Review: Labor Day, by Joyce Maynard

When you were a kid, did you ever feel like *nothing* ever happened to you? Like anything, anything at all, would be a huge improvement over the nothingness you are currently experiencing?

Thirteen year-old Henry, the main character of Joyce Maynard's new novel, Labor Day, has felt that way for years. After his parents' divorce, Henry's mother, Adele, transformed into quite nearly a hermit, ordering even basic necessities from catalogues, and Henry's life slowed to an isolated crawl during the summers. Just before school starts, at the beginning of a steamy Labor Day weekend in his small NH town, Henry's life changes when a bleeding man in the local big-box store asks him for help; he needs Henry and Adele to take him to their house. Hours later, sitting in their kitchen, Frank admits to being an escaped prisoner from the local penitentiary, but rather than turn him in, Adele lets him stay, and the two begin a strange and seemingly-fated relationship. Henry also takes strongly to Frank, and the house at the end of the cul-de-sac becomes a strange shangri-la for all three lost souls until Henry runs across a strange new girl in town whose paranoid outlook puts fearful ideas of abandonment in his head. It is then that Henry has to choose - does he save Frank, and his mother's newfound happiness, or does he save his own familiar life?

While the acceptance of a single woman taking a bleeding mad to her home is a bit of a stretch, I was willing to buy into it for two reasons: one, the novel takes place in the mid-80's in a small town, where people would be less paranoid about helping a stranger, and two, the town is in NH, where I grew up, so I can tell you that people tend to keep to themselves and out of other people's business. That Adele wouldn't have asked first what was wrong with Frank isn't all that surprising, particularly 20 years ago.

As long as you can accept Adele's decision, the rest of the book is an easy swallow. Right from the start, the reader roots for the scenario to somehow end well. Aside from a very few moments at the beginning when you wonder what Frank's real personality might be, it is evident that his arrival is a huge turning point for all involved. For his part, Frank almost immediately becomes the man of the house, fixing what's broken in more ways than one. Adele blooms in the newfound attention Frank showers upon her, and Henry comes into his own, out of his shell even when the inevitable occurs.

The characters are quite likable, and easy to identify with. When the stories finally begin to emerge - Adele's tale of guilt and despair that explains her hermit-like ways, and Frank's revelation of the horrifying coincidence that led to his imprisonment - it becomes apparent that the two are, in fact, fated for each other, and it's easy to see why each would be willing to bet everything on each other. Henry's unique situation - young enough to be jealous of his mother's attentions, old enough to be jealous of sexuality in his home, damaged enough to accept even this tragic figure as a father-substitute - is played very well. The young girl he meets, and her strange issues, are a little too conveniently introduced, but her exploitation is necessary to bring about the inevitably approaching storm. The epilogue ties the tale together in a very satisfying way; I was extremely happy with how things turned out, even with the initial heartbreak for all involved.

Rating: four stars: interesting premise, likable characters, heartfelt denouement

Review: Ophelia's Mom, by Nina Shandler

Nina Shandler is the mother of Sara Shandler, the nineteen year-old author of 'Ophelia Speaks', in which teenagers speak out about their lives and relationships with parents, friends, and others; Sara's book was itself a response to the widely popular Reviving Ophelia, a study of teenage girls. Nina Shandler (referred to going forward as simply Shandler) is herself a psychologist, and saw that a piece was missing from the Ophelia puzzle, that of the mothers' perspective on adolescence. Her work, Ophelia's Mom, is subtitled, 'women speak out about loving and letting go of their adolescent daughters', and that is exactly what it is.

