Comic Review: Tank Girl (vol. 1) By Hewlett and Martin

Title- Tank Girl (vol. 1)

Author(s)- Hewlett and Martin 

Genre- Comic - Adventure, Comic - Humor, Comic - Dystopia 

Tank Girl is hard to describe. She is utterly insane and lives in a post-apocalyptic world consisting of talking kangaroos, villains, and yes, her giant tank. The good thing about Tank Girl is, number one, she doesn’t care what people think. Number two she is fearless. Number three? Well, her fashion sense in amazing. The back describes Tank Girl as “an ignorant, beer-swilling, bestial skinhead [who becomes] an ignorant, beer-swilling, bestial blonde in a tank.” What’s more to love? 

Volume 1 of Tank Girl encompasses 15 issues ranging from October 1988 to February 1990. The comics are utterly, but purposefully, non Sequitur and it’s beautiful. I read through many panels thinking, “I don’t know what is going on but I love it.”

A woman like tank girl naturally has a lot of enemies. Or makes enemies along the way. Besides Booga, a trusted Kangaroo companion. Things don’t always come out the way Tank Girl plans, but she always comes out the insane victor at the end. It’s hard to defeat a woman who is, as I said, utterly insane and possesses a tank.

There are some really good features to the anthology. I particularly liked the cut out Tank Girl paper doll. It comes complete with uni-cycle and flask of coffee. The end also features a few pages of the original color covers of a few issues. I love it when anthologies include the covers—it gives a greater sense of what the comic looked like when it came out and it feels you are truly reading the comics as pieces and not as one whole massive storyline.

Book Review: Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross

Title: Pope Joan 

Author: Donna Woolfolk Cross 

Genre: Fiction- Historical 

Rating: 3 Stars

Pope Joan (John) is a figure of religious and historical controversy, most notably since Jan Hus used her supposed tenure as pope to delegitimize the succession of popes to his time. In context, this was the beginning of the Protestant Reformations, and Hus was himself one of the early reformers, dying almost 100 years before Martin Luther wrote his 95 Theses.  Before Hus, Pope Joan lived in legend and in a scattering of chronicles of the 13^th century, which, by virtue of the separation of four hundred years, makes these poor sources for facts of the 9^th century. And any careful historian knows to take with a grain of salt the stories told in myth and legend because unless we can accurately pinpoint their origin, it is arbitrary and often false to assume without careful examination (after all, conclusion needs to come from somewhere) of a multitude of trustworthy sources.

There is a lot to the argument that Pope Joan has been removed from the historical record by her predecessors who felt her short-lived time on the throne of St. Peter, in typical misogynist fashion, was a smear on the history of the church. God knows (no pun intended) that there have been plenty of such things attempted in the past, though historians are fortunate to have sources other than official church records to flesh out the past. Unfortunately, with Pope Joan, all we have are later accounts, four hundred years or later.  Can we trust the words of people who did not witness the event? Can we trust a footnote added to a papal record that has been dated to almost eight hundred years later?

Can we assume that later church historians moved the death of Leo IV forward by two years to leave no gaps between him and his successor (Benedict III)  Again, a no, then a pause with a maybe, and then another no.  Because we do have letters written, scant and few, that speak of the direct succession of Benedict III after Leo IV, and I doubt these simple letters were written in an attempt to further a conspiracy since they would have had no reason to (it was a simple petition matter).

Because we fact based as we like to insist we are, we do know that everything originates somewhere.  Often times, this is in legend or in an oral history, which is part of the transmission of history and legend. So simply put: did Pope Joan really live?  The answer is, no one knows and with the material in place, no one can legitimately say she did. Yet, no one can legitimately say that she did not.

But let us get on to the meat of the book.

Pope Joan is a book of historical fiction situated in real life historical events.  Many of the characters did, in fact exist, and many of the events that take place did, in fact, happen.  I always love reading historical fiction that is well grounded in historical fact because it makes the story come alive in a way that I can, at least for that moment, pretend that the events are real.  It is impossible for Cross to know anything about Joan's life, sadly, so much of it is made up.  Yet Cross clearly did her research because she is able to capture the time, in spirit and in culture, very nicely.  One of the problems with historical writers is that they want to prove they are scholars and overwhelm the reader with historical fact.  Cross, thankfully, knows where to stop. If anything, the book wonderfully captures contemporary ideas about women, the female body, and women's place not only in the world, but also in heaven.  Feminist historians and people interested in women's history should read this book to understand the woman in the Medieval world.

