Tenth Muse Books

The day after Labor Day…the streets have cleared, the beach is left to locals (can you hear the howl of the surfers?), many shops will remain closed today, and we will all begin holding tighter to our pennies.  Yes, the day after Labor Day and Seaside, Oregon is officially a ghost town.  So, either this is a time of celebration (time for reading, faithful blogging, house cleaning, and a bit more reading) or I can go into a state of mourning (empty pockets, no new faces, and the promise of rain…for months). Joy and sorrow.  Laughter and a tear…holy cats, I am segueing into Gihlil Gibran!! Regardless, I am going for celebration with just the right splash of darkness.  Carl over at http://www.stainlesssteeldroppings.com/ is offering the perfect advent to autumn: the R.I.P. IV Challenge…”It was a dark and stormy night….” The goal is to celebrate gothic literature: mystery, suspense, thriller, dark fantasy, gothic, horror, and supernatural. I am choosing Peril the First; I will be reading at least four books of any length, from any subgenre of scary stories that I choose.

This is my list, thus far:

Sandman Graphic Novel series from Neil Gaiman

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

Girl with Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Dracula by Bram Stoker

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Yes, I have five, actually a few more if I read the complete Sandman series, but I am leaving myself a bit of moving room and also being rather optimistic about how much time I will have to actually read. 

Oh, Tana French, I love you.   I loved The Likeness…from the top to the bottom.  I read French’s first novel, In The Woods, and when the end hit I wasn’t sure if I wanted to love or hate French but one thing was obvious…I respected her, respected her writing style, her plot and character development, and even the way she left me wondering wtf at the end.  I waited with trepidation for French’s follow up novel.  Ummm…would she be able to do it again?

Shame…let me bow down now; I will never doubt again.  The Likeness is even better than In The Woods.  This is partially due to the fact that I found the main character of In The Woods, Rob Ryan, obscenely stupid, actually I sort of just wanted to kick him in the mouth, and other places, with the hopes of curbing some of his stupidity.  But the character of Cassie I enjoyed and was happy to hear she would be back in The Likeness.

Cassie Maddox has transferred to Domestic Violence from Dublin’s Murder Squad after a case (read In the Woods) unravels not only a murder but also the investigators on the case. However, it isn’t long before Cassie is called to check the remains of a murder victim—a young woman who looks exactly like Cassie, a young woman going by the alias that Cassie used in an undercover case years before, Alexandria Madison.  Now Frank Mackey, Cassie’s former undercover boss and my new character crush, in an attempt to find the girl’s murderer, wants Cassie to once again become Lexie. This time she’ll have to enter the world of Lexie created by a dead girl. While Cassie is still unsure of her own world, she agrees to move into Lexie’s and try to catch her killer.

So…Cassie, as Lexie, shows up alive at Whitethorn House and into the loving arms of Lexie’s roommates: Rafe, Daniel, Justin, and Abby.  But is all well here in this home of the temperamental literature majors?   Is one of them, or perhaps all of them, responsible for Lexie’s death?  Or did Lexie die at the hands of one of the local townsfolk bent on revenge for a hundred year old grudge?  Or an angry relative wanting part of Whitethorn House?  And who is the woman behind the Lexie Madison alias?  Who? Who? Who? And why? Why? Why?

That is French’s strength.  The who? The Why?  And it is all built on characterization.  While The Likeness is a mystery, its strength comes from its characters.  The inhabitants of Whitethorn House… I loved them all.  What lit nerd wouldn’t?  They are witty, sarcastic, and smart enough to realize their own social oddities which are part of the reason they have chosen a life together.   A seemingly perfect life built around an old house, friendship, wine filled dinners, and conversation.  It is a world very opposite from Cassie’s own and she soon wonders if it is not here, in Whitethorn House, that she belongs.  Cassie’s journey leads her on a quest not only to find the murderer, discover who Lexie Madison really was, but also on a quest to find herself. 

On of the early lines in the book seems to capture the mood of most of the characters in the book:

Being easily freaked out comes with its own special skill set: you develop subtle tricks to work around it, make sure people don’t notice.  Pretty soon, if you’re a fast learner, you can get through the day looking almost exactly like a normal human being. (8)

Cassie, the inhabitants of Whitethorn House, and Lexie Madison what this: to hold to a perfect moment or situation in the hopes of creating the perfect self. However, time and human nature rarely play fair; sometimes all that is left are memories, good and bad, and the necessity to move forward.  French is excellent at displaying, through her characters, the human desire for security, happiness, acceptance and the ramifications of holding too tightly to a changing situation. 

I am not generally a mystery fan as I tend to find myself rooting for the bad guy and this book was no different. My friend, Mary, has numerous theories about my love of bad guys but I have to argue that with The Likeness I am justified.  I am. I am. French’s characters are very human and as such own traits of good and bad and I found myself empathizing on numerous levels. I look forward to French’s future work.

OHHHH….JOYYYYYYYY…I just learned that Frank Mackey will be the narrator in French’s next novel!  Did I mention that I have a character crush on him?  Oh yes, sickness!

