Jennie Day Blog

Book Review: The Underground Railroad

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Imagine if the underground railroad were, literally, a railroad that had been constructed under the United States. Who would build it? Who would run it?

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Colson Whitehead does this in his historical fiction novel, The Underground Railroad. Cora, a third generation slave on a Georgia plantation, follows in her mother’s footsteps and escapes north on the underground railroad. Along the way, she encounters people of different races and classes who help or hinder her progress.

And Whitehead answers the question as to who would have built this hypothetical real underground railroad – slaves, of course. Who else?

What I Liked

A writing professor I studied with in college explained in one lecture that the plot is what a story or novel is about. But on a deeper level, it has an “aboutness” – not what happens, but the greater purpose of the writing. Maybe to make the reader feel a particular emotion, or explore a difficult concept. At its core, The Underground Railroad is really about the brutality of slavery and the pervasiveness of racism.

This set the stakes appropriately high and made the action more real. I’ve criticized movies before for setting the stakes too low — I can’t bring myself to care what happens to the characters along the way, or have a hard time getting involved because it’s too predictable. This is not the case in The Underground Railroad. Each of Cora’s near brushes with getting caught or killed seemed real – the world was big and realistic enough that the story would have gone on without her in it, as it did for so many.

Also, there’s a big twist in the story of Mabel, Cora’s mother, that is revealed just before the book’s conclusion. It’s so heart-wrenching and really got under my skin; it completely changed the way I felt about the whole novel.

What I Didn’t Like

It took me a while to get a feel for the structure of the novel – the majority of the story is told in long chapters, each set in one state that Cora spends time in during her journey north, told in the third person from Cora’s perspective. In between each is a short chapter, character study really, of one of the tertiary characters from Cora’s life, from her mother and grandmother to the slave catcher pursuing her. These are told in the third person omniscient. They added a lot to the story, and deserved their place in it, but I found the changing perspectives a bit jarring.

In Conclusion

The Underground Railroad is a grim, haunting story but excellent and worth reading. Publishers Weekly gave the novel a starred review.

2018 Reading List

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It started at the end of 2014, when I got an email from Goodreads, “congratulating” me on my reading accomplishments of the year.

img_2319.jpg“6?! There’s no way that’s right!” I thought. Actually, it wasn’t – there were two that I’d forgotten to log, and I was in the middle of one book that I finished before midnight on New Year’s Eve. So … 9 in total. I’d spent what would have been quality reading time scrolling around on forums, playing 2048, and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer in its entirety.

I resolved to do better in 2015, and set a goal of 48 books (4 per month) but ended up at less than half of that number. That was when I started to really examine where my free time was going. Again, it was mostly TV. So in 2016, I made the resolution to stop watching TV on weeknights, and suddenly, I was a reader again. My “to-read” list is still long, but that’s because I find more I want to read as quickly as I check them off the list. Walking into bookstores is more fun now that I recognize and have read so many of the books out on display.

As I mentioned in my post outlining my goals for 2018, I want to read 50 books this year. I don’t really know how realistic that is with a baby due in less than 8 weeks – I’ve heard from some new moms that they didn’t read at all after their babies were born because of the overwhelm and sleep deprivation. But others have told me that if reading is a priority for you, you find the time to make it happen.

So here’s what’s on my list for 2018:

In the past couple of years, I’ve tried to read 4 classic novels (one per quarter) which has been a good challenge and achievable number. I also love to go back and re-read old favorites, and plan to read one of those quarterly as well.

Classics:

  1. Middlemarch by George Eliot (I started this in 2017, but am just finishing it!)
  2. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (I’d hoped to read it last year, but it didn’t happen.)
  3. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
  4. Ulysses by James Joyce

Favorites:

  1. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainier Maria Rilke
  2. The Frog Prince by Stephen Mitchell
  3. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
  4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I hope to finally get around to a few titles that have languished on my to-read list for too long: The Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela, Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn, and State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. I started re-reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series in December, which I haven’t read since high school, and plan to finish those in the first quarter of the year.

