Written by: Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Published: 2009
My thoughts: If you've watched Orange is the New Black you'll remember the scene where Big Boo comforts Pennsatucky about the children she aborted by citing a study which linked the Wade V Roe case on abortion with the drop in crime 20 years later. I first heard about that link when I caught a snippet of the Freakonomics documentary and after rewatching it with Tom last year I decided I should read the actual book. We don't own the first Freakonomics book, but for some reason we do read the second (which was probably for the best since I hadn't heard of any of the studies/stories that were in this one). The book really is fascinating and super-consumable - I finished it in one afternoon only breaking to run over to Tom and tell him about the latest chapter. I found the "why suicide bombers should buy life insurance" pretty problematic because it seemed like it was essentially just racial profiling with the fancy guise of economic patterning thrown over the top, but the other stories - especially the creative approaches to global cooling - were all creative, funny and fascinating.
My thoughts: I'm conflicted with how I feel about this book. On the one hand I really love the way Krakauer writes, he has drawn me into so many stories that I don't know I would necessarily find interesting or engaging otherwise. And when he writes about the Lafferty brothers, two brothers who killed their other brother's wife and child because of a 'calling from god', I felt that same sort of pull in his writing. However amidst the story of the Laffertys Krakauer sets out to tell the history of the Mormon church and explain why there are so many fundamentalist splinter groups. This is where I struggled. I am sure there are people who will find this interesting but the history sections, whether it was the content or Krakauer's writing I don't know, just bored me. That said, I am glad I read this book. I have never really known much about the Mormon faith and the short and turbulent history Krakauer paints really lays the ground for the extremist fundamental Mormon groups that spring up every so often. It also gives a side of American history that I don't often hear, and it's amazing to think how lawless* the US was until recently. So read it? I really don't know if it was that Krakauer was tackling too big a project for a book this length and his writing suffered or if the subject just wasn't enough to engage me. If you've read it, I'd love to hear what you thought.
*In the sense that there wasn't a great deal of unification or concrete army/police forces which led to a lot of chaos,
Synopsis: At the end of The Passage, the great viral plague had left a small group of survivors clinging to life amidst a world transformed into a nightmare. In the second volume of this epic trilogy, this same group of survivors, led by the mysterious, charismatic Amy, go on the attack, leading an insurrection against the virals: the first offensives of the Second Viral War.
To do this, they must infiltrate a dozen hives, each presided over by one of the original Twelve. Their secret weapon: Alicia, transformed at the end of book one into a half human, half viral—but whose side, in the end, is she really on? (Via Goodreads) WARNING: WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR BOOK 1 - sorta
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I finished reading The Passage while I traveled around Europe last year, and I made a stop in every book store I found to try and find a copy of The Twelve to read on my flight home. Considering my excitement to read The Twelve, it's maybe a little surprising that it took me over 3 months to finish. But my problem (alongside my general reading block) was the same as the one I had when I read The Passage, 1. it's flipping long you guys and 2. the first half is so chaotic and disjointed that it takes awhile to get absorbed into. With that said, I understand why there is so much location and character switching at the start. In both books it sets up the action set pieces of the second half of the novel and it adds a lot of the emotional weight of the narrative, but it also makes it hard to read at a decent clip. My edition was around 700 pages, I think I spent 3 months reading the first 300 pages, and less than a week to read the final 400.
But the book itself, the book I loved. After finishing The Passage I was so excited to find out what would happen next to the rag tag group of youngsters who seem to succeed against all odds. Would they find and defeat the rest of the 12? Would they live happily ever after? Would they ever see the other members of their little community again? When I first began The Twelve I stumbled a bit because it jumps to 5 years later* and suddenly characters from the first book are dead or missing. And even though I read these two books essentially back to back, I still had to get out my copy of The Passage and see if I missed something. There's also a chapter about a completely separate group of people and I struggled to place that event in the book's timeline, only working it out when the event later becomes relevant to the narrative. So there was some rocky ground there, and if you've had a big gap between reading The Passage, it's probably a good idea to revisit the book (or the wikipedia page) before launching into this one.
Knowing that the book is the second in a trilogy also causes some issues because it does seem like some parts are stretched out and treading water waiting for the intense conclusion which is surely coming in book three. That's not entirely fair on the book because like I said, after the mid-way point this book actually takes off at a decent clip but there is something ... hesitant? ... about the story. Perhaps that's in comparison to the insanity of the first book or maybe Cronin wanted to focus more in setting up the characters and foundations so that the third book could take off from page one. I don't know entirely and I can't quite put my finger on it because it isn't like there aren't huge set pieces in this book, it just feels like it's holding back.
I know this has been pretty broad, but it's been so long since I finished the book and I'm actually a little foggy about the details. But I want to get back into blogging more regularly and I felt like getting this review out into the world was probably a good step in that direction. So sorry for the broad and vague review, trust me when I say at the end I really enjoyed the book even amidst the slow and rocky first half and hesitancy.
*Maybe? It's been awhile since I finished it now and I can't remember specifics. It's definitely a chunk of time anyway.
Synopsis: The Disaster Artist is Greg Sestero's laugh-out-loud funny account of how Tommy Wiseau defied every law of artistry, business, and friendship to make "the Citizen Kane of bad movies" (Entertainment Weekly), which is now an international phenomenon, with Wiseau himself beloved as an oddball celebrity. Written with award-winning journalist Tom Bissell, The Disaster Artist is an inspiring tour de force, an open-hearted portrait of an enigmatic man who will improbably capture your heart. (Via Goodreads)
“The only casting directors who’d be willing to call Tommy in on the basis of this headshot were the ones curious about what it was like to be murdered.”
Many moons ago, Tom sent me a link to a youtube video which neatly smooshed together some of a film's "best moments". The movie was The Room and the descriptor "best" is ... controversial at best. It is not a good movie, but it is a movie so bad that it's hilarious.
Soon after that The Room was screened at a little cinema here in Brisbane and we were both hooked. I 100% do not recommend watching this film by yourself or even with a couple of friends. It's a pile of absolute garbage, but as a cinema experience it's amazing fun. There are all sorts of rituals and games that the audience perform through the screening, which aside from being fun to participate in have the added bonus of distracting from the nonsense onscreen.
When I heard that Greg Sestero (the cheating best friend Mark in the trailer) had written a book about his experience making the film I knew I had to read it. It took me several years but here I am, I have now officially read the book and know the story behind "the greatest bad movie ever made". Or rather, I have listened to the book. If you only take away two things from this review, be sure that they are to only watch The Room in a cinema with a huge group of people (and probably a significant amount of alcohol - I recommend scotchka) and listen to this book so that you can experience the beauty that is Sestero's Tommy Wiseau impression.
I don't think this book will offer much to people unfamiliar with the phenomenon that is The Room. The hook of the book is a privileged look inside what must have been an unbearable filming process and the man responsible for it. Tommy Wiseau is notoriously cagey about his past and it fuels the mythos that has developed around him and his film. This book further pushes this mythos, detailing all of the secrecy Wiseau maintained during their friendship while also peeling back a few of the layers. But even when something is revealed it's so crazy a story that it's hard to know if there is any truth there at all.
