Cell by Steven King

Cell by Steven King

2006 Pocket Star Books

I have never been a fan of science fiction. I have my favorites - Octavia E. Butler of course - but ordinarily I avoid science fiction. What bothers me most about science fiction novels are that they are usually based on characters and situations that can never occur in real life. I like being grounded in real life at all times, situated in real situations with real people, people I can connect with. However, I must admit, begrudgingly, that I liked Cell. I really enjoyed this book.

The book cover reads,

" Graphic artist Clay Riddell was in the heart of Boston on that brilliant autumn afternoon when hell was unleashed before his eyes. Without warning, carnage and chaos reigned. Ordinary people fell victim to the basest most animalistic destruction.

And the apocalypse began with the ring of a cell phone..."

Don't five sentence captions drive you crazy? This book is the story of a technological war, when cell phones erase all that is good and caring in man and leaves them with the survival instincts of a mountain lion: kill or be killed. The empathy and gentleness that defines man has been replaced with a murderous instinct. The few survivors now face a war, how do they survive each day when they are surrounded by murderous zombies? And how do they save the ones they love?

The novel continues with the zombie-like humans slowly regaining their senses and developing extraordinary abilities. They begin to gather as one and working towards one goal, with a definite leader. It is up to Clay and a ragtag group of "normies" that he has collected on his journey to protect the rest of the remaining "normies" wandering around the U.S. from the organizing zombies. And to find a cure.

Unlike most Stephen King novels this one isn't scary so much as it is disturbing and eye-opening. There are a number of wonderfully bloody and macabre scenes in this book. Yet they don't lead to nightmares.

This book begs the question; are we such slaves to technology that man could easily be so corrupted by it? It almost makes me want to have technology free days, putting away my Blackberry, my laptop and my desktop.

You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore

You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore
2007 HarperCollins

My brother knows good books. Usually. Whenever he hands me a book and says "You'll like it" he' s usually right. When he handed me You Suck he also gave me a word of caution. His exact words were "Read this like its a movie." I should have followed his advice the first time I read the book.

The first time through You Suck was annoying. It was like reading the script for Reaper and Twilight and having no clue whats going on. It was an okay read the first time around, vampires running from vampire hunters with a super annoying girl Friday. Then I re-read the book with my brothers instructions. What a difference!

You Suck is an enjoyable book. Its funny without being too slapstick. The characters remind you of all the people you went to college with. C. Thomas Flood, the male lead, reminds you of a favorite, well-meaning but not too bright cousin who comes to visit. Abby Normal is Tommy's very willing minion with more mouth than common sense. In fact, Abby is my favorite character in the book. Tommy is okay but he is so pathetic and needy its almost sad. There's also Jody Stroud, Tommy's vampire girlfriend who changed him over to the fanged side, a blue (literally) prostitute, a really fat cat and his drunk homeless owner and The Animals. The Animals are the guys who were at the frat house who drank too much and took 12 years to graduate, but had a good time on the way to the podium.

The book cover summary reads:

You bitch, you killed me. You suck!"

Being dead sucks. Make that being undead sucks.

Literally. Just ask Thomas C. Flood. Waking up after a fantastic night unlike anything he's ever experienced, he discovers that his girlfriend, Jody—the woman of his dreams—is a vampire. And surprise! Now he's one, too.

For some couples, the whole biting-and-blood thing would have been a deal breaker. But Tommy and Jody are in love, and they vow to work through their issues. Like how much Jody should teach Tommy about his new superpowers (and how much he needs to learn on his own). Plus there's Tommy's cute new minion, sixteen-year-old goth girl Abby Normal. (Well, someone has to run errands during daylight hours!)

Making the relationship work, however, is the least of Jody and Tommy's problems. Word has it that the vampire who nibbled on Jody wasn't supposed to be recruiting any new members into the club. Even worse, Tommy's erstwhile turkey-bowling pals are out to get him, at the urging of a blue-dyed Las Vegas call girl named (duh) Blue.

And that really sucks.

And like all book covers it gives you just enough info to encourage minor interest but with none of the fun stuff like:

And the cop was all, "Can I see your student ID?"

