REVIEW: Bob - Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead

• Year first released:  2018
• ISBN of the edition I read:  1250166624
• Publisher of the edition I read:  Feiwel & Friends
• My rating (out of 5):  4

First and foremost, I have to say: I find this book's name to be deeply unfortunate. Just try to search online for Bob and see what comes up. On Amazon, the book is the 15th result. On Barnes & Noble, it's the 19th result...on page 2 (so 39th overall, basically). And on Google...forget it. I didn't have the patience to scroll enough to figure it out.

So, despite the fact that it's only a few months old, Bob isn't the most findable book out there. It's worth finding, though. (Luckily for you, I've made it easy by giving you not only the authors' names, but also that B&N link at the top. You're welcome.)

Bob is a rather adorable book about some sort of little critter named Bob who's been hiding in Gran's closet for the past five years waiting for Livy to return. Luckily for him, the book begins with Livy's return. (Gran is Livy's grandmother who lives in Australia - whereas Livy lives in Massachusetts - hence why it's taken now-11-year-old Livy so long to return.)

Unluckily for Bob, though, it turns out that Livy completely forgot about Bob in the time since her last visit.

So begins Livy and Bob's quest to figure out what precisely Bob even is (is he a zombie? a chicken? - of course he's not either, but the two ideas are woven into the book in fun ways), where he comes from, and why Livy forgot everything about him over the course of the past five years.

At only about 200 pages - and with smaller-than-normal paper size and larger-than-normal font - Bob is a quick read. (I read it in less than a day.) This quickness is mostly to its credit, but it also hides Bob's biggest flaw:

There isn't a whole lot of note that happens in the book. It certainly doesn't feel slow, but once the adventure really kicks off, I suddenly felt as though I'd just finished reading a rather lengthy prelude. And since the adventure kicks off about three-quarters of the way into the book, that's a lot of prelude. Again, it wasn't in any way a bore to read - it was cute in the meantime, and passed by quickly enough - but I still had to ask: shouldn't the heart of this adventure have started a bit sooner?

Instead we have a nice, simple, but somewhat featureless story for about 150 pages, then a fun, energetic adventure for about 50. It's not overly jarring, but it feels unbalanced.

Having dual authors as it does - and added to the fact that I've not read any other books by either author - I can't identify which author is responsible for what parts of the book. It's told in alternating voices - the odd chapters are from Livy's perspective, the even from Bob's - so perhaps one author wrote all of Livy, and the other all of Bob(?) I couldn't tell you. Either way, though, regardless of who wrote what in the book, the entire package comes off with a sweet, consistent tone that was warming to read. Even if the first 150 pages felt a bit flat compared to the final 50, they were still pleasing to spend time in.

I don't know that I see Bob becoming a classic, nor "standard" reading for children. (And it is very much a children's book - there isn't necessarily a lot for adults to be captivated by here.) Regardless, it was still a pleasant, endearing read that I was glad to have experienced.

REVIEW: What I Leave Behind - Alison McGhee

• Year first released:  2018
• ISBN of the edition I read:  9781481476560
• Publisher of the edition I read:  Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
• My rating (out of 5):  5

After last year's phenomenal Turtles All the Way Down (which I reviewed for you here), What I Leave Behind is the book I've been most excited about getting into. Though I've not yet reviewed any of McGhee's other books for you, two of her previous novels - All Rivers Flow to the Sea and Shadow Baby - are both incredible, five-star books that sit in a special place on my shelf. I'd even go so far as to say that Shadow Baby is one of the most well-written books I've ever read. Alison McGhee - more than other writers writing in her genre - has a downright magical way with words that somehow make them rise above their static, everyday meanings. Perhaps the best word to describe her writing is transcendent.

All of that said, What I Leave Behind certainly had big shoes to fill. The question is: did it succeed?

It did and it didn't.

Rather, it did, but in a unique way, and much differently than McGhee has done before.

The first thing to note about the writing in What I Leave Behind is that it follows a very particular pattern: all of the text only appears on the right-hand pages, and each of those pages has exactly 100 words. (And, considering that there are exactly 100 pages with writing, the math comes out to only 10,000 words - technically a short story wrapped up in novel form. But that's neither here nor there.)

I knew this fact going in to the book; it's been touted a bit in the marketing, pre-release interviews, etc. The idea appealed to me; I was interested to see how it would actually play out once I had the book in front of me.

For the first dozen or so pages, I was a bit put off by this style. It was a bit hard to separate this knowledge from the way the actual words and sentences came together. Why does Will [the protagonist] say "you know" so much? Why are there so many sentence fragments all throughout? For those first handful of pages, in all honesty, it felt like a gimmick, like McGhee was just forcefully throwing in these extra little tidbits to make sure she hit her 100-word mark for the page.

Somewhere along the way, though (thankfully not too far in to the book), something about this entire setup fell into place. There was a tempo to the book. All of those "you know's" sprinkled throughout gave Will a personality, a rhythm to his thoughts and speech. (Importantly, the book is written in the first-person point of view.) Those sentence fragments, half-thoughts, catchphrases, and repeated descriptions all came together to create a flow to Will's story.