What is to be known for sure is that the movie must have been horrible to work on. Sestero detailed the lengthy shooting of The Room in painful detail ... painful because it resulted in 2 people taking trips to the hospital and multiple mutinies where large numbers of the crew walked off the set at once. The book alternates between a chapter on the production of The Room and the early days of the friendship that began in a San Franciscan acting class. The early portions of their relationship serve to make a clear foundation for how the production could be such a mess, but it also provides a really intimate look into the permanent state of self-doubt and fear that comes with being a young actor. I may have read the book for the eccentric Tommy Wiseau, but it really lead to a real appreciation for Greg Sestero.
So if you've seen the film and was attracted to that mess like a moth to the flame then definitely give the book a read/listen. Or if you've seen the film and hated it then maaaybe borrow it from the library and see if you can enjoy the schadenfreude. And if you haven't seen the film, then why are you reading this review? Go find a public screening, laugh at the absurdity and cry at the fact that they're now all probably richer off this terrible movie than any of us could wish to be. Then give the book a read.
Synopsis: Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. “Jess and Jason,” she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.
And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good? (Via goodreads)
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“I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts.”
When I was travelling through Europe I found this book in every book store and I nearly bought a copy, but since I was mostly travelling by trains and I wasn't sure if this book was about something evil happening on a train - I decided to not risk suddenly being terrified travelling alone in a strange country and bought The Twelve instead. But I did note it down because I did want to read it, I just wanted the safety of knowing I could avoid trains if I needed too.
Anyway, this is going to be a vague and short book because like most thrillers, it's best to avoid as many details and story points as possible before heading in. I certainly went into this blind, knowing only what the blurb on the back cover said. And since I really quite liked this book that's what I'd recommend for you too.
But in case you want some details here we go. The book is about Rachel, a woman who takes a train to and from work in London every day. She catches the same train in the morning and the same one in the evening, and because she follows this routine so regularly she knows exactly where the train stops or slows. At one particular point in her trip, the train slows down beside a series of terrace houses and she's able to glimpse a couple that live in one of them. She doesn't see them every day and she doesn't see them with much detail, but she sees enough to know that they're young and in love. She has a backstory for this couple, careers, names, hobbies - things she couldn't possibly know but which help pass the time and make her feel happy. There is a sense that Rachel is a little lonely, and perhaps she's missing this kind of love from her life. And then one morning while looking out for her favourite couple she sees something. It could be nothing, but in her gut she knows that isn't true. Rachel pulls at this thread and it unravels catastrophically for not only her, but for several other people too. Which people though I can't share without giving away some of the details that should really be discovered on reading.
I thought the book was pretty well constructed. Hawkins divulges the tiniest glimpses of details only slowly over time, pulling back the covers to reveal things dark or haunted or ugly. I don't mean to sound snobby, but thrillers often follow a fairly predictable path - even if you don't necessarily cotton on to who the killer/monster/villain is. Hawkins plays with all of the typical tools of the thriller, but she also experiments with these tools to construct a thriller that is both fairly traditional and also quite breathtaking. There is a sense of an unreliable narrator within this story, but Hawkins plays with this idea and the effect is rather dizzying. That's all I can say without giving anything away, but if you've read the book I'm sure you understand what I mean here.
I was a little worried when I began that it was going to be a Gone Girl clone. It's fairly cynical about life and people and love and the characters are all fairly unlikable. I had a couple of moments where I wondered if I really cared why things were happening or where they would go. But the unfolding narrative made me constantly change my mind about characters, for instance new information suddenly giving insight which adds a level of sympathy to a character's previously murky agenda. So even if I didn't necessarily like the characters, I was curious about uncovering the full story.
So if you've been looking for a new thriller then give this one a shot. It isn't perfect, but as a debut novel I think it shows a lot of promise for Hawkins in the future.
**I was thinking that instead of writing these vague "things happen, but read it for yourself" reviews I might start writing analysis reviews of thrillers instead. So they'd be aimed at people who had read the book so I could discuss the spoilers and what I liked/didn't like about the real story. Would people be into this or nah?**
I'm going through something of a true crime bender. I read Ann Rule's The Stranger Beside Me while I was in Europe and before I knew it I was reading true crime comics, watching documentaries and listening to podcasts. True crime isn't outside of my interests, but I've never really gone this gung-ho before. So rather than make this a true crime blog for the forseeable future (although I think I'm getting too angry and sad to keep this up much longer) I'm going to squeeze them all into a couple of posts (one for the content I've read, one for the content I viewed), both for my sanity and yours.
What I've Been Reading:
The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule.
This was the book that kicked off this cycle, although in fairness I was probably primed for it by listening to Serial last year. The Stranger Beside Me is the story of Ted Bundy, the man and the murderer. However, as seems to be a bit of a trend for me in the true crime I pick, this book tells the tale of author Ann Rule's relationship with Ted Bundy. Beginning when she was an aspiring writer penning the occasional article for true crime magazines, Ann Rule also worked at a helpline with the young Ted Bundy. He was (if I recall correctly) about 15 years her junior, but they became close friends almost instantly. As Rule's writing career began to take off and she was hired to write a book about the series of murders that would be tied to Bundy. This connection made it increasingly difficult for Rule once it became clear that Bundy was not only the key suspect but the perpetrator of the 30+ rapes and murders committed across the country. I found Rule's writing to be compelling and her reenactments of the crimes really captured the methodical and sadistic nature of Bundy. However, I actually struggled with the personal element of the book by the end. It seemed to me, based on the accounts in her book, that he was clearly using her because of her connection to the police. While she said they were close, the only personal anecdotes involving interactions outside of work begin after he starts his murders (or around the time of the first murder). So either they weren't as close as she thought and he manipulated her in the same way he manipulated his victims, or she left out some compelling evidence that they were anything more than co-workers who chatted in their downtime on late night shifts. Tne subheading of this book is "the shocking inside story," but Rule is guarded in providing too many personal details, so I don't know that we really get much of an inside story at all. And without any real divulgence of personal details, we also don't get any real introspection about the relationship. If you're going to make the story personal, make it personal. Otherwise just write a compelling story of Ted Bundy and his crimes - which is already 80% of this book. I also think her personal involvement muddies her perspective somewhat. She struggles to separate the Ted she knew and the Ted who committed the murder and that gives way to a lot of waffling over certain decisions like him breaking out of prison - which to most people is a pretty clear sign of his guilt. She also gets to the end of the book without straight up stating that he is guilty, rather she frames it as he was convicted of the crimes, which to me - coupled with the other way she discusses the case - suggests that she thinks he may be innocent or wrongfully convicted. I think she went through a lot of confusion and mixed emotions about his involvement and subsequent conviction and I think the book would have benefited greatly if she had either fully opened up and made it a personal account of a woman who was friends with a serial killer up until their conviction (she sent him lots of money and letters while he was in jail leading up to the trial) or an objective account of a horrific serial killer. In the end it flitters a little between the two and is weaker for it.
Green River Killer: A True Detective Story written by Jeff Jensen, illustrated by Jonathan Case.