The story follows the life of Joan, first as a young and intelligent girl whose education is stunted by a father who sees no value in teaching a girl.  Culture, custom, and even religious belief rejected the education of the female.  It was a tough uphill battle for little Joan who overcomes the patriarchal world that she lived in to first become a monk, using the name of her dead brother, then a friend and friend and physician to the Pope, and then finally becoming Pope herself.  There is, of course, also a love story, which is as far as I know an invention entirely of Cross.  Though there is some precedent for the romance since even in the legends of Joan, she supposedly was discovered to be a woman when she gave birth.

However, one thing I wish, and this is just a personal preference, is that there was not so much untranslated Latin.  Your average reader isn't going to know what is being said, and even if they were to Google translate the phrase, it isn't likely to be accurate enough to help understanding. This is not always important for the plot, of course, but sometimes it would help reader comprehension, especially because sometimes Joan comments on the spoken Latin to emphasize the lack of education epidemic amongst the priesthood, and a reader who does not know Latin will not know the error made.  It would just make the novel more accessible to the average reader.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and was happy to read that Joan, at least in this version, came to a more noble end than the Joan that has persisted in Medieval and Renaissance myth (some say she was stoned to death, others that she was tied to the back of a horse and drug to her dead).  If anything, Pope Joan as a novel will stand next to the other works of fiction and myth that have existed though the ages as yet another great telling of a legend that some people love and other people hate.

Graphic Novel Review: Interview with the Vampire: Claudia's Story by Anne Rice and Ashley Marie Witter

Title: Interview with the Vampire: Claudia's Story 

Author(s): Anne Rice (Author) & Ashley Marie Witter (Illustrator) 

Genre: Fiction/Horror & Fiction/Supernatural 

Finished: February 21, 2013

This comic book / graphic novel has gotten a fair bit of criticism because many feel it did not offer a fresh perspective on Claudia or the events of Interview with the Vampire, but was rather too close a story to the original written in Interview with the Vampire. I think that this is criticism too harsh. The novel Interview with the Vampire, told from the perspective of Louis, features Claudia as one of the main characters. This graphic novel does indeed follow the same timeline as Louis’s tale with little deviation to “new” event, but we do see a very distinctive Claudia perspective, with gives “new” insight into the events we know per Louis. The illustrations done by Ashley Marie Witter were absolutely, no question, beautiful. Every character exuded delicate beauty--the expressions and movements were all immaculately wrought. I found the usage of color to be quite effective, as well. The novel was done in an off-white and black tone, aside from the occasional use of colors like red to emphasize blood. I felt that this occasional use of bold color added emotion, passion, and indeed violence to the appropriate scenes. It also expressed how very important blood is to the immortal... the only true vibrant color in the dark world. It is true that the essential story is nothing new, but there were moments when the perspective of Claudia gave something new to an event. Because instead of seeing things from the eyes of Louis, we get to see Claudia as she was, as she thought, and come to understand a bit more about what motivated her. And, sadly, just how much she loved Louis. But yes, sometimes it was hard to keep track of the chronology. Maybe this was because I read this graphic novel at around 2am and my brain was not at full function. There were a few times when I had to reread a page or go back because I wasn’t sure where I was on a timeline. It was like in the span of one panel, we had gone forward in time and were now in an entirely different world location. But I blame this on my inexperience with comics and graphic novels in general. Claudia’s Story is a beautifully rendered tale of one of the briefest but important vampires in the Chronicles. I feel absolutely that it is a necessity in the collection of any Anne Rice and Vampire Chronicle fan. You must at least read this graphic novel once. Instead of judging the “originality” of the story, soak up the beautiful art, the emotion expressed in wonderful pen strokes. Enjoy the story you know and love now presented to you in a new format, made into a work of visual art as much as it is a work of written art.