After a couple things in Will's life suddenly spiraled out of control, he became a walker. He walks everywhere - to school, to work at the dollar store, to his friend Playa's house, around the neighborhood, to the Chinese goods market. By this walking, he develops a pattern to his life (a very common, human response to tragedy, if you've read any books on psychology). And, as we realize throughout the book, this pattern is his cadence, the normality which keeps his life grounded and together. In this way, Will is certainly one of the stronger, more realistic (and yet still optimistic) characters I've come across in young adult fiction.

It turns out the rhythm to McGhee's writing in What I Leave Behind mirrors the rhythm Will is attempting to bring into his life - a phenomenal marriage of content and form. It is exceedingly rare we find a book that pulls off this feat so well. Even without the strong characters and optimistic overtone, this marriage alone would make the book well worth reading.

Despite my hesitation in the first handful of pages, McGhee has once again proven that she is still a master wordsmith. This time around, she chose a different approach - a different way of tying all of the words and pieces together - than she's done previously, but with no less lyrical, transcendent results. I'll be just as excited to read her next work of art.

REVIEW: The Housekeeper and the Professor - Yoko Ogawa

• Year first released:  2003 (Japanese), 2009 (English)
• ISBN of the edition I read:  9780312427801
• Publisher of the edition I read:  Picador
• My rating (out of 5):  5

I'm sure you've heard it said before - or perhaps even said it yourself - that "either you're good at English, or you're good at math." I've never felt this way - I've always enjoyed both quite a bit. In fact, in those rare occasions when I come across a combination of the two - say, a novel which uses mathematics as an important motif - chances are quite decent that I'm going to be spellbound by the book.

This was certainly the case with PopCo by Scarlett Thomas, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, and Momo by Michael Ende.

This is also exactly what happened with The Housekeeper and the Professor. With it, Ogawa creates what is easily one of the most charming novels I've come across (in a very long time, if not ever), using a simple story peppered with complicated (but well-explained) mathematics, to show us the relationship between the two nameless main characters: an elderly, retired professor of mathematics who suffers from a unique form of dementia, and his newest housekeeper.

The professor's dementia plays a key role in how the plot and the characters develop. After a traumatic car accident over thirty years ago, he can no longer create new memories. Instead, every eighty minutes his short-term memory "resets," so to speak. (You might be reminded of the movie 50 First Dates. Yes, Housekeeper employs a similar trope, but in a significantly more mature, wonderful manner.)

To the professor, everything is mathematical. Upon first meeting his new housekeeper, one of the first questions he asks is her shoe size. Later it's her birthday. Another time it's her height at birth. And all of these, he twists into formulas, explains to her why the numbers are each elegant in their own way, and how everything in life connects more than we realize.

It's a word that Ogawa uses often all throughout the book - "elegant" - which is a perfect description of mathematics, and a perfect description of the book. There's a thread of beauty which courses all throughout the book, whether it's in the professor's mathematical explanations, his metaphors, even the way the narrator (the housekeeper) weaves in and out of chronology to tell her story.

Housekeeper pulses with a profound sense of wonder, but perhaps the most miraculous element of all is that this wonder never dips into the surreal or the otherworldly. Ogawa shows the beauty in coincidence, in numbers, in baseball games and birthday parties and post-it notes. Much like I said in my review of Good Morning, Midnight almost a year ago, Housekeeper doesn't trouble itself with focusing on the negative side of reality. Though of course the book has its tension and conflicts, it is more about the wonder, the beauty, the positivity - without ever overstepping its bounds, sugar-coating its hardships, or dipping its toes into the too-good-to-be-true. It is, instead, a real, earthy novel which knows what it wants to tell us, and tells us in the most graceful way possible.

Throughout the book, we realize that the professor is exactly right: everything in life is mathematical - we just aren't as consistently, acutely aware of it as is the professor. And, if everything is mathematical, then by extension, everything is full of beauty and wonder as well.

Elegant, indeed.

REVIEW: Foundation - Isaac Asimov

• Year first released:  1951
• ISBN of the edition I read:  9780380009145 (Mine is a particularly old edition. You can get the more current, "common" edition here.)
• Publisher of the edition I read:  Avon
• My rating (out of 5):  4

I know I'm late to the ball game on this one. Now sixty-seven years old, Foundation has been one of the most highly-regarded novels in all of science fiction. Better late than never, I suppose.

It's a bit of a stretch to call Foundation a novel, though. It is actually a series of five novellas, placed in chronological order, each of which takes place at least thirty years after the previous. Character names and points in the universe's history are referenced as the novellas progress, but they don't, per se, tell one cohesive plot. They are, rather, fragments from the history of the decline of the Galactic Empire, snapshots of events which ultimately add up to the empire's fall.

Though I have nothing against this sort of arrangement, there is a bit of a problem built in to it by default: each of the five stories is quite compelling, but needlessly brief. Overall, Foundation almost reads like an encyclopedia with only five entries. Sure, each novellas has a plot, characters, twists, etc., but all of these things are merely used to illustrate the encyclopedia-like entries, each of which effectively says, "Here are the events and key players around this moment in time, which play a part in the inevitable decline of the Galactic Empire." (A decline, by the way, which is not fully realized by the end of the book - not really a spoiler, so don't be concerned.)