4.5 out of 5—excellent book!

Aww…Monday, the day I somehow can’t get my shoes on the right foot or my hands to hold still; the morning my heart is clutching to lackadaisical Sunday while my head is all grab-hand  reaching for next mad capped Friday.  Monday! Blahhhh…torn between the loss of the past and the hope of the future…separated by five long days of work!

So…to avoid reality further…let’s ponder…ZOMBIES!

I finally got hold of a copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen (of course) and Seth Grahame-Smith.  Pure joy! What could be better?  Well, how about an all out Zombie week? Yes, it just gets better and better. So, I have consulted my handy-dandy brother-man for a list of the quintessential zombie flicks and this is what we’ve got: 1. the original Night of the Living Dead 2. the remake of Dawn of the Dead 3. Dead Alive.  He has informed me that the first two are scary and the third is funny and since funny is always good, I have also picked up a copy of Shaun of the Dead.  Which I love, which is all English and witty, and really the only reason I have climbed onto the zombie band-wagon. So there.

And here’s the plan: I am going to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to Patrick while he makes dinner this week (I know, I am truly getting the better end of the stick here. Aww…I wonder if he’ll clean the dishes too?), then we will watch a zombie movie every night, with one night being saved for the Pride and Prejudice movie version with Colin Firth (yep, how truly hot is he as Mr. Darcy?!). Sweet, yes, Patrick has agreed to all my zombie mania!  Don’t get me wrong, am sure it is going to come back at me. Am probably going to have to learn the names of basketball teams rather than picking by color or might even have to stop calling his golf club his little stick but…whatever…he has agreed to Zombies, and Pride and Prejudice!  What more could a girl want?  

But here is my question for the day: when are zombies going to be Edwardized?  Come on, you know of what I speak…when are zombies going to become all sexy suave, go from mindless to merely emo, give freaky-yet-the-heart-does-pitter-patter glances, forsake meat and become all vegetarian? When are zombies going to get some love?  When is Stephenie Meyer or one of the other paranormal romance writers going to swoop in, turn that zombie groan into a sexy growl, and send teen girls into frenzies of decaying flesh?  Hmm….well, here is one list of some of the best zombies (http://omghorror.blogfaction.com/article/101043/feature-the-26-best-zombies-of-all-time/)…any future heart throbs or are we waiting for Robert Patterson to find a bit of free time?

J

The Rock Band book club met this week at Erica’s (thank you and sorry for the mess) to discuss Paulo Coelho’s Eleven Minutes.  Let me state at the beginning, I didn’t like this book. At all.  I wanted to.  But then I also wanted to like The Alchemist…I know, numerous of you are now deleting my blog.  Blasphemy! Who doesn’t like The Alchemist?  Me.  Really.  Sorry.  Sort of. Okay, not real sorry.  And truly reading Eleven Minutes has killed my sentences; I do not enjoy Coelho’s writing style either.  Yes, this is a negative review…but give me a minute, I might come around.

I’m not a touchy-feely, find your inner depth, and search your soul reader; I don’t like self-help books, especially those disguised as fiction.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m certain I could use the help but really it just leaves me stressed out, wondering if I’m not a completely vapid puddle of pond scum because for the life of me I can find nothing even remotely close to “oh, I get it now as I never got it before. I am enlightened!” Contrary, most of the time I just want to say, “duh.”

Eleven Minutes, a fairytale about prostitution—duh!  Perhaps it is Coelho’s writing style; it’s flat and leaves me cold.  Maybe it is his heroine, Marie, which, at best, I can merely muster apathy towards, at worst, a strong dose of irritation.  I must say the other characters were of more interest to me even though Coelho only offered bits and pieces of them.  As to Marie’s diary—this is where I felt self-help being shoved down my throat by a character I felt was nothing more than an egotistical, cliché-spouting twit.  As to the subject of sexual liberation for women and the idea of sacred sex, I can only say if this book had been written fifty years ago I might better appreciate its relevance. Okay—enough, you get it…I wasn’t thrilled…I would, in fact, rather watch Pretty Woman.   

However, get the Rock Band Book Club together and maybe a fairytale of prostitution is a bit interesting. But then again, get a room full of women together, drinking wine, and the conversation eventually turns to sex, does it not?  Coelho allowed us to jump right in—head first. While the Rock Band was evenly divided between those who like and those who dislike the book, once discussion started all became enthusiastic.  Maybe it was Simone’s reading but even I had to concede, while still maintaining Coelho depends on too many clichés, that the major themes are still relevant in our world.  Loneliness, dreams, sexual awakens, and the many dimensions of love…we discussed them all, some in earnest and some with giggles. So while Eleven Minutes will never rank high on my reading recommendation list, in the hands of the Rock Band Book Club there was a pulse of energy.

May’s Rock Band book choice is Beautiful Boy by David Sheff and only two chapters in…I am thoroughly enjoying his writing style! Also…reading My Booky Wook…is there anything sexier than Russell Brand?  No.

Eleven Minutes Rates 2 out 5 stars