REVIEW: Tell The Wolves I'm Home - Carol Rifka Brunt

This is the second time I’m reading this book. The first time I read it (which I did at lightning speed – like I do for most books – because I don’t have the patience to endure the suspense of the ending), I thought all that the book had going for it was the plot and the characters – which is more than enough for me and which is everything that the blurb advertises.

My most grievous fault.

If you do a basic Google search about this book, you’ll come across numerous posts that have written odes to everything that’s beautiful about this book on the surface. The plot is set in the late 1980s, a time when America was in the grip of homophobia and AIDS was in the headlines all too often. It introduces to us a fourteen-year-old, who finds herself lost after her godfather, confidant, best friend, and uncle, Finn passes away. That’s also when she learns there’s a lot of Finn that she didn’t know about.

That’s not all. There’s Greta – the ace kid in the family – and once upon a time, together they used to be the Elbus girls. Then June learns that her mother – the boring accountant who, together with her accountant husband, orphans their kids during their tax season – has a past that June has trouble wrapping her head around.

And then there’s Toby. And then there’s Toby.

The book explores more issues than I thought it would. Apart from the obvious that you can glean from the blurb, it also delves into the realms of forbidden love and sibling estrangement.  I actually had problems with June. I will not hide my initial disgust when I realized the nature of June’s feelings for her uncle. Nor my annoyance at how flippantly June mentions her newly acquired habit of smoking and occasional drinking. Nor my anger at her decision to accept the invitation to visit an apparent stranger and go places with him.

She does a lot of stupid things. Granted. But that’s also what I liked about the book. It isn’t trying to teach lessons about Stranger Danger or Smoking is Injurious to Health or Falling in Love with Relatives and this is not the book I would recommend as the solution to any of the above. Brunt neither condones nor condemns it – she merely talks about it. That is what struck me – you can’t detect the mature adult author acting as the conscience in the morally-compromised teenage narrator. Because there isn’t. It’s up to you to decide if that’s good or bad.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the imagery. Motifs like wolves, rain, butterflies, Mozart’s Requiem, trains, woods, a beautiful Russian teapot, and negative spaces in paintings show up now and then. I didn’t know that this book was a lot of work and is thus a prime candidate for book club discussions. I didn’t know that you had to read some lines twice and thrice to understand if there was a deeper meaning to what seems on the surface. There are some that you’ll miss if you blink like Finn’s chess set, or the painting Nurse Feeding Sick Man from the Book of Days.

Like I already mentioned, the characters are not whom they seem on the surface. There are layers upon layers on them. You would have peel them off slowly and carefully, to get a look at who they are underneath all of it. And underneath all of it, you'll find that they’re just people, not some characters in a book.

This book is work. But once you get to the end, you'll just remain curled up, hugging it to your chest. 

VERDICT: 5 stars

When The Authors Get It Wrong

That is one damn scary thought. I really don’t have any statistical proof when I say this; just making a naïve observation, but I think that the majority of bookworms lead extraordinarily ordinary lives. As in not terminally ill, not a psychopath, not an assassin, have never been raped, don’t have Asperger’s, don’t have LGBT related acceptance issues, are not Holocaust victims, don’t have dead parents, lovers, or best friends. And that one line just described the themes explored in about the majority of realistic YA novels.

So why are they written? If I had cancer (God forbid), I really don’t think I would have like to read The Fault In Our Stars ­– would you? Would you like to read about how a girl in remission meets her one true love at a support group who in the end dies? Or My Sister’s Keeper where Kate’s cancer felt like some deux ex machina tool to find a boyfriend who also dies? I’d most probably read some chick-lit day in and out and celebrate Meg Ryan and Katherine Heigl movies and lots of K-drama. And maybe some of those inspirational books people in my life feel obligated to buy me.

So these stories are written for the sake of the ones with extraordinarily ordinary lives. So that we can empathize – like Atticus advises Scott to climb into someone’s skin and walk around it if she wanted to understand a person. All this bigotry and hate in this world bubbles up from the fear of the unknown – maybe gays are mistakes of God and they are just a blemish on this world, right? Thus marks the entry of anti-LGBT activists.