That said, now that I've finished reading the book, I'm left feeling as though I haven't even scratched the surface of Foundation's universe. The characters stay only long enough to amplify their place in the historical timeline. There is virtually no backstory to any of the places, technologies, cultures, or ideals that come together to create the Galactic Empire, and precious little of these elements to indicate the empire's unavoidable decline. Foundation gives us these fragments, and very little else. In this way, we might even say that it reads like a scripture.

All of that sounds like a complaint, I'm sure, but I'm not certain if it actually is.

It's true that the fragmentary nature of the book as a whole left me feeling incomplete. The reason I felt this way, though, is because I knew there must be so much more to the story. And though I wish on the one hand that Asimov gave us this "more;" on the other hand, it says something profound about the writing and the universe-building that I can have such a longing for all of the missing pieces.*

This approach actually gives the story much more credibility than a book which seems as though it was built from the ground up. Foundation feels as though it was, instead, simply pulled out of a much larger, greater story that was already out there, waiting to be told, like Asimov is simply the one who happened to notice it and write it down for us. Certainly this is a powerful way to craft a story, one which is quite rare in literature.

Overall, the complaint is its own antidote, I think. Do I wish there was more backstory and development? Partially, yes. I was especially fond of the first of the five novellas - The Psychohistorians - and would love to read an entire novel based solely on that epoch of the Empire's history. And the wit of Salvor Hardin (the main character of the third novella, The Mayors) was so enjoyable that I'd like to read more of his antics.

Then again, Michael Angelo once said, "Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.” Sometimes the longing is better than the completion. Sometimes knowing that there's more to be known is more profound than knowing everything. Foundation is a great example of this ideal.




(*Of course Foundation is only the first in a series. And though some parts of this nebulous "more" are bound to appear in other volumes, I believe that the point still stands - particularly if the other entries are told in the same fragmentary, encyclopedic fashion.)

On Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet

I can't recall when I first read A Wrinkle in Time anymore - I'm pretty sure I was in middle school at the time. I had to read it for a class assignment, I believe. And if I recall, I didn't necessarily love it, but I enjoyed how smart it made me feel. I mean, after reading it, I became someone who knew what a tesseract was. So. There.

(Mind you, a tesseract is actually a real thing, but it's nothing like what it is in Wrinkle. But of course I didn't know that at the time. Oh well.)

I read it again some years ago (I think about 10 years ago), and liked it quite a bit more than the first time around. That's when I decided - finally - to give the rest of the series a go.

Now, with the Wrinkle in Time movie (finally!) upon us, I have to say: yes, I'm excited for the movie. Based on what I've seen and read about it so far, it seems like the creators might be on to something special with it. But the rest of the books (after Wrinkle) were...well, underwhelming, to put it kindly.

This happens often with sequels/series, of course. (Especially, for some reason, movie sequels. It's not quite as bad with book sequels, but still too often.) Sometimes it's hard to say exactly what goes wrong with subsequent titles. They just don't have quite the same magic as the first entry, I suppose.

It's sadly, painfully clear what went wrong with Wrinkle's sequels, though. So let's explore that.

A Wrinkle in Time was an incredibly visionary book that took place throughout several corners of space and time. And, importantly, as the plot goes on, its scope increases exponentially - in fact, compared to other books, the rate of increase is much faster and larger than average. What begins as a search for a missing father quickly snowballs into an enormous spiritual war spanning space and time. Books just don't explode like this very often; it's to L'Engle's credit that she handled it so deftly.

Then we get to the second book, A Wind in the Door.

Well then. Let's begin with a synopsis of the plot from Wikipedia (accessed 1.29.18):

Main character Meg Murry is worried about her brother Charles Wallace, a 6-year-old genius bullied at school by the other children. The new principal of the elementary school is the former high school principal, Mr. Jenkins, who often disciplined Meg, and who Meg is sure has a grudge against her whole family. Meg tries to enlist Jenkins's help in protecting her brother, but is unsuccessful. Later, Meg discovers that Charles Wallace has a progressive disease that is leaving him short of breath. Their mother, a microbiologist, suspects it may be a disorder of his mitochondria and his mitochondria's farandolae, (fictional) micro-organelles inside mitochondria.

One afternoon, Charles Wallace tells Meg of a "drive of dragons" in their back yard, where he and Meg thereupon discover a pile of unusual feathers. Later, Meg has a frightening encounter with a monstrous facsimile of Mr. Jenkins. That night, Meg, Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin O'Keefe discover that Charles Wallace's "drive of dragons" is an extraterrestrial "cherubim" named Proginoskes (nicknamed 'Progo' by Meg), under the tutelage of the immense humanoid Blajeny, who recruits the three children to counteract the Echthroi.

Meg's first task, on the next day, is to distinguish the real Mr. Jenkins from two Echthroi doubles, by identification of the (potential) goodness in him despite her personal grudge. The protagonists then learn that Echthroi are destroying Charles Wallace's farandolae, and travel inside one of his mitochondria, to persuade a larval farandola, named Sporos, to accept its role as a mature fara, against the urgings of an Echthros. 