After re-reading the entire Harry Potter series last year, I’ve wanted to read more children’s or young adult fiction; I’m thinking either A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle or maybe Lemony Snickett’s Series of Unfortunate Events (which I’ve never read but have been enjoying the Netflix adaptation.)

I’m sure I’ll find plenty of books about babies and parenting that I want to read šŸ˜‰

Something that I want to be more conscious about is reading books by people of color. I read this article on Vox a few years ago that drew my attention to it, and the number of books written by non-white authors were an abysmal 6 and 4, respectively. I’ve been conscious about reading books written by women, and these days read a pretty equal split of male and female authors without trying. My hope is that bringing that same consciousness will have a similar result. On the list so far:

  • The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy
  • The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
  • Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  • Swing Time by Zadie Smith
  • Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
  • In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri
  • The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

My last reading-related goal is to spend more time reflecting on the books I read — instead of immediately diving into the next book in the pile — by blogging one book review each month.

The Best Books Iā€™ve Read in the Past Two Years

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Since my blogging fizzled out midway through 2016, this list spans both 2016 and 2017. You may recall that I set out to read 100 books in 2016 – I fell just short at 94. I decided to keep my 2017 reading goal lower at 60, though again, I missed the mark, ending the year having read 52 books. I haven’t hit my goal either year, but I’m still proud of those numbers and just happy to be reading so enthusiastically again.

This is an incomplete list of my favorite reads from the past two years, listed in the order in which I read them. It includes only books that I read for the first time — although I’ve been slowly rereading all of my favorites over the past several years – I figure you don’t need me to tell you how much I loved the Harry Potter series šŸ™‚ I also read a lot about massage, marketing, exercise science, and more recently, pregnancy and babies. Although several of those reads were excellent, I’ve left those off the list because they may not be universally interesting subject matter.

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

I’ve loved every installment J.K. Rowling’s murder mystery series, written under her pseudonym, but The Silkworm is my favorite thus far. P.I. Cormoran Strike and Robin, his assistant, are interesting and believable characters, and the action is fun (I even enjoyed some of the more gruesome details.) Admittedly, one of the reasons this is my favorite of the three mysteries is it’s the only one where I’ve correctly guessed the murderer šŸ™‚

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Somehow I made it through my first 30 years of life as a bibliophile and English major without reading this classic. I knew the story, but of course reading the novel is a very different experience than watching the TV or movie adaptations šŸ™‚ I’m sure part of the reason I loved it was because I was already familiar with the story, but I loved the writing and the novel gives a deeper look at the characters.

One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer

A book about habits, based on the Japanese concept Kaizen that lasting and profound changes are made through a series of small, incremental steps. Maurer details why “innovation” — projects or resolutions with sweeping, starting tomorrow, always/never — doesn’t lead to lasting change the way that simple, non-threatening changes do. It’s a quick, easy read, with simple advice and stories that illustrate his point.

The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin

The third and final installment in the vampire trilogy (I reviewed the first, The Passage, and second, The Twelve, back in 2013.) This was a really satisfying conclusion to the story – every character got an ending that felt complete and satisfying, and overall, this book redeemed a lot of the flaws of the second.

Station Eleven by Emily St.-John Mandel

A post-apocalyptic dystopia that tells several overlapping stories: the virus that destroys the modern world and the people who survive. Several of those survivors go on to form a traveling Shakespeare company in the aftermath and travel around the new world. It’s told in a non-linear format, which made it a real page-turner because I couldn’t wait to find out what happened to each of the characters.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Ove is a grumpy old man whose suicide plans are frequently derailed by his neighbors, until he accidentally becomes a valuable member of his community. This was such a touching story – I cried when I finished it because the ending is sad, but also just because I was sorry it was over.

