May Wrap-up

Still just decent books this month. What a waste... got any suggestions for me?

Days spent reading: 24
Books read: 9
...in fiction: 7
...in non-fiction: 2
...in science fiction: 3
...in humor: 2
...in historical: 1
...in mystery: 2
...in young adult: 2

Series reads: Uglies

Favorite book: People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks (Review) 8/10

Challenges
Countdown Challenge: +2 books for 40/45
Chunkster Challenge: +0 books for 4/6
The Baker Street Challenge: +0 books for 0/3
My Year of Reading Dangerously Challenge: +0 for 1/12
Support Your Local Library Challenge: +8 for 46/50
Orbis Terrarum Challenge: +2 for 6/10

Specials, by Scott Westerfeld (29 May — 30 May)

So you know I liked Uglies and Pretties, the two previous books in this series. And I did like this one, too, but really only because it finished off the storyline and was as engaging as the others.

Because seriously, there was just soooo much in this book! I was okay in the first book, believing in operations and people running away and other people wanting to maintain the status quo at all costs. Sure. Fine. And in the second, believing in "nanos" that can fix brain lesions and tattoos that move and that cutting yourself can make you "bubbly"... well, that last one was a bit much, but okay. Sure again. But in this book, I had to still be okay with cutting and then also with nanos that simply eat things and sneak suits that camouflage and unbreakable ceramic bones and people turning their pinky fingers into snakes and more cures for brain lesions and Tally switching alliances for the umpty-seventh time.... It was just. Too. Much.

Right. Anyway. Basically, Tally is now a part of Special Circumstances as a "Cutter" — the youth brigade. And she wants Zane to be with her, and Shay wants to destroy the New Smoke, so they set out together to lead Zane to the Smoke and kill two birds and whatever. And they get there and find out that part of what they did to get Zane to the Smoke caused a war between two cities, which is bad because war hasn't happened in forever and also that one city didn't do anything to deserve getting itself blown up. So Tally, perpetually ruining things and then fixing them, goes off to fix it. Yay.

If you've read the other books, you will read this and really should read this, but I wouldn't go starting the series just to get to this one. :)

Rating: 6/10
(Support Your Local Library Challenge)

People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks (20 May — 27 May)

People of the Book is the fake story of the Sarajevo Haggadah, an illuminated seder text that baffles historians to this day. Brooks took some of the facts of the haggadah's discovery and created fictional characters and situations to explain how these things came to be.

Our protagonist, Hanna Heath, is a young but excellent book conservator who is tapped to handle the restoration of the book. While examining it, she discovers an insect wing, some wine stains, and a few salt crystals that pique her interest and get her asking questions. Although Hanna doesn't get all the answers, we do — Brooks writes scenarios for all of these that give a sense of the "people of the book" and why it is so important and revered.

I quite enjoyed this book, though it was a bit of a slow go as the narrative jumps back and forth between Hanna in the present and the other characters in their respective times. I found these journeys into the past to be more exciting than the present narrative, in which we discover that Hanna hates her mother and doesn't form lasting relationships and works with far too many young but excellent professionals. In the past, we discover the tyranny of religion, the compassion of individuals, and all of the discrete steps that had to be taken to make the Sarajevo Haggadah the complete book it is today. I can only hope that the haggadah's true story is as excellent as its fake one.

Rating: 8/10
(Support Your Local Library Challenge)

Agent to the Stars, by John Scalzi (18 May — 19 May)

I think I've mentioned before that I rather like John Scalzi's work, from his Old Man's War series to his wonderful blog. So when I saw this book, his first (but not first published) novel, for 25 cents at a street fair, well, I couldn't help but purchase it. And Zoe's Tale, for another quarter. If only the rest of his work had been there too!