...because all of that makes perfect sense, and sounds like one cohesive book, doesn't it?

False. The book is a jumbled mess which begins with a down-to-earth-bullying situation and ends in a veritable Magic School Bus episode in which they shrink and travel through Charles' blood. Oh, and there are dragons and angels and some sort of immature amoeba along the way...or something.

All of the space and time mysteries from Wrinkle have disappeared. The deeply unsettling social commentary from the cookie-cutter-esque planet, the majesty and wisdom of the Mrs W's, the intricate workings of the tesseract - all gone the way of the dinosaurs. Now we have...well, that.^^^

The third book in the series - A Swiftly-Tilting Planet - plays out in a nominally more interesting way...at least until you stop and think about the synopsis, which is, basically:

Nuclear war is imminent. Luckily Charles Wallace (now 16 years old) is given a magical...you know, incantation/recital/abra-kadabra thingy which he chants outside one night until a unicorn comes to take him back in time, where he telepathically links up with various people in the past in order to change the present and prevent the war. (Which is, of course, clearly the most effective way to head off a nuclear war. Props to him.)

No really. That about sums it up. I wish I was kidding.

I mean, Swiftly was cohesive, at least.

Oh, and the fourth book - Many Waters - you ask? That's the one in which two of the minor characters from the other books finally get their turn at an adventure, by going back in time to the age of Noah (of the ark-builder variety) to...well, who knows why they're there, actually. Help herd the animals, I guess. Oh, and they help fight off the evil shape-shifting demons - here called Nephilim - who like to disguise themselves as animals, and occasionally try to seduce teenage boys.

(At this point, I'd insert an emoji for a a dry, sarcastic sniff, if only there was one.)

Really, though: what on earth went wrong? How could L'Engle have started with something so brilliant and moving and bigger than space with Wrinkle, then turn it into a Magic School Bus episode, then a time-travelling unicorn, and finally a replay of Noah's Ark with pedophilic demons?

It's a mystery, to be sure.

If you're scratching your head and thinking WTF? - well, friend, so am I.

Hopefully they won't bother making the sequels into movies. My wish that that they'll nail Wrinkle, then quit while they're ahead.

REVIEW: The City & The City - China Miéville

• Year first released:  2009
• ISBN of the edition I read:  9780345497512
• Publisher of the edition I read:  Ballantine Books
• My rating (out of 5):  3

The City & The City is one of those books that tries very hard to defy classification. I borrowed it from the library, where it was labelled as a fantasy. I can't agree with this genre, though. I've also seen it referred to as a sci-fi in several places - definitely also a fallacy. I suppose that, primarily, we could call it a mystery - the plot, at least, is a crime drama - but the setting of the book is unlike anything else you've come across in a mystery - enough so, that somehow calling the book a mystery feels misleading. Rather, the setting would fall squarely into the realm of magic realism...except that there's nothing actually magical or supernatural about it.

Confusing, I know.

Now then. Since the main conceit of the book revolves around this setting, I'll attempt to describe it for you:

There's really no easy way to explain it - and Miéville takes almost the entirety of the book to slowly work through the intricacies of this setup - but The City & The City takes place in two cities: the average, everyday, European city of Besźel; and the higher-class, cleaner (and also European) city of Ul Qoma.

The catch to all of this, you ask?

Besźel and Ul Qoma occupy the same space geographically. They have most of the same streets, parks, even buildings. A person walking on the sidewalk might be in one city, or he might be in the other. There is no separating wall, no change in climate, no distance between them.

The only separation between the two cities are psychological and legal. The citizens of each city are taught to completely ignore all of the facets of the other city - the other citizens, the other buildings, the other trees. They must, by law, "unsee" (or "unhear," "unsmell," etc.) every single aspect of the other city. And "breaching" this ignorance is a crime that comes with severe penalties.

Travelling into the other city is an intricate, time-consuming affair. A passport must be secured and an intense orientation process completed. The irony is that, in order to "travel" to the other city, one must drive all the way to and through a border checkpoint and, for all intents and purposes, make a u-turn. Now that you've "entered" the other city, though - even though you're literally still driving on the same street you were before the border crossing - all of your "unseeing" must be done in reverse: you must ignore all of the people and buildings and landmarks you're used to, and instead focus only on these elements of the other city.

A small example: partway through the book, the main character, Tyador (who is a police officer in Besźel), must cross into Ul Qoma. There, he begins working with an Ul Qoman detective. At dinner one night, the two discover that they live just down the street from each other. Having "unseen" each other all their lives, though, they were never aware of the other's existence - nor even the existence of the other person's house.

Weird.

Of course there's nothing even remotely similar to this in our world to which we might compare the cities. As a reader, the concept takes some getting used to. It is certainly one that requires you to activate your suspension of disbelief. And if for no reason other than exploring this fascinating idea - seeing all the explanations for it, all the little details and ways in which it plays out - it's worth suspending it.

This is the world of The City & The City. After all that description, I'm sure I don't need to tell you how deeply imaginative the entire thing is; it is, without a doubt, the best part of the book.

