The Magicians (2009)

I think Lev Grossman wrote this book for the adults who have read Harry Potter, Narnia, and other classic fantasies. Magic in those worlds was taken for granted and the question about where it comes from is not considered. The young people who find themselves in the Brakebills School take the training in stride but when they graduate they question what they can use their skills for. One of their instructors named Fogg asks them this question.

"Sometimes I wonder if man was really meant to discover magic," Fogg said expansively. "It doesn't really make sense. It's a little too perfect, don't you think? If there's a single lesson that life teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so. Words and thoughts don't change anything. Language and reality are kept strictly apart - reality is tough, unyielding stuff, and it doesn't care what you think or feel or say about it. Or it shouldn't. You deal with it, and you get on with your life."

The central character, a mathemathically brilliant young man named Quentin, has always been fascinated by a series of books called Fillory and Further about two brothers and their two sisters who discover a hidden world called Fillory (sound familiar?). Throughout his time in Brakebills he hopes to be able to access Fillory which, he is convinced, is real and where he feels he will find a home. After their graduation Quentin and his friends embark on a vacation to find adventure in Fillory.

The reader will enjoy nods to several fantasy classics. The venture of these young people is difficult and painful at times but the reader is carried on to see if they succeed in finding Fillory and their place in this or any other world.

Fun quote: The thick plottens.

My rating for this book: +++

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2007)

This book is the third of the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson and brings us to the close of one part of Lizbeth Salander's life. At the end of the last book, she had just extricated herself from a grave where her father had left her with a bullet wound in the shoulder, her hip, and her head. She returns to the house where he is in hiding and manages to land an axe in his face. We start this book with the two of them in the hospital, two rooms away from each other, with Lizbeth being accused of his assault and two other murders.



Mr. Larsson does not let us miss the main point of these books. He introduces many new characters, many of them women, and intercorollary chapters which told us about women warriors. We certainly get the message that men are pigs and that women are at their mercy. It is only when women join their talents and abilities together that they are able to get out from under mens' thumbs. And do they ever come out in force in this book!

This trilogy has been quite a ride. The "Girl" has been an amazing character to get to know. The consummate underdog, she used her unique talents and abilities when the moment arrived, to clear herself and set herself up for a new life. We can only hope that she is still able to find peace and some semblance of normalcy. Or at least, pick up the crusade and help other women trapped in testosterone hell like she was.

This whole series has extreme violence and sexual abuse but not gratuitously. The intrigue and computer hacking seems, at times, to be a little too convenient and easy. The individual books are very large (the paperback version of this book had 746 pages) but they read fast since they are mostly comprised of conversations and emails. I am glad to have met the character, Lizbeth.

My rating for this book: ++++

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2008)

It is always a little odd reading a book that just about everyone has already read and went totally gaga over. One wonders if they are OK if they don't like it as much as everyone else. Well, this book by Stieg Larsson, did not fail to meet expectations. For me, it was as riveting as everyone says.

Lisbeth Salander is the girl in the title and she is a fascinating character.

Blomkvist was watching her. With her slender body, her black camisole, the tattoos, and the rings piercing her face, Salander looked out of place, to say the least, in a guest cottage in Hedeby. When he tried to be sociable over dinner, she was taciturn to the point of rudeness. But when she was working she sounded like a professional to her fingertips. Her apartment in Stockholm might look as if a bomb had gone off in it, but mentally Salander was extremely well organised.

Blomkvist is the other main character in this book. He was the publisher of a business magazine and was sued for libel over an article he published about a billionnaire business man and lost the suit. He was approached by another billionnaire, Henrik Vanger, with a proposal to write a story of his family. In reality he was most interested in the disappearance of his niece, Hariet.

This book is a murder mystery as well as a story about business intrigue and espionage, sexual abuse, and maybe one of the most dysfunctional families portrayed in a long time. I highly recommend this book to readers of thrillers.

My rating for this book: +++++

Angry Management (2009)

Chris Crutcher has brought together characters from his previous book (without aging them) and put them together in an anger management course led by a retired teacher/cowboy who gives us a brief introduction of each of them as a way of reminding us of their previous history. Kids from foster homes, abused kids, black/gay kids, obese kids, and all of them mad.

Amazingly, the ones best suited to help them are other damaged teens. They understand what it is like to live in situations that most people can't understand and while they can't solve the problems, they can listen.

"I WANT HER TO MAKE ME FEEL BAD!"

Montana grabs Tara and holds her tight.

Tara squirms a moment, then surrenders. How do you tell somebody that? How can she tell her mother that feeling bad feels right when everything in your world is wrong; that at first you need your foster parents to make things familiar, which in this case means f___d up. It makes such sense at a heart level, but even for a wordsmith like Montana West, it's impossible to articulate. It's so true, and it sounds so crazy.

The author is proud that his books have been challenged and removed from libraries because he puts in them things that many adults don't want to hear, or don't want their kids to hear. It is, of course, a shame, because what he has to say should be heard by every teen and every parent of a teen.

I highly recommend this book.

My rating for this book: +++++

Stitches (2009)

David Almond has given us his autobiography in a medium he knows well. This graphic novel is an example of how this genre is far from teenaged fluff and kiddy goofiness. This is an adult story that reads like a movie complete with zoom ins and close ups but without Foley sound effects and sound track.

