STACKED

books

Recent Reads, Twitter-Style

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Yep, it’s my turn for another set of Twitter-style reviews: short, snappy reviews of some of my recent reads.


My Mos

t Exc

ellent Year: A Story of Love, Mary Poppins, and Fenway Park

Stev

e Klu

ger

I’ve bee

n meaning to read this book for ages, and finally purchased it last month. Oh, am I glad I did. In three alte

rnating narratives, the reader meets Tony Conigliaro

(T.C.), a die-hard Red Sox fan w

ho is crushing hard on the hard-to-get Ale; Ale, an ambassador’s

daughter whose real passion is

the stage; and Augie, a recently out of the closet musical theater fanatic who is developi

ng his first crush on a boy. The three come together when they stage a school variety show and become involved in the life of a young deaf boy. As a Massachusetts n

ative, the Brookline and Boston locations fascinated me and the format (a mix of narrative, journa

l entries, IM chats, and posters) pulled me quickly through the text. But it is the heart of this novel that truly grabs the reader. I fell in love with each and every one of these loving, quirky, and charming characters.

Prom and Prejudice
Elizabeth Eulberg
Lizzie Bennet is a scholarship student at Longbourn Academy, an institution where

prom is the social event of the season and wealth and privilege are prized commodities. As she is only at Longbourn because of her music abilities, Lizzie is an outcast, tormented and excluded by all except for her kindhearted roommate, Jane. Jane, who is dating the sensitive Charles Bingley, introduces Lizzie to Charles’ friend Will Darcy, a snobby, self-

righteous student at their brother school, Pemberly. Lizzie and Darcy’s eventual clashes and misunderstandings subsequently follow the plot of Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice. While this book was, of course, predictable, Eulberg does a wonderful job of modernizing this oft-redone tale. While this is a fairly short book, Lizzie becomes a three dimensional character, and the twists and turns of Lizzie and Darcy’s courtship, though predetermined by Austen’s plot, ring true to the modern time period.


Beautiful Darkness
Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
This sequel to Beautiful Creatures, while engrossing, suffers a bit for me under the weight of its mythology. Although Ethan and Lena evaded Lena’s potential fate as a Dark Caster at the end of Beautiful Creatures, Lena is just as confused as ever in Beautiful Darkness, suffering from the weight of her guilt over a loved one’s untimely death and fearing that her seventeenth birthday will now bring the determination of her fate. As Lena begins to avoid Ethan, hanging out instead with the eerie, inscrutable John Breed, Ethan is pulled even deeper into the Caster world beneath the town of Gatlin. Aided by Link, Ridley, and Liv, Marian’s new apprentice, Ethan must figure out how to stop Lena from leaving him–and Gatlin–forever. While the reappearance of old characters was welcome and the new characters were well-integrated into the already established universe, I felt like there was almost too much mythology in this sequel, too many details piled on to one another. Nevertheless, Garci and Stohl excel at both world-building and sensory details, creating a vivid world that leaps from the page.
NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children (audiobook)

Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman
A fascinating compilation of intriguing recent scientific studies of child development that purports to upend tradition thinking about both childhood and parenting. The authors reveal why lying is actually a good thing in children, how praising children can end up backfiring, why parents should speak to their children openly and honestly about race, and what exactly encourages optimal and advanced language development in children. Narrator and co-author Po Bronson has a warm, engaging voice that truly invites the reader in to his fascinating research, and the book itself is quite accessible. While some of the advice that claimed to be revelatory in fact seemed like plain common sense to me, NurtureShock was nevertheless an intriguing read.