Book Review: Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3) by Suzanne Collins

Title: Mockingjay

Series: The Hunger Games

Book Number: 3

Author: Suzanne Collins 

Genre: Fiction - Dystopia 

Finished: February 11, 2013

Can it suffice to say only that this final book was everything that I had hoped for and more?  I wasted no time loading this one on my Kindle after I had finished the second book of the trilogy. Of course I could guess the rough chronology of the book: lots of rebel fighting, lots of drama, and of course a victory, no matter how sweet or bittersweet. I knew there would be war, and I knew that independence would be gained. That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the journey. And that also doesn’t mean I wasn’t caught off guard a number of times by a few well placed and indeed shocking plot twists. Instead, it meant that I was sincerely and deeply hoping for the sort-of-happy-ending that the characters deserved and that I needed in order to feel fulfilled. In short, I wanted Katniss alive and with Peeta. So the war is on. District 13 is working to inspire rebel forces across Panem, and are quite successful. The leaders of the rebellion use Katniss as a sort of mascot, but she is not the sort of girl to give clean televised appearances, so there is a lot of battle and explosion going on.

Thank goodness, right?

I mean it wouldn’t be a Hunger Game novel without a lot of blood, guts, and blown up things. The part that I liked the best (in my predictable nature) was the inevitable tension that arose after Peeta was rescued and he had been brainwashed... reprogrammed... designed to hate and indeed kill Katniss. Naturally, I gave in to a rare sense of optimism that love would prevail, yadda, yadda, yadda. 

It was this plot arch in particular that I enjoyed reading the most. I wish there was more to it, that it was longer, more involved. The course of the rebellion was interesting and great, yes, but I like things that are a little less action and adventure, and a little more drama. I also did not expect a few of the deaths that took place. I mean, this isn't George R.R. Martin, after all, right, who kills everyone you love. I thought that there would at least be a bright light at the end of the tunnel for the suffering. But not so. I guess that is just part of the realism, of creating a world that is real, intense, and that you can live inside of. Even go so far as to grieve with. The emotional connection would be nothing without something to grieve over, right? At least, that is how I comfort myself.

Book Review: Catching Fire (Hunger Games, #2) by Suzanne Collins

Title: Catching Fire

Series: Hunger Games

Book Number: 2

Author: Suzanne Collins 

Genre: Fiction - Dystopia 

Finished: February 5, 2013

I decided to read this book in order to prepare myself for the movie; I would rather spoil a movie by reading the book than spoil a book by seeing the movie first. I didn't go into reading this book with any preconceived notions about how the plot may manifest itself, so I relied on the first few pages to gain a sense of how the book may progress. Essentially, now a victor of the Hunger Games, Katniss is the target for the ire of the Capitol, specifically President Snow. Before even Katniss realizes what she means to the rest of the various districts, the President is painfully aware that she stands as an icon of rebellion and indeed revolution, which he certainly cannot stand. So naturally, of course, he seeks to eliminate her as a threat. The book is really two distinct stories. The first part of the story of of Katniss trying to survive back in District 12 after the games, trying to become normal again, and ultimately trying to quell any possible threat of district rebellion in order to placate President Snow and protect her family/friends. The part effectively ends when she discovers that there is no way to stop the anger of the districts, who are using her act of defiance as a sort of rallying cry to justify their own defiance. As a result, there is no pleasing President Snow, and she fears no hope of saving the people she cares about. Which brings us to part 2, the Quarter Quell, an anniversary event. At every 25 year period, the games are given a special feature, a new twist. This quarter's twist is, and predictably so, that those in the arena must be past winners of the Games. This assures, as the only female from District 12, that Katniss will be in the arena. I admit, I saw this coming. Even as I was reading part 1, I kept telling myself, "This president is going to find a way to make it so Katniss has to reenter the games." I wasn't certain how he would do so, but I was confident that he would find a way, as this would be an easy and entertaining way to get rid of her while at the same time showing the burgeoning revolutionaries throughout the various districts the cost of defiance. Katniss goes into the arena this time determined to give her life to protect Peeta; there is no way to save them both, and the President wants her death badly enough to make sure she regrets not dying. If anything, she can save Peeta, who she sees as an innocent in her machinations. Little does she know that behind the scenes, Haymitch has been working out his own dealings, convincing the other Tributes to, no matter the cost, keep Peeta alive, too. Once again, the pair are at the center of a conspiracy that they do not have much of a say in, or much knowledge of for that matter. I found the nature of the games arena this time to be wonderfully creative. 