This statement, though, is actually good and bad. Miéville clearly went to incredible lengths to create such a phenomenal world, only to populate it with average characters and a mildly above average murder mystery. It almost feels as though the twin-city setting of City is too good to have been spent on all of the other elements that go into the book.

To be fair, the parts of the murder mystery which directly tie into the twin cities are certainly unique and interesting. The way the investigation has to proceed, the limits of the detective's authority, the legal loopholes that are exploited by various characters - these items are fascinating, and show just how much thought and care Miéville put into the book. They're just not quite enough to make up for the other elements of the book as a whole.

I hope I'm not making the book sound like a complete loss. The twin-city concept alone made it worth reading. If Miéville were to write another book that takes place in Besźel/Ul Qoma, I would absolutely check it out. I just hope that, in such a case, the plot would be more up to speed with the phenomenal setting.

What's in a Name?

There’s really no denying that names have a lot of power. How many times have you picked up a book for no reason other than it had an interesting title? How many times has the name of a book actually impacted how you feel about the book as a whole? How many times has just hearing a powerful name inspired you?

Rather than discuss why this is, I’d actually rather just talk about a few of the best book titles out there, as well as what makes them so meaningful.

Tell me, friends: What are some of your favorite book titles? What makes them so interesting/powerful/meaningful to you?

So then, for a very short list of only a few of the best names I've encountered:

If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor

This is absolutely the most amazing name ever conceivable for a book. (Okay, maybe that’s a bit hyperbolic, but still…) Really, though: this is the very very most amazingest book title I’ve ever come across. I read the book once some years back, and remember feeling that the book itself didn't quite live up to how wonderful the title is. That said, though, I'd like to give the book another shot in the near future and see if my feelings on it have changed.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safron Foer
Not only is this one of the greatest book titles I've seen, it's also one of the greatest books I've read. I read it too long ago to be able to write up a fair review for you now (unless I read it again, which is likely), but trust me when I tell you: the book is extremely great and incredibly beautiful.

Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
This is a great example of a book that I read largely because of the title. Sure, I'd already been a fan of C.S. Lewis before reading Faces. But reading the back cover, this book really didn't appeal to me that much - it truly was the title that sold me on it. What exactly the title means though - and where it appears in the text - makes it even more powerful. What a profound phrasing, which you'll only fully understand once you read the book. (And you definitely should read it.) (Oh, and though it's not a full review, you can read a couple of my thoughts on the book here, if you'd like.)

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
I haven't even read this book (yet). I just think it's a truly fantastic title, which is practically a story on its own. Really, the implications of this one phrase are mind-bending. (When we talk about love, we're not really talking about love? - cosmic.) In fact, I'm not the only one who's noticed how great of a title this is - it's been blatantly repurposed at least twice so far that I know of: once by Haruki Murakami for his book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, and then later by Rob Bell for his book What We Talk About When We Talk About God.

If You Feel Too Much by Jamie Tworkowski
First of all, if you're not familiar with the works of To Write Love On Her Arms, you should get familiar with them, because they're wonderful. Aside from this, If You Feel Too Much is a lovely name that perfectly addresses Tworkowski's audience and exemplifies the overall mood and heart of the book. I might even go so far as to say that, of all the books on this list, it's the most intimately connected to the content of the book itself - which is certainly to Tworkowski's credit.

(I see now that apparently I like book titles that start with "If..." I hadn't noticed before. Interesting...)


Now it's your turn!

REVIEW: Confessions - Kanae Minato

• Year first released:  2014
• ISBN of the edition I read:  0316200921
• Publisher of the edition I read:  Little, Brown and Company
• My rating (out of 5):  4

10 or 11 years ago, I read The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. It was a fantastic mystery (regarding a stolen gemstone) told from the perspectives of 11 different people involved in the affair. The first - and longest - part of the book sets up the entire scenario and introduces us to all the key characters. From there, we're given more and more details, ideas, and points of view from each of the other characters, until the final part, which ties everything together and brings us the ultimate solution.

Minato's much more recent Confessions has a similar setup:

Part 1 introduces us to the underlying crime (this time, the tragic, heartless murder of a 4-year-old girl) which propels the story as a whole. Each of the subsequent parts then show us a different character's perspective on the matter, before arriving at its downright chilling ending.

Unlike The Moonstone, though, the flow to Minato's story is constantly pulling us forward. We're actually presented most of the details - and even the culprit - by the end of Part 1 - the first 50 pages of the book. Then, rather than revisit the same depressing scene over and over again with each new character's perspective, we're shown the aftermath that each character faces in response to the initial murder.

It's a deliberate, clever approach that works on several levels. Once you realize that you already know the answer to the crime only a fifth of the way into the book, you will inevitably wonder, Where could the story go from here? Isn't it already finished? Indeed, it is not - not by a long shot.

The layers that each new character adds to the story unfold in a highly intricate fashion, leaving us to wonder what is really at the heart behind everything. The facts we thought we knew become distorted. We discover that the motives aren't what we had originally been told. And, importantly, we may not have seen the last of the crimes... [no spoilers, though]

We might say that Confessions is a mystery in reverse. Rather than the book merely being about trying to solve the murder at the beginning, we already know who the murderer is and how the deed was performed. What matters here is the spiral, the after effects, all of which eventually point to the book's highly effective, disturbing, shocking final page. (Pleasingly, the final twist of the book is on the very last page - you do yourself a disservice if you stop reading the book at any point before then.)