And I was like, FUCK, because I didn't know which college would be most likely to have a sorority, so I went with my Berkley student ID, because Berkeley is a well known bastion of hippie behavior and higher learning in which a sorority girl would probably have to blow like a hundred football players just to keep her GPA up. And cops like football.

Ok. What?
That's what I'm talking about. You can't read that paragraph in your head like a normal sentence. You have to imagine 16 year old Goth wannabe Abby standing in front of the cops trying to get back to protecting her master (a one week old vampire) and his lover. How can you not love that?

You Suck is the continuation of a series of "Love Stories" with vampires doing the proverbial dance of love. This is the first Moore book that I have read, and to be honest, unless my brother puts another one on my dresser I most likely wont read another one. But I did enjoy this book and would recommend it if you need a little cheering up or a light read at the beach.

Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen

Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen

2008 Farrar, Strauss and Giroux

Let's be honest. Sometimes the book trailer is much better than the book. A lot better. This is one of those times. Its disappointing. The book trailer, look a good movie trailer,leads you to believe in the book, to believe in the promise of the book. It makes you look forward to sitting in your favorite chair with your cup of tea and devouring page after page. But that isn't what happens. Instead, you force yourself to finish each sentence, promising yourself that you are closer and closer to the end. ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES was a disappointment that completely failed to fall anywhere near where the trailer took the viewer.

To be fair to myself I did not go into this book blind. I had the book trailer, which was beautiful and reputable book reviews. The book jacket reads:

When Dr. Leo Liebenstein’s wife disappears, she leaves behind a single, confounding clue: a woman who looks, talks, and behaves exactly like her—or almost exactly like her—and even audaciously claims to be her. While everyone else is fooled by this imposter, Leo knows better than to trust his senses in matters of the heart. Certain that the original Rema is alive and in hiding, Leo embarks on a quixotic journey to reclaim his lost love.

With the help of his psychiatric patient Harvey—who believes himself to be a secret agent who can control the weather—Leo attempts to unravel the mystery of the spousal switch. His investigation leads him to the enigmatic guidance of the meteorologist Dr. Tzvi Gal-Chen, the secret workings of the Royal Academy of Meteorology in their cosmic conflict with the 49 Quantum Fathers, and the unwelcome conviction that somehow he—or maybe his wife, or maybe even Harvey—lies at the center of all these unfathomables. From the streets of New
York to the southernmost reaches of Patagonia, Leo’s erratic quest becomes a test of how far he is willing to take his struggle against the seemingly uncontestable truth he knows in his heart to be false.

Atmospheric Disturbances is at once a moving love story, a dark comedy, a psychological thriller, and a deeply disturbing portrait of a fracturing mind. With tremendous compassion and dazzling literary sophistication, Rivka Galchen investigates the moment of crisis when you suddenly realize that the reality you insist upon is no longer one you can accept, and the person you love has become merely the
person you live with. This highly inventive debut explores the mysterious nature of human relationships, and how we spend our lives trying to weather the storms of our own making.

Doesn't that sound exciting and new? I thought so. and this book was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, a Salon.com Top Ten Book of the Year, a Plain Dealer (Cleveland) Best Book of the Year and a Slate Best Book of the Year.

How?

I don't know. This book is completely unimpressive.

I cant narrow down one thing I dislike most about ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES. I don't know if it is the characters. The neurotic, almost psychotic husband was not a good choice for a narrator. The wife or simulcrum seems like a caricature of a woman. She behaves in ways that seem comical rather than loving and concerned. There is the dead/ not dead mentor who adds little to the story other than to add to the confusion. AND the Royal Academy of Meteorology. I don't know what to say about them. Were they necessary? Not to me.

The absolute worst part of the book were the meteorological papers that the narrator (Leo) and Harvey (Leo's psych patient) use to get messages from Dr. Gal-Chen. They were weighty, lengthy and added nothing to the furtherment of the story. I understand that they were supposed to demonstrate the mental lengths that Leo was willing to go to to find his wife and demonstrate the deterioration of his mind but they seemed out of place in the action that the novel tried to portray.

What I really did enjoy about ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES was the love story. Galchen has beautiful language and portrays Leo and Rema's love realistically and with the proper amount of emotion. Leo running from the 'imposter' wife is sad but beautiful at the same time. He loves his wife so much he is willing to travel around the world to find her but has lost so much of the love he had for her that he doesn't realize when she is standing before him. This book captured well what happens when love fades or changes and the lovers do not change with it.