Last year I read the graphic novel My Friend Dahmerand really dug the idea of true crime comics. Obviously they aren't going to be as dense with detail and information as a normal true crime novel, but they have the potential to tell a much more personal angle than you typically read in this genre. Green River Killer was a title that came up every time I looked for a follow up to My Friend Dahmer but it wasn't until today that I found a copy. It's written by Jeff Jansen, the son of Tom Jansen - the cop who spent over 20 years on this case. It takes place over several decades, though it is set primarily 2005 when Jansen and several other police officers were stuck in a room interviewing Gary Leon Ridgeway about his murders for a controversial plea deal (he'd get life in prison, no death penalty). Ridgeway had confessed to being the Green River killer, but remained vague and cagey about the details of his crimes. The plea deal meant that he had to give them information about several murders he says he had committed that the police had never uncovered, but when they would take him to the locations he disclosed he'd clam up or only give details that were well known by the public. Was he playing with them or could it be that he wasn't the serial killer he confessed to being? (surprise, he was a killer but he had disassociated from that past 'Gary'). The book flashes back to some of the key murders in Ridgeway's life, such his first attempted murder in 1965 of a young boy, and the murder and bizarre presentation post-mortem of the victim Christine King. But more often than not the book presents the victims of Ridgeway as in flux, hair styles and clothing changing in each sequential frame because to Ridgeway these women held no real importance - there was no real reason for him to remember them. All told, Ridgeway murdered at least 48 women and teenage girls primarily between 1982-1984. Ridgeway picked prostitutes as his victims because they were easy to lure and kill, because he knew society didn't care about them. He would pick up prostitutes and take them either to his house or the woods and if they didn't 'love him right', he would murder them. There is even one occasion depicted in the book where Ridgeway picked up a girl with his son in the car, although it isn't made clear if this was one of the women he killed or one lucky enough to get away. It's also unclear whether Ridgeway continued murdering up until his capture, but if he did he didn't continue at the same rate as his early period in the 1980s. The fact that the book takes place 20 years after that initial period makes for a compelling narrative because we are likely seeing a man who considers his murders the acts of a different version of himself, an earlier Gary. In all of the interviews and encounters he separates himself, while also never denying that he did commit the murders. He talks of it all being so 'long ago' and yet for the police who interview him, the details of his brutality are seared into their memories. This book isn't just about Gary Leon Ridgeway and the Green River murders though. It is also a loving tribute for a son who respects his father and his father's dedication to find answers for the families of the women lost. Aspects of Tom Jensen's own life - his marriage, his police officer re-tests - are juxtaposed against the case investigating the murders and Ridgeway's recollections of the murders. This case, like his marriage, family and the endless renovations on the family home, was his life. And it's surprisingly beautiful to find this tribute entwined among such horror.
Torso written by Brian Michael Bendis, illustrated by Marc Andreyko.
Torso is less the personalised account of a relationship with or connection to a murderer and more a semi-fictionalised retelling of a particularly grisly cold case. It's like a short From Hell in that sense. Taking place in 1930s Cleveland, Torso explores the Torso serial murders amidst the turbulence of Eliot Ness's installment as Safety Director and depression-era America. Ness was a prohibition agent in Chicago, so his arrival in Cleveland is depicted in reflection to the murders, as both shook the police force and public to their core. The murders are horrific, someone decapitated and dismembered at least 12 victims from Cleveland's "shanty town". Much like the Green River Killer, the murderer targeted these people because they were easier to miss, both because of their transient nature and their position in society. The comic follows the popular theory that a Dr. Sweeney (named Mr Sundheim in the comic) but towards the end diverges completely from fact and re-imagines a much more action-packed finale. It's a riveting read but it's also pretty obvious that it isn't based in reality, which conflicts with the earlier portions. One thing the comic did that was really interesting was juxtapose illustration with photos from the time (see above). This makes for an interesting visual. They seem to primarily be photos related cirectly to the case and, in fact, at least one photo used is an actual crime scene photo of one of the victims. It makes it hard to separate from the reality of the situation, that while the comic is interesting and action-packed it is still a retelling of a series of murders which were never solved. Not as consistent as Green River Killer, but an interesting experiment in true crime comics nonetheless.
Synopsis: In four years the teenage members of the Runaways did what no other group of female rock musicians before them could: they released four albums for a major label and toured the world. The Runaways busted down doors for every girl band that followed. Joan Jett, Sandy West, Cherrie Currie, lead guitarist Lita Ford, and bassists Jackie Fox and Vicky Blue were pre-punk bandits, fostering revolution girl style decades before that became a riot grrrl catchphrase.
The story of the Runaways has never been told in its entirety. Drawing on interviews with most of this seminal rock band’s former members as well as controversial manager Kim Fowley, Queens of Noise will look beyond the lurid voyeuristic appeal of a sex-drugs-rock ’n’ roll saga to give the band its place in musical, feminist, and cultural history. (Via Goodreads)
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I have well and truly dropped the blogger ball this month. I have been extremely busy with uni work and life stuff, but it's sad to see so few posts up on my blog! So here is a quick review to add another post to my meager blog offerings.
Where to start? I came across this book when Jackie Fox (first bassist of the Runaways) made headlines the other month accusing their manager of raping her while she was in the band. I had long been a fan of the music of The Runaways, but outside of knowing that they were teenagers and hugely influential on future female bands I really didn't know much about their formation or the scandals that followed them pretty much from the start. Jackie Fox's statement, and the subsequent fallout from her other bandmates, led me on a wikipedia binge which ended with a visit to Goodreads. The main reason I decided on Queens of Noise over one of the autobiographies is that I hoped it'd be a broader look at the band, rather than prescribing to a certain person's memories and perspectives. Given how many fights and court cases this band has fought since the 1970s, I just don't know how much weight those autobiographies can be given.
Unfortunately that wasn't what I got. Generally speaking, I didn't get any insights in this book that I couldn't find on wikipedia or fan websites. It covered the highs and lows of the band, but it didn't really introduce any new perspectives or stories. McDonnell may have been backed against a wall, so to speak, because it seems from the interviews included in the book that she didn't really get access to all of the band and the ones willing to talk were the ones who have always been willing to talk. In terms of this complaint, if you haven't really read anything about this band then I don't think the content will be a problem. It's comprehensive and it covers a lot, from their lives before the band to their careers afterwards. If you have, like me, done some internet searches on the band then don't expect too much from this book.
Another issue I had was the quality of the writing. McDonnell has had a lengthy career as a journalist but when I started reading this I turned to my mum and said "this reads like someone's Masters thesis". Low and behold, that's exactly what this book was. I've read a lot of book which have begun as a Masters or PhD thesis, but the successful transitions are the ones which eliminate the unnecessary academic framework. McDonnell frames the formation of the band around academic discussion on Los Angeles in the 1970s in terms of "four ecologies"*. It's quite interesting stuff but it's introduced early in the book and then never really adds any real context or depth to the girls' stories. Does it really help for a music fan to know that certain girls grew up in "autopia" or "surfurbia"? This broad academic framework has a very specific purpose in academia, but this isn't a book advertised to music academics, it's a book for fans of the Runaways. And considering how often McDonnell refers to the biopic starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, it's clearly a book created for young new fans of the band who want to know more about the real life women who inspired the film.
