I've Got Your Number

By Sophie Kinsella
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Three Things I Liked About I’ve Got Your Number:
1. London (okay…this one’s definitely a default).
2. Wedding planning/drama
3. E-text-olary novel

Sophia Kinsella makes me laugh. Seriously, she is to my (young) adult self what Meg Cabot was to my pre-teen self: always reliable for some good old fashioned funny, frivolous chick-lit with romantic drama tempered by an ample dose of romantic comedy. Not to mention heroines sweet, silly, and serious by turns, all of whom I’d love to be friends with. You might recognize her name from her series Confessions of a Shopaholic, which was actually adapted into a movie.

Poppy Wyatt is just two weeks away from living out every girl’s secret, most idealistic romantic fantasy: meeting a handsome, rich, talented, and loving man at the altar, wearing a gorgeous family heirloom of an engagement ring. Things are going better than she ever could have dreamed…until – oops! – she misplaces her gorgeous family heirloom of an engagement ring. On the very day her intimidating soon-to-be in-laws are arriving from Chicago. As if that wasn’t enough, moments after the ring goes missing, so does her phone. But what at first seems like unmitigated disaster may turn out to be something different entirely, as an abandoned phone Poppy obtains from a trash bin (finder’s keepers) pulls her into the world of one Sam Roxton. As the two begin communicating, it soon becomes clear that neither of their lives will emerge from the experience unchanged.

Implementing a texting take on the epistolary form (i.e. “e-text-olary”) can often be kind of an iffy move on an author’s part. I’ve seen it done badly enough times to be immediately skeptical. But Kinsella got it right in I’ve Got Your Number. The text exchanges between Poppy and Sam were some of the most amusing in the entire novel, and were some of the most significant scenes in terms of character and relationship development. I was also impressed that Kinsella was able to effectively use photo attachment texts in addition to standard text messages, especially since she only narrated what had been sent rather than including actual pictures (smart move; pictures would have been over the top and disruptive).

Whenever I like an unapologetically chick-lit novel, I feel the need to defend it/myself for some reason. Why should a book like I’ve Got Your Number be rated higher than other books that, if not enjoyable or successful reads, at least tried to tackle something a little more ambitious or original? I think the answer to that lies right there in my statement: unapologetic. I will be the first to admit that Sophie Kinsella’s books are formulaic; that her heroines (and leading men) are virtually interchangeable; that her plots are predictable, and if you charged them with being cheesy, too, I would have a hard time arguing with you. But her books never try to pass themselves off as being any more than that. They deliver exactly what they advertise: frivolous, silly fun.


Books Read This Year: 48
Top 100 Progress: 48/100

The Name of the Star

By Maureen Johnson
★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Two Things I Liked About The Name of the Star:
1. Everything was anglophilia and nothing hurt.
2. Boarding school (…in London).

The one problem with restarting this blog in the summertime is that it is really hard to keep up with my own pace. I blow through books faster than I can blog about them. As of this post, I am fully four books behind schedule. Whoops. Part of that is laziness about sitting down to put my reactions into words (it takes less effort and is more enjoyable just to move onto the next book!), and part of it is that I’ve been reading at a rate of about 1.5 books every 2 days. So here goes my attempt to catch up. Up first: Maureen Johnson's The Name of the Star.

Louisiana transplant Rory Deveaux moves to England when her professor parents take a year-long sabbatical, enrolling at a London boarding school while her parents settle in Bristol. The very day she arrives, a body is found resembling the crime scene of Jack the Ripper’s first victim. Pretty soon, the city is in uproar as the police are baffled by the lack of any evidence leading to the copycat killer, despite the fact that the murders were committed within full view of one of London’s many infamous CCTV cameras. After witnessing a man’s presence at the second murder site – a presence her roommate is unable to corroborate – Rory realizes a newfound ability may have caused her to inadvertently stumble onto the case’s biggest lead. Too bad she can’t tell anyone.

I’ve been curious about this book ever since its release a few months ago, but until now haven’t taken the time and effort to actually procure and read it. I was drawn to the book for several reasons: a) London boarding school. I mean, seriously; b) I’m morbidly fascinated by serial killing, and became somewhat familiar with Jack the Ripper lore during my time in London this past January; and c) I think Maureen Johnson is one of the most genuinely and unpretentiously amusing people I’m aware of existing in this world. Her Twitter feed is always witty and entertaining. But for some reason, I never end up liking her books as much as I want to like them. And I want to like them a lot, because I like her a lot. But they always seem to be disappointing. Perfectly adequate reads, but nothing particularly special. The Name of the Star followed this trend. Sure I enjoyed it well enough, but overall it fell kind of flat. As a heroine, Rory wasn’t particularly interesting, nor were any of the supporting characters (and their relationships with the heroine) particularly well rounded or fleshed out. I wasn’t invested in the outcome of their conflicts. And the plot itself was pretty thin. Johnson was asking the reader to suspend a certain amount of incredulity in order for us to buy into her supernatural premise, but it just wasn’t convincing enough for me to accept. And for a story promising suspense and intrigue, I just…never felt very suspended or intrigued. If I had to sum up my sentiments throughout reading The Name of the Star in one word it would be: indifferent**.