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

Two fantastical beings, a golem and a jinni (or genie) who’s been entrapped for several centuries, meet in early 1900s New York and form a strange friendship. I wouldn’t say that I normally like or read much magical realism, but this was really engrossing! Though the action is fantastical, the relationships between the characters feel very real.

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

A fictional account of the Canadian murderess, Grace Marks. Atwood is one of my very favorite authors (I read 7 of her novels over the past 2 years!) and I’d put Alias Grace near the top; Like all her best books, it’s beautifully written, the main character is sympathetic and ends a bit ambiguously (so it really stuck with me.) The novel was recently adapted into a really compelling TV mini-series and is available on Netflix.

Favorite Books: Middlesex

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Jeffery Eugenidesā€™ second novel, Middlesex, is the story of Calliope Stephanides, later Cal, who is born a hermaphrodite. Callie is raised a girl, until at age fourteen in the throes of puberty, he starts living as a boy.

middlesex

Though the book is about Cal and his gender identity, the transitional scene doesnā€™t happen until about 80% into the story. This is a multi-generational epic, devoted to the story of how the recessive mutation on the 5th chromosome, which caused Cal’s hermaphroditism, came to exist and be passed down through his family.

Why I Liked It Then

Actually ā€¦ let me clarify. The first time I read Middlesex in early 2008, I listened to the audiobook, and I wasnā€™t sure whether or not I liked it. But Iā€™d just finished and fallen in love with Eugenidesā€™ first novel, The Virgin Suicides, so I decided the obvious next move was to pick up a physical copy of the book and read it again. It was on that second read that I decided that I unabashedly loved the book.

In this 2002 interview with Powellā€™s Books, Eugenides said of his narrator: ā€œI used a hermaphrodite not to tell the story of a freak or someone unlike the rest of us but as a correlative for the sexual confusion and confusion of identity that everyone goes through in adolescence.” I was 21 when I first read the book, so ā€¦ right in the thick of that confusion, and Calā€™s story resonated with me.

Interestingly, he is an omniscient first person narrator, making sense of his family story. Itā€™s an investigation (as is The Virgin Suicides) and though itā€™s thorough and meticulous in wrapping up three generationsā€™ worth of loose ends, thereā€™s an emotional center. Cal feels the emotion of each scene in his grandparentsā€™ and parentsā€™ lives, and the reader feels it, too.

Why It Still Speaks to Me Now

In that same Powellā€™s Books interview, Eugenides explains that Cal ā€œis perhaps inventing his past as much as recalling it. He might make claims that he has a genetic memory ā€¦ but there are a lot of tip-offs to the reader that he’s making it up. He needed to tell the whole story to explain his incredible life to himself.ā€

I donā€™t think I caught that on my first reading, but as Iā€™ve reread it (and reread it, and reread it again) there are deeper layers to be discovered.

Prime example: thereā€™s an interesting shift that happens after Calā€™s birth, when he becomes the main character of the story ā€“ he actually becomes less confident in his narration. Itā€™s said outright in the text, but it didnā€™t register with me until subsequent readings. Itā€™s very subtle and clever.

***

Publisherā€™s Weekly, in the starred review that was given to Middlesex, notes that the novel is ahead of its time for the detailed history of Calā€™s genetic makeup. Maybe it was on the subject of gender identity, too – I don’t really think it’s my place to say – but in the thirteen years since its original publication, that conversation has changed. If Eugenides were to rewrite it today, the novel would probably be a little different ā€“ part of me wonders if the novel would be as well received today with the vitriol that sometimes accompanies material on the subject ā€“ but I think it is very sensitiveĀ to the issue.

Eugenides was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for Middlesex.

Book Review: The Goldfinch

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My favorite part about packing to go on vacation is choosing which book(s) to bring. Although at first I thought my trip to Belize would be a good time for a prototypical ā€œbeach read,ā€ I ultimately chose Donna Tarttā€™s The Goldfinch for one reason: with exactly twelve chapters, I could read one chapter on each of the twelve days of my vacation.