I really had to applaud Collins for the uniqueness of the setting. It was more than just a landscape of traps and scattered threats for tributes to chase each other around. I loved the idea of the arena as a clock, and each new hour bringing a new round of chaos to one of the 12 triangular branches. Naturally, not knowing myself of the backroom dealings of Haymitch, I kept waiting for the moment when the alliances formed in the arena would come crashing down on Katniss and Peeta. It is always a wonderful turn of events to find that I have been wrong in my predictions; it forces me not to over think the plot too much and thereby ruin it for myself. I was also very pleased that the few characters I felt taken with had survived, though with varied levels of... safety and success. I am also a massive sucker for a good cliffhanger, though mostly when I have in my possession the next book, which I do. I have already started the third and final book because I have to know what happens with the rebellion, which at the end of the games, is going full scale. And I also have to know what happens between Katniss and Peeta since, ultimately, I am rooting for them. I love a clever dystopia.

Book Review: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Title: The Hobbit 

Author: J.R.R. Tolkien 

Genre: Fiction- Fantasy 

Finished: January 13, 2013

I dug this one out of the shelves in celebration of the movie, which I have to date seen a grand total of 3 times, none of which I regret in the slightest. Okay, I didn't take the book off of the shelf and dust it off. I uploaded it to my Kindle Fire, but the same concept is at work here: I pulled out a book from my past to enjoy in the present. I haven't read the Hobbit since I was in secondary school, I'm certain English class in middle school. Even then it was an assigned reading, so I read it with the most begrudging of pleasure, and I did not get as much out of it as I could have had it not come with the attached stigma of being a book assigned for school. But alas, the Hobbit is the sort of book that everyone need read at least once in their life. I wanted to give it another shot, and with more appreciation for fine literature and fantasy. I was first touched by the fast pacing of the book. Tolkien certainly paid scant attention to detail and drawn out events. The timing for things like anticipation or suspense, even drama, is lacking. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad book, and neither does the book come across as too hurried or without character development and involvement. Indeed, it is a bit surprising how much Tolkien is able to pack in a few short words. By fast pacing, I mean that there is little to describe their wanderings. Instead, our esteemed author chooses to gloss over the aimless wandering across terrain of Middle Earth, and let us as readers enjoy one action packed sequence to the next. It is at times like that that I realize the book was meant for children, and so needed to be relatively free of too much boring description, and also required enough entertaining action to keep the attention span of a child engaged. But I loved the fast pace of the book; it seemed like a long short story. And of course, as a fantasy novel lover, I can't forget the honor that must be paid to Tolkien as a master of his own world, language, and mythology. Bilbo was adorable, his character complex and curious, equal parts brave and frightened, as anyone would be taken from the comfort of their home and thrust on a deadly adventure. I loved all of the dwarves. They were just, each and every one, adorable and brave. Of course not all dwarves were fully fleshed out, as I imagine that would have taken a lot more work and detail than the tiny novel could handle, so only a few dwarves are "real"characters in the novel. The rest of them are just background names. Though I do wonder how future movies will alter some of the story a bit, particularly with Smaug and with the final battle between man/dwarves/elves and the goblins/wargs. I can't see some of those details (trying not to spoil here) being preserved in movies, but maybe that's just me thinking that people want heroic and happy endings.

Book Review: The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1) by Suzanne Collins