One thing this book did succeed in is making me incredibly nostalgic for London, with the setting and the constant drinking of tea… In fact, after finishing it, I brewed my own cup of tea and scrounged for something that could pass for a biscuit, then wallowed in memories and anticipation for next spring (when I’ll be studying abroad in London).

**I feel irrationally guilty for saying this, as if I'm slandering a personal acquaintance or something. I think it's because I do like her so well as a person and because - due to her Twitter and blog and so on - I feel like, to some extent, I do actually know her as a person.

Books Read This Year: 47
Top 100 Progress: 48/100

Bitterblue

By Kristin Cashore
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Four Things I Liked About Bitterblue:
1. Return to the Graceling world
2. Relationships between characters
3. Charming rogue love interest
4. Coming full circle

I’ve been a fan of Kristin Cashore’s books ever since I first read her debut, Graceling, a few years ago (3 or 4, I think?). Graceling felt really reminiscent of Tamora Pierce’s books, but without being overtly referential; the idea of gracelings is a unique and compelling one. It’s the strength of her female characters and the enjoyable blend of fantasy adventure, intrigue, and romance on the cusp between the early and later young adult demographic that brought Pierce’s works to mind. Having spent a good chunk of my childhood devouring Pierce’s many series, that was a very positive thing. I was excited to have found a new author that fit my somewhat narrow taste profile for fantasy books. And while the companion novel, Fire, didn’t quite live up to the standard set by Graceling (it may simply have lacked the extra dose of specialness that comes of being a new discovery), it certainly didn’t disappoint. And neither did Graceling’s recently released sequel: Bitterblue.

Bitterblue picks up eight years after Graceling left off. Bitterblue is a young woman now, ruling queen of the kingdom her father Leck (a corrupt king capable of controlling people's thoughts vanquished in Graceling, for those of you not familiar) left in shambles before he died. Stuck in her tower office day in and day out completing paper work and concerned by the odd behavior of her staff and the fragmented, conflicted reports she is receiving about her kingdom, Bitterblue starts to sneak out at night in disguise to see the state of the city outside her castle walls for herself. What she finds is that eight years later, Leck’s influence is far from over and her work as queen has only just begun.

I mentioned earlier that the target readership of Cashore’s stories straddles the line between early and late young adulthood, and for none of her books is this more true than Bitterblue. Some of the topics the book discusses, especially concerning the crimes the sociopathic Leck committed during his tyrannical and deranged reign as king, are quite dark for any stage of young adulthood, much less early adolescence. Cashore also kind of insidiously tackled some of our current political/social issues by including analogues in the story, and I’m not quite sure how I feel about that. Of course when you’re creating a fantasy world it’s entirely in your control, and there’s no reason why issues that crop up today shouldn’t crop up in your fantasy world too, but when those issues are so salient to modern political controversy, it feels a little heavy-handed to have them be controversial in a fantasy novel that may take place in a world technologically historical but its being released in a world rooted very much in the present.

Qualms aside, it was a pleasure to return to the cast of characters I grew so fond of in Graceling. And the three-dimensionality with which Cashore crafts her characters makes the story all the more engaging and the relationships all the more heartwarming – or upsetting, as the case may be. The new set of characters introduced for the sake of Bitterblue’s plotline were deftly integrated with the returning cast, and it was lovely to see her reach back to Fire, too, publishing an original novel, it’s prequel/companion, and a sequel all out of chronological order and yet having them all come full circle. Bitterblue also does a good job of tying up loose ends from Graceling, dealing with its own unique and pertinent conflicts, while establishing new subplots that could just as well be left as they are at the end of the book or be picked up and continue in a further installment. All in all, definitely a satisfying read for fans of Graceling and Fire, though perhaps less so for anyone who were to pick it up as a stand-alone.

