The Ghost Bride (Audiobook)

Title: The Ghost Bride

Author: Yangsze Choo

 

Read by: Yangsze Choo

Publisher: Harper Audio (2013)

 

Genre(s): Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Historical Fiction

Length: 12 hours and 8 minutes

Synopsis: "Would you like to be a ghost bride?"  Li Lan is shocked by her father's suggestion.  After all, though marrying off the dead is not entirely unheard of in colonial Malaya, it is rare for the bride to be a living woman who would be condemned to a life of widowhood.  Though Li Lan has no interest in becoming such a bride, she is curious about the circumstances that led to the suggestion.  Her intended, it would seem, was the heir to the Lim family, a young man she had never even met.  Now, however, all of his family is showing a keen interest in her, from the new heir Tian Bai to his dead cousin, who's begun appearing in Li Lan's dreams and is anything but charming.

My Rating: 3 Stars

My Opinion:  I did enjoy this audiobook performance, since it is somewhat rare to find a book read by its author.  Li Lan isn't exactly the most interesting protagonist, but through her explorations, we are treated to an extensive, lushly described, and sometimes fantastical view of her world, both in life and death.  The historical notes Choo includes at the conclusion of the story are nearly as interesting as the book itself.  There's a lot going on in this story, ranging from romance to a sort of supernatural version of Law & Order.  With the historical context in place, that combination makes a lot more sense, but during my first listening, I found it somewhat difficult to work out where the story was going, and why on earth that seemed like a logical option.  Though there were things about this book that puzzled me, I did enjoy the performance overall, and the concept behind it in particular.

The Rook (Audiobook)

Title: The Rook

Author: Daniel O'Malley

Read by: Susan Duerden

Publisher: Dreamscape Media (2012)

Genre(s): Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Crime Thriller, Mystery

Length: 17 hours and 51 minutes

Synopsis: When Myfanwy Thomas awakes in a park, surrounded by corpses wearing latex gloves, she has no idea who she is or how she came to be in such a situation.  Her only clues are several letters in her pocket, addressed to her by the woman who had previously inhabited her body, the personality she'd been born with and which was mysteriously erased.  This is only the beginning of Myfanwy's trip down the rabbit hole.  Soon she begins to realize that there is far, far more to her life-- or rather, the life she's inherited-- than she could ever have guessed.  Her prior self has left her a road-map in letters and documents, but when one awakens to find oneself an administrator in the government's secret supernatural department, there are bound to be some adjustments to make.

My Rating: 3 Stars

My Opinion:  This book started well, but lost momentum before long.  I've read other reviews comparing The Rook with the film The Bourne Identity, but I really think it's really much closer to Ghostbusters.  It may have been Duerden's performance, but instead of playing as an actual thriller, this audiobook came across as a parody of one.  In truth, I can't tell which was the actual intent.  Duerden has Myfanwy sounding like a little girl rather than the competent administrator she is (repeatedly) purported to be, and the voices she adopted for some of her other characters crossed the border into ridiculous.  O'Malley has an interesting concept here, and some really unique ideas, but I did not enjoy this audiobook as much as I had hoped.

Gone Girl (Audiobook)

Title: Gone Girl

Author: Gillian Flynn

Read by: Julia Whelan and Kirby Heyborne

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group Limited (2012)

Genre(s): Fiction, Crime Thriller, Mystery, Crime

Length: 19 hours and 11 minutes

Synopsis: On the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary, Amy Dunne goes missing.  The living room of her house shows signs of a struggle, and the front door stands open when her husband, Nick Dunne, returns home.  As the investigation begins, the story unfolds from Nick's perspective, and in Amy's own words through her diary entries.  But things may not be as they seem, and halfway through the book, a whole new perspective on the events surrounding Amy's mysterious vanishing begins to emerge.  In a twisting, down-the-rabbit-hole, mystery, Gone Girl explores the complexity of human emotion and motivation, and the lengths to which we'll go for love, or hate.