But outside of the academic framework at the start of the book, the writing is pretty sub-par.There is a lot of groan-worthy, overly descriptive language typical of a feature article:
"Laying down the chinka-chinka guitar rhythms of the band's dirty rock sound, Joan Jett is already Joan Jett: a cute but dark-eyed tomboy in a custom, red catsuit - gymnast meets race-car driver - and, of course, boots. She has outlined her Cleopatra eyes in dark liner and sings with the sexy bravado of one who was once painfully shy"
This is sandwiched between McDonnell's most overused stylistic choices, 'to' comparisons:
"To this day, he speaks a sort of tourette's jive that's a crucial link in the lineage from the Beats to Jack Bruce to Tom Waits to Wildman Fisher to David lee Roth to Perry Farrell"
What does this mean? What exactly is she comparing? The way they speak? Were they all influenced by Kim Fowley (who this quite is about) and how he spoke? Was he influenced by them? To comparisons are fine in moderation, but they are incredibly overused in this book. It just ends up reading as lady and as though she's wanting to prove her credentials, "look at all these things I know! Seven degrees of musical Kevin Bacon!" The final straw, for me, is that McDowell doesn't view this story objectively. Her person opinions on events that occurred and people that were involved came through so strongly. When discussing a somewhat controversial interview that music manager Danny Sugarman conducted with the Runaways McDonnell writes:
"Sugarman was a shitty writer and drug addict who thought he was a rock star and died married to Fawn Hall of Iran-Contra infamy"
Look, his article was garbage and lewd but there's a way to say that without bringing your own personal opinions on the guy into the story. And what does it matter if he was a drug addict - so was just about everyone in the Runaways!
But perhaps the biggest straw for me is the sympathy McDowell has for Fowley, the man who Jackie Fox accused of raping her. Throughout the book there are interviews with crew, journalists and musicians who say that Fowley was a creep and aggressive and abusive towards the girls. While I don't think it was McDowell's responsibility to address all of the rumours, especially when there was conflicting stories or a lack of evidence, but she follows so many of these moments of criticism with some really gross explanations for why Fowley isn't so bad. I.e. it was the 1970s and tonnes of men had sex with underage girls. Heck, Roman Polanksi "got busted" for having sex with an underage girl**. Or modern society has a different definition for what constitutes predatory behaviour. Or he was a freak, and was an easy target because of this. It just comes across as so apologetic, especially since she failed to be objective throughout the book, like she'd met him and liked him and didn't want to face the idea that he wasn't the charming and weird guy in a salmon coloured suit she envisioned.
So at the end of the day this book just didn't deliver what I was hoping for. It'd be fine for a complete Runaways novice or younger reader as it reads pretty well in spite of my issues with style and it does cover the details about the formation of the band, career highlights and band fights. It does paint some interesting pictures of the 1970s L.A music scene, but these are too few and far between for my liking. A resounding meh, from start to finish.
*It's based in architectual and cultural studies stuff. **This upset me the most. She didn't address that he was arrested and found guilty of raping a child before fleeing the country. She simply mentioned he was "busted". ugggggghhhh
Synopsis: Will Graham stands in a silent, empty house communing with a killer. An FBI instructor with a gift for hunting madmen, Graham knows what his murderer looks like, how he thinks, and what he did to his victims after they died. Now Graham must try to catch him. But to do it, he must feel the heat of a killer's brain, draw on the macabre advice of a dangerous mental patient, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, and follow a trail of microscopic clues to the place where another family has already been chosen to die--and where an innocent woman has found the Dragon first. (Via Goodreads)
“It's hard to have anything isn't it? Rare to get it, hard to keep it. This is a damn slippery planet.”
Tom and I started Bryan Fuller's series Hannibal when we heard it had been cancelled. We'd both been wanting to watch it for awhile, but we have so many ongoing shows we watch that it was kind of exhausting to add yet another one to the list. So the cancellation, though very sad (more so now that we know how great the show is), let us feel like we could finally make the commitment to the show. After we finished each episode, I'd look up the AV club review and see what people had said. One thing I hadn't really expected was a continued discussion on how faithful to the book(s) the show is, especially since it takes place prior to the events of the Harris novels.
Interest piqued, I decided to find out for myself. What I discovered that the TV show is very clever at weaving lines and references from the book into the show, but also, this book is hella cool.
For those of you who have watched the TV show,* Red Dragon takes place four-five years after any events in the show (maybe longer? It's 4 years since Hannibal's capture in the book but I don't know when/if Hannibal will be caught in the show). After catching and then nearly dying at Hannibal Lecter's hand, Will Graham has removed himself from the FBI and settled down and married. He's still troubled by his days in the FBI, but he finds a quiet satisfaction working with his hands and not empathising with serial killers for a living (whodathunkit?). Oh wait, did I say he was content? Enter Jack Crawford, desperate for Will's insight into a new serial killer known as the Tooth Fairy.
At the new moon, the Tooth Fairy kills an entire family. The deaths are quick and mostly painfree, except for the mothers who seem to receive the lion's share of the aggression and attention. Graham is called in to try and make the connection between the two families that no one else has been able to find, but in involving himself in the case he throws his fragile life into a tailspin. His new family is tense and close to falling apart, as is his sanity. Working in pursuit of a serial killer can't be easy on anyone but for Will it seems extra destructive. At one point Will visits the imprisoned Hannibal Lecter to try and get his perspective and this terrible toll on Will is explained, the line between killers and Will is especially thin. Will is gifted (cursed?) with the ability to empathise completely which obviously causes pain, but it also blurs the line about Will's self. Is he able to empathise on a purely scholarly level, or is it because he's the same as them, evil and destructive like them?
The narrative is primarily framed around Will, however there are chapters that travel back to the Tooth Fairy's (aka Red Dragon, aka Francis Dolarhyde) childhood and adolescence, or spends time with him as he goes through his daily routine and gets ready to attack another family. There is also a section or two framed around Hannibal Lecter and Jack Crawford or other smaller characters, to help fill out the story without having Will inserted into every single scene. As the book gets closer to its final act, the Dolarhyde chapters increase and we see his fractured sense of self and mental instability which is often mirrored against Will. It becomes a story that's both about the hunt for a serial killer and an introspection into the psyche of people who live on the fringe of society.
Lest those of you who watch the TV show think that this aligns with TV-Will...hold your horses. While his ability to empathise with killers is a part of his character and a leading role in his fragility, Book-Will does a lot more detective work than TV-Will ever does. While he certainly gets a "feeling" that he can't define through actual evidence, he also has an eidetic memory which helps greatly as he spends hours upon hours sifting through evidence. There's a stronger foundation of reality in Red Dragon than in the show, which tends to favour aesthetic and theme over narrative stability.
I found the ending a little unsatisfying. I didn't have an issue with the events themselves, but they were written in such a vague way that I actually wasn't entirely sure what I was reading at first. My other major problem was the absolute lack of female characters in the book. There were two, I think, maybe three. I could have forgiven the small number if they were at least characters with some depth, but I found them decidedly lacking.Ultimately though, these two issues weren't strong enough to effect my general enjoyment of the book and I'll definitely be seeking out Silence of the Lambs when I'm next at the library. Goodbye Will.
*Yes, I know that there is a film adaptation of Red Dragon. No I will not comment on it or refer to it in the review because it is NOT GOOD.
Synopsis: On May 9th 1996, five expeditions launched an assault on the summit of Mount Everest. The conditions seemed perfect. Twenty-four hours later one climber had died and 23 other men and women were caught in a desperate struggle for their lives as they battled against a ferocious storm that threatened to tear them from the mountain. In all, eight climbers died that day in the worst tragedy Everest has ever seen.
Jon Krakauer, an accomplished climber, joined a commercial expedition run by guides for paying clients, many of whom had little or no climbing experience. In Into Thin Air he gives a thorough and chilling account of the ill-fated climb and reveals the complex web of decisions and circumstances that left a group of amateurs fighting for their lives in the thin air and sub-zero cold above 26,000 feet - a place climbers call 'The Death Zone'. Into Thin Air reveals the harsh realities of mountaineering and echoes with frantic calls of climbers lost high on the mountain and way beyond help. (Via Goodreads)
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“With enough determination, any bloody idiot can get up this hill ... The trick is to get back down alive.”