Title: The Hunger Games 

Series: The Hunger Games

Book Number: 1

Author(s): Suzanne Collins 

Genre: Dystopia Sci-Fi 

Finished: August 21, 2012

Most of the popular books of late have been tales of little substance. The female characters are weak, silly, or co-dependent to some male who has emotional problems and treats her rather poorly. I will refrain from getting into a long dialogue about how this may negatively impact a few generations of young girls, but I will say books like Twilight and Shades of Grey have little to nothing to offer people in the way of true importance and meaning. With that being said, the one thing that I liked immediately about the Hunger Games was the female lead, Katniss. She is independent and strong, yet she still displays a weakness that she cannot admit or make sense of, which I think shows her complexity and depth. She isn't some generic caricature of the strong female that can do all, and neither is she weak, weepy, or vapid. Fortunately, since the Hunger Games is not only an immensely popular book, but also a movie, I don't need to repeat the plot. But to give a very succinct summary: it is a dystopian future of an undated era. What's left of civilization is called Panem and is situated into a number of districts, 12 in total, and a Capitol city that is pretty much the center of money and power. There was a rebellion years ago that failed, and so every year in remembrance each of the districts must give a boy and girl as "Tribute" to fight other Tributes from all districts in the annual Hunger Games. It's a reminder of the power of the government, you know? The power of life and death. Poverty and want are rampant throughout this world. So is fear. Enter Katniss Everdeen from District 12, a depressing and poor mining area. Most people there are starving and impoverished. To put food on the table Katniss has become very capable with a bow and arrow, which she uses to hunt food. When her little sister is drawn in the random lottery that selects Tributes, Katniss volunteers. The rest of the book contains the trails of training and then finally the games themselves, completely bloody and violent affairs. I suppose when it is die or win, the natural desire is to live, even at all costs. I can't say that I completely hate the other Tributes for their brutality. When your only choice to stay alive is to kill everyone around you, I think it would bring the worst in a person out. And I also think there is a lot more psychology and human nature there than we really need to ponder, but needless to say, it says something about how strong the will to live is, and what fear and pain can bring out in a person. But when a book makes you ponder human nature and even question yourself it is a good book. I love dystopia novels because I think they are more accurate as to what a true "utopia" would become. I'm not bothered by violence or gore, and I certainly don't hold it against an author when there is a copious amount of both. To be honest, I respect an author who doesn't shy away from graphic detail. There was a point during the romance that I wanted to shake her and make her pay a little attention to the fact that the dude (Or Peeta, as he is called) really does like him. But then I realized that I was being unfair to her development as a character. First off, she is fighting for her life... boys aren't a priority. Secondly, she has always had to struggle and fight and care for those she loves. When you live day to day, you aren't afforded the time to ponder your future. And living like that has a way of sucking the feeling out of a person, giving them only what they need to operate at a basic mode of survival. Unnecessary feelings of want or desire or frailty just don't fit in, so they have to go. She wasn't blind for not being a silly girl when I wanted her to be. She was even more real of a person because she didn't see. And I liked the parts where she was close to giving up the most because it threw a kink into the typical "badass girl" scheme. I mean, come on... we can't be brave and strong and capable all of the time. I know most authors like to Mary Sue and live vicariously through their characters, but this isn't one of those cases. Thank God. That is on my list of things that grate on my nerves... it's a long list. I will read book two and three, and I am certain I will enjoy them.

Book Review: Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children (#1) by Ransom Riggs

Title: Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children

Series: Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children

Book Number: 1

Author(s): Ransom Riggs 

Genre: Fiction - Fantasy 

Finished: June 28, 2012

A young boy named Jacob recalls the strange stories his grandfather Abe used to tell him as a child. They were fantastical stories of children with special powers. Grandfather Abe was even able to furnish proof using old photographs of things like a floating girl, a boy covered in bees, and invisible boy. As children do, young Jacob believed his grandfather. Yet as the boy grew to a teenager, he began to doubt his grandfather's stories until they became just that: stories. It wasn't until the untimely and violent death of his grandfather at the hands of a horrific creature that it seemed only Jacob could see that Jacob began to wonder if the stories may be just a little more real than he imagined. His grandfather leaves him with a cryptic message that sends him off on a journey to find the old children's home in Wales that Abe was placed in as a child, of course Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Naturally, like most people who sincerely believe in monsters, Jacob is sent to a shrink who decides that it is for his own good that Jacob go to Wales. According to Dr, Golan, it is the only way for Jacob to truly see that what his grandfather told him cannot be real. Except what Jacob finds instead is that the home was real and the children do exist. They exist in a loop in the past, repeating the same day over and over, the very day that their home was bombed and all the children killed. Miss Peregrine is one of a special sort of peculiar person, a shapechanger (a bird) who can manipulate time. There are loads of other pockets of loops throughout the world and time, each sustained by a headmistress who maintains the loop. The plot thickens with the introduction of hollowgast, creatures that feed off of peculiar children. These monsters, remnants of a time experiment gone wrong, are aided by wights who find them their peculiars to consume. This book was a very quick read and it combines a number of photographs with the story. I both liked and disliked the inclusion of photographs. Yes they added to the story, but it's not a perfect system. You can see that some photos are obviously fake, some portray the same people in the story but are noticeably of different individuals, and some just seem thrown in there and mentioned in the text to make room for them. Sometimes it was obvious that the pictures were writing details of the plot, not the other way around. And I found that to be cheating a bit. Maybe I am just picky. I thought the story was unique enough to be novel because don't we all want to believe that something magical exists in our otherwise mundane world? And the thought of these kids existing in some infinite time loop the day they all were to die helps curb the sheer morbidity that sits at the foundation of the storyline. Plus, monsters. It's just disturbing enough to please those who like to be disturbed, but sweet enough that people who reject disturbing things can sleep at night. I feel like the wind up to the climax of the plot was too long, and the climax was too fast. Or really, not as powerful as I would have liked. I will admit that I very much enjoyed the story and don't regret reading it. I need to stop focusing so much on the bad in everything and start shedding more light on the good. It is undoubtedly a book worth a read, and it blurs the line between horror and fantasy, between heartwarming and disturbing, which are all things that I very much love and appreciate. I just look forward to the sequel one day so that I can feel satisfied.