Shandler sent out 23,000 fliers both online and on paper for mothers of teenage girls to submit thoughts and be interviewed for her book; she received only 350 responses, far less than her daughter had two years prior from the teenage contingent. Her explanation of this difference is partly that women are more secretive about family strife because they still generally bear the responsibility for running the family, and are humiliated by any perceived failure. Shandler used roughly half the responses she received in the book, but gave no information on how these particular responses were selected for use, or reasons why others would have been rejected. The responses she does use seem very homogeneous, and while I can't be certain whether this indicative of the larger response or a bias in selection of the responses for use, the copy of the invitation she used that is included in the forward could be a clue as to why; it is strongly geared towards a certain type of respondent. The wording of the invite uses fairly elevated diction, assumes that the person reading the flier has read Hamlet or at least has a working knowledge of who Ophelia is, and has either read at least one of the other two 'Ophelia' research works or knows enough about them to understand why this new work is pertinent. Although it attempts to be folksy, it's a fairly formal invitation, and not one that would appeal to very educationally or economically diverse audience.

Still, Shandler doesn't claim to have done a scientific study, merely to have gathered a series of anecdotal tales provided by women who have had experiences in typical, general teenage parenting categories - body image, parent-teen relationships, adult relationships surrounding teen issues, and letting their daughters go to graduation and life. The stories themselves are very absorbing, and swerve between heartwarming and heartbreaking. Walking through adolescence the first time was for many women difficult at best, and going through it a second time, this time as a bystander watching a beloved child struggle, is sometimes torturous. The women's experiences are told with humor and affection, and flow well into one another. Shandler limits herself to writing short personal stories at the beginning of new sections or where appropriate to bridge gaps between others' stories, which is a major bonus to the book; she understands that her role is not to judge failings or extol virtues, but rather to report experiences in the hopes that other women will relate and find comfort in not being alone. She does this very well, and seemingly without holding back her own embarrassment.

I'm not sure about Shandler's claim about women not writing in because they were shy or embarrassed. People not having problems wouldn't have written just to say, 'hey, everything's great over here, thanks for asking', so it's still hard to support her claim. However, as she also says, there is almost nothing out there like this book, stories from mothers about parenting their daughters in adolescence, and the book's true value stems from that. It's a well-written, extremely engaging book that provides insight and, importantly, hindsight into parenting ideas and struggles, particularly for those of us who are teetering on the edge of the adolescent phase for our second time around.

Rating: four stars; Well-written, chatty, touching look into parenting girls through the most difficult part of childhood

Note

Hi There:

For those of you who don't know, I started a 12mo graduate program at the end of May that will give me my master's in education next year. We do two courses a month, so an entire semester in eight four-hour sessions per class. It's pretty intense, and I haven't had much time for anything else, reading-wise. But, I do have a little time off here and there, and there will be other books that I'll be reading for the class that I will be able to post about (such Porcupine, which I just posted, and Ophelia's Mom, which will be up in a few minutes). So, it may get a little sparse around here from time to time, but I haven't abandoned it! :)

Astarte

Review: How To Hug a Porcupine: Negotiating the Prickly Points of the Tween Years, by Julie A. Ross, M.A.

In Porcupine, Ross discusses several ways to approach common problems of adolescent behavior and its effects on the family. Her primary assertion is that parents should take a ‘relationship’ approach, because at this stage they will no longer be able to physically control him or her, and must now rely on the quality of the relationship they have with the child to provide the basis for all interaction. Parents must understand that hormones and social changes make the tween years especially sensitive, and to control their reflexive responses of anger, worry and overprotection and work towards interactions that are less reflexive and more constructive. In order to foster open communication, parents should have family meetings, avoid blocking children’s expressions via unhelpful emotional reactions or overhelping (problem solving) that displays a lack of trust or enables childish behavior. It is vital for a parent to be engaged in the child’s interests in order to have a basis for a solid relationship. Finally, a child’s self-esteem should be fostered with encouragement of the effort used rather than generic praise of an outcome, such as praising hard work rather than an easily-won good grade.

Although they were obviously fictitious, the ‘personal stories’ are helpful because they break up the advice sections and give examples of behavior in a non-clinical manner. The writing is very accessible to the average person, and doesn’t require any particular knowledge of psychology. Particularly for the less well-read parent, many of the ideas and concepts may be fairly new or different from what they have experienced or tried in the past.

