Motherland
It's really more of a 1.5 - there is some humor here and I certainly know (or have, at least, seen) parents like these - the ones who probably shouldn't have had children yet because they, themselves, aren't exactly adults. But I really just took no pleasure in this read. Not a whit. I was irritated, frustrated, and mostly just found it bordering on offensive. Not offensive in a "GASP!" sort of way - but offensive that a subject so ripe for fiction (Park Slope parents) was written about poorly, so simply, so lacking in nuance or intelligent commentary. That said, if you're a Park Slope parent or if you're looking for some run of the mill chick lit, there are worse places to go than Motherland.THAT said... aggressive 'pass', readers.
A Storm of Swords (HBO Tie-in Edition): A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Three
YES YES YES. That's what I'm talking about: an incredible, incredible (if, yes, a bit long) entry into this impressive series. I wouldn't call any of this 'resolution' but man oh man did a whole lot of stuff happen and man oh man did all of it seriously push this plot forward. Except most of Dany's stuff, but, she's the Hamlet of this series (I'm gonna keep pushing that til it sticks) and so she gets a pass. But anyway. In the wake of the last novel, which left me satisfied but also feeling strangely restless and irritated, Martin storms back and sets off several major plot explosions that, I do not kid, dropped my jaw. There's a moment, one I won't spoil because I know the TV series hasn't gotten there yet, that I went back and re-read because it was just so well done that I wanted, immediately, to experience it again. AND THEN Martin pulls off the same plot point in a different place - HE PULLS IT OFF! I'm laughing just thinking about how ballsy the man is. Look, if you aren't on board with this series yet, there's little chance you've even made it so far as this book. But if the end of [b:A Clash of Kings|10572|A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2)|George R.R. Martin|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358254974s/10572.jpg|3272005] left you feeling a little on-the-fence... this book will absolutely reward you for your investment. More at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-I3
A thrilling and challenging new way to experience a novel. Serialized as the oral history of a pandemic that strikes human children, starting circa 2011, the novel was first delivered as a chapter every weekday - it's now available as much as you can consume in a single go (the epilogue was delivered today, 4/19). But beyond that, there are Field Reports - written by readers - that can only be accessed in the spot where they are set. The reader is thus pulled deeper into the world of the story. There are a few problems and creaky points with the story itself - it suffers a little from feeling a bit too traditional and predictable, especially surrounded by such groundbreaking formatting - but the story holds up its end of the bargain by being a smart, considered yarn that makes you consider fundamental aspects of our humanity. I mean, there are plenty of real/traditional novels that don't even come close to doing that. But most importantly, this is a game-changer. This is the art form moving forward in a quantum leap and one that I look forward to experiencing further, in other stories and in other fields. I know I'm already dreaming of ways I could create stories with this sort of delivery system - this is an exciting time.More about the book at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-HG
The City of Your Final Destination
While there are some beautiful moments and some interesting thoughts provoked... it feels, at times, like Bolaño-lite. Or like he's trying to do Ian McEwan in South America. I know those two things wouldn't automatically seem logically like the same book but... trust me. Ultimately, it's just too ethereal to stand up to much and it fades almost before it's over (this, despite an immensely - surprisingly so - satisfying ending). More at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-Hw
Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History
Just astonishing. How absolutely screwed we are. Taibbi might annoy you - he can be a bit dude-ish in his writing at times, merry with his hilarious teenager-esque spins on traditional curses ("douchewad" being my favorite) and quick to be hyperbolic when its suitable. But you cannot, simply cannot dismiss this book on those grounds. He did his research (boy howdy) and manages to parse the absolute horse manure that is our current financial stage to the point that a layman can almost maybe understand it if he thinks about it.Yes, folks: this book requires you to think. Hard. Because you're not just trying to understand the complex legal and financial terminology being tossed around... but you're also trying to square your own finances. Square your own behavior. And that sort of ruthless efficiency at making everything okay is a problem for us humans - because that's how we got into this mess. We'll believe whatever someone who seems smart tells us - but if we used our brains even once, we'd've seen that we've been fleeced but good over the last 30+ years... and that there might just be nothing left when they're done.Much, much more at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-HrBut most importantly? I implore you to read this book. It isn't about politics, it's not about left and right. It's about humanity trying to save itself from the vampire squids that are sucking every last drop of money from our pockets.
Transmetropolitan TP Vol 05 Lonely City New Ed (Transmetropolitan - Revised)
The beginning of the series is great and the election plot was fantastic - but Ellis and Robertson take readers to another level, starting here. The story, as well as its preceding one-shots, moves beautifully through squalor and loveliness all the while showing us a bit more of the human underneath Spider's manic aggressive shell. There's a lot of soul in there - and they're starting to show it to us. Too bad it happens just as sh!t really starts to hit the fan for Spider and the filthy assistants... and we're talking in the biggest of ways...More at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-Hn
Dark Lies the Island: Stories
A really splendid collection (if a bit slight) of tales set in Ireland / featuring Irishmen. Each of them is unique and perfectly formed (although a few feel unnecessary/like retreads of well-worn material) and the writing practically sings. It's a drinking song, usually, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. These are stories about the darker side of life, even if the stories aren't always dark - but they're also beautiful and poised. It's a good collection and one that's gotten me interested in reading more of Mr. Barry's work.More about it at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-Hi
Building Stories
An incredible and complex examination of our lives of quiet desperation, told from the points of view of a bickering couple, an old landlady, a woman with a missing leg, an industrious bee, and the building that collects them all together. It's an intimidating object - the size, the price tag, the lack of roadmap, and so on - but it is also just a towering work of intelligence and feeling. Ware so beautifully captures what it means to be human. Not the extraordinary but rather the opposite: all of the absolutely totally ordinary. Life, death, birth, loss, sadness, joy, and everything else you can think of. It's all here, all wrapped up in these fourteen "easily misplaced" pieces of art and words and amazingness. I go on a little rhapsodically at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-HePS: THIS IS A BOOK. I had the distinct pleasure of getting into this argument during the Tournament of Books this year and I'm happy to report that, upon completing the book, I was not in fact talking out of turn. This is a book, beautiful and crazy - it just doesn't look like the books you're used to.