Of course, that isnā€™t exactly what happened, because there are some short chapters and some long chapters, and then when I got to the second-to-last chapter, I felt compelled to keep reading and finish the book on the eleventh day of the trip. The best intentions, and all that.

Goldfinch

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The Goldfinch tells the story of Theo Decker and his coming of age. At thirteen, he is visiting a NYC museum on which a terrorist bombing is carried out. His mother is killed in the blast, and following her death, he is shipped around the city (and then the country) to be raised by different guardians, each more dubiously qualified than the last.

At the center of the story is the 1654 Carel Fabritius painting of a goldfinch, after which the book is titled.

What I Liked

Of the twelve chapters, eleven feature a distinct, defining moment in the story and moving the plot forward. In several cases, Theo meets a character who will play an important role later in the story; In others, itā€™s an event that advances the plot.

Though itā€™s largely plot-driven, the characters are fully realized. Theo is a majorly unreliable narrator, and Tartt is smart about the information she withholds to illustrate his unreliability.

One of those characters who Theo meets in one chapter and plays a big role later is his classmate Boris. Boris is a bit of a loose cannon and Theoā€™s best friend. When Boris first appeared in the story, I was glad Theo had found a friend but thought it would be a mistake to trust him. Later, Boris reveals why he didnā€™t trust Theo (and in the process, confirms his own untrustworthiness.)

While Theo and Boris are not always likeable and their circumstances are often dire, both are sympathetic characters and I rooted for them.

What I Didnā€™t Like

As I mentioned, eleven of the twelve chapters each have a purpose in moving the plot forward. The last chapter sticks out like a sore thumb. While a resolution is reached, itā€™s told in Theoā€™s inner monologue, and pure exposition. It didnā€™t feel earned.

In later chapters, Theo had been edging towards finding a kind of redemption, and Tartt showed this to the reader through scenes: sometimes interactions with other characters, or often depicting Theo alone, making choices and taking actions. So I was very disappointed for the last chapter to be all tell and no show.

In Conclusion

I really enjoyed The Goldfinch, despite its somewhat depressing storyline. Iā€™ve hinted at it, but let me be straight with you ā€“ this book is a downer. At one point while I was reading it, I said to my mom, ā€œI think things are going to start looking up for this kid, because I donā€™t see how it can get any worse.ā€ Well, just a couple pages later ā€¦ it got worse. Nonetheless, the writing is engaging and believable, and ultimately I quite liked the book.

Tartt was awarded Pulitzer Prize in 2014 for The Goldfinch, which sparked a minor controversy, with critics saying the book was too fluffy to be a contender for the award. Iā€™m a bit puzzled by this ā€“ on the one hand, yes, the book is plot-driven, and yes, it was a bestseller that many readers liked. But on the other hand, itā€™s well written, and the characters are fully realized. Does a book have to be obscure or dense to be considered ā€œseriousā€ enough to win a Pulitzer? I think this is a huge non-troversy and that itā€™s nice to see major recognition given to a book by both everyday readers and literary awards.

The Goldfinch was Publisherā€™s Weeklyā€™s ā€œPick of the Weekā€ for the week it was reviewed.

Favorite Book: The Handmaidā€™s Tale

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Margaret Atwoodā€™s The Handmaidā€™s Tale is the story of Offred, an historical figure in the dystopian country of Gilead, where women are ranked only by what they can contribute to society: offspring.

handmaids_tale

Why I Liked It Then

This was the first of Atwoodā€™s novels that I read (though I literally *just* finished Catā€™s Eye, and plan to read the MaddAddam trilogy as part of my reading challenge this year!) However, I read and loved her poetry as a writing student in college, and found the writing in The Handmaidā€™s Tale equally lovely.

I read it for the first time in 2013, just a few months before Joel and I were married. Iā€™d borrowed my momā€™s copy, and when I returned it, she mentioned that sheā€™d been exactly the age I was when she read it, just a few months before I was born.