A handful of years ago I read Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, and shortly after the film adaptation came out. Both caught me at a point in my life where I was first experiencing life as an adult and trying to work out what kind of future I wanted to lead. Christopher McCandless' decision to strip himself of material possessions and trip through the wilderness spoke to me on a very deep level, but the book captured all the very real, and frankly terrifying, consequences that can accompany that sort of lifestyle if you don't actually plan things out. I earmarked Jon Krakauer as an author to read more of but for whatever reason, 19 year old me never followed up with his books.
A couple of months ago I actually saw a review for his book Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town and earmarked that as a book to request from my library. I haven't gotten around to that yet, but it rekindled my Krakauer interest for the first time in years. And then I saw the trailer for the upcoming film Everest which is based on this book.
The trailer reminded me of that outdoor wonderlust I experienced when I first read Into the Wild, and once again there seemed that there was an intense mother-nature-is-not-your-friend theme running through it. I bought it immediately, and once I started reading I could not stop.
I finished this book with a heavy heart. I actually can't remember a time a book made me feel this weary. I cried and felt numb for a good few hours after I put the book down. It was one of the most emotionally exhaustive experiences I've ever gone through that wasn't actually something that was happening to me.
Here's the thing though, I wasn't emotional because of the loss of life during this Everest climb. Well, I was but that wasn't really what made me feel so damn tired. It was the whole story of Everest. The fanaticism, the commercialism, the risks, the waste and the lack of humanity that people climbing Everest seem to have.
There is a point early into their climb where Jon remarks on a bundle he sees in the snow along the path. It's the dead body of someone who died making the climb a couple of decades before him. That just seemed so emblematic of how dehumanising this endeavour is. A person died to climb a mountain, not because they needed to for survival but because they wanted to be able to add their name to the list of people who had. And when they died, they get left by their peers like the trash and the old oxygen tanks. "The slopes of Everest are littered with corpses" writes Krakauer at one point, and he isn't exaggerating. One in four climbers have died trying to reach the summit of Everest, and yet it's become a tourist attraction that people with barely any climbing experience pay tens of thousands to do. It's just. so. stupid.
At another point, Krakauer writes:
“It was titillating to brush up against the enigma of mortality, to steal a glimpse across its forbidden frontier. Climbing was a magnificient activity, I firmly believed, not in spite of the inherent perils, but precisely because of them.”
And I get it, I really do. I can completely understand the draw of wanting to climb Everest. But the toxicity that surrounds mountains like Everest is everything I hate about humanity. People charging $65,000 to guide you up to the top of the mountain, but not making sure their charges are at a particular level of climbing skill or athleticism. It's so greedy, and when the death toll is so high, it's just a really ugly sight. It makes me think of Gollum and the ring in Lord of the Rings. Reaching the summit is everything, and if that means you leave a person dying on the side of the mountain, like some Japanese climbers did in 1996, then that's what you do. I can't even imagine how terrifying it is to die alone on the side of a stark and baron mountain after watching two people leave you where you lay, because giving you their oxygen means that they wouldn't be able to make the trip up to the top. How can a person actually do that? And I can't imagine how heartbreaking it is to have a loved one die on Everest, and have their body sit where they died until someone pushes it down a ravine or covers it with rocks. It's just so utterly lonely an image.
While the book itself is primarily about the horrific storm that hit in 1996 and cost 8 people their lives, it's also broadly about the curse of Everest. Krakauer weaves in stories about the climbing history of Everest and the famous stories of men and women both succeeding and failing to reach the summit over the last 100 years. He was originally employed to climb Everest to write an article about the commercialism of the many guided tours going up the mountain each season. But at the end of the day, this commercialism both is and isn't the cause of the wanton loss of life. People were dying well before climbers got the clever idea of leading packs of people up the mountain for $30,000. But the people dying were typically people who had mountaineering experience and who knew the risks of climbing a mountain as high as Everest. As the trailer above points out, once you hit a certain point your body is literally dying. Nowadays, people climbing the mountain are often people who have the money to. They may have some climbing experience, but they're ultimately paying for their guide to get them to the top no matter what. And this is where things turn ugly. When they start their preliminary climb, Krakauer notes that many people in his group have only rudimentary climbing skills and had only climbed one mountain (and not one on the scale of Everest) in the year earlier. They were all in good shape, but as he explains, climbing a mountain isn't about being in shape. It's about the instincts you need to have to problem solve and anticipate the numerous issues you're faced when scaling a wall of ice and snow. When you then toss in the issues of sleep deprivation, sore and wasted muscles, injuries and the brain fuzziness that comes from being withheld necessary oxygen, the issues caused by this lack of experience are vastly intensified. How can you trust being tied to someone who hasn't climbed a mountain before? Or who hasn't experienced oxygen deprivation?
"This forms the nub of a dilemma that every Everest climber eventually comes up against: in order to succeed you must be exceedingly driven, but if you're too driven you're likely to die"
The book is a fascinating look at both mountain climbing as a career or hobby and the magical draw of mountains. It's so ruthless and competitive and heartless, but it's also this amazing depiction of human endurance and determination. It's horrifying because there are so many examples in the book of how dehumanising this experience is, but it's compounded by the fact that at the back of my mind a little part of me gets it, and i'm disgusted by that. You finish the book feeling the weight of every decision, good and bad, that was made on that mountain. This book might sound like it has a very small base of people it'd appeal to but I came away from it feeling like my eyes had been opened to a whole new view of humanity. Because Krakauer was both a climber with relatively decent experience but also one of the novices joining a guided tour I've discussed above, he offers a very unique perspective into this world. He understands climbing and he understood his limitations and that he probably shouldn't have been there, but as a climber he was also under the spell of the mountain and the desperate need to conquer something that has foiled so many. It's both hard to watch, and hard to look away.
Synopsis: Meet Dexter Morgan, a polite wolf in sheep's clothing. He's handsome and charming, but something in his past has made him abide by a different set of rules. He's a serial killer whose one golden rule makes him immensely likeable: he only kills bad people. And his job as a blood splatter expert for the Miami police department puts him in the perfect position to identify his victims. But when a series of brutal murders bearing a striking similarity to his own style start turning up, Dexter is caught between being flattered and being frightened -- of himself or some other fiend.(via Goodreads)
“Really now: If you can't get me my newspaper on time, how can you expect me to refrain from killing people?”
When I started watching Dexter I had no idea it was based on a book series. I distinctly remember my mum bringing the dvd of the first season home from work one day, and us then spending an entire Sunday watching through the whole show. Actually, that might be the first example of me binge watching TV and it's all my mum's fault. That's a load off my shoulders.
Anyway, I only found out it was based on a book series a few years after it began airing on TV when the author, Jeff Lindsay, came to the Brisbane Writers Festival. I sat in on a few of his talks and thought he seemed fascinating and really interesting and made a mental note to actually read one of the Dexter books. And then the TV show started (in my opinion) to go downhill and I swore of Dexter, and moved on to Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones and whatever else began at about the same time. Cut to 2 months ago when I was killing time in a charity shop and found a copy of Darkly Dreaming Dexter for a wallet-busting $2. All of my promises to read the series flooded back and I decided to give book Dexter a go at redeeming his reputation after TV Dexter did such a dismal job.
