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books

Fairest by Marissa Meyer

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fairest meyerRebecca Soler is my new favorite audiobook narrator, but only for stories with a certain kind of character – the defiant, no regrets girl who slowly moves from shades-of-gray to all bad (or nearly so). She reads Marissa Meyer’s story about Levana, the evil queen in the Lunar Chronicles series, and she does such a fantastic job that I listened to the ending twice, which gave me chills both times. She also narrated Violet in Nova Ren Suma’s The Walls Around Us, which I highly recommend on audio, in large part thanks to Soler’s narration.

I was surprised by how much I liked Fairest, mainly because I’m not a big fan of short stories or novellas and I didn’t find Levana all that compelling in the series proper. But she is quite compelling here. Meyer gives her character depth that’s largely missing from the previous three novels, but not in a way that necessarily garners overwhelming sympathy. She just becomes interesting in her badness. I was able to see both how Levana became the person she is, as well as how she was, in many ways, already that person. She’s not a good person and doesn’t much care about being a good person in the first place. She’s wholly concerned with her own happiness and slowly cares less and less about how the pursuit of that happiness affects others – in part because no one else ever cared about how their actions affected her.

Soler’s narration perfectly captures this. Levana is hesitant at first, desperately wishing for love and affection, from one man in particular. It develops from a young girl’s crush into something much more sinister, moving beyond a need for love to a need for control above all, and Soler’s tone grows darker to match this change, until she reads the final line that ends Levana’s final terrible act, the aforementioned ending that gave me chills.

I was concerned that Meyer would milk Levana’s sad background to develop sympathy, but that’s not the tack she takes, for which I’m grateful. There’s definitely some sympathy there, but not so much that we can’t still root against her in Winter, or claim that she’s merely misunderstood, or isn’t responsible for her own actions. We can, she’s not, and she is. This is a fascinating read for Lunar Chronicles fans, as well as a great example of how to write an interesting villain – I hope Levana continues to be just as interesting in Winter.

What I’m Reading Now

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I’ve taken this month off of blogging to relax in my reading. I’ve spent a lot of time laying on my couch, zoning out and listening to old audiobook favorites. In fact, I’ve been doing a lot of re-reading in general, in audio and in print. While organizing my bookshelves at my new home, I couldn’t help but page through some of the books that now sit on what I call my “books that changed my life” shelf. (Every time I pass by a copy of The Book Thief, whether my own or at a bookstore, I have to pick it up and read the last few pages.)

Now that my house is in order (more or less) and things seem to have settled down a bit more in my personal life, though, I’m really excited to dive back into new stuff, especially children’s and YA. I’m especially excited because I’m transitioning into a new job within my organization, one that is allowing me to return to youth materials collection management. So my post for today is a nice, healthy mix of the old and the new.

For starters, I’ve been working my way through the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters. I first read a few of these as a teenager, then made a concerted effort to listen to them all on audio while I was in library school in 2009. I decided to re-listen to them all again after being reminded how great Barbara Rosenblat is, and the decision has been a good one. I’m currently on book number 8, The Hippopotamus Pool, and the entire series has been great fun. It’s been so good to reconnect with characters I have such fond memories of from both my childhood and my early adulthood. I love looking forward to a character being introduced or a particular event happening, and I love knowing that everything will work itself out happily – mostly – in the end (though it may take a few books to get there, and some endings are more bitter than sweet). Each time I re-read these books, I pick up more on Amelia’s character (she’s actually not a great sleuth, nor is her husband, and she’s quite a bit snobbier than I initially realized, though I still love her). Re-reading favorites is a great pleasure.

I’m pretty picky about the middle grade books I read, but Louis Sachar’s books are usually a good bet (Holes remains one of the best books for children I’ve ever read). He’s also local, which makes me more inclined to to read his stuff. Inevitably, anything Sachar publishes will be compared to Holes, which is probably unfair. In reading his latest, Fuzzy Mud, which will hit shelves in August, I tried to also evaluate it independently. The book is recognizably Sachar – a bit wry, a bit dark, with a plot that seems kind of goofy but is also quite serious. Sachar’s kid characters are brave and scared at the same time, and he never writes down to his readers. The plotting doesn’t match the mastery of Holes and the humor isn’t as overt as the Wayside School books, but it’s quite a good story regardless, with a few uniquely creative touches that I really appreciated. I’ll review this one more in-depth closer to its publication date.