While the author includes many examples of different ‘brands’ of bad behavior – defiance, moral ambiguity, slacking off at home and school – many of the examples seem much the same, just with a slightly different twist. In the ‘coffee group’ the author has created, only mothers participate, which I found to be disappointing, because that implies that only women are expected to be involved in parenting. In fact, in several examples, the father is another drag in the mother’s life, by either being non-supportive or downright blaming the mother for the child’s behavior. That seemed strangely behind the times for a book that dictates such new-age parenting. My main complaint, though, is that the author exemplifies tolerance for all but the most extreme mouthing off, which I find completely untenable; she preaches respect for the child, but yet doesn’t demand it for the parent.

Ross makes several useful points that seem obvious, but in the heat of the moment may get thrown by the wayside: self-esteem has to come from the inside; children need to be allowed to learn on their own and deal with the consequences of their actions; parents should act interested in their children’s activities even if they’re not so they can be aware and involved in their child’s life. Core nuggets of advice like these are highlighted by separate placement and font from the rest of the writing, making a skim-through easy for those looking for particular sections or a simple refresher.

Rating: 3.5 stars: a decent starting place for basic challenges of tweenage parenting problems

Review: The Last Child, by John Hart

John Hart's latest novel, The Last Child, centers around a child named Johnny Merrimon, whose sister disappeared a year earlier, and whose father vanished not long after. Far from the idyllic life he once had, Johnny and his mother now live in a rundown house owned by the violent town bigwig who now controls their lives. His mother rarely gets out of bed, and Johnny spends his days on his bike, combing neighborhoods and tracking known pedophiles in a dogged attempt to find his sister rather than attending school. When Johnny witnesses a murder, and is himself briefly grabbed by a stranger in the woods, the story of what really has happened in the town begins to unravel.

There's a lot about this story that's a rerun of other novels: the despairing mother who falls apart and turns to the violent man who abuses her child but turns a blind eye, the rebel child who rises to adult level and takes on the role of caretaker, the cop who is obsessed with the case and also, of course, is in love with the distraught mother, the lurking uber-religious mentally handicapped well-meaning felon. However, the plot itself moves along fairly quickly once it gets going, and the questions are interesting. What really did happen? Will Johnny's father return? Who killed the motorcyclist, and what does the man in the forest have to do with anything?

Hunt does a good job of concealing the answers to most of these questions until the end of the story. I was honestly surprised at some of the revelations. While this is one of those stories where you know that things are going to work out in the end for everyone, it was nice to not know exactly how it was all going to wind up until the proper time.

The use of mysticism and historical tie-ins with Johnny's ancestors was somewhat interesting, if a little heavy-handed towards the end of the story. The story's flow stutters a bit entering into the climax events because of it; while there was some foreshadowing as to its importance, it wasn't integrated into the story enough previously for there to be a seamless transition to a more mystical resolution.

Rating: three stars: Tired character stereotypes, sometimes difficult to buy into, but interesting plot

Review: Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, by Seth Grahame-Smith

Do you hate history? Does nonfiction leave you sleepy? Are you bored to tears with hearing the same tired stories about our sixteenth president? Author Seth Grahame-Smith, author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, has a cure for you, as he once again visits the world of historical horror fiction with his newest work, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.

Smith takes a different tack with his newest work, creating something entirely original rather than choosing a previously published work to embellish. He addresses Lincoln's entire life, dividing the work into three sections - boyhood, manhood, and president - and lays the basis of Lincoln's interactions with the hungry undead early on. It turns out that Lincoln's grandfather, beloved mother, and other relatives died not from common malaise but from exposure to the blood of vampires, who attacked their family in retribution for an outstanding debt Lincoln's father owed to a bloodthirsty banker. This, it becomes clear, is the source of the animosity between Lincoln and his father, and is the beginning of Lincoln's career as a vampire hunter. Once begun, his journey brings him into the company of a vampire turncoat who advises him which of his kind need to die. Their relationship, and the alliances formed because of it, bring Abe to the highest office in the land. There, he battles slavery not only as a human evil, but for its underlying truth; southern vampires use the slave trade for food, and mean to take over all of humanity.