Full of deep characters, a plot that twists with almost every page, and an intriguing look at justice - what it really is and looks like, how it is achieved, who is responsible for enacting it, etc. - Confessions is one of the best mysteries I've come across. I'll definitely be diving into Minato's next book, Penance, in due time.

Point of View, pt. 2: the Narrator's Role

In the first part of this discussion on point of view, I said:

If Suzy is the main character - most of the scenes include/follow her, the narrator shares Suzy's thoughts with us, etc. - there's no very good reason to suddenly jump into Bob's head just to show us what Bob is thinking - especially when Suzy is standing in the room with Bob. Rather, a less lazy approach would be for the narrator to continue following only Suzy, and make Bob's thoughts or feelings evident by his words, his expressions, his actions, etc. - you know: "show instead of tell" and all that. 

When this happens, I wonder Who is the narrator, exactly? How does s/he know what all of these different people are thinking?

It's an interesting question, one which, frankly, not enough writers ask as they're crafting their books. Who is the narrator? 

Often, when a story is written from the third-person perspective, the narrator isn't meant to be a character from the book. (Of course the narrator is likely going to be a character for first-person stories, but we're not going to focus on that for now.) 

It's fine if the narrator isn't a character. Generally speaking, there's no reason the voice telling us the story has to be involved in the story.

Then again, we've all read plenty of books in which the narrator intrudes upon the story, responds to it, expresses their own emotions and subjectivity on the happenings. And when this happens, there's no way around it: we're reading the words of an individual personality. And an individual personality can't know what everyone in town is thinking.

These intrusions by the narrator can be small, subtle, overdrawn, exaggerated, or anything in between. Sometimes they can be as minute as a punctuation mark or as big as a monologue.

To give some examples of this, I'm going to pick on Jane Austen. Largely this is because she's already been solidified as a classic, so it's not as though I'm going to harm her reputation by saying anything bad about her. Also - let's call it what it is - she wasn't great about all of this POV business.

In the second chapter of Pride and Prejudice, we have this line: 

Mrs Bennet deigned not to make any reply...

So Mrs Bennet doesn't say anything. That's fine. But if we think about the word choice here, Austen actually took it just a step further: Mrs Bennet deigned. What this means is that Mrs Bennet felt it would be beneath her dignity to reply. 

In this case, the narrator doesn't just tell us that Mrs Bennet didn't speak - which could have been an easy, objective thing to say - the narrator goes a step further and tells us what was going on inside Mrs Bennet's head. It's a subtle difference which hinges on just one word, but it's important. 

On its own, this isn't a problem. On the very next page (at least, on the next page of the edition I read), though, we then have this line:

Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how. 

Once again, we have an example of the narrator knowing what is going on in a character's head - this time, Mary: Mary wished to do something, but didn't know how. 

In the space of two pages, we have the narrator knowing what's going on both in Mrs Bennet's head and in Mary's head.

Now then. On their own, there's nothing wrong with these two sentences. It seems this book merely has an Omniscient Third Person Narrator (that's your fancy English term for the day). And as long as the narrator doesn't have any sort of personality on her own, there's nothing inherently wrong with this.

Once the narrator intrudes and displays any sort of personality traits or opinions, though, suddenly we have a problem. Then we're not just dealing with narration; we're being exposed to another, unnamed character with her own distinct ideas. 

Let's look at a subtle example of this from the very next chapter of Pride and Prejudice:

What a contrast between him and his friend!

("Him" is Mr Bingley; "his friend" is Mr Darcy.)

As you'll know from reading the book, Bingley and Darcy have highly different personalities. This statement, then, can be seen as objective enough on its own. (There is a hint of the narrator's judgement in the sentence, but since the statement is so obviously clear to any reader - and to any other character in the book - I'll call it objective enough.)

What about that exclamation mark at the end, though?

The narrator didn't want to simply tell us that Bingley and Darcy are different. Rather, she pointed it out excitedly or emphatically. In other words, suddenly the narrator is bringing her own emotions into the mix. Not only are the two characters different - the narrator feels something about their difference.

And we can see this because of one punctuation mark.

Do you see the contradiction here?

It is okay for a narrator to know what multiple characters are thinking/wishing/feeling/etc. (The Omniscient Narrator.)

It is okay for a narrator to feel something about the events or characters of the story. (The Personal Narrator.)

It is NOT okay to have both of these - an omniscient narrator AND a personal one.

This simply doesn't work. If the narrator has a personality, then suddenly she has been characterized. And if she's characterized, then - even if she isn't named or directly addressed or anything else along these lines - she can't know what any of the other characters are thinking or feeling. She can only be inside her own head - not everyone else's. 

What do you think, though, friends? Have you noticed these sorts of things in your readings? What are some examples of books that have been handled particularly well - or particularly unwell - along these lines?

a Few Thoughts on Point of View, pt. 1

For some reason which I can only begin to guess at, an author's use of Point of View seems to be the thing I'm the pickiest about while reading a book. Of all stylistic elements an author might play with in their writing, their POV is the most noticeable - and, often, the most irksome - thing I come across.