Book Review: World War Z- An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

Title: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War 

Author: Max Brooks 

Genre: Fiction - Horror 

Finished: March 7, 2011

This is how zombie horror should be. Or horror in general, for that matter. For some reason I have yet to wrap my head around, the entire horror genre has just gotten silly. Now, I am not against the occasional horror comedy cross over. After all, Evil Dead and Shaun of the Dead are magnificent. But between the zombies overcoming their real life issues and learning to adapt to the normal world and sparkling vampires, people have somehow forgotten that monsters are meant to be feared, not laughed at or lusted after. I admit, I was hesitant to pick up this book because there has been so much hype surrounding it. Yet as we know, sometimes the hype is well deserved. In the case of World War Z, the attention and praise is very much deserved. I think if ever there was to be a realistic depiction of how people would handle a zombie attack, World War Z hits it. The book is organized into a bunch of 'oral history' interviews from people who survived the zombie war. Within it are unique tales of survival, fear, and human adaptation. The characters come across as genuine and real because they express such a variety of human emotion and reaction. Some people would disbelieve. Some people would lose their minds. Some people would fight back viciously. There is no one way to handle any sort of trauma, and that is what World War Z tries to impart. Ultimately, how do people survive, both by their own action or by circumstance. And then, the story is also one about rebuilding. I was impressed with the sheer breadth of Mr. Brooks' knowledge. After all, he has to deal with medical technicalities, military terminology, and some serious science stuff. Either Mr. Brooks has one impressive brain, or he did a serious amount of study and expert investigation in order to piece together his book. Any reader should appreciate an author who is willing to go above and beyond, and to learn new things, in order to learn things that will make the book more realistic. I think part of the realism is due to the fact that the voice Mr. Brooks gives to his characters is that of expert, and of individual. I have to give this book my highest rating because I was absolutely enthralled throughout. Very rarely does a book compel me to keep reading, absolutely demand that I turn the page to see what happens next. Yet, above the story of zombies, which in themselves are creatures we need not take seriously enough to fear in real life, is, as I've said, a story of real human action, reaction, and adaptation. There is no saying what anyone would do when faced with a life or death situation, but this book, for all of its fantastical basis, makes you really begin to question that. Most of all, it makes zombies scary again. It reminds you that you need to be afraid of things that go bump in the night.

Book Review: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

Title: Battle Royale

Author: Koushun Takami

Genre: Fiction - Dystopia

Finished: January 5, 2009

I've been eager to read this book for a while since I own both Battle Royale movies and I read the manga years ago. This book is as troubling as it is insightful-- troubling because it shows you the truth depth of human desperation and troubling because it makes the reader enjoy it. This book isn't full of thesaurus words or flowery, flowing descriptions. It's simple and to the point, and every effective. The book shows us how people, normal people, can descend into madness. How many of us would be able to kill someone? I'm sure many people would say, "not I," yet how do we know until we're put in that position? Each character in the book experiences their own personal reaction to fear, violence and the threat of death, which could come at any moment. How each handles this situation is where the insight comes in. We come to see that fear is more complex than the word describes. Some justify killing with logic, however poor, some do it out of instinct, and some do it to protect others. This isn't a book to pass over lightly because of its subject. I know that the thought of middle school students killing each other off on an island is sour, but Battle Royale is an excellent book about human nature and how humans exist in a world out of their control. There is hope, though! The main characters Shuya and Noriko fight a force far larger than themselves, which gives a glimmer of hope in the madness. Granted, there is no peaceful resolution at the end. The world as the characters know it does not crumble or end. It stays strong and in control, but the resistance of a few is only a minor shine to the possible resistance of many. Even in a world of chaos and death, there is loyalty and friendship.