If you've seen the TV show, this first book follows the first season fairly closely. We get introduced to Dexter and the folks of the Miami-Dade police department and the crux of the novel follows the "ice truck killer" (although it's never called that in the book) and some exploration of Dexter's childhood and how Harry's code (i.e. you're going to kill anyway, so kill bad guys) began. There's some interesting parallels drawn between the two killers and their styles, and reading about a serial killer through the eyes of another serial killer is quite an interesting perspective to take.
There are some clear differences between the book and the series and they boil down to two things. First, the characters. Deb is still his sister, Masuoka (Masuka in the show) is still creepy and Doakes doesn't like Dexter, but LaGuerta is quite different and Angel is a medical examiner, rather than a cop. Dexter's relationship with Rita is also a very minor part of the book. The second actually builds off the first, and it's that this is almost entirely Dexter's story. The book rarely delves into the other characters outside of conversations they have with Dexter or if he happens to catch them looking at him. This makes a lot of sense given that he's meant to be a sociopath and he's depicted as quite egocentric, but the great thing about expanding the view outside of his POV in the show, is that we are reminded that, oh yeah, he's a goddamn monster.
The idea to only kill bad guys in an interesting one. It sometimes feels like Dexter has a superpower, and instead of channeling it towards evil he uses it for the good of the city. When you hear him talk about Miami and the decay that has set in, the drugs and gangs and murder, it's hard not to think that he's doing the police a solid. Clearing the trash that they can't legally touch because of tricky things like evidence and motive. But it's a lot like Walter White in Breaking Bad. Sure, he's doing it for his family! He wants them to have money to survive after he dies of cancer, so selfless! So loving! Then you remember he's cooking meth, and that there are probably a lot of families being destroyed because of that meth, and a lot of lives cut short because he's decided that this is the best way he can provide for his family. Dexter's code to kill the big bads is nice in theory, until you remember he's a serial killer. HE MURDERS PEOPLE. Who is he to decide someone deserves to die? Who is he to decide that a rapist should disappear into a bunch of garbage bags, rather than see the inside of a court room. Who made him judge, juror and executioner? Because otherwise he'd kill decent people? That's not really much of an option. That's one reason I wish the books pulled back from his perspective a bit. He refers to himself as not human countless times, but without a proper outside perspective it's hard to step back and actually see him as the monster he says he is.
The book is a really easy read. I don't love Jeff Lindsay's writing style, it's quite stilted at points and some of Dexter's dialogue just didn't work for me. I also found all of the characters quite flat, but it's hard to say whether this is intentional because the book is being told from the perspective of a sociopath, someone who admits to neither caring nor understanding the way people think and act. All in all it makes for a quick and entertaining read, I just don't know that I'll bother reading any more unless I can find similar deals at the charity shop.
Synopsis: Libby Day was just seven years old when her evidence put her fifteen-year-old brother behind bars.
Since then, she has been drifting. But when she is contacted by a group who are convinced of Ben's innocence, Libby starts to ask questions she never dared to before. Was the voice she heard her brother's? Ben was a misfit in their small town, but was he capable of murder? Are there secrets to uncover at the family farm or is Libby deluding herself because she wants her brother back?
She begins to realise that everyone in her family had something to hide that day... especially Ben. Now, twenty-four years later, the truth is going to be even harder to find.
Who did massacre the Day family?
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“Coffee goes great with sudden death.”
When I read Gone Girl I was a little disappointed, but that was pretty much guaranteed given how much that book was raved about. I didn't hate it, I just wasn't wowed by it. So when I heard whisperings from people about Flynn's other books I was hesitant. On the one hand I had heard basically nothing about them (a marked difference from Gone Girl) which is definitely the way to go into these books, but on the other hand - do I really want to read another Gillian Flynn?
I'm not sure what made me decide to spontaneously buy a copy of this the other day. I must have seen it mentioned on a blog or on facebook and the seed was subconsciously planted. But bought it I did, and read it I did. And I enjoyed it immensely. As seems to be my want at the moment, I keep reading books that are terrible for review content. Like Gone Girl this is a book that benefits from going into it with a fairly open mind, untarnished by reviews and discussions. But unlike Gone Girl it doesn't really have that same reliance on twists. I don't want this to be a review that's simply "this is why it's better than Gone Girl" but there are two points I want to make about why it is better than Gone Girl. Possible minor spoilers for Gone Girl up ahead.
1. Lack of twists/insane red herrings.
As a thriller/mystery obviously there are still a certain about of red herrings and twists in the book, but it doesn't rely on them. Instead it's a bit more of a hidden narrative, slowly uncovering new details with each chapter. The chapters alternate between a present-day account from Libby as she pokes into the case that destroyed her life and perspectives from the day leading up to the murders from both her mother and Ben's POV. The parallel narratives help to slowly build the complete picture, but the varying perspectives also mean there's plenty of opportunity for people to read into things wrong or jump to conclusions. So even though you think you've worked out a link between two people or have begun to tunnel towards the truth of the murders, the next chapter will offer another perspective which presents the same situation in an entirely new light. So it's a little red herring-y, but I felt like it was analogous to real life, the whole "there's two sides to every story" shtick.
2. The characters
It was only when I read this book that I was able to finally put my finger on one of my biggest problems with Gone Girl. I know everyone loves to talk about how they're both these dispicable loathesome characters that you love to hate, but I just hated them. I love a good villain and I love an anti-hero, but Nick and Amy just annoyed me. The characters in Dark Places helped me finally work out why. Gone Girl is a story of two bored middle-class adults who are unhappy in their marriage. They treat each other like garbage for no reason other than they are too lazy to divorce and start again. I never understood why they did what they did, and "they're bad people" just felt lazy. On the flipside, all of the characters in Dark Places are terrible people (on varying levels) but I felt like ther was weight to their terribleness. Libby is a thief and a liar, she's lazy, antagonistic and dismissive. Her dad is an absolute monster, a lying, thieving, drug-addicted asshole who manipulates and antagonises everyone he meets. Her brother is obnoxious and her mother is so weak willed at times I couldn't stand it. But they aren't just horrible people in a vaccum. Libby might have been a jerk and a thief even if her family had lived, but witnessing their murders (and living) has a massive impact on her personality. Her mother was pregnant at 17 and struggled to manage a failing farm, four children and an abusive husband (when he was around) - her frustration and exhaustion is entirely understandable. Ben was 15. 15 year olds suck. Now, I'm not saying that the only people who get to be assholes are people who have had a tough life but their behaviour and attitude just felt more believable and relatable than Amy and Nick in Gone Girl.
So overall I give this book a big thumbs up. I found the ending really tidy (too tidy - people who have read this, let me know what you thought in the comments) but ultimately satisfying. I'm really glad I bought this as an ebook, it makes my terrible habit of flipping towards the back of the book much harder. Even if the ending was a little clean, it's still the kind of ending you want to discover at the end of the book. If you liked Gone Girl, I'm sure you'll like this one too. If you, like me, didn't particularly love Gone Girl I'd recommend it even more. The story, like all Gillian Flynn, is absurd and soap opera-y but that's what makes it such a page turner and once I started this book, I barely put it down.
Synopsis (Goodreads): I have two weeks. You'll shoot me at the end no matter what I do.
That's what you do to enemy agents. It's what we do to enemy agents. But I look at all the dark and twisted roads ahead and cooperation is the easy way out. Possibly the only way out for a girl caught red-handed doing dirty work like mine - and I will do anything, anything to avoid SS-Hauptsturmführer von Linden interrogating me again.