Speaking for myself, I would have to say that books made me a better person. It is with some shame that I admit this, but I’ve been brought up in a society that is extremely prejudiced. Where mentally-challenged kids are openly referred to as “retards” – I haven’t heard a more polite term in my mother-tongue. Where gays are freak shows. Where cancer patients are regarded as sorry sights. (Please don’t judge us – we’re growing).

So that now we’ve answered the question of Why These Books, let’s move on to the title of this post. How thorough is your book? It’s shit-scary even contemplating about writing a book that features these issues – I mean, damn it, how do you do justice to your character? Fine, so you have a way with words and you feel like there’s a story waiting to be told. But your character’s voice. His agony. Her strength. How do you put it into words if you’ve never been through it, personally?

Research. Lots of it. Interviews with people like your character, their loved ones, doctors, psychologists, reading memoirs, war-accounts – the whole shebang. Katherine Stockett wrote about her fears of not being able to write in the voice of a wronged black maid in the South in the Author’s Note in her The Help. And I totally understand her. I don’t know much the book came under fire for political incorrectness but I do know that it affected me in some way. And GOD – Jodi Picoult. See http://www.jodipicoult.com/faqs.html for an idea of the research involved in her books. Just reading it made me tired and awed at these superheroes. And maybe you should also read Patricia McCormick’s Sold and Never Fall Down and Cut to expand your list of brave authors.

But what if they are still wrong? Murphy’s Law, being what it is, is bound to turn up author inaccuracies. The idea of this post came when I was scrolling through the reviews on GR after I had finished reading Laurie Halse Anderson’s Wintergirls. While I was reading the book, the thought that kept popping was why the hell she was known as the Author of Speak when Wintergirls was this good. If you aren’t a cutter (like me), don’t have an eating disorder (like me), don’t know what it feels like to hear that your best friend committed suicide (like me), then like me, you will feel short of breath at the magic Anderson wields with mere words. I mean. That Book. Is. Just. And I provided those conditional clauses in my judgement because I really don’t know how you would feel about it if you were Lia. It’s not a book you read curled up with a coffee in hand; it’s a book you clutch to firmly trying shit-hard not to fucking cry, and pray for girls like Lia and Cassie. So once I had recommended my GR friends how they should really read it, I happened to see some other reviews. That left me confused. So what was LHA doing? Merely showing off her writing skills and shamming us?

I don’t know the answer to that question. I don’t know if Jacob in Jodi Picoult’s House Rules is who a kid with Asperger’s actually is. I don’t know if Gabe in Beautiful Music For Ugly Children represents the trapped individual living in a body of the opposite sex. I don’t know if closure is as elusive as it was for Oskar Schell in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. But I do know that these books needed to be written because else we would continue thinking that we were “normal” or "okay" and they weren’t. 

ARC REVIEW: The Melody of Light - M. L. Rice

*COURTESY OF NETGALLEY*

View the blurb on Goodreads

You know what it was about this book that took my breath away? Had this plot arc originated in my head, I would have it written the exact same way. That doesn’t mean I loved this book to the ends of the earth and depths of hell, no. I just shared a fun fact with you.

Allow me to paraphrase: I don’t really like the way I write (with regards to a full-fledged novel) and I’m still trying to find my voice. But hey, tomorrow NaNoWriMo’s beginning, and I’m living in eternal hope.

Moving on.

Since I started with the writing style of this book, I might as well get over with it. I liked it (yay!) but didn’t love it – it felt like a really long short story. There was a prologue-ish sort of intro to the first chapter, and then the plot continues in a very thespian fashion – the whole novel is a flashback that brings the book to a full circle. The third person narrative brings in the drama-esque flair to the novel.  Only Aidan and Beth and to an extent Tori and Koji are actually fleshed out satisfyingly well; the others were merely acting their parts, and I couldn’t get a read on them. Maybe that’s the way it was intended to be, so no major judgement there. 

And The Melody of Light.You have no idea how much I’ve been berated, damned, harangued for my instinct to assume everything is crap and then search for proof that it’s good and find it and only then like it. So obviously, I mistrusted the title’s seemingly overly pandering title, until – wait for it – I found the reason to like it (and that reason made me go “Oh!”). I love the title now.