Books Read This Year: 46
Top 100 Progress: 48/100

A Game of Thrones

By George R.R. Martin
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Four Things I Liked About A Game of Thrones:
1. Richly developed and inventive fantasy world
2. Intrigue
3. Complicated, flawed characters
4. Epicness

So… it’s been a while. Five months, to be exact. The only excuse I can offer for my neglect of this blog is just that – an excuse. But I will offer it to you anyway! Basically, it boils down to falling out of the habit of posting. I spent the month of January in London, doing a Theater in London course for January term at school. I was so utterly busy that I barely had time to read, let alone write down my thoughts about it. And when I got back? Well, some habits are a lot easier to break than to form. Blogging is one of them, I discovered. Busy with schoolwork, book after book went by un-reviewed, despite my best intentions and several underlined and highlighted reminders in my planner to review!!! whatever book I had most recently finished. But now that it’s summer and I have hours upon hours of spare time on my hands, I thought that one of the many ways I can make my free time productive would be to start posting again. So here I am.

I find that after a demanding semester – and more especially, after a demanding end to a semester – all I want to read is something fast-paced, engrossing, and mentally unchallenging. The popularity of the Game of Thrones TV show this year has put these books on my radar (to be read before sampling the televised adaptation, as per unwritten bibliophilic law), and after seeing Snow White and the Huntsman put me in the mood for epic fantasy, A Game of Thrones seemed like the perfect choice for a Get Into Summer Reading! book. Verdict: it was.

Taking place in a land where seasons last for decades and the Long Winter has begun baring its teeth at the cowering summer, A Game of Thrones encompasses a wide host of characters, but primarily concerns power tensions between the Starks of Winterfell, the king’s bloodline, and his conniving family by marriage the Lannisters. The epic spans the southern summer kingdom (home to the king’s seat of power), the Wall protecting the Seven Kingdoms from the ominous northern lands beyond, and the foreign land of the East, home to the Dothraki and the grudge-holding progeny of the overthrown former king of the Seven Kingdoms. In A Game of Thrones, Martin spawns an epic series riddled with plotting and treachery and hidden motives, where the game of thrones is a deadly power play and even as a reader you can never be sure who deserves your trust.

One of the most compelling things about A Game of Thrones is how richly developed it is. Whenever I read fantasy, one of the first ways I judge a book’s merit is how original and how thoroughly and convincingly developed its world is. For example, Eragon’s world bears a few too many striking similarities to Tolkien to be token homage. Martin’s world, however, is creative and convincing; I loved the epic grandeur of the Wall and how he successfully created two wildly distinct cultures between the Seven Kingdoms and the East. His characters were as richly developed as his setting. I was talking with a friend about them, and we discussed how impossible it is to separate out the “good guys” from the “bad guys.” They’re all just so human. There are no heroes in A Game of Thrones. There’s no one who wouldn’t betray their honor for the right incentive. Nor is there anyone without a single shred of honor to their name. The characterization is endlessly complex – and extensive. The narrative switches points of view with each chapter, cycling through about eight different main characters and concerning a cast of dozens that can be hard to keep straight sometimes.  A Game of Thrones is a sprawling epic (and a series bulkier than you could carry all at once in your arms), to be sure, but the prospect of navigating my way through the rest of the series is an exciting one. I can’t wait to devour the remaining books this summer. And to get my hands on the Season 1 of the show, for comparison’s sake.

Conversation Starter: Have you jumped on the Game of Thrones fanwagon yet? If so, are you a fan of the show or the books? If both, which is better?

Books Read This Year: 45
Top 100 Progress: 48/100

The Secret History

By Donna Tartt
★★★★☆

Four Things I Liked About The Secret History:
1. Secret society
2. College
3. Mystery
4. Suspense

I’ve been intrigued by this book on the Top 100 List for some time now. Maybe it’s the innate fascination with anything “secret,” the compulsion to be included. It’s also set at a college in Vermont, which a) adds to the air of seclusion and mystery and b) have you ever noticed how few novels actually deal with the college years? It’s rather remarkable, considering how romanticized the freedom of those years is. And they’re arguably a period even more fertile for character development than the teenage years. You’d think authors would be all over that! But they’re not.

Anyway. The Secret History opens with the murder of one member of an exclusive group of friends. It then rewinds to the beginning, working its way back to the opening scene, and then spending the rest of the novel detailing the aftermath. The story revolves around an entitled, eccentric, and somewhat depraved group of 5 students who make up one unconventional professor’s elite classics seminar. Richard, the narrator and new arrival to Hampden College, is initially drawn to the group by their heady aura of mystery and sophistication; they were apart from the rest of the student body and also, seemingly, above. He soon learns, however, that they harbor a dark secret, and once he’s involved, there’s no going back…

The Secret History is one of those books that only ever divulge just enough to tantalize you with the promise that the rest is forthcoming, which works well to keep the reader interested, but can also be kind of frustrating. Especially since you never know whose story you can trust or to what extent the narrator is reliable – or mislead himself. This would have been a five star book, but it got a little too wrapped up in itself… like it was so enamored of how interesting it thought itself that it couldn’t tell when it was losing its audience and ought to find a natural way to finish up quickly.