Audiosynced: Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

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My library’s collection of audiobooks for teens and tweens was practically nonexistent before I started working there, and I’ve been building it up slowly over many months.  One title I elected to purchase was Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, a novel which really needs no introduction.  I somehow missed out on reading it when I was a teen and it was first published in 1999, and it’s been in the spotlight once again recently, so I figured I should give it a whirl, even though I tend to stay away from contemporary YA.
In short: Melinda Sordino went to a party the summer between 8th and 9th grade.  Things got out of hand and she called the police, who arrived and broke up the party.  As a result, Melinda starts high school as a social pariah.  Her outcast status and unmentioned events that occurred at the party drive Melinda to silence.  Her former friends have ditched her, her grades drop, and she finds herself unable to talk to anyone about what’s happened – or, in most cases, talk at all.
While I think the book itself is a good one, the audio production is flawed.  The narrator speaks in a flat, monotone voice and as a result, it’s difficult to really feel for Melinda, even though what she’s experienced is incredibly traumatic.  Inflection is rare and there’s almost no vocal change between the characters.  I can understand why this choice may have been made: Melinda seems almost shell-shocked by what’s happened to her, and her reaction is to shut down rather than lash out.  It’s still not an effective narrative device for an audiobook.
Another factor that may have contributed to my dislike of the experience is my prior knowledge: I knew the midpoint twist ahead of time and thus was always anticipating when the ball would drop.  There was no mystery or “aha” moment for me. 
I did appreciate how the novel was structured, with a lot of cheeky asides and clever turns of phrase by Melinda (the cheerleaders get a group discount on abortions; her report card indicates an F in socializing and a D- in lunch).  Much of the dialogue is structured differently as well (“Mom: blahblah.  Me: silence”), an effective device for a novel about a girl who refuses to speak.
I think my mistake was listening to this novel on audio instead of reading it in print.  I never really got the impression that Melinda was silent, since I was, in fact, hearing her voice the entire time.  Thus the impact of the whole book was lessened significantly.
I listened to Speak right on the heels of Lauren Oliver’s Before I Fall, an excellent audio production of a different kind of story, but one whose intention was also to bring the reader into the head of the protagonist.  It was much more successful in this regard: I felt deeply for Sam, was completely invested in her situation, and believed wholeheartedly in her transformation.  In Speak, however, I felt more removed from Melinda than I think Halse Anderson intended.  I blame the audio production for this, since the whole point of Speak is that we don’t hear Melinda’s voice until the very end.
Speak is such an important book in the YA canon, and for good reason – it’s written well, is about an important topic, and still makes headlines more than ten years after its publication.  If you haven’t yet read it, it really should be added to your to-read list – but keep it off your to-listen-to one.

AudioSynced, January Edition

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Welcome to the new year and welcome to another installment of AudioSynced! We’ve got a lot of reviews this month. If you have a link to share, either of an audiobook review, news, best-of list, or anything else related to audiobooks, share it in the comments and we’ll pop it up.

We seem short on news this month, so if you’re a publisher, blogger, or other audiophile who has some sort of audiobook news from December, let me know.

The Best of 2010

What would a round up of audiobook news from December 2010 be without a few best of lists? Here’s just a sampling (and bonus! You can read blogger reviews of many of these titles in the next section).

Amazon.com editors give us a wide selection of favorite audiobooks of 2010.

Audible offers their best ofs here.

Audiofile gives us their favorites here.

Lee of Reading with My Ears offers her first list of favorites.

Audiobook reviews

I’m pretty blown away with the number of audiobooks reviewed this month. This is incredible, and the variety of titles this month means that surely, there is something here for everyone. Check them out!

Amanda at A Patchwork of Books reviews one of the Cybils shortlist titles, Swati Avasthi’s Split, this month.

Lee at Reading with My Ears offers up a ton of reviews this month (from middle grade to young adult to adult!), including Stieg Larsson’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Frank Cottrell Boyce’s Framed, Charles Portis’s True Grit, T. H. White’s The Sword in the Stone, and Laini Taylor’s Blackbringer.

Laura at Ramblings of a (Future) Librarian offers up a wealth of reviews this month, too. Check out her takes on John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines, Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, Andrea Cremer’s Nightshade, Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, Jandy Nelson’s The Sky is Everywhere, and John Green and David Levithan’s Will Grayson, Will Grayson.

Lanea at Books for Ears reviews Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of a Hedgehog.

Lenore at Presenting Lenore offers up a review of the Zombies vs. Unicorns anthology. I think this would be one heck of an awesome book to listen to!

Abby at Abby (the) Librarian gives us her take on Beverly Cleary’s classic Ramona and her Father.

Shelf Employed shares a review of Sara Pennypacker’s Clementine: Friend of the Week.

Jen of STACKED gives us her thoughts on the full cast production of Shannon Hale’s The Goose Girl.

From the Audio News Files:

Audiogo, home of BBC America Audiobooks, is offering a free download of Bill Pronzini’s Book Taker this month. This sleuthing tale should be an excellent way to kick off your audio listening for 2011. Check it out!

What I’m Reading Now, Twitter-Style

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Welcome to another edition of reviews Twitter-style: a brief description of my current reads in 140 characters or less (sometimes I fudge a few characters, but you can forgive me).

Print Books

StarCrossed
Elizabeth Bunce

By the author of the first Morris winner, so I’m giving this one a shot, even though I didn’t really care for her first book. Magic, complex world-building, and a plucky heroine.

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

Depressing but also eye-opening account of women in the poorest areas and worst situations. I look forward most to the sections on how people like us can help.

Fables Vol. 14: Witches
Bill Willingham

The latest in Willingham’s comic book series doesn’t disappoint, with a focus on a few of the more interesting characters (the witches). A bit too much exposition, but still satisfying.

Red as Blood, or Tales From the Sisters Grimmer
Tanith Lee

A collection of re-told fairy tales from one of my favorite authors. Edgy but not true horror (so far). The source material is sometimes difficult to determine, but I enjoy seeing how Lee re-works the familiar stories.

