Review: Wild Abandon, by Joe Dunthorne

Blaen-y-Llyn, founded by Don and his wife, Freya, among others, is a commune dedicated to a natural way of life. Though once a thriving community of like-minded individuals, over the years membership has dwindled and now even Patrick, one of the founding members, has left to escape Don’s controlling nature. With Freya thinking of doing the same, Don’s marriage is faltering as well. In search of stability his teenage daughter, Kate, escapes to college, but living with her boyfriend’s family isn’t the haven of normalcy she was hoping for, and she left her beloved younger brother behind in her hasty retreat. As each of the characters comes to terms with the reality of their lives and relationships, a story unfolds that is about midlife crises, adolescent dramas, and self-discovery. With well developed characters and a dark humor reminiscent of that in his first novel Submarine, Dunthorne delivers hilarity and heart-break while redefining the essence of normal in this story about what makes a family, and what makes a family dysfunctional.
This was a great read.

Book 47 on my way to 52.

Review: The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides

I really enjoyed The Virgin Suicides, and loved Middlesex, both by Jeffrey Eugenides, so when I caught wind of this release I preordered the book. I'm shameless that way. Unfortunately I found it not as good as Middlesex, but that isn't actually saying a whole lot because I was such a big fan of Middlesex. The Marriage Plot is almost a modern (eighties anyway) version of The Portrait of a Lady, an intelligent young college senior torn between worldliness and two different men makes a difficult decision, and finds herself wrong and trapped in the end. Told from three different view points, the young lady's and each of the young men in turn, the story is engaging and enjoyable. Being set in the eighties, this will be especially enjoyabe for anyone who lived through that decade. Eek. So I didn't find it as good as Middlesex, it was still a fantastic read.

Book 46 on my way to 52.

Review: The Fallback Plan, by Leigh Stein

Thanks to an awesome friend I've gotten a gig reviewing books for the ALA's Book List magazine. They send me four or five books every month, I read them and write a short review that will be published in the print ad online version of their magazine. It doesn't bring in much money, but it's a dream project for me—checking out new books and getting to talk about them? Sign me up. I'm allowed to share my reviews here after they've been published in the magazine, so I'll be posting them here with a few changes.
The Fallback Plan was interesting. I found it hard to get into, but warmed up to it after a time. The book is about, Esther who graduates from Northwestern University and finds herself jobless, directionless, and moving back in with her parents. When her mother finds her a job caring for the four year old daughter of a neighboring family she grudgingly agrees. But the family lost an infant child earlier in the year, and Esther, struggling with her own depression, finds herself caring for both the girl and the grieving mother. As she also navigates through romantic relationships with the girl’s father and a friend her own age we witness her inner conflict and personal growth. Although too referential to be as timeless, this well developed coming of age story is in line with Judy Blume’s Are you There God? It’s Me, Margaret, and Forever. Esther’s struggle with clinical depression might alienate some readers, but like Blume’s characters she is authentic and likable. Written with witty humor and an informal, contemporary language, Stein’s debut novel will resonate with a new generation of students for whom college is no longer the final step on the road to adulthood.

Book 41 on my way to 52

Review: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, by Jaonne Greenberg

For most of her life Deborah has been slipping further and further into a world different from our own, a world richly created by her schizophrenia and existing only in her mind. As her illness becomes more apparent in adolescence, her parents finally recognize the need for treatment, and send her to a rest home to work with a renowned doctor. Over the next three years we witness Deborah's struggle to accept reality and close the door on the world of her illness. Told mostly from Deborah's view point, this is a semi-autobiographical novel, and Greenberg's telling is unsurprisingly expert. She has drawn the world from inside the mind of young Deborah with careful detail and well expressed emotion. Though dark at times, this is a beautiful book that escapes being too dense with an occasional lightness and humor found in its thread of hope and friendship.
Book 33 on my way to 52 in 2011

Review: His Dark Materials triology, by Philip Pullman (a review of sorts)

Setting all issues and agendas aside, this is a beautifully written young adult sci-fi story. I found myself falling in love with Lyra and her friends right from the beginning of this tale. Like many series I enjoyed the first book the most, but unlike others my interest had not seriously waned by the very last sentence, and now that I've finished I'm even looking into reading Pullman's additional works with these characters. They seemed so authentic, so believable, even in a universe acceptable only via suspension of disbelief, that I just fell in love with them each immediately.

The scenes, the suspense, the characters—all were rich and imagination grabbing throughout. The series is a calling together of many a myth and many a mystical culture, all given a physical meaning and existence. It is the story of an orphan who finds she has a purpose, and family, as she travels through an earth that is mostly foreign to us. Her journey is full of honor, magic, and love, and as she progresses we see her beginning to grow up. There is witchcraft, quantum mechanics, religion, death, sensuality. There is war, Armageddon style. There is love, there is a coming of age, but what could have become sappy or uncomfortable was written with sensitivity and authenticity so that it never crossed that line. The story is woven tightly and well, and it never let me drift away.

It has been said that Pullman's story is just shy of propaganda—the atheist's C. S. Lewis I think I've read—and with each successive book a message does become more obvious. It is with sharp literary skill that he doles out revelations of the symbolism and understory in carefully measured amounts. The final book is the most clear in terms of agenda, and not everyone will be comfortable with it, and The Golden Compass could conceivably be read as a stand alone, albeit with a rather plot hanging ending.

Books 28, 29, and 30 on my way to 52 in 2011