Books Read This Year: 97
Top 100 Progress: 48/100

Looking For Alaska

By John Green
★★★★★

Five Things I Like About Looking for Alaska:
1. Alaska’s “life library”
2. Boarding school
3. Pranking
4. Quotable quotes
5. Realistic romanticism

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of John Green, person and author. I’ve read Looking for Alaska before. But lately my copy has been making the rounds as I’ve been recommending it to uninitiated friends and family, and I started to feel a little sheepish about enthusiastically pressing my copy into other people’s hands while unable to rehash the finer details afterward. So I decided to reread it.

Miles “Pudge” Halter is a bit of a nonentity at his public high school in Florida. With no social life to speak of, the only things he’s got going for him are good grades and a penchant for memorizing the last words of famous people (pretty cool things, true, but not super satisfying to a 16-year-old). In order to seek the “Great Perhaps” that will hopefully add an air of mystery and/or excitement into his mundane existence, Pudge transfers to Culver Creek boarding school for his junior year. There, he meets the manic, alluring, inimitable Alaska Young. Alaska takes Miles by the hand and pulls him into her labyrinth, spins him around until he’s sick from dizziness, then leaves him there to find his way out alone, with nothing but inscrutable riddles of clues – “How will we ever get out of this labyrinth?” “Straight and fast” – to guide him (metaphorically speaking).

A fan of Young Adult literature, I will freely admit that the vast majority of books in the genre pander to the shallow side of young adult taste. Not John Green. John’s books appeal to the adult side of young adults; the side that’s starting to ask existential questions; the side that’s becoming disillusioned in a genuine way (not that angst-ridden “No one understands me” phase that so many teens seem to go through); the side that’s trying to make sense of a world unfiltered by the rosy lenses of childhood as they weather the transition from childlike naiveté to the realities of adulthood without losing hope or becoming wholly disenchanted. John Green introduces teens to the less idealistic adult world without being overly escapist – by introducing fantastical loopholes – or demoralizing – by painting a bleaker picture than necessary.

Conversation Starter: Have you ever had an Alaska in your life? What happened?

Books Read This Year: 94

Top 100 Progress: 48/100

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)

By Mindy Kaling
★★★☆☆

Three Things I Liked About Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns):
1. Girl talk
2. Humor
3. Homebody Hollywood

I haven’t actively followed The Office in two or three years now (though they are all on Netflix instant, and I would love to catch up if I ever find myself with enough spare time to watch 4+ seasons), but when I did, Kelly – played by the funny and talented Mindy Kaling - was one of my favorite characters. I liked her even more when I learned that this lovable ditz was played by someone with Ivy League brains! Smart and funny is always a winning combo in my book. Anyway, so even though I don’t follow The Office anymore, when I learned that Mindy was releasing a book, I knew that I wanted to read it. I wanted to know what this oh-so-likable bundle of contradictions (smart and driven, goofy and fashion-obsessed) had to say. As it turns out: a lot. Mindy is a self-described chatterbox, and somehow, that translates to the page.

Reading Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) is like having one of those long, tangent-ridden gossip sessions with a best friend. It’s fun, witty, a little frivolous – just like a good gossip should be. It was fun to get the scoop on Hollywood from someone who worked her butt off to get there, who is neither jaded nor star struck nor affectedly humble, but simply someone happy and proud to be where she is. She hasn’t lost her excitement over things I’m sure plenty of other stars take for granted (photo-shoots, red carpets, etc.), but she’s also realistic about them, portraying both the glamorous and the not-so-glam. I gave it only three stars, though, because as fun as it was, it felt kind of like it was still in the editing process – late in the editing process, to be sure – but still at that point where the editor might say, “Hey Mindy, this draft is really good. I laughed, I snorted, I sympathized. But I think it needs a little more direction. Let’s see what we can come up with.” And then they would decide that, yeah, maybe there was a little somethin’-somethin’ they could add to make it feel a little more robust, to fill it out around the edges. I’ve got to say, though, that its slimness did suit my purposes perfectly; it was a great book to pick up and set down a little absentmindedly last week. With the impending end of the semester tugging my mind in 5 different directions at once, I had no extra mental faculties to spare for keeping complicated plot lines straight anymore.

Books Read This Year: 98
Top 100 Progress: 48/100