Step inside your mouth with me for a moment, won't you?
Careful on the tongue! It's slippery!
Now, you see down there? Those folding screens over the tunnel of your thoat? Those are your vocal cords. When air flows over them they vibrate like the strings on a cello.
Your vocal cords make the sounds of your voice, your curses and your prayers.
When I woke up from operation #2, I had only one vocal cord, and with only one vocal cord the sound you make is...
ACK

Ironically, one of the family's major problems is a lack of communication. For instance, it was years after this operation before David learned that he had cancer which was caused by his father's dosing him with radiation to try and cure his sinus problems when he was very little.

This was a tough book to read since there were precious little happiness that David enjoyed as a child - namely using his talent to draw cartoons.

My rating for this book:+++

Nineteen Minutes (2007)

Jodi Picoult doesn't tell the story of a high school shooting massacre from just one point of view -- we get it from the shooter's, the victims', the parents', law enforcement's, lawyer's and DA's. We don't just see the events of one day, we go back to the shooter's first day of kindergarten and follow him and his classmates to the fateful day and through the trial which followed. We get the whole story, dissected and laid out for us so we can feel everyone's emotions.

Chaos was a constellation of students, running out of the school and trampling the injured. A boy holding a handmade sign in an upstairs window that read HELP US. Two girls hugging each other and sobbing. Chaos was blood melting pink on the snow; it was the drip of parents that turned into a stream and then a raging river, screaming out the names of their missing children. Chaos was a TV camera in your face, not enought ambulances, not enough officers, and no plan for how to react when the world as you knew it went to pieces.


Gripping is a word that is frequently used to describe an exciting book. I wish I could think of a word even more dramatic to describe how this book captured my attention, sucked me in, and had me suffer along with all (yes, I mean all) of the characters. I can't help but look around my school and wonder about all the hidden, horrible things that are probably occurring now and how there may be someone who feels as desperate and hopeless as this shooter felt.

High school students and parents of high school students will find this book scarier than anything written by Stephen King.

My rating for this book: +++++

The Knife of Never Letting Go (2008)

Imagine being able to hear everybody's thoughts. Everybody's. Even animals. And they can hear your thoughts. That's what it's like for Todd in Patrick Ness' book which takes place on a planet called New World. When folks left Earth they couldn't hear Noise, the name Todd calls all the thoughts he hears, but something caused everyone to hear them on this planet. Todd lives in a town of all men and he is the last boy to reach the age of thirteen, the age he will become a man. Having lost his parents when he was very small, he was raised by two men, Ben and Cillian. But something is out there in the swamp that surrounds the town that triggers events and his guardians pack him up and force him to run away into the swamp where he finds.....
One of the enjoyable aspects of reading this book is the humorous way the thoughts of animals are heard.

"Swamp Noise, tho, swamp Noise is just the birds all thinking their worrisome little birdie
thoughts. Where's food? Where's home? Where's my safety? And the waxy squirrels,
who are all little punks, teasing you if they see you, teasing themselves if they don't and the
rusty squirrels, who are like dumb little kids, and sometimes there's swamp foxes out in the
leaves who you can hear faking their Noise to sound like the squirrels they eat and even less
often there are mavens singing their weird maven songs and once I swear I saw a cassor
running away on two long legs but Ben says I didn't, says the cassors are long gone from the
swamp."

To say there is a lot of action in this book is quite an understatement as Todd and his dog, Manchee, are joined by another person in their flight to get to a town called Haven. Along the way he learns more about the history of the immigrants to this planet and why the men of his town are so desperate to catch him.
I highly recommend this book to readers of action novels. Sci-fi fans would also find this book a real page turner. Be forewarned that it is Part I of a series and you will have to wait for the sequel with baited breath.
My rating for this book: ++++

Touching Spirit Bear (2001)

Fantastic book!
Cole is angry. His father is angry, drinks, and beats him. His mother drinks and doesn't stop the beatings. Cole is so angry that he beats another boy, Peter, badly enough he suffers brain damage. Some people believe that prison is too good for Cole but some don't. They feel that a system known as Justice Circle might come up with an alternative that could have better results. Peter's parents and lawyer, Cole's parents and their lawyers, two Tlingit Indians, several other people from the community, and the judge meet to discuss Cole and his problems. Their solution is banishment to an island in Alaska to live by himself for one year.
"Everyone thought he felt sorry for what he had done, and going to this island was his way of making things right. Nothing could be further from the truth. To Cole, this was just another big game."
Of course, the first thing Cole does when left on the island is burn down his shelter and supplies. That'll show them! An unusual species of bear, known as the Spirit Bear, shows up on the island, and darn if it doesn't show Cole any fear. How dare it! Cole fashions a spear from a sapling and the next time that bear shows his face, Cole attacks him with the spear and a knife. Cole is rescued two days later after laying on the beach with broken ribs, pelvis, leg, and arm. Not being able to move and suffering unimagineable pain might make some do serious reflection.
I highly recommend this book to readers who enjoy survival stories and satisfying endings.
My rating for this book: +++++