I would not recommend this book to anyone. There was nothing about it i enjoyed. However, based on the reviews that I found plenty of others did so enjoy it at your own peril.

31 Hours by Masha Hamilton

31 Hours by Masha Hamilton

Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague Year by Geraldine Brooks

Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks
2001 Penguin Books

I have been watching a lot of reality TV lately; some good, a lot bad. I have found myself drawn to the tales of everyday heroism. Mothers who, in times of crisis, find themselves able to lift trucks off their trapped child or people who perform at-home surgery on family members when the doctor is unavailable. I have found myself wondering could I be such a hero? Its nice to think that if my child was trapped in a burning building I would find the power to kick down the door and rescue him. But would I do the same for my next door neighbor, who is like a second mother to me? What about the neighbor down the street that I am on waving status with?
The YEAR OF WONDERS is the story of a true heroine, who put aside her personal reticence to comfort her neighbors during an outbreak of the plague. Based on a true account of a town that secluded itself from its neighbors when the plague arrives YEAR OF WONDERS details the activities of said town over the course of a year as it deals with the consequences of its voluntary seclusion and the plague.There is more death than I expected, some graphic, most not. There is a surprising amount of romance and 20th century ideals.
I enjoyed this book immensely. In fact, I put it on the "Do NOT Lend" shelf of my personal library. The main character/ narrator Anna Frith is a refreshing heroine. She is not too brash or too subservient. She adapts, as we all do, to the circumstances she is in. Anna develops throughout the story and in the end, is quite a different creature than at the beginning of the book. I appreciated how all of the characters are flawed but within reason. Too many times over the course of the past year I have read bad characters how are bad for no reason or syrupy sweet characters who continue to be naive and trusting though the world shows them different. The characters in YEAR OF WONDERS are real people. Their emotions and reactions change with the situation and the environments and within reason. There was plenty of room in this novel for the author to let the characters become caricatures of real people but she manages to stay within the boundary of real life.
I recommend this book wholeheartedly.

Summary:
This gripping historical novel is based on the true story of Eyam, the "Plague Village," tucked in the rugged mountain spine of England. In 1666, when an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to the isolated settlement of shepherds and lead miners, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna’s eyes the reader follows the story of the plague year, as her fellow villagers make an extraordinary choice: convinced by a visionary young minister they elect to quarantine themselves within the village boundaries to arrest the spread of the disease. As the death toll rises and people turn from prayers and herbal cures to sorcery and murderous witch-hunting, Anna must confront the deaths of family, the disintegration of her community, and the lure of illicit love.

Other Reviews:

From Publishers Weekly
Discriminating readers who view the term historical novel with disdain will find that this debut by praised journalist Brooks (Foreign Correspondence) is to conventional work in the genre as a diamond is to a rhinestone. With an intensely observant eye, a rigorous regard for period detail, and assured, elegant prose, Brooks re-creates a year in the life of a remote British village decimated by the bubonic plague. Inspired by the actual town commemorated as Plague Village because of the events that transpired there in 1665-1666, Brooks tells her harrowing story from the perspective of 18-year-old Anna Frith, a widow with two young sons. Anna works as a maid for vicar Michael Mompellion and his gentle, selfless wife, Elinor, who has taught her to read. When bubonic plague arrives in the community, the vicar announces it as a scourge sent by God; obeying his command, the villagers voluntarily seal themselves off from the rest of the world. The vicar behaves nobly as he succors his dwindling flock, and his wife, aided by Anna, uses herbs to alleviate their pain. As deaths mount, however, grief and superstition evoke mob violence against "witches," and cults of self-flagellation and devil worship. With the facility of a prose artist, Brooks unflinchingly describes barbaric 17th-century customs and depicts the fabric of life in a poor rural area. If Anna's existential questions about the role of religion and ethical behavior in a world governed by nature seem a bit too sophisticated for her time, Brooks keeps readers glued through starkly dramatic episodes and a haunting story of flawed, despairing human beings. This poignant and powerful account carries the pulsing beat of a sensitive imagination and the challenge of moral complexity. (Aug. 6)Forecast: Brooks should be a natural on talk shows as she tells of discovering the town of Eyam, in Derbyshire, in 1990, and her research to unearth its remarkable history. With astute marketing, Viking will have a winner here. BOMC, Literary Guild and QPB featured alternates; 8-city author tour; rights sold in England, France, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden.