He has said that I can have as much paper as I need. All I have to do is cough up everything I can remember about the British War Effort. And I'm going to. But the story of how I came to be here starts with my friend Maddie. She is the pilot who flew me into France - an Allied Invasion of Two.
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“KISS ME, HARDY! Kiss me, QUICK!”
When I was in my book slump I couldn't find a single book that appealed to me. I didn't feel like horror, or sci fi, or romance or comedy. I didn't want to read a book that would make me cry or that would teach me new things. I wanted to read, but reading is hard when you can't think of a single story that seems tolerable. I was stuck waiting for a bus with nothing to do and no games on my phone, so I ended up flicking through my kindle app. I don't have a tonne of books on there at the moment, but there were two books that I bought last year that I hadn't gotten around to. Graeme Simsion's* The Rosie Project and Code Name Verity. I felt pretty eh about both but I ended up flipping through Verity to pass the time and then I couldn't put it down. Not only is Code Name Verity good enough to knock me out of my slump, it's just really good full stop. This is going to be one of those really vague reviews because I knew very little going in ("ladies and world war 2" basically covers what I knew it was about) and I truly feel like that added significantly to my experience.Especially given I've since seen that a lot of synopsis' give a lot of detail about the second half of the book and that seems crazy too me. So, bare bone details. Code Name Verity is a gorgeous tale of friendship and feminism amidst WWII. Two women, Maddie the mechanic/pilot and Queenie the radio operator/translator, strike up a friendship when they're both working at an airfield**. And while the story is all about their friendship and the paths they took to get to where they are, it's also not. You see, Queenie/Verity was captured by the Germans when she arrived in France to work with the resistance. The story she's telling, the one about a pair of girls who are bright and warm and full of spark, is so that she can collaborate with the Germans and offer them details in exchange for her life. So as you fall in love with these two girls (especially Maddie, god I adored her tenacity) you are also incredibly aware that it's a whole different life. Queenie might be collaborating, but she's still very much a prisoner of war so there's a lot of darkness and pain outside of her tale of friendship. And that's all I'm going to tell you because I can already feel my fingers tingling and wanting to type big huge gushy spoilers about the characters and the story. I don't want to do that so I'm going to finish very briefly by saying that I really adored this book. I loved reading a WWII book that was about women and friendship that took place on the front lines (so to speak). In the author's note Elizabeth Wain mentioned that while she tried to keep historical details factual, she stretched the truth at times because this is a fictional book after all. But the stuff about Maddie as a pilot, the risks and roles women took during WWII around piloting and intelligence was all entrenched in fact and I was so fascinated that I bought three non-fiction books on the subject about 5 minutes after I wrapped by reading Code Name Verity.
*I only just realised that his surname isn't Simpson. **There is a very good possibility some of these minor details are off. I read the book awhile ago and my memory is full of holes. But the feels, oh my god, I remember those acutely.
Synopsis: Day one: The Georgia Flu explodes over the surface of the earth like a neutron bomb. News reports puts the mortality rate at over 99%.
Week two: Civilisation has crumbled.
Year twenty: A band of actors and musicians called the Travelling Symphony move through their territories performing concerts and Shakespeare to the settlements that have grown up there. Twenty years after the pandemic, life feels relatively safe. But now a new danger looms, and it threatens the hopeful world every survivor has tried to rebuild. (from library copy's blurb)
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The wren goes to't
If you had asked me what was missing from my literary life I don't know that my answer would have been "a mix of dystopia and Shakespeare with just a smidge of Star Trek" but there you have it, it's exactly what was missing from my life.
Station Eleven is very successful at crafting a story about a world 20 years after a catastrophic medical disaster that both conforms to genre standards and completely leaves them behind. I, personally, love books and films about pandemics that decimate the human population. I love to see how people adjust (or straight up don't), especially considering the world we live in today is SO dependant on technology to do even the simplest of tasks*. I mean even farmers who you'd think would be in a pretty sweet situation would probably suffer since everything from milking stations to combine harvesters are almost entirely mechanically self-reliant. So you usually end up with these fantastic explorations of society falling backwards in terms of education or mechanics but also progressing forward in a cultural sense, for instance, community becomes far more important for survival, and bartering takes over from the traditional monetary system.
And you get tonnes of this good stuff in Station Eleven. The Travelling Symphony makes their way through tiny towns where people have tried to adjust to this new world. Reminders of the old world, Walmarts and airports and highways, of the previous world still linger but they're rendered useless in their normal form so they're transformed into storage spaces or homes for the people who managed to survive. And like folk did pre-cars, trains and planes, they become pretty insular. They might hear news from the next town over, but it takes weeks and only reaches them if someone happens to be moving through. And with this insulation comes, of course, a level of superstition. News travelling from one town to the next over a series of weeks tends to evolve like a game of whispers, something fairly innocuous is slowly warped and shifted until it becomes a warning or something to fear. As a great deal of this novel takes place 20 years after the Georgia Flu annihilated life on Earth, a lot of the characters were either born post-flu or were so young they can barely remember the life they used to have, which only exaggerates this disconnect between the world that was and the world that is. Stories of planes flying through the air and told to children who are amazed and also slightly disbelieving of their parents tales. I just find all of this stuff utterly, utterly fascinating.
But where the book diverges from these more traditional aspects is where I think it truly shines. The book begins and ends on a stage in Canada as a cast perform King Lear. The death of the play's Lear on stage coincides with the beginning of the Georgia Flu but it was a heart attack and not actually the flu which ended his life. Even though this actor, Arthur Leander, dies in the opening pages of the book of a completely unrelated illness, he is pivotal to the book. The direction of the central characters, who haven't all necessarily met, are motivated by their relationship to Leander regardless of how tenuous that link may be. It's like this spider web of causality and influence and it's incredibly hard to explain here but it blew my mind. Seriously, I finished this book over a month ago and it is still blowing my mind how freaking gorgeous and complex the whole damn thing is.
Since I read it over a month ago I am blanking on some of the smaller details that I wish I'd noted down, but this book is really something else. I went into it knowing very little and that may be why it had such an impact on me. The writing is beautiful and yet it never got too flowery or Literary for the post-apocalyptic setting, a balance I think must have been incredibly difficult to maintain. The secondary characters aren't always incredibly fleshed out but because there's an element (or a feeling at the very least) of a play within a book I was able to push past those moments and instead appreciate the characters for what they stood for. There are large chunks of this novel which take place way before the outbreak of the Georgia Flu, most of them relating to Leander's life (which, damn, what a terribly sad story that is), so I wouldn't recommend this one to anyone who wants a straight-up post-apocalyptic tale but seriously everyone else, read it**.
*Obvs this isn't the case everywhere in the world. But since these books typically take place in the Western world I'm going to keep going with this. ** I think just about everyone in the world (blog world anyway) has already read it, but if you're one of the 10 people who haven't then GET ON IT.
Books:
*The Supergirls; Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy and the History of Comic Book Heroines by Mike Madrid (my review)
*The Returned by Jason Mott
Stats:
100% male / 0% female
100% American / 0% International
50%white/ 50%POC
0% ebook / 50% audiobook / 50% physical
50% fiction / 50% non-fiction
It's very easy to get either amazing or terrible stats when you only read two books! On the one hand this is probably one of my highest months (stats wise) for POC reads, but it's also terrible for female or international respresentation. But what are you going to do? Maybe it was because it was a pretty busy month (made busier by the sudden requirement to move) but I really dragged my feet blog-wise this month. I struggled to get any of my reviews from last month written and I made barely any progress with my reading. Hopefully I manage to bump myself out of this funk in March or I'll have to return a whole bunch of books to the library unread (which is the worst, it feels like book abuse).