Book Review: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Title: Never Let Me Go 

Author: Kazuo Ishiguro 

Genre: Fiction 

Finished: September 11, 2008

As children Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were. Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together.

I loved this book. I should say that it's not a book for everyone since it sometimes drags along with a lot of 'everyday life' detail. I can see some people getting bored, but I decided to take the book for what it was worth; I realized early on the value of the story pacing because I knew in the end it would personalize me more the characters in such a way that I could understand their mindset. I lived their life with them. There has been some criticism of this book that no character rebelled against their fate as eventual organ donors, that everyone just seemed to accept that one day they would become donors and then die. I feel that this criticism is misguided. How are people to know what the world is like when they've been conditioned to live and think one way? From the day these clones were 'born,' they were raised to believe and live one way. That they accepted their fate is no different from the way that we accept our own. One can't expect characters to manifest deep philosophical thought about something they have no knowledge of whatsoever. In so many dystopian novels, people do rebel against the order in place and this is what readers come to expect. Why should it always be the case? Why should every one of these books be about the destruction of a misguided society? Can't it just be a snapshot in the process? The lives of a few people involved but not earth shattering? The characters never went into long speeches about how unfair their lives were, they just lived life, enjoyed what they could, but always knew they would die for the sake of others. To tell the truth, I couldn't stand to read the last page. It actually hurt to read them. I didn't want the book to end because I knew what would happen, I knew what would become of the characters. It wasn't even their sadness that I absorbed more than it was my own sadness that this was all that their lives were about.

Book Review: The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker

Title: The Hellbound Heart

Author: Clive Barker

Genre: Fiction- Horror 

Finished: August 10, 2008

Frank's pursuit of pleasure has trapped him in an extra-dimensional hell, and his brother's wife provides him the opportunity for escape. Frank's resurrection provides Julia with the opportunity for escape from the marriage she has quickly grown bored of. Rory, who naively adores his more worldly wife, becomes their innocent victim while Kirsty is drawn into this dangerous realm by her desire to protect him and show him the truth about Julia. Kirsty soon becomes the main character as she tries to save herself and Rory from the consequences of what Frank has unleashed.

Gross, scary and disturbing. I've always wanted to read this particular novel for the fact that I am a fan of Hellraiser and a fan of anything with S&M elements, especially horror. I wanted the literary experience of the Cenobites. Rather than pictures on a screen, I wanted my own imagination. This book was great. Gorey imagery, lots of horror, crazy people doing crazy things, and sadistic Cenobites promising a realm of sensation and pleasure beyond belief. It was chilling and I had nightmares when I went to bed after finishing... a sign of a good horror novel.

Book Review: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind

Title: Perfume: The Story of A Murderer

Author(s): Patrick Suskind (translated by J.E. Woods) 

Genre:Fiction 

Finished: July 22, 2008

Set in 18th century France, Perfume tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages. Born lacking a personal odor (a fact other people find disquieting) but endowed with an incomparable sense of smell, he apprentices himself to a perfumer and becomes obsessed with procuring the perfect scent that will make him fully human. In the process, he creates perfumes presumably based on pheromones that powerfully manipulate human emotions, murdering 25 girls to take their scent. I loved the movie and decided that I wanted to try out the book. When my reading group selected this one, I was excited to open it up. 

Suffice to say, I was satisfied with the book. The main character, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, was definitely... a bad person. I spent so much of the book wondering what was going on in his head, trying to diagnose just what mental illness he suffered from to be so without emotion. Cruel, perhaps not, but definitely without moral judgment or really any sense of attachment to the people around him. I found myself disgusted, asking myself, "what is wrong with this guy?!" more times that I could possibly count. 

Ultimately, I found all of the characters repulsive in their own way, full of their own evil and vice. I think this was intended. Chilling of all is the plot, the decision of scentless Jean-Baptiste Grenouille to possess the sweetest smell of them all: the smell of beautiful young women. He is truly a man filled only with his own strange desires and hatred. His power to map any scent, to smell everything around him, is used to this end. It's a book about obsession, murder, mystery, mental illness, beauty... so many categories. It's definitely a good read, too, for anyone who likes historical fiction.