Wither
Lauren DeStefano

Another dystopia. Another trilogy. Girls die at 20, boys at 25. Girls sold into marriage and forced to pop out babies. Weak world-building and a too passive heroine weaken the tale, but it will satisfy diehard fans of the genre. 

Audiobooks

Before I Fall
Lauren Oliver

Mean girl dies and re-lives the same day over and over again, a la Groundhog Day minus the comedy. Terrific narrator, excellent writing, I’m actually enjoying a contemporary YA!

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Sherman Alexie

Yes, it really is as good as everyone says. The story – Indian boy leaves reservation to attend a white school – is a bit slight at times, but the narration (by Alexie himself) is wonderful and it’s full of real humor.

The Goose Girl, by Shannon Hale (audiobook)

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She can whisper to horses and communicate with birds, but the crown princess Ani has a difficult time finding her place in the royal family and measuring up to her imperial mother. When she is shipped off to a neighboring kingdom as a bride, her scheming entourage mounts a bloody mutiny to replace her with a jealous lady-in-waiting, Selia, and to allow an inner circle of guards more power in the new land. Barely escaping with her life, Ani disguises herself as a goose girl and wanders on the royal estate. Does she have the pluck to reclaim her rightful place?


Summary from Goodreads
While I have read a few books by Shannon Hale before (Book of a Thousand Days and Austenland), I was truly blown away by The Goose Girl. Hale took a simple Brothers Grimm fairy tale, and created a fully realized world around that structure, truly making it her own.
Shannon Hale’s writing is lush and gorgeous, filled with stunning, vivid descriptions. Both Kildenree and Bayern become vivid, real places under her pen, and the simplest descriptions of forest trees or flowers bloom to life. On multiple occasions through the course of this audiobook, I actually stopped, paused my iPod, and thought over the phrase that I had just heard, marveling how a simple decision of word choice and word order managed to paint such a scene in my mind.
I wish I had read this book when I was in middle school. Ani is a strong, determined female character, one who saves two kingdoms from war and also manages to thwart a cadre of men and a devious ‘friend’ scheming to take her life. Yet she’s unsure of herself, shaky in her self-belief, and not at all confident that her meager powers are enough to allow her to either fit in or triumph over the forces pushing against her. It is quite refreshing to witness a character express that lack of confidence and to see a loner gradually opening up to people around her and finding a place in a world that welcomes her, exactly as she is. The fourteen year old me who was so anxious about acceptance would have found a kindred spirit in Ani.
One of Hale’s strengths in this book is pacing, as the action never drags, yet we still witness quiet moments of Ani settling in, exploring, and finding her place in her new environment and new role as a Goose Girl. On the surface, the plot of this books seems as if it should be so simple: Mutiny occurs, Ani becomes a Goose Girl, Ani regains her crown. As easy as one, two, three. Yet so much more happens within the lines of this novel, as twists and turns, complications and missteps occur, leading Ani to test her strength in new ways and to form new relationships. In addition to Ani, the supporting characters are quite well-developed and three-dimensional. I was especially impressed with the character of Conrad, the Goose Boy whose jealousy of Ani’s popularity with the fellow child laborers leads to unforeseen consequences. This character could so easily have slipped into the token antagonist role, yet Hale managed to make his motives complex and relatable. The villians, most notably Selia and Ungolad, are menacing, yet appear in the flesh rarely. Hale uses the threat of their plots and Ani’s fear to great effect, creating a sense of foreboding throughout the story.
The Goose Girl was my first experience with an audiobook produced by Full Cast Audio, which used multiple actors to play various roles, rather than just one narrator taking on the voices of all the novel’s characters. The result is a lush, fully realized production that feels more like hearing a stage production of a story than listening to an audiobook. The music is interspersed at the perfect moments, with lilting tunes accompanying Ani’s communion with nature and animals, and tones of foreboding announcing the approach of danger. The main narrator Cynthia Bishop’s voice is authoritative and commanding, grabbing the listener’s attention and blazing a path through Hale’s tale. Erica Lustig, the voice of Ani, has a sweet, melodious voice, one that seems ideal for communication with both nature and animals. Her intonation, while slightly timid, is able to gain enough strength to depict Ani’s transformation in the last half of the novel. I was also impressed with the work of Emily Holgate, the voice of Enna. Holgate perfectly portrays the strong, assertive character whose support and friendship gives Ani the courage to forge ahead and the acceptance to be herself.
I am looking forward to continuing with the next book in Shannon Hale’s Books of Bayern series, Enna Burning. I would hand this to fans of Robin McKinley, Tamora Pierce, or Gail Carson Levine.