Anyway. Agent to the Stars is fun and fluffy. Tom Stein is an agent to a variety of Hollywood "stars" — one real star, a few decent actors, and a bunch of riff-raff. After landing his star, Michelle Beck, a $12 million contract for some crap movie, Stein gets a meeting with the boss, all by his lonesome. His assistant isn't even allowed in! This is because boss dude Carl wants Tom to represent a new client... a blob alien called Joshua. Joshua and his blob-alien kin have travelled to Earth to make friends and have decided that since American entertainment rules the world, why not get an American entertainment agent to represent their interests? Of course.

The plot is a liiiiittle ridiculous, but it's throughly entertaining if you don't think about it too hard. Which is as it should be. :) I hope that my hypothetical first novel is (hypothetically) as awesome as Scalzi's was.

Rating: 8/10

Who Slashed Celanire's Throat?, by Maryse Condé (13 May — 18 May)

Note to Mary: If the next book recommended by you that I read has even one person dying in it, I'm going to consider this a trend.

To everyone else: Remember how I read this book and I was all, "suddenly everyone and his sister wants to kill someone else"? Well, even if they had, there still wouldn't be as many deaths as happen in this book! But, luckily, these deaths aren't quite so graphic as Zola's.

Basically what happens in this book is that there's a missionary called Celanire who shows up at a village in Africa conveniently soon (practically immediately after) the death of the man she was meant to work for, so she gets his job of running a home for "half-castes" — basically biracial children whose parent(s) don't want that transgression running around underfoot. Celanire does awesome things with the home and also starts empowering women and also starts making moves on pretty much every sentient being in the town. There's more to Celanire than meets the eye, which we find out in bits and pieces as we follow her from the Ivory Coast to Guadeloupe to Peru on her quest to set right some old wrongs.

It's not really a page-turner, as they say, but Condé kept me interested in the book's big questions: Who is this Celanire? Who slashed her throat, and why? What kind of person would allow that to happen? Just how exactly does karma feel when it comes back to bite you? How much weird shit can Celanire get away with?

Rating: 8/10
(Support Your Local Library Challenge, Orbis Terrarum Challenge: Guadeloupe)

Pretties, by Scott Westerfeld (12 May — 13 May)

Pretties is the second of Westerfeld's crazy dystopian series, following Uglies, which I read last month. So, you know, there are spoilers if you haven't read that other one.

In this go, Tally has turned herself pretty and is, in fact, a total pretty-head. She's about to be voted into a clique called the Crims, short for Criminals, which Shay (now her bff again) is already a member of. But on the night of the vote, Tally runs into a Smoky called Croy that she vaguely remembers knowing once and who promises to leave her a note before he and the other Smokies run away from Special Circumstances.

The note, which Tally finds with the help of the lead Crim, Zane, is the one that Tally wrote to herself in the last book. It also includes two pills for curing the operation. Tally is too nervous to take them herself but won't let Zane risk his life, either, so they each take one just seconds before the Specials break into their hiding place.

Now cured, Tally and Zane set to work on getting as many Pretties as possible to realize the ridiculousness of their situation and to breaking out of New Pretty Town. It sort of works, sort of doesn't, and Tally finds herself in all sorts of trouble all over again. Whoo!

I love how fast these books go and how incredibly engaging they are, and you know I'll be rescuing Specials from the library just as soon as it comes back.

Rating: 7.5/10
(Support Your Local Library Challenge)

The Weatherman's Daughters, by Richard Hoyt (5 May — 11 May)

Um. Well. Maybe I should learn to read the flap more closely. I picked this one up at the library because of its interesting title and the image on its cover — fish raining down. I looked at the flap. "Two daughters of a Portland weatherman have been killed for no apparent reason and John Denson and his Native American partner, Willie Sees the Night, are called from their remote cabins on Whorehouse Meadow in the Cascade Mountains to help. But for once Denson is stumped—this is a trail he can't seem to follow."

Okay, cool, right? Murder, interesting-sounding detective, let's go! And the first part of the book is cool like that. Denson is out driving when a waterspout causes a rain of salmon; when he pulls off to take some photos and video, he finds a dying body whose last words are "Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle ther. Gurgle, gurgle, ister. Gurgle, gurgle ill gurgle." Yeah.