Riley and Beth make a very realistic couple (not that I have any idea about the mechanics of lesbian couples, but these two rock the mechanics of a general realistic couple – I suspect that’s the author’s experience working out the finer details there). There is no shortage of soppy dialogues and everyone knows it (at one point Riley appoints Beth as the “beacon of light” in her dark life and then says, “it’s cheeseball, but true.”) But, I didn’t cringe at them, since they made sense. (Although I do wish they could have been phrased in a way that wasn’t cheeseball-ish.)

And Aidan. AIDAN. I could write poems and epics glorifying his name. He is the combination of what all the Weasley boys are (yes, I use present tense, I refuse to accept Fred’s dead, okay?) to Ginny, he is the Atticus and Jem double combo to Scout, he is the Darry and Soda to a (okay, forgive me) girly- Ponyboy. He ticks every box of “Are you the Perfect Older Brother to Problematic Sister?” and I LOVE him. Don’t worry, my feelings are very chaste and sisterly.

And then the ending happened, which should not have made me leak two tears because:

a) Hello, I read Chapter One, so I should have predicted this.

b) It gave me a la “Roth Was Trying To Create A Sensation When She Killed Off Tris In Allegiant” deja-vu. 

You know, when we are speaking of unnecessary deaths in YA-famous literature and all.

On that note, Happy Halloween people. I am virtually celebrating a Hollywood-Glorified-Almost-International-Observance-Because-India-Doesn’t-Effing-Observe-One. 

Can you see my Hermione Granger costume through that screen of yours? I treated myself with a laddoo, so ha.

VERDICT: 3.5 stars

ARC Review: The Before Now and After Then - Peter Monn

*COURTESY OF NETGALLEY*

The book started by ticking all the boxes in my checklist to like a book - intriguing title, intriguing cover, interesting shelves, and above all, an interesting premise.

(Blurb from Goodreads)

Danny Goldstein has always lived in the shadow of his identical, twin brother Sam. But when a hurricane of events forces him into the spotlight, he starts to realize that the only thing he’s truly afraid of is himself. With the help of his costume changing friend Cher, a famous gay uncle with a mysterious past of his own, two aging punk rocker parents and Rusty, the boy who will become his something to live for, Danny begins to realize that the music of the heart is truly the soundtrack for living.

Danny Goldstein is broken after his twin dies on a night that was a tragedy among tragedies. Sam was the fighter. Danny walked in his shadow - Sam was his safe house. Their room reflected Sam from its furnishings. “Just an outline of the picture, giving some definition but not really filled with any kind of personality”. Even before Danny told him he was gay, Sam already knew. Like only a twin knows. So when he dies, “broken” isn’t a dramatic word. The first few chapters also strengthened my belief that I was going to love this book.

As you can guess from my phrasing of the introductory paragraph, that didn’t happen.

The book starts with a paragraph from a made up book that I wished would exist so I can read it.

(I can’t include the entire paragraph for obvious reasons.)

But this sentence is enough to describe all the characters here – Danny, Cher (GOD CHER DESERVES HER OWN FUCKING BOOK), Rusty, Alex (author of the famous Suburban Wasteland which I want to read) – all of them. As I am introduced to the characters, (Cher just jumps off the page like an effing page can’t hold her back), I start falling for this book. Danny sounds scared and lost, Cher hides all her insecurities under the fandom of her namesake, purple hair, and a ton of “I’ll maim you” attitude, brave Rusty with his fears, and Alex sounds like the cool, gay, honorary uncle. I liked them all and the direction in which the plot was taking me. (I like depressing premises if you didn’t already catch that).

And then

There was so much cheesiness and an overload of soppy dialogues; I kept wincing all throughout the middle. There was a lot of moons, and flowers and one-week anniversaries. I mean they’re gay, not girly girls right? Major stereotype revision happens here - so I guess I should be happy.