ALVH is does not have the dry wit of Prejudice, but does possess its own dark character that grows increasingly absorbing with each chapter. Smith strays from the action of the main story occasionally, and some sections are a bit dry, but on the whole the tale is well worth reading. At times, the tale seems a bit Ann Rice-y, but the addition of the vampires to Lincoln's life, especially in the political realm, seems fairly organic. The characters themselves are well-written, and the idea of slavery being in reality a massive food supply chain for the undead is genius. Abe's personal tragedies have always seemed almost unrealistic in their scale even in their actual fact, so the weaving in of vampires as a common thread of explanation for the long trail of sorrow almost makes more sense than the real stories behind them. The forward, which slyly mirrors one that would be seen in an actual work, sets the tone of a serious work of nonfiction, which Smith maintains throughout the story. The ending, though, has really captured my imagination. I finished this book about two weeks ago, and am still thinking about it, imagining what would come next.

It did take me a few chapters to actually get into the story, and occasionally the tale was a bit slower than I would have liked, but overall, ALVH is another success for Smith. I was impressed previously with his talent for seamlessly weaving zombies into a classic, and am glad to see that he possesses the dexterity to create his own original works as well. I look forward to reading whatever he comes out with next.

Rating: four out of five stars. Very imaginative, with intriguing characterizations.

Review: Flood, by Stephen Baxter

In Stephen Baxter's Flood, a group of four scientists and military members from around the world emerges from a years-long hostage situation to find the world around them rapidly changing. Waters around the world are rising, not because of anything humankind has done but rather because of natural circumstances; the earth's plates have been hiding subterranean oceans that are finally bursting free, flooding London even as the hostages are being freed. Billionaire entrepreneur Nathan Lammockson, who had a hand in the hostage's discovery and release, entreats the former hostages to help him in his quest to conquer the new challenges humanity faces. Fraught with socio-political strife and greed, Flood tells the tale of humanity's last stand on Earth, of our final forty years on dry land.

Unfortunately, while the premise, and potential, of this concept is fascinating, Baxter's execution is not up to the task. The characters are flat, predictable caricatures of what they could be. The story alternates between dragging and flashing forward, skipping years and important character developments. The entire undertaking begins to feel like a made-for-TV movie, where there are snippets of interesting events, but really nothing to keep you from heading for the kitchen for a snack or answering the phone.

I wanted to like this book. I really did. The concept was so interesting! I stuck with it to the end, hoping for more, but the whole thing just unraveled more as time passed. I know there's a sequel, which I have to admit piques my interest just enough that I might check it out, because again, the idea had so much potential, that even if the end result wasn't what I hoped for, I at least had fodder for my own imaginings of what the world would be like and how I could have done it differently than the author, and that's worth something. Besides, even with the worst of the Lifetime movies, the action scenes can still be worth tuning in to gawk at.

Rating: two stars. Cool idea, interesting action scenes, but little more than TV-movie quality.

Review: How to Buy a Love of Reading, by Tanya Egan Gibson

Gibson's first novel, How to Buy a Love of Reading, is one that I had heard about several months ago on a radio show, before it came out. Despite wanting to read it, I promptly forgot about it after I realized that it wasn't yet available, so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw it on the library shelf this week.

Reading takes place in a Peyton-Place town on Long Island, where the insecure, overweight, fifteen year-old Carley Wells lives in a mansion with her nouveau riche parents, attending grandiose Sweet Sixteen bashes where artists cast molds of the guests heads as party favors. She escapes the reality of her mother's constant nagging about her weight and the other kids' nastiness towards her through her TV, her Aftermemory, where she re-creates the day's events to her own satisfaction in her mind, and, most importantly, her symbiotic friendship with the town Adonis, Hunter Cay, who is increasingly falling down the rabbit holes of Vicodin and alcohol addictions.