As you may recall, I was also going through a bit of a post-apocalyptic/dystopian fiction phase, and this perfectly fit the bill. While Atwoodā€™s dystopian society is sometimes unfavorably compared to those of Brave New World and 1984, it is still a deserving companion to those classics, and features some notable elements of a post-apocalyptic society: assigned roles (for the women of Gilead), and an underground network attempting to stage an uprising.

Why It Still Speaks to Me Now

Though itā€™s called dystopian, thereā€™s something more understated about it ā€“ Atwood has often called it speculative fiction, instead. She says in this interview with Publisherā€™s Weekly, ā€œ[m]y dystopias arenā€™t fanciful ā€¦ They are based on logical progressions from places we find ourselves in now.ā€

It was interesting to read the 1986 New York Times review of The Handmaidā€™s Tale that criticizes the book for not being recognizably plausible. But reading it 30 years later, when the overwhelming majority of our politicians are still white men and womenā€™s bodies are seen as a political issue, it still hits home for me.

I started writing a diatribe about this, with regards to the current concern over the Zika virus and the CDCā€™s recent recommendation that women in their childbearing years who donā€™t use hormonal birth control refrain from drinking alcohol ā€“ but it was too wordy, and this post on Slate says it better than I could. (Basically, that men contribute half of a childā€™s genetic material, and should have equal responsibility in pregnancy prevention, or alcohol abstention.)

The detail that sticks with me most about The Handmaidā€™s Tale (and that it had in common with Catā€™s Eye) is the somewhat accidental feminism of both protagonists. Offred remembers her mother as one of the bra-burning feminists of the 1970s, but Offred herself becomes the historical figure in opposition of the institution that oppresses women. She makes connections in the network of people who are working to bring down the leaders of Gilead, but never thinks of herself as one of them. (Likewise, the protagonist of Catā€™s Eye joins a group of feminist artists, but never feels like one of them.) Though neither is outspoken about it, their small, everyday actions add up to make a powerful impact.

***

Though Atwood has been recognized for the feminist themes of her novels, the real reason to read them is her writing. She is meticulous in detail, poetic, and often subversive.

On Reading in 2016

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As I said in my last post, I read a whopping ten books in January. I use Goodreads to track what Iā€™m reading, and it tells me that I read 23 books in all of 2015, so Iā€™ve read nearly half that number in just the first month of the year. If I go back even further, I read more in January than in all of 2014.

I say this not to brag (ā€¦ okay, Iā€™m bragging a little) but because Iā€™m surprised that someone who claims to love reading could have done so little of it for so long. Also, I feel a bit vindicated that I knew I still had it in me to read as much and as quickly as I did in my teens and early 20s.

So originally, my reading goal for 2016 was the 48 that I set out to read in 2015 and totally failed. Thatā€™s a tidy four books each month, but slightly more forgiving than 52 (a book a week.) Well, obviously either of those goals would be easy at this point. Too easy. I needed a stretch.

So my updated reading goal is 75. Goodreads tells me that Iā€™m 4 books ahead of schedule, so itā€™s looking very realistic, but still gives me a little slack if I lose steam as the year progresses.

Now that Iā€™ve gotten my humblebrags out of the way, what I really set out to write about today is two important lessons Iā€™ve learned about reading.

First, I have to like what Iā€™m reading.

I get too hung up on finishing every book I start, and have a really hard time putting down books that Iā€™m not enjoying, or reading books simultaneously. This is part of what stopped me up in 2015, and the problem wasnā€™t that I read bad or boring books, but that nearly everything I read and wanted to read was non-fiction.

Thatā€™s what kept me flipping on the TV instead of flipping open a book: sometimes, I just need to be entertained. Particularly if Iā€™m doing something else (i.e. eating) or in those 15 minutes after I get home from work and need to turn my brain off for a little while.