I don't mind whether a book is written in first-, third-, or even second-person perspective - certainly all have their place; I've written in all of them plenty of times myself. How these perspectives are handled, though, can just about make or break a book.

I touched on this briefly in my review of Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War, where I said:

My personal preference is that a book - even one written from the third-person perspective, such as Chocolate - only follow the point of view of one character throughout the book's entirety. I say this, though, freely acknowledging how subjective it is. There's nothing, per se, inherently wrong with switching between characters. Many authors do it, and there's not necessarily any very concrete reason this should be disallowed.

(Before I continue, let me make one thing clear: There's a difference between a book switching POV between various characters, all of whom are partaking of the same story, and a book which alternates between two stories, each with different characters. Some examples of the first type - the type I'm focused on right now - would be The Chocolate War or One of Us Is Lying; an example of the second would be Good Morning, Midnight.)

There have been plenty of books I've liked well enough that have included multiple POV's. Just last week, I read and reviewed No Country for Old Men, which did precisely this (and you'll notice I didn't comment on it in my review). Almost every manga I've read switches POV constantly. Sci-fi and fantasy tend to do this with high frequency as well. (Just look at The Lord of the Rings, for a famous example.) You'll also notice that almost every movie ever does this. (Can you even think of an example of a movie which includes the main character in every single scene? - I can think of maybe two, if that.)

This isn't my preference, but it's passable. Sometimes - particularly when a story is spread geographically - there's not much of a way around this, at least not without stretching feasibility.

If the story all revolves around a cast of characters whom are closely connected and whom often occupy the same pages, though, shifting the POV can begin to feel rather lazy on the author's part.

If Suzy is the main character - most of the scenes include/follow her, the narrator shares Suzy's thoughts with us, etc. - there's no very good reason to suddenly jump into Bob's head just to show us what Bob is thinking - especially when Suzy is standing in the room with Bob. Rather, a less lazy approach would be for the narrator to continue following only Suzy, and make Bob's thoughts or feelings evident by his words, his expressions, his actions, etc. - you know: "show instead of tell" and all that.

When this happens, I wonder Who is the narrator, exactly? How does s/he know what all of these different people are thinking?

(Of course, the narrator of a story very often isn't meant to be a character in the book. This will be the focus of part 2, though, so I won't go into that thought for now...)

When it all comes down to it, if I can't think of a very concrete, specific reason for the narrator to jump inside a different character's head, it usually just feels like the author is taking the easy way out.

Again, I know this is at least partly subjective - so what do you think, friends? Is this something you notice in your readings? How do you feel about it?

REVIEW: The Chocolate War - Robert Cormier

• Year first released:  1974
• ISBN of the edition I read:  9780375829871
• Publisher of the edition I read:  Random House Children's Books
• My rating (out of 5):  4

In his introduction to The Chocolate War, Cormier explains that he was surprised when his agent called the book a "young adult" book. Apparently he hadn't meant for it to be a young adult book - just an "adult," general fiction book.

On the one hand, Chocolate falls pretty squarely into the label of young adult: the setting is a high school, all of the major characters are teenagers, etc. Their situations and struggles are reflective of - and highly realistically portray - high school life. Also, the actions and motivations of the characters are likely to be relatable and empathy-inducing for teenagers.

On the other hand, though I think I would have generally liked Chocolate if I had read it while in high school, I am certain I got much more out of it now, at age 32.

Chocolate has been labeled a "coming-of-age" story - a label that people are tempted to throw on pretty much any young adult novel that doesn't involve vampires or death matches - but this label is certainly false for Chocolate. It is not a book about growing up, finding your place in life outside of high-school for the first time, or anything of the sort. Yes, a couple of the characters experience growing pains once or twice, and the question of forging your own identity pops up here and there throughout (though mostly only for the main character, Jerry). However, to relegate Chocolate to this breed of story is to do it a disservice, and to miss the point of the novel.

Rather, Chocolate is a psychological game that resembles an intricate, dramatic thriller more than the writings of John Green or Rainbow Rowell. More than once, I've seen the book compared to S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders. Through a casual glance, I suppose I can see the connection. Having read both, though, Chocolate is a much more complex, psychological novel which avoids the brutish machismo of Outsiders in favor of a finely-crafted web of manipulation which grows to be downright Machiavellian.

The main antagonist of the book, Archie, goes far beyond a playground bully, landing himself squarely in the presence of Shakespeare's Iago (from Othello). Like Iago, Archie comes across as highly charismatic and honest (except to those who know his real motives). His charm allows him to weave himself into the lives and situations of nearly everyone around him, all of whom ultimately fall prey to his machinations. And, also like Iago is in Othello, Archie is undoubtedly the most fascinating character in Chocolate, and the gravity into which everything else in the story is drawn. He is a puppetmaster, pulling the strings of all the other characters.

Archie's strings are both what made me enjoy the book more than anything else, as well as what makes me think that I got more out of it now than I would have as a young adult. Though the story isn't hard to follow (I wouldn't call the plot simple, just well-explained), I think that it is easier to understand and admire the different situations and ideas now that I'm not so close to the world portrayed in the book. I imagine I would have thought the book was merely "cool" and "clever" at the time; now I am able to catch on to more of the psychological subtleties involved.