FILMS:
What I saw:
*Jupiter Ascending - directed by the Wachowski siblings. Starring Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, Eddie Redmayne
*Kingsman - directed by Matthew Vaughn. Starring Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Samuel L. Jackson
*Big Eyes - directed by Tim Burton. Starring Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz
Ugh, not a great month for films. Thank god I watched First Wives Club on DVD. Jupiter Ascending is, wow, so bad. Like actually offensively dumb. It's such a pity because visually/effects wise it's top notch. If only they put as much attention and care into their titular character as they did the designs of the ships. It crosses into the category of great-bad movie a lot, but the action sequences are so dull and Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis have so little chemistry that I recommend leaving it until it comes out on DVD. Even then you should accompany it with copious amounts of alcohol. Kingsman was mostly fun and Taron Egerton is a delight, but it was a solidly B movie for me. It was fine and I laughed a lot (also swooned at Colin Firth in his amazing suits) but I don't know that it'd hold up to a repeat watch. And Big Eyes ... *sigh* I wanted to like it, I really did, but I just found it incredibly dull. I feel awful because I really love it when Tim Burton branches away from his Johnny Depp aesthetic but I could not get into it.
LIFE:
I had my final seminar on Friday and it went well! That means I'm on the home stretch for finishing my PHD! The finish line is finally in sight. It's been a long 3 years you guys. On another front, I'm moving! Not far, just to a new house but hey, any adventure is good adventure right? Tom and i have been in our little home for 4 years but a couple of things came together and made it pretty clear it was time for us to move on. I am hating packing boxes (uggggh books I love you and i hate you) but I'm excited! And that's really about it (are pressing phd deadlines and moving not enough for you people?!), oh except that I started an 8 week challenge last week at my gym and i hate my life. Haha. How is everyone else treading so far?
Synopsis: A much-needed alternative history of American comic book superheroines—from Wonder Woman to Supergirl and beyond—where they fit in popular culture and why, and what these crime-fighting females say about the role of women in American society from their creation to now, and into the future. The Supergirls is an entertaining and informative look at these modern-day icons, exploring how superheroines fare in American comics, and what it means for the culture when they do everything the superhero does, but in thongs and high heels.
Has Wonder Woman hit the comic book glass ceiling? Is that the one opposition that even her Amazonian strength can’t defeat?
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What do you do when you're a book reader who has gotten into comics but are too lazy to read the years and years of back issues? You read a bunch of non-fiction books about said comics instead. And since just about everyone can already recite the history of many, many, many male heroes you obviously leapfrog over those non-fiction books and instead set your sights on the ones that are about the ladies and that dastardly F word (dare I say it?), feminism. Females don't get an easy ride in comics. They get an even rawer deal when it comes to female fans. It seems like whenever a fight breaks out between comic fans online there's a female superhero at the centre of it, and it's typically male fans (self-proclaimed REAL fans) versus female/feminist readers. Take for instance the Milo Manara Spider-Woman variant cover controversy. It got to the point where it was near impossible to explain your dislike for that cover without "real" fans shutting you down for pushing the *ahem* feminazi agenda.
The over sexualisation of female characters is a huge issue for a lot of female readers. The Hawkeye Initiative is a brilliant art project that exemplified just how sexualised female heroes are compared to their male colleagues. Not only are women posed to best flaunt their breasts and ass, but their costumes, complete with boob and stomach windows, knee high stiletto boots and g-strings, are impractical and bordering on the absolutely absurd. But it's amazing to see how much we've internalised this type of characterisation of females, because it's often only when a male is replicated in those poses and costumes that the absurdity is actually evident.
Which is where Mike Madrid's book comes in. It's primarily a historical account of female heroes in comics but as the subheading suggests it also explores feminism and fashion as it relates to this history. I saw a few complaints on Goodreads which suggested that the focus on fashion was at the expense of a feminist examination of female superheroes but that's not how I experienced the book at all. When Madrid describes the changes in Wonder Woman's costume, whether that's the longer hems during the 1950s when the comics code authority came in or the elimination of just about all of her clothes sans g-string and bodice during the 1990s, he does so in the context of the particular era. He isn't describing the g-string to be salacious but because the fact that the costume incorporated a g-string instead of a skirt or pair of pants is intimately tied to the sexual politics of comics at the time. The g-string wasn't just a random choice of the artist drawing Wonder Woman at the time, it was a requisite for female heroes during the "babe" era as Madrid describes it. Or at another point in the book Madrid points out that after J-Lo wore her scandalous Gammys dress every article questioned whether she could actually sit or walk in it while nowhere near that amount of attention has been paid to the accidents waiting to happen that so many female heroes are costumed in while they attempt to save the world and wrangle the bad guys. I did listen to this as an audiobook though, so perhaps the reader's inflection and tone made it clear that Madrid wasn't salivating over the ladies but critiquing a very important component of the character, while that distinction isn't quite as obvious in the text.
This book is fascinating and frustrating. Fascinating because it's interesting to see how the real world impacted the comics world, especially when it came to the female characters. When WWII hit and women were needed in the workforce, super-heroines suddenly became a lot stronger and were all about helping with the war efforts. But when the war ended and the men came home, the female heroes were also relegated to smaller roles and positions as side kicks again much like the women who were forced to become secretaries and housewives again. Even Wonder Woman, everyone's go to feminist superhero icon was relegated to being the freaking secretary of the early Justice League even though she was stronger and more powerful than most of the men! However it's frustrating to see how secondary women have always been in comics. It wasn't that I was surprised by this really, even today female characters are left off of merchandise and relegated to support positions, but I hadn't ever really considered how rarely female heroes were written for women. With the exception of Wonder Woman, a great number of female heroes began as female sidekicks to their male characters. They were occasionally included to draw in female readers in the 1940s and 1950s, but they were essentially a sexy way to hook young boys into keeping up their subscriptions to Superman or Batman. Or, in the case of Batwoman, they were included to dispel rumours of a homosexual relationship brewing between Batman and Robin. It's really no wonder then that female characters are still considered secondary to many male (and female to be honest) readers with origins like that.
Even though this book is about female heroes Madrid often used the dominant male heroes of the era to anchor his discussion of the females. While I felt like he occasionally spent too much on these parts, I actually think the book succeeded best when it was comparing the female characters with the male. A prime example of this was when he talked about the female iterations of popular male characters. Not only were the women always called 'girl' or 'miss' in their titles, automatically infantilising them and setting them up as secondary to the men, but their powers were often weighted towards female attributes. Case in point: Mary Marvel is Captain Marvel's twin but where he had a military title and powers like speed and stamina, she had the power of grace. A similar strong point of comparison was made early in the book where Madrid highlights the fact that while male heroes were heroes because they believed in justice, their female sidekicks were heroes because they were in love with the heroes. Talk about setting the females up to fade away into obscurity.
So if you are a fan of females and superheroes this book is made for you. It's not perfect and it does seem to skew heavily towards the first half of the 20th century (the 70s/80s/90s seem to race past) but if this is a subject that interests you I think it's probably a great book to read in collaboration with a number of other books on the subject. And at the very least it's a book full of delicious trivia and historical facts with a nice frosting of feminism which I know I always enjoy.