I still like non-fiction, and intend to read plenty of it and even finish a couple of those books I started last year. Especially reading about marketing and massage and personal development. Those are subjects I legitimately like reading about, but get more out of if I read in smaller doses.

And lest you think Iā€™ll be padding out my number with short, mindless, easy reads (ahem, graphic novels) I assure you that is not my intention. I enjoy GNs, as well as the occasional romance or mystery novel, but I also want to read those classic novels that I meant to read in 2013 (another failed reading challenge!) and re-read several of my favorite books.

Second, reading has to be convenient.

I held out on digital books for a long time. It wasnā€™t so much that I preferred reading a physical book as the shelves full of unread books I already had! Well, that changed after the Great Condo Cleaning of 2014 ā€“ I kept a small number of books I hadnā€™t yet read but wanted to, and the favorites I couldnā€™t bear to part with.

With the excess books out of my life, I switched to buying ebooks and quickly realized that Iā€™d been missing out. I can read on my phone during my lunch break or if I have a longer break between massage clients ā€“ I always have my phone, but couldnā€™t always remember to pack a book to take with me! At home, I prefer to read on my iPad, and that the book opens to the last page I read, regardless of which device Iā€™m on, was the selling point for me.

One other thing ā€“ I feel a little silly including this because Iā€™m sure it is old news to some of you, but Iā€™ve mentioned it to a few people who had no idea: you can check out ebooks and audiobooks books from most libraries.

The King County Libraries actually had digital books available way back when I worked there (10 years ago, now!) but there wasnā€™t an easy way to access them. Now, thereā€™s an app (called Overdrive) available for most phones and tablets, including Kindle and Nook readers. In my experience it isnā€™t quite as quick to sync between devices as the iBooks or Kindle apps.

So ā€¦ have you read any good books lately?

Book Review: Brain on Fire

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Brain_on_Fire_Susannah_CahalanIn 2009, Susannah Cahalan was working as a reporter for the New York Post when she got sick. What started out with apparent bug bites on her left arm and migraines turned into paranoia, hallucinations, and violet seizures. She was hospitalized for nearly a month, going through a number of doctors and possible diagnoses (among them: withdrawals from excessive alcohol consumption, bipolar disorder, and multiple sclerosis) before finally getting a proper diagnosis.

When she returned to work several months later, with no memory of her time in the hospital and only hazy memories of the time before and after, one of her first assignments was to use her journalistic skills to cobble together her own story. That article ā€œMy mysterious month of madness,ā€ eventually became Brain on Fire, part memoir, part investigative journalism.

What I Liked

Cahalan splits her story into three parts: her decline into illness, hospitalization, and recovery. What with the memory loss and her distrust of what little memory she does have, she relies heavily on the accounts from her family, friends, and coworkers, as well as the doctors and nurses who worked on her case. She seamlessly weaves them together, and in part two (about her hospitalization) includes anatomical information about what was found to be going on in her brain.

I think I found her story especially compelling for how it tugged at my own fear of losing my memory (or losing my mind.) She details some of the moments she wished she could take back and things she could have left unsaid. The confessional nature was interesting, but even more so was that in her reporting of her story, she went back and revisited some of those moments with the people in question. I am someone who already worries too much what other people think about me – reading her account made me both cringe and sympathize.

As an example: she asked her boyfriend, with whom she’d been together only a few months before her illness, “why did you stay with me?”

What I Didnā€™t Like

The author at times seems removed from her own story, probably from having no memory of a full third of it. I got the impression that the information about the brain was included not just to be explanatory, but also to beef up the middle part of her story so that it wouldnā€™t just read as ā€œhe said, she saidā€ from the people who spent time with her. I personally found the information interesting and think it has merit in the story, but I admit that the parts of the book about her decline and recovery, in which she includes her own insights, were more engaging than the part about her hospitalization.