My Rating: 5 Stars

My Opinion:  I had no idea what to expect when I started this book, and as I listened, I began to realize that even partway through the book, I was still not sure what to expect.  Just as I began to think I had this story figured out, a new chapter would begin and the layers would peel back in unexpected (and occasionally horrifying) revelations.  The characters are intelligent, and aware of it, which makes them intriguing if not particularly likeable.  They're manipulative, of each other and the reader, spooling out the story in calculated doses designed to keep us guessing.  Whelan and Heyborne are delightful performers given the unenviable task of bringing these faintly distasteful characters to life, and they do a marvelous job.  More than once, while listening to this book, I found myself pausing in the midst of whatever I was doing, completely absorbed in the story.  As mysteries go, it's one of the most enjoyable I've read in a long time, and though I am generally wary of mysteries as audiobooks (I find it's easier to recall the details and nuances in print, this performance and story make it worth the extra attention.  To me, it's the equivalent of a summer blockbuster film: a popular, well-known story performed well, and while it might not get critical acclaim, it was a fun way to spend my time.  

Books for Boys

Supposedly, boys are pickier readers than girls are... I'm not sure where that assumption came from, nor do I have any statistics to back it up.  I do, however, have quite a few friends and family members who are English and Language Arts teachers, and they report a certain luke-warm attitude toward reading among their male students.  I, of course, believe that everyone is a reader, and if someone claims not to be, he (or she!) just hasn't found the right book yet.  That being said, here are a few suggestions that might appeal to the gentlemen:


Historical Fiction:
       The King Raven Trilogy by Stephen Lawhead
       Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold
       The Song of Albion Trilogy by Stephen Lawhead
    
Fantasy/Science Fiction/Horror:
       Abarat by Clive Barker
       Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
       American Gods by Neil Gaiman
       The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
       The Myth Hunters by Christopher Golden
       The Magicians by Lev Grossman
       A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin
       The Road by Cormac McCarthy
       The Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix
       The Matt Cruse Trilogy by Kenneth Oppel
       The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud
       Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson
       Dragon and Thief by Timothy Zahn
       Fire Bringer by David Clement-Davies
       Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
       Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
       The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
       Unwind by Neal Schusterman
       The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
       Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding
       Feed by M. T. Anderson
       The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
       From a Buick 8 by Stephen King


Mysteries/Thrillers:
       The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
       Thr3e by Ted Dekker
       The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larson
       The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
       Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind
       Acceleration by Graham McNamee
       The Knife and the Butterfly by Ashley Hope Perez
      

Nonfiction/Memoir/Biography:
       Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
       The Hot Zone by Richard Preston
       The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston
       A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
       Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
       Puppies, Dogs, and Blue Northerners by Gary Paulsen

The Knife and the Butterfly

Title: The Knife and the Butterfly 

Author: Ashley Hope Pérez

Publisher: Carolrhoda Lab (2012)

Genre(s): Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, Mystery, Crime

Length: 204 pages

Synopsis:  Azael knows he's fallen in with bad company, but the MS-13 gang is as close as he gets to a real family.  His aunts and uncles have written him off, his dad's been deported and his mother's dead.  Now it's just Azael and his brother and the boys of MS-13.  Azael's girlfriend Becca wants him to clean up his act, and he agrees.  Time to turn over a new leaf.  When the gang heads out to deal with some members of the Crazy Crew gang, Azael figures once more can't hurt, right?  But when he wakes up after the fight in lock-up, his troubles have only just begun. 

My Rating: 5 Stars

My Opinion: This was a quick read, though not one I would usually have picked up.  I've been working through a stack of young adult high-interest reads to build a database of reviews for a classroom library.  I stacked them up, promised to read them in order, and away I went.  This one was next, so I zipped through it.  It's gritty and sour, and though I don't know a thing about Salvadoran gangs and my Spanish is rudimentary, it feels real.  I understand where these characters are coming from, even if I can't imagine myself in their shoes.  There's beauty and gentleness in their lives too, whether it's in the sketches Azael draws in his black notebook, or in the love these kids have for friends, family, and even pets.  I think this is a group of people and characters whose stories aren't often told, and that Pérez has done so with compassion and truth.  This story is a sad one, full of knives, but even in that sharp, ugly, dangerous world, there are butterflies.

