'd given up sleep for ten days in order to read until all hours of the morning.  Glazed and baggy-eyed the next day, she handed me back the Kindle.

Our Review: Da fuh?

What happened in this book?  The original premise blown to smithereens, the interesting plot twists mangled and the main characters shuttled through so much loss that it's unbelievable to imagine they could still stand upright.  Like me, other reviewers felt the author had been rushed into producing an ending to the trilogy.

Ah well, this author's first book is better than most of the post apocalyptic novels I've read ever, and the pleasure of reading it trumps the disappointment of the next two.  This is an author whose career is just beginning and whose work will only improve over time and experience.

I look forward to what she comes up with next.  But I hope she puts her foot down, enjoys her success, and takes her time with her next book because if the first one is an indicator, this young woman can construct one hell of a great story.

First Post: Carrot Juice and Coffee

The table is set and I am wondering who will arrive to partake. I would serve, of course, carrot juice.
-Regina Gort

What? I haven't even had my coffee yet.
-Juliet Bond

Welcome to our new writing blog!  We hope you will join us on this new venture, that you will share laughs, triumphs and rejection letters. That you might dust off your muse and rediscover what inspires you to write, live and love.

More than likely there will be poetry.

And book reviews and interviews.

Revelations and prompts.

But most of all the growth of a relationship with our muses, a little bit country and a little bit city.

When I Met My Muse

I glanced at her and took my glasses
off--they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched. "I am your own
way of looking at things," she said. "When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation." And I took her hand.

-William Stafford

With warmth and welcome and a special toast to something new;

Load up the juicer!

-Regina

Nuh huh.  (Slurp.)  I'll stick with my non-fat latte.

-Juliet

Bring your own favorite beverage, and join us for a bit of nourishment.

Love, Us