So then, there's some stuff about the ethics of releasing the salmon storm video, and then eventually we get back to the mystery at hand, and then someone else is dead, oh no!, and then Denson goes on some acid-tripping spirit walk and meets his creator (no really, he meets Richard Hoyt at his house in the Phillipines) and something about owls, and then there's an exotic dancer and a militia and then more killing. I kept going because I really did want to know who killed the weatherman's daughters, but then the mystery got "solved" and I still don't really understand what happened. Blast.

And if I had just read the rest of the flap, wherein the out-of-body flying and exotic dancers, and bear gall bladders are mentioned, I might not have picked it up and wasted that week of reading. Oh well.

Rating: 4/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2003, Support Your Local Library Challenge)

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, by David Sedaris (30 April — 7 May)

I had this collection of Sedaris essays as my car audiobook for those long drives to and from my music ensembles, and I thought it worked pretty well. Stopping in the middle of a story left me confused, but when I could listen to a whole story at once I was highly entertained.

Most of the stories in this collection are ruminations on Sedaris's life, both now and as a kid growing up in North Carolina. I felt a little awkward hearing Sedaris talk about playing strip poker and being beaten up by bullies and his brother training the dog to eat poo, but I thoroughly enjoyed his more humorous stories. In particular, I listened to his essay on Christmas in the Netherlands by myself and then immediately replayed it for Scott to hear. It was good.

That story and another were taped as Sedaris read them in front of an audience, but most of them were just Sedaris talking into a microphone, and you could really hear the difference. The man has a stage presence, but he seems to forget to use it without an audience! I wonder if the stories read differently without Sedaris talking.

Rating: 7/10
(Support Your Local Library Challenge)

The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death, by Laurie Notaro (2 May — 4 May)

I saw this book in a library display along with several other collected essay books. It was really the title (and its subtitle, Reflections on Revenge, Germophobia, and Laser Hair Removal) that sold me. Flaming tantrums of death? I'm in!

On the whole, I thought the collection was pretty good. There are some super-funny stories, like the one in which Notaro gets flipped off by hippies and decides to turn around and tailgate them in her Prius. There are some super-affecting stories, like the one in which her beloved dog suddenly falls ill. Most are entertaining; a couple of them fell flat for me.

But seriously, Laurie Notaro, you need to get yourself a better editor. I get that the stories are meant to be conversational in tone, but the beauty of writing is that you can take those tongue-tied, baffling moments and fix them to be understandable. There were so many misplaced modifiers and commas in weird places and just generally unintelligible sentences that I lost all sense of the story more than a few times.

I also felt a bit put off by Notaro's attitudes in general, but that's probably more about me than about her. She's the kind of person who would bother to get laser hair removal; I am not. She's a huge germophobe; I follow the 90-second rule. I couldn't really get a few of the stories because of this, but I'm sure there are others out there who would totally understand her.

Rating: 6/10
(Support Your Local Library Challenge)

The Book of Murder, by Guillermo Martínez (1 May)

Not that I needed to read another book about murder, I guess, but at least this one is honest about it up front.

Our unnamed, undescribed narrator tells us an intriguing story about a girl called Luciana who was a typist for a month for said narrator, a writer. After the month, Luciana went back to her other writer employer, Kloster, and our narrator didn't think much about her again. But now, ten years later, Luciana has tracked down our narrator to tell a fantastic story about Kloster and how he is killing off Luciana's relatives mysteriously and without drawing any attention to himself. Is he? What's really going on now, and what really happened ten years ago? Our narrator sets off to find out.

This book is really short (215 pages), so that's about all I can tell you. But the story is very good! You should read it and then talk about it with me.

Rating: 8/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2007, Support Your Local Library Challenge, Orbis Terrarum Challenge: Argentina)