(This was my moment of revelation actually. Since my LGBT knowledge is limited to reel life, I thought gay men can be manly – LIKE FREAKING MATT BOMER AND WENTWORTH MILLER – and here Danny and Rusty was slathering me with cheese.) If all this happened in a straight book I would not forgive it, so same applies here.

And then life started to get complicated like it couldn’t bear to see Danny happy and then my cousins were very amused at my “Oh God” expressions and gasps.

So, that’s speaking plot-wise.

The writing pleased me (I am deliberately not including the cheese pizza slices), but it didn’t unbalance me or anything. And the coming-out phase happens at the very beginning of the book, so thankfully the whole story was not about accepting his gay-ness (ok, it is, but not outright). But this is a romance when all is said and done (which is not what I thought it would be) and romances don’t inspire me that much, so -
VERDICT: 3.5 stars.

Cher deserves pompoms though. I loved her.
Ooh, I just remembered why the talk of cassettes and B-sides gave me deja-vu. See Beautiful Music for Ugly Children. 

REVIEW: Grasshopper Jungle - Andrew Smith

CAUTION: Reading this book has licensed me with the authority to use the word that is a more commonly used synonym for excrement.  You have been warned.

Austin Andrzej Szerba is his name. It is Polish. Since human beings are genetically predisposed to record history, (we believe it prevents us from doing dumber and dumber shit), Austin takes on his role as a historian recording the end of the world. 

There are things in here: babies with two heads, insects as big as refrigerators, God, the devil, limbless warriors, rocket ships, sex, diving bells, theft, wars, monsters, internal combustion engines, love, cigarettes, joy, bomb shelters, pizza and cruelty.

This is his history.

From the various sources of bookish information, I have concluded that the bookish population doesn’t know WHAT TO SAY ABOUT THIS BOOK. In this post, I shall be attempting something that resembles a review.

I mean, hello, HAVE YOU SEEN THE BLURB. I guess that itself vindicates the varied reactions this book got that ranges from “Holy Shit.” (Excrementum Sanctum) to WHAT THE HELL WAS THIS BOOK to I LOVED THIS.

Again, I shall be merely attempting.

The first coherent thought that my brain grasped at was “Austin Szerba is an extremely horny, confused Polish kid”. This point in itself is half the story. The other half is credited to the emergence of six feet tall bug-like creatures that do only two things: f*** and eat. Therefore, they bring the end of the world with them.

The writing is unadulterated, unedited, incoherent first hand witness account. A history textbook written by a horny teenager nearing Doomsday.

Excrementum Sanctum.

You know how if you pick up a book and read it, you’ll straightaway come to know the author is John Green? I have a feeling that if I pick up anything so much as a grocery list written by Smith, I’ll know.

This is a compliment.

This book has titles for each chapter. And not the one-word/poetic/thematic kind. The “Denny Drayton Has a Gun, Motherf*****” kind. The “The Right Kind Of Cigarettes to Smoke Just Before You Kill Something” kind. The completely awe-inspiring kind.

The characters introduced in this book come with their history. Robby and Shann come across t-totally. I have unashamedly fallen in love with Robby (who’s gay, so even if he existed in real life, I’d still be doomed to having a crush). You get introduced to Austin’s whole family tree, including the scandalous twigs.

This book constantly jumps back and forth in time. Not through the plot, per se, but by how we come to know certain things. Just like a history account – there is no suspense. The climax has already come and gone and this is a mere account.

And so I loved the way this book was written.

But not so much the story. You take away the writing, and I could probably tell the story in ten minutes or less. But then again, I don’t think this book was meant to be plot-intensive.

Actually, I don’t know what this was meant to be.

There is a whole lot of other shit. Shit we know couldn’t have happened in real life, but is tweaked into this book anyway. Shit about Nixon, Pope Paul VI, the Chinese prime minister Chou En-lai, and others.

This book also ponders over why history is always abbreviated. Why it’s never been written Winston Churchill took a shit sometimes. Shit like that.

Weird shit, this book. Weird plot, weirder writing. The first “weird” was said in a disapproving tone, the second “weird” was “hell, yeah”.

History lesson is over for today.

VERDICT: 3 stars

P.S.: Judge the book by its cover. I dare you to.