As the title suggests, Carley also hates books, and it is at one of the sweet sixteen parties that her father gets the idea to hire a writer to write Carley's perfect novel, both as a gift and gimmick for her sixteenth birthday. Thus arrives Bree, surly starving-artist-in-residence, and behind her follows the famous local author, Justin, who finally emerges from hiding after a crazed fan's attack years earlier. While we gradually learn the two author's backstories, their connection to each other, and also their parallel to Carley and Hunter's relationship, become painfully apparent.

The main drawback of the story, for me, was the stereotypical portrayal of the characters. It's a wealty town, thus of course everyone is sleeping with everyone else, all the kids - who are more like adults, especially Hunter, who is treated like a thirty year-old by almost everyone in the story - are constantly drinking and taking drugs, and all the women are complete and total harpies. It was a bit like a Jackie Collins novel in that regard, and Gibson conveys their practiced boredom with life so well that I myself started to buy into the idea that everything was tiresome, and was very nearly bored myself at the beginning, just by osmosis.

However, Gibson does an interesting job of portraying teenage thought in various ways, such as the difference between the worldly and somewhat inaccessible Hunter and the much less so voice of Carley. Carley's longing for acceptance, and for Hunter, is palpable; these qualities, as well as her more honest voice, make her unique and sympathetic in a way the others aren't. As Hunter descends into his addictions, becoming withdrawn and erratic, her increasingly desperate attentions to his well-being, and to their future, are dead-on to the dreams a teenage girl that age would have. The novel-in-a-novel that the damaged Bree tries to write to Carley's specifications traces the arc of the Carley and Hunter's relationship in an ironic way that is first almost invisible and then, by the end, all too real. Both of Carley's stories have two endings: the first is written by another character, but the final say is Carley's alone. It is tempting to skim over the included chapters of the commissioned novel, but to do so is to skip the ties that bind the three stories - those in the created novel, Bree and Justin, and Carley and Hunter - together, and remove a level of Gibson's story that raises it above the straightforward.

In all, it is the writing and wording that brings Reading out of the realm of the completely typical. The storyline is fairly predictable, the characters not so unusual, but still there is a tone about it that is different from the usual off-kilter Romeo and Juliet story. Gibson uses the peripheral characters for comedic relief; Carley's father, in particular, is very funny in his growing obsession with flowers, and their resulting staining of certain body parts. Overall, while some sections are somewhat belabored, and the story borrows heavily from stereotypical archetypes, the author's ironic tone and drawstring ending make it a worthwhile read.

Rating: four out of five stars.

Review: While I'm Falling, by Laura Moriarty

When I grabbed Falling off of the shelf, I expected more of a light, YA-type read; after all, it's about a college student whose parents are getting divorced. I imagined something that would clear my brain like sherbet after asian takeout, leaving it fairly clean for the next, more meaty read.

What I got was a surprisingly in-depth, mature narrative about a young woman's decent into the messiness of life. Veronica is a pre-med student at a Kansas college, when she finds out that her parents are divorcing because her father came home early from a business trip and found a man sleeping in his bed, with a note to the 'beautiful dreamer' from his wife instructing him to be gone before her husband returns. In later chapters, we find that of course, it's not that simple, but the fact remains that while Veronica is going through the messiest years of her own life - first relationships, first big mistakes, failing her first class - her parents are as well, with her father attempting to use his lawyer's training to rake her mother through the coals in court and her mother sliding into poverty and, eventually, homelessness. Veronica finds herself needing to care for her mother when she can't even fulfill her RA commitment in her dorm to assist the younger students. At the same time, her mother has to leave her own misery behind and help Veronica cope with the repercussions of her own childish mistakes.