I don’t remember where I got the recommendation for Jude Deveraux’s A Knight in Shining Armor (possibly a list of must-read canonical romance novels somewhere). I don’t know that I’ve ever read any Deveraux before, and this one had a few strikes against it already: it was written in the 80s (I have an unreasonable prejudice for any media created in that decade), it doesn’t have a typical happily ever after, the audiobook is narrated by a man (so awkward during certain scenes), and the heroine’s name is Dougless. Thankfully, this last strike has an explanation within the novel, though it takes a while to get to it. Overall, I’m enjoying it. It’s a little campy, but in a fun way. Once I got past the setup describing how awful Dougless’ situation was with her terrible boyfriend (a bit too pathetic and something I probably would have skimmed in a print book) and the literal knight in shining armor showed up from the 17th century, things got a lot more interesting. Right now, Dougless and her knight are stumbling around in the 1980s as he tries to convince her he actually has traveled from the past. Later, I know they’ll travel back to the 17th century, and that should be extra fun. It feels kind of like Outlander lite – there’s a hunky man from the past, but a lot less violence and mortal peril.

Read by the Author

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Authors who narrate their own books produce audiobooks of mixed quality, in my experience. Often authors who read their own memoirs or autobiographies have more success than authors who read their novels (presumably because they lived the words and therefore feel them more authentically), but even then, I’ve run across some real duds. Some authors just aren’t meant to be narrators.

During Cybils season last year, I listened to a lot of audiobooks as part of my strategy to read as many nominees as possible. One such book was Night Sky by Suzanne and Melanie Brockmann (who narrated). The book itself was just OK, but it could have been elevated by some truly excellent narration. Unfortunately, Melanie Brockmann isn’t really up to the task. Her narration isn’t terrible, but it has enough negatives to impinge on the listening experience – she sounds like she runs out of air a lot (probably not helped by the really long sentences), and she doesn’t voice any of the characters at all. Sometimes voicing can negatively impact an audiobook when it’s done poorly, but here it was just confusing and pretty dull.

There are a few novels read by their authors that I’ve really enjoyed, though. Sherman Alexie’s narration of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is so good that I didn’t even miss the illustrations, and Neil Gaiman has a voice made for narration. I also really love Philip Pullman’s treatment of The Golden Compass and its sequels for Full Cast Audio. He provides the general narration while a full cast of other readers provide the dialogue. His calm, even voice is a perfect backdrop for the more energetic characters performed by others.

When it comes to nonfiction, I’ve really enjoyed David Sedaris’ works, though it took me a while to warm up to his style of narration. He’s quite dry and it doesn’t always seem like he’s telling a joke – though of course he is. Now I can’t imagine listening to his books read by anyone else. Stephen King’s On Writing is also an exceptional example of nonfiction read by the author (though Stephen King’s writing is so good, I’m not sure even a bad narrator could ruin the experience completely).

Audiobook lovers – what has been your experience with books read by their authors? Are you a fan?

Audio Review: Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer

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I mentioned that Under the Banner of Heaven was next on my list after reading a couple of memoirs by Carolyn Jessop, who escaped the FLDS. Krakauer’s book focuses on the murders of Brenda Lafferty and her infant daughter Erica in 1984 by her brothers-in-law Ron and Dan Lafferty. The Lafferty brothers were not members of the FLDS, but they subscribed to many similar fundamentalist Mormon views, most notably polygamy (aka “celestial marriage”). For a period of time, they were involved with a group called the Crossfield School of Prophets, but mostly they acted separately from any recognized religion or cult. Ron soon came to believe that God told him to kill Brenda, whom he believed was responsible for his own wife leaving him.

While Krakauer’s investigation of the double murder is the central part of the book, the whole scope is actually quite broad. His intention was to explore “violent faith” as it occurs in fundamentalist Mormons. He chose Mormonism for this exploration because he grew up around a large Mormon population, though he was not Mormon himself. He writes about this in the last chapter of the book, and it’s strongly implied that the conclusions he draws about the origins of Mormon extremism are applicable to other faiths.

To get to those origins, Krakauer takes us on a long journey through Mormonism’s history. The modern, mainstream Mormon church vociferously distances itself from people like the Laffertys and the FLDS, but the seeds of the fundamentalist sects were planted in their shared history. Krakauer writes about Joseph Smith, the Mountain Meadows massacre, Brigham Young, the many violent clashes between Mormons and non-Mormons before the trek to Utah, the introduction of polygamy to the religion and its eventual abandonment of the practice due to pressure from the federal government (and its subsequent acceptance into the mainstream American culture). He brings up the point that because Mormonism is so new and came of age in the modern era, it’s subjected to a great deal of scrutiny, and its skeletons are harder to hide. Consequently, I knew about much of this before I read the book, but I still found Krakauer’s exploration of the personalities behind Mormonism’s founding immensely interesting. What draws me to nonfiction about cults (and religions in general) is my desire to understand what makes people believe what they do, especially when such beliefs are not widely accepted. Krakauer write at length about Smith and Young and their magnetic appeal, as well as the appeal of the messages they spread.