And although I enjoyed the blend of memoir and journalism, at times Cahalan relied on her sources to describe her personality and behavior before her illness, rather than detailing the differences from her inner experience. I get the sense that she did so because as a journalist, source accounts are more trustworthy and her job is to report them, but again, some parts of the book read like she removed herself from it. Because of it, she also came across as a bit cold.

In Conclusion

I really enjoyed Brain on Fire: it’s interesting and thoughtful. I had a hard time putting it down, and an equally hard time getting it out of my head after I’d finished reading.

The film adaptation of the book is currently in production. Hereā€™s a link to the Publisherā€™s Weekly review.

Book Review(s): Shift & Dust

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Shift and Dust are parts two and three (respectively) in the Silo trilogy. I read and reviewed part one, Wool, in 2013; and about a year ago, met the author, Hugh Howey, when he came to Seattle for a live recording of the Slate Audio Book Club.

I read both last month while on my first real business trip (so fancy, I know) and theyā€™re fantastic airplane reads. Easy to read and absorbing ā€“ I had read about 200 pages of Shift when I noticed the plane had started to descend and I thought, ā€œreally?! It feels like I just sat down!ā€

But first, I must warn you: though I tried not to include spoilers for Wool in this review, it’s difficult to review parts two and three in a series with absolutely zero minor spoilers for book one.

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As I mentioned in my review of Wool, these books were recommended for readers who liked Justin Croninā€™s The Passage trilogy. While I saw similarities in the first book of each series, I can copy/paste some of what I wrote from my review of book two in regards to Shift:

[This book] begins by doubling back in time ā€¦ We learn what became of a few characters who had been introduced in the first book but whose stories had yet to be told. Thereā€™s a lot of back-story in this story, but finally we move to the crux of the plot, [which picks up where book one left off.]

Dust follows a more linear path to conclude the story, but jumps between the two central storylines. There are a number of loose ends left to tie up in the final part of the story, and Howey addresses all of them, although not every single one comes to a satisfying ending.

What I Liked

As I said in my review of Wool, Howey is a smart writer with incredible attention to detail in this story. The closest comparison I can make is J.K. Rowling – do you remember reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and thinking, “wow, great plot twist,” and then getting to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix or Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and realizing, “that wasn’t a mere plot twist, that was the setup for the entire rest of the series!!”

I would put the silo saga on par with that – even seemingly inconsequential details are intricately woven into the plot. Every time one of these details came up again later in the series, I was excited and delighted to realize that was important all along.

The details also kept me engaged in the story even after I’d finished reading – to give you a specific example, we meet Donald in the near-present-day portion of Shift and he notices the way another character uses his napkin. Later, a third character, Troy, starts using his napkin differently. Later, when I was sitting down to eat and reached for my napkin, it clicked – the napkin was a symbol for the connection between the two characters.

What I Didnā€™t Like

Howey employs the style of novel writing where every other chapter focuses on a different character’s story. There are three main characters over the course of the silo saga – Juliette, who we met in Wool is only mentioned in Shift and returns as the central character in Dust. Donald, around whom Shift is focused is still an important character in Dust. And Solo, who we met as a secondary character in Wool, becomes a central character in Shift before returning to a secondary role in Dust.

In other words, the story jumps between countless plot threads. I find this particular style of writing frustrating to read because every scene change takes me out of the story to recall what was happening at the end of the last scene change. I give Howey a bit of a pass on this, because it did work to create a world that was big and complex for the story to unfold.

But on that note, I think that for the magnitude of the world in this story, the ending was too small. Honestly, I was left wondering if Howey gave up on it, or if he deliberately wrote a small scale ending, knowing that Kindle Worlds was in the works. Kindle Worlds allows writers to write and (self) publish stories set in the world of existing novels, and the silo saga is one of them. This might be cynicalĀ of me to say, but I have to wonder if that influenced the way that Howey concluded his series.

In Conclusion

I enjoyed both Shift and Dust – they were quick reads, but thoroughly engaging. I have to say that of the three books in the series, Wool is probably the best, but the later volumes add to the proceedings by telling the back story and reaching a conclusion for the central characters.