'Falling' is a painful read at times. All of us have screwed up in ways that effect not only ourselves, but others as well, and as in real life, the truly interesting meat of the story is in how the characters move on from their mistakes and re-create their lives. Before that happens, however, the reader has to slog through every miserable moment with Veronica, and it's truly not pleasant because I, at least, could see myself in her; her actions, some of which were largely originated by circumstances out of her control, could very well have been my own at her age. Because I have already been through her phase of life, I could see where she was heading, and it was like a train wreck. Moriarty doesn't dumb-down her characters to fit into stereotypical molds, nor does she insult the reader by overkilling the details; we find out the backstories of the events, but are not forced to re-live them through each character's perception. We do eventually find out why there was a man in the bed, and how it came to that point, but it's almost as though the information is whispered to us; there is a clear feeling that Veronica and her older sister do not know all the details that we are learning, and that that is how it should be. We need them to understand how we got where things are at, and to humanize the parents.

This is important, for while Falling is largely focused on Veronica, it is also the larger story of family and relationships, and how real people can fall off of their pedestals and create new lives for themselves. The painful mistakes are worth the read, because the ways the characters accept their blame and move forward are honest. While the final chapter is slightly too tied-up-with-a-bow, I have to admit to occasionally liking that kind of thing, so I was good with it.

Rating: four stars. Real, adult look at life mistakes, consequences, and redemptions.

Review: Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible!, by Jonathan Goldstein

I decided to read this humorous collection of short stories, which is based (very) loosely on those of biblical characters, after hearing the Goldstein read the first story, Adam and Eve, on NPR's This American Life. The combination of the snide humor and his dry voice was irresistible, and I went out of my way to order it from inter-library loan.

When I say that the shorts on this book are loosely based on the tales surrounding each character's situation in the Bible (and, actually, the Torah, since it only deals with the Old Testament), I mean to say that these stories are to the original work what Dennis Rodman was to basketball: a much flashier, more intensely-imagined figment that gives depth where you weren't even originally aware that you needed any. For instance, the story that drew me in, Adam and Eve, is cleverly told by the beguiling snake's point of view; in between learning what an undeserving schlemiel Adam was, and how leggy and earthily sexy Eve was, the reader also gets a glimpse into what could very well have been the snake's motives for enticing the pair towards the apples - jealousy, frustration, an inflated sense of self-worth.

My other favorite story was that of Jacob and Esau, the brothers whose mother favors the younger brother so much that she has him disguise himself as his brother to fool his ailing father into giving him his all-important dying blessing. The original Bible is not a work that discusses the inner feelings of its characters, and Goldstein fleshes out the brothers and their mother, poking into the rotten recesses of Rebekah's brain to expose her almost (reverse) Oedipal complex, and allows Jacob the voice to express his own guilty anguish at having to endure the forced agenda his mother has in place for him.

The other stories - particularly that of David - weren't as compelling to me, and in fact the book gets a bit stale as the chapters go on. Goldstein uses the same formula to humanize each tale; this works fine in several of the stories where there are two main characters to carry the plot, because the two together provide enough material for there to be a decent amount of play between them. However, in the stories where only on character is the main focus, such as The Golden Calf (which focuses on Moses), or, again, David (which is also waaay too long for what it is), Goldstein increasingly uses lowbrow humor - repeated foul language, bodily functions, and sexual acts - to try and create material. While I have no problem with any of these things on their own, the problem with their predictable repetition is that the entire work begins to come off as having been done by a middle school boy bored in Sunday school.

I attempted to download the book from audible.com, thinking that perhaps it needed his vocal interpretation to really make the final stories palatable, but alas, it is not offered there (which surprises me). Hearing him read it aloud in his wry voice may in fact downplay some of the childishness of the later chapters. As the book stands alone, however, I would recommend either getting it from the library, or checking out the This American Life podcasts where Goldstein reads selections from the book aloud. You can stream Cain and Abel here, and Adam and Eve here. I really recommend listening to Adam and Eve; it's really quite witty and interesting, and is only about ten minutes long.

Rating: three stars; Several witty interpretations scattered among lesser-quality boyish humor