Grace Hammer by Sara Stockbridge

Grace Hammer by Sara Stockbridge

2009 W.W. Norton & Company

Usually I know in the first thirty pages if a book is worth reading. I always finish a book that I have started even if it physically pains me. That said, GRACE HAMMER and I got off to a rough start. The prose is more lyrical than readable, the story goes in circles and throws in background information at the most distracting times. However, the characters are interesting, the pace is fast and the final resolutions are not easy to figure out. In the end I liked this book when I dreaded having to finish what I had started.

GRACE HAMMER is the story of Grace Hammer, her four children and their lives in the underbelly of London. Grace is a professional thief and is training her three sons to be thieves as well. However, the victim of a theft she committed long before she had a family has shown up in her part of London bent on revenge.
One of the things that grew on me as the book progressed is the authors style. She has a way of talking in circles and describing things so that they are not easily recognizable. Her writing is riddle-like and in the first chapters, discouraging. I had to read the first three chapters twice to make sure that I was keeping the characters and the burgeoning plot straight. There were far too many minor characters that popped in and out of the story at will. This book would have been better served by keeping the minor characters low (just a suggestion).
The best thing about the book is how true the characters stayed to themselves. There was no bogus change of heart moment where all the prostitutes found nice housemaid jobs or Grace gave up hers. The bad guys were the bad guys, most of the rest of the characters were just trying to live their lives. Also, I really appreciated that this is not a 'feel good' book. The situations are what they were. Life is bleak and hardscrabble, with people self-medicating just to make it to the next day. There are prostitutes, drug addicts, loan sharks and murderers but there are also good-hearted people, caring foster parents and kind neighbors.
I would recommend this book with reservations. It is not the type of book to read if you want your characters to live fairytale lives, that just isn't going to happen. Also, this book does have a slow start so there will be moments of perseverance. Otherwise, GRACE HAMMER was an enjoyable read.

Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austin Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler

Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austin Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler

I found this trailer after I read the book and in its own way this trailer was the perfect finishing touch.



You may have guessed by now that I am completely over the rework Jane Austen books that are flooding the stacks lately. I do not want to read anymore about some crazy modern girl who wants to live the easy life of a 19th century manor woman only to find out it is as intriguing as the modern world. As of this date I have read, short listed for your convenience, Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife: Pride and Prejudice Continues, An Assembly Such as This: A Novel of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman (Fitzwilliam Darcy Gentleman) , Mr. Darcy's Daughters : A Novel , North by Northanger, Pemberly Manor, etc., etc. I am sick and tired of these Regency themes where the men are silent but passionate and the women half crazed. So, to be honest I began reading RUDE AWAKENINGS OF A JANE AUSTEN ADDICT with a great deal of prejudice.
I feel bad.
RUDE AWAKENINGS was a pleasure to read once I got pas the first 40 pages, and ignored the scenes with the fortune teller. The plot goes something like this; Jane Austen wakes up in modern day L.A. with no recollection of the person she is now, no memory of her job, apartment, ex-fiance or current beau. She has to learn to forgive the men in her life and create the meaningful life she always wanted in Regency England. Did you get it? Forty pages of that nonsense in the beginning was 39 pages too much but after Jane gets her bearings and stops marveling over modern technology she is fun to be around. Modern Jane puts up with no BS.
I will be honest. There were several times that I skipped a few pages in the book. The ramblings of the fortune teller were annoying and unnecessary and too philosophical. The ex-boyfriend was disturbing. Other than that I enjoyed RUDE AWAKENINGS.
Jane is the perfect embodiment of a woman of her time but none of the skills she learned in her time serve her in the modern world. She is appalled by all the things that we modern women take for granted; blind dates, public displays of affections, bare arms and legs. But the fundamental things that all women want (a family and career) do not change no matter the era. Jane wants a man that is faithful and loves only her, as well as money of her own. Sounds familiar. The delightful part of the book is watching Jane shed her Regency beliefs and embrace the modern ones that suit her more.