Krakauer also touches on a variety of Mormon fundamentalist offshoots, including the FLDS and the School of Prophets. He writes briefly about the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping as well, and his interest seems to be not just the organized Mormon fundamentalist cults like the FLDS, but also how mainstream Mormons’ beliefs give way to individual fundamentalist beliefs, such as was the case with the Laffertys.

Krakauer talked at length with Ron Lafferty, who is in prison serving a life sentence (his brother Dan was executed). He’s quoted in the book frequently, and his account of the murders and the “revelation” he received from God are disturbing. I normally stay away from true crime because of this, and I can’t say I enjoyed the details of Ron’s acts, but what he revealed to Krakauer about his thought process and the development of his religious beliefs (which have changed in radical ways since he went to prison) was fascinating. I also found myself picturing what it would be like to be in Krakauer’s shoes, sitting across from Ron as he talked about his crimes.

This was published in 2003, four years before Carolyn Jessop wrote her memoir Escape. It was interesting to read the snippets of FLDS history with the knowledge of what Jessop would write about a few years later and the raid on the YFZ ranch that would soon follow. I wonder how Krakauer’s own book would have changed if it were written after these events (though the FLDS is not the focus).

Krakauer narrates the book himself, and he’s well-suited to it. He infuses a lot of personality into it, and he’s got a few unique mannerisms that I found interesting. Often when he’s quoting someone (Ron in particular, but also others not involved in violent acts, but merely witnesses to it), he’ll emphasize consonants. He’ll draw out the first “n” in anything and the “t” in pretty (as in “pretty much”). Sometimes it makes the dialogue come across as slightly mocking (very effective for Dan), sometimes just musical – it’s got a rhythm to it that is often missing from audiobooks narrated by their authors.

If you’re interested in the subject matter, I highly recommend this one.

Audiobook borrowed from my local library.

A Memoir, a Novel, and a Graphic Novel

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Triumph by Carolyn Jessop
My interest in religious cults continues, apparently. This is Carolyn Jessop’s continuation of the story she began in Escape. It focuses largely on her involvement with the raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Texas in 2008. While the children taken in the raid were eventually all returned to their families (which Jessop believes was the wrong move to make), the raid did result in several prosecutions and convictions of FLDS men for allowing underage marriages to occur. Jessop testified at some of these trials/hearings and talks a lot about how trying it was for her and her family, but that she also found courage and power in it. The second part of the book goes into how she found the strength to succeed as a single mother with eight children in a world that didn’t understand her (and vice versa). She writes about what she learned from her grandmothers and how she leaned on the welfare system as well as how she drew from her own well of strength and believes others can learn from her example. She prefaces this by stating that at her speaking engagements, many people asked her about these things and she thought it was worth exploring. I agree, but the number of Goodreads reviewers who lambast her for being full of herself or “inserting too many of her own opinions” are alarming. She believes she is strong and extraordinary, and she is. It reminds me a lot of that social experiment that went around the internet a few weeks ago where women accept compliments and then get hate for it. People tell Carolyn Jessop she is extraordinary but then expect her to declaim it. I’m glad she doesn’t.

Audiobook borrowed from my library.

Beastkeeper by Cat Hellisen
I read Hellisen’s YA book, When the Sea is Rising Red, a few years ago and was impressed by the lovely writing but let down by the story. The blurb for her middle grade, Beastkeeper, was intriguing and the book was short enough that I felt like I wouldn’t be wasting too much of my time if I ended up not enjoying it. It’s about a girl, Sarah, whose mother leaves her one day, and whose father slowly starts turning into a beast. He leaves her at her grandmother’s house and she learns of a curse going back two generations in her family that causes a person to turn into a beast when they fall in love – or something like that. The mythology is interesting but it just never really came together. I’m still a little puzzled by it. Moreover, the characters always felt like they existed at a remove from the reader, something that may just be characteristic of Hellisen’s writing, as I felt this way about her other book as well. Promising, but ultimately just OK.

Review copy received from the publisher. Beastkeeper is available now.

Dragons Beware by Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado
The first book in this graphic novel series for kids, Giants Beware, was a favorite of mine in 2012, and I was part of the judging panel that chose it as a Cybils winner that year. Dragons Beware brings back all of the delightful characters – fierce fighter Claudette, her little brother Gaston who has a fondness for baking (but has resolved to give it up until he too can learn to fight), and her friend princess Marie. This time, they take on the dragon that maimed her father in order to reclaim his sword. This book chronicles yet another funny, exciting adventure with full-color, expressive artwork. The characters genuinely care about each other, they’re all brave in their own way, and Aguirre and Rosado clearly respect their individual strengths. While Claudette is a tomboy, the book handily dismisses the notion that a girl who want to be a princess and loves frilly dresses (Marie) can’t also fight and be brave and save her friends. And Gaston is precious as ever as he learns to accept his own uniqueness rather than trying to emulate others. Another home run.

Finished copy received from the publisher. Dragons Beware is available today!