To put it more directly, without the charismatic, sinister, awe-inspiring genius of Archie, Chocolate would have been a completely different - and probably a completely worthless - book. I don't compare him to Iago hyperbolically.

Cormier certainly excelled at bringing his characters and their world to life in Chocolate. Each piece of this manipulative puzzle worked excellently. Nothing in the book left me confused, wondering why it happened or what the character's motivations were. This is all largely to Cormier's credit; most young adult authors seem incapable of weaving together such solidarity and meaning.

I have one complaint about the book, though, and it's too big to ignore.

Cormier's writing was mostly solid: his descriptions, characterizations, use of setting and metaphor and word choice were all highly effective. There is a consistent tone throughout Chocolate that most writers should be jealous of.

Cormier's use of point of view, though, could serve as an example for new writers of exactly what not to do in their own writings.

My personal preference is that a book - even one written from the third-person perspective, such as Chocolate - only follow the point of view of one character throughout the book's entirety. I say this, though, freely acknowledging how subjective it is. There's nothing, per se, inherently wrong with switching between characters. Many authors do it, and there's not necessarily any very concrete reason this should be disallowed.

Indeed, for the first 13 chapters of Chocolate (just under half the book), the POV changes at chapter breaks. The shift is always easy enough to follow. But then inexplicably, beginning with chapter 14, the POV begins switching much more erratically throughout, even multiple times mid-chapter. Though I still didn't have any trouble understanding where the story was or whose mind we were following, this constant shift was distracting and, I fear, a bit lazy on Cormier's part. Was there no other way to relate these occurrences through the eyes of the character whose mind we were following on the previous page? - I'm sure there was, if Cormier had thought through it a bit more. Granted, obviously these shifts were intentional - but intentional or not, they rubbed me the wrong way.

Worse, along these lines, there's also one - but thankfully only one - instance in which Cormier switches POV mid-paragraph for one little sentence. This, clearly, was not intentional, but rather a mistake on Cormier's part (which somehow also passed untouched through his editor's desk).

(I'm referring to a scene in the final quarter or so of the book. I no longer recall the page number, but it's in a dialogue between Jerry and one of his friends, The Goober. The scene follows Jerry's perspective, but then for one little, insignificant sentence, suddenly we're in The Goober's head, before immediately switching back to Jerry's in the very next sentence. Oops.)

As much as I enjoyed Chocolate - particularly the machinations of Archie, which were sheer, twisted delights - this large mishandling of point of view will keep me wary of reading Cormier's other books. No doubt someone who is less picky about this sort of thing won't be as bothered as I was, though. And, even still, it was worth trudging through the erratic POV for this fantastic story, in order to read what is, deservedly, a pillar of young adult fiction.

REVIEW: No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy

• Year first released:  2005
• ISBN of the edition I read:  9780375706677
• Publisher of the edition I read:  Knopf Doubleday
• My rating (out of 5):  3.5

I don't often read multiple books in a row by the same author (unless they're a series, but even then, I usually take breaks in between entries). But, for some reason, after setting down Child of God, I just wasn't ready to step away from Cormac McCarthy yet.

I actually haven't gotten around to the 2007 movie No Country for Old Men yet. Now that I've read the book, I'm quite interested in seeing it, though. It's certainly a story which I'd love to see come to life. There's a raw realness to the entire ordeal that truly begs to be on display visually, not just on the page.

In fact, I have to admit that I am highly surprised by what I'm about to say, especially since this is Cormac McCarthy we're talking about here (and you know how much I enjoy McCarthy), but...I'm inclined to think No Country would actually be a better movie than it was a book.

...no, really: I can't believe I feel that way about a McCarthy book.

Though the writing in No Country is still head and shoulders above just about any other author writing today, I found it to be his weakest book stylistically. (In fact, though every other aspect of the book is better than All The Pretty Horses, I'd even say Horses was written better than No Country.)

More than once, I had a bit of trouble envisioning a scene, understanding the action, sometimes even figuring out who was speaking. (Admittedly, this last gripe is due in part to the fact that McCarthy doesn't use quotation marks for his dialogue, but it's never been as problematic for me before as it was this time around.) Several times I had to re-read small sections in order to get a better grasp on what was going on.

As well - and very importantly - McCarthy spent significantly less time/words describing the setting of No Country than any of his other books I've read. Gone are the simple, powerful sentence fragments and metaphors that give us the evocative, earthy connections to the worlds McCarthy creates in each of his novels. Though these sorts of images aren't, per se, necessary for a book to work, they've always been a particular highlight in McCarthy's writing - enough so that their absence was starkly noticed here.

There is much to praise in No Country as well, though, and I don't want to tip the scales too far in the wrong direction. The characters of No Country were all incredibly vivid and realistic. The main antagonist of the story, Chigurh, was especially powerful and intricate. Though I can't in good conscience root for him, all the same, I appreciated his ideals and his perspective at least as much as the main protagonist - likely more. A few times in the book we're treated to Chigurh's ideas about the situation - or even