As a footnote, I always conclude my book reviews with a link to a reputable source for reviews ā€“ preferably Publisherā€™s Weekly or Library Journal. Perhaps a habit leftover from college writing classes, but it makes me feel like my reviews are more ā€œlegit,ā€ because I took the time to peruse the professionalsā€™ reviews. Because Shift and Dust were self-published, neither was reviewed in trade publications. Shift was reviewed by The Guardian; Dust by TeleRead (owned by the National American Publishing Company.)

Book Review: Never Let Me Go

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Nearly a year ago, I summarized my reading list from 2013 and mentioned that most of my favorite reads had been post-apocalyptic/dystopian novels. I included two titles from the genre that I hadn’t yet read but planned to … then I promptly forgot about them.

In the lobby of my condo building is a take one/leave one communal bookshelf, which I rarely take from or contribute to as I don’t seem to share the same taste in fiction as many of my neighbors. However, I was in the lobby checking my mailbox one day last month, and spotted a familiar-looking cover out of the corner of my eye – Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro – one of the books I’d been meaning to read since last December!

Never_Let_Me_Go
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Never Let Me Go tells the story of a futuristic society that relies on clones for organ donations. One such clone, Kathy, has spent a number of years as a caretaker for other donors, but learns that her time as a “carer” is coming to an end. She reflects back on her life, particularly her memories of her closest friends, Tommy and Ruth.

The novel is split into three parts – in essence: childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Kathy narrates the story from her adult perspective, so while the plot is mostly linear, the revelations about her place in the world are woven throughout the story.

What I Liked

First and foremost, I really liked Kathy. She’s sweet and relatable, and a little naive, which makes her the perfect narrator to tell this story. Instead of relying on long winded exposition, which post-apocalyptic novels often fall prey to, most of the explanation of this novel’s world comes through Kathy’s interactions with the other characters.

Also, and this might be a weird thing to like about a novel, I really enjoyed the way it was organized. Every chapter contained a little revelation. Sometimes, it was a character confessing to their true feelings, but most of the time, Kathy and her friends learned something about their world that tested their beliefs. Ishiguro revealed just enough at just the right times, and I was torn between wanting to read slowly to savor it, and read quickly to learn what else would be divulged.

What I Didn’t Like

I really didn’t like Ruth. She was meant to play antagonist to Kathy, so I don’t feel like I *should have* liked her, but I thought the contrast between the two characters was a little too stark. One of the major plot points centers around Ruth tracking down a woman she’d seen in the “real world.” It was necessary to move the plot along, but I didn’t feel like it was fitting of the other characters’ (particularly Kathy’s) behavior to 1. go along with it, and 2. not question Ruth. After this point, Kathy starts to distrust Ruth, so I as a reader, did too, which later made it hard to understand Kathy’s motivation to reconnect with her.

Lastly, while I enjoyed the little chapter-by-chapter revelations throughout the book, every chapter ended with a rather obvious cliffhanger. It was frustrating, because while they worked to keep me reading and engaged, they were a little repetitive and kind of heavy-handed.

In Conclusion

I really enjoyed this book. It’s a really poignant story of someone looking back on her life with a little regret, a little questioning the “what could’ve been”s, but a lot of contentment.

I haven’t yet seen the movie (because I never watch a movie adapted from a book before Iā€™ve read the book unless Iā€™m 100% sure that Iā€™m never going to read the book!) but I hope to, soon, mostly because I like the actors who played Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy.

I returned the copy back to the communal bookshelf in my building’s lobby, and it disappeared after a day or two (unlike some of the cheesy mysteries that’ve languished for … probably as long as I’ve lived there!) But then I spotted on my own bookshelf a copy of Remains of the Day, an earlier novel by Ishiguro, that I plan to read next because I so enjoyed Never Let Me Go.

Here’s the link to the starred review from Publisher’s Weekly.