Bloodfire Quest: The Dark Legacy of Shannara
As sharp as Brooks' writing continues to be, I can't shake the feeling that this book is just treading water, wasting time, setting up the pins for the third chapter knockout punch - instead of being a proper book in its own right where the plot sustains itself even modestly. Why spend all the time making things happen if you're just going to erase every single gain by the end of the book? Circumstances may've shifted but nobody really advanced all that far - making the third book have to carry way more than its fair share of the plot-burden.More at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-GY
Ghost Brigades
Dirac is, perhaps, a slightly less engaging narrator than John Perry - but the continuing increase in universal depth is impressive. This is a damn good follow-up to an already damn good book. It continues the intellectual questions about humanity and ethics... while also providing some really fantastically intense action sequences. Smart, fun, and fast - just the way I like it.More at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-GU
Old Man's War
I had a lot of fun with this - it's been a while since I've sat with a pocket paperback and just plowed through it. It's smart and well-considered sci-fi, rising above the traps of the genre while also making sure to hit all of the proper marks you'd expect in a first-time-out sort of adventure. Scalzi does a great job making the twists innovative or at least interesting and his eye for humanity in the midst of, you know, SPACE, is probably the best thing about the book. Makes for a rip-snorting, fun read - I'm looking forward to book two right now.More at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-GP
Look at Me
It's almost impossible to read this book with any sort of objective eye in the year 2013. It was written in the six years leading up to 2001 and released a week after 9/11. To've read it in, say, August 2001 - that would be the ideal. Because it isn't just the 9/11 thing that is prescient but rather the entire novel. Imagine a world without Facebook, without Twitter, without iPhones, without any of it. Then, imagine an author feeling those inevitable realities, maybe not in those forms but in their most basic thought-stages, and trying to express what creeping rot-of-the-soul lay underneath the feel-good 90s. This is the sort of novel that should make you want to write a paper (or several) just to parse all of the thoughts that it inspires. The only thing? It's a bit rocky at times, a bit too long, a bit... dare I say unfinished? It still feels like it never quite got where it wanted to go, although that aspired position was hands and heads above where just about anyone else can reach. You can see the seeds of Ms. Egan's later, more daring works here - and for that alone, it's well worth reading.More at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-GG
Dewey Decimal System, The (Akashic Urban Surreal Series)
This is really a 3.5 star review - GOODREADS, GIVE US THE HALF-STAR ABILITY! - but you do what you can. Taking the traditional guy-in-over-his-head noir structure, Larson sticks it in a dystopic near-future New York City (that's been decimated by flu and violence) and gives us a somewhat anonymous hero, a gentleman who's taken the name of Dewey Decimal. The book is most worth it for Dewey - he's brimming with quirks but all of them feel interesting and not like "oh, here's another quirk!" - and his System, as well as his smart-aleck voice. The plot won't surprise anyone who's ever read a noir novel but our hero(?) and the setting make it a worthwhile read. More at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-Gy
The Illusion of Separateness: A Novel
An exquisitely written puzzle-box of a novel - one that, perhaps, relies a bit too much on some classic tropes of "connectedness" and that feels, at times, crafted in its beauty as opposed to organically grown... but I was won over and let the beauty, artificial or natural aside, wash over me. It's a short and predictable piece but one that spins like a lovely figurine. You'll put it on your shelf when done and be pleased to've seen it, once upon a time.More at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-Gn
Who Could That Be at This Hour?
A bit more 3.5 - it feels, at times, like it's largely just set up for the circumstances of the rest of the series, no matter how many shenanigans occur over these 250ish pages - but a solid return from Mr. Snicket, who returns to tell us the story of a different young person than the Baudelaire orphans: himself. And instead of riffs on Gothic tradition, it's very much a Noir kind of story - with hard-boiled descriptions, deceptive dames, unreliable advisors, and more mystery than you could shake a stick at. The real question you should be asking yourself is not whether to read this book (that's the wrong question) but rather why it has taken you, like it took me, so long to do so. Especially if you liked those Unfortunate Events, which the author would regret if you said you did and hopes that you read any other book than this. That's why he has reviewers, to tell you that it IS in fact worth reading.More at RB: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-Gj
NOS4A2
Amazing. Career-defining. This is the big one, the epic that establishes Joe Hill as a titanic force in the fiction world. He learned a lot from his dad, yes that's true - but this book is on par with some of King's best work and it's only Hill's third (not including Locke & Key) book. It is massive, full of heart and life and terror and wonder. It's actually... it's hard to find words (beyond those used in the RB review, which is long and effusive) to explain the simple beauty of a novel like this. This is Great American Fiction, right here - tackling family themes and societal issues while also burning rubber to tell a heart-poundingly terrifying story. At 700ish pages, it practically flies out of your hands even in the slow bits. I stayed up two nights running until I fell asleep with the book on my chest because I could. not. put it down. I haven't done that in a very long time - so that alone should be praise enough.But if you need more... there's a lot more, fully deserved, at RB: http://wp.me/sGVzJ-nos4a2Seriously. If you take no other review I write seriously... take this one. This is an amazingly good book.