Madapple

Title: Madapple

Author: Christina Meldrum

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf (2008)

Genre(s): Young Adult Fiction, Religion, Mystery, Crime

Length: 404 pages

Synopsis:  Aslaug is her mother’s daughter.  In fact, she knows almost no one else.  Though they live only minutes from a modern town in rural Maine, Maren Hellig has kept her daughter in almost complete isolation.  Their house has curtains tacked over the windows and no electricity or running water.  Aslaug’s understanding of the outside world comes from her mother’s lessons in science and languages, including everything from ancient Greek to the meaning of runes.  But when Maren dies unexpectedly, Aslaug learns that despite all her lessons, her mother had kept  many secrets.  Sent to live with relatives she never knew she had, Aslaug is thrown into a world she doesn’t understand with terrible consequences.

My Rating: 5 Stars

My Opinion:  

This book was quite unexpectedly intriguing.  Its twisted plots unravel mysteries in almost every sense of the word.  Religion winds in amongst science, divinity with evil, dreams with hallucinations, old with new, truth with perception.  The story alternates between Aslaug’s expressive voice and the rigid but misleading half-truths that are laid out in the court records of a murder trial.  As the story unfurls, readers can’t help but wonder themselves what is true and what isn’t.  Nothing seems implausible in Aslaug’s world of science and religion, but questions are more common than answers, whatever the source.  Who, for example, is Aslaug’s father?  Who poisoned her aunt and cousin?  Why did Maren abandon her family to raise her daughter alone?  Every question only poses more, adding momentum to the driving force of the plot.  Madapple isn’t for the faint of heart, however.  It deals with dark realities and poses probing questions about the nature of our world and our relationship to it.  Moreover, the Aslaug’s first-person chapters have a tendency toward stream-of-consciousness, which some readers may find distracting, though I think it perfectly captures her isolation, confusion, and sense of herself.  Though the novel’s geared toward the ever popular and apparently voracious young adult market, it’s one that any mature reader could enjoy, provided he or she is all right with a brief trip down the rabbit-hole into a world that’s anything but wonderful.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Title: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Author: Patrick Süskind (Translated from German by John E. Woods)

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf (1986)

Genre(s): Historical Fiction, Mystery, Science Fiction, Literary Fiction

Length: 255 pages

Synopsis:  Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is a “gifted abomination,” a man whose olfactory abilities are so extraordinary he can recreate the most exquisite perfumes after smelling them only once.  He could easily be the most renowned perfumer in all of France, but Grenouille has other aspirations.  He plans to create a scent so intoxicating that the world will fall before his feet.  No ordinary ingredients will do, of course.  For this “master scent,” Grenouille will need to bottle the essence of humanity.

My Rating: 5 Stars

My Opinion: 

This is one of the most delightfully disturbing books I have read in quite some time.  In structure, it reminds me quite a bit of classic literature: Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment and Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure in particular.  I don’t mean to suggest that the text is at all dense or inaccessible.  Quite the contrary, in fact, though I can’t help but wonder how much of that is due to the translation from the text’s original German.  The story keeps the reader at arm’s length from its grotesque central character, allowing the omniscient third person narrator to explore the tangential stories of lives brushing up against Grenouille’s.  None of these lead to any great development of character; indeed, Grenouille’s motives appear hazy even to himself.  Though the characters and plot are quite simplistic, the text itself is anything but.  The book is rife with metaphor, allusion, and opportunities to explore certain truths of the human condition.  Is Grenouille perhaps a human incarnation of Satan, working his will with scent instead of a similarly nebulous evil?  Is he merely a device to reveal the fallibility of humanity, its reliance on instincts considered base and primal?  Without cluttering plot or characterization, the reader is free to explore all these trains of thought while racing through the book itself (it took me only an afternoon or so to finish, despite its length).  Readers unwilling to devote their time to this extra-literary exploration will likely find the book somewhat disappointing, as it lacks many of the “modern” literary conventions and defies categorization by genre.  For anyone looking for a new book-group read or literary paper topic, however, I think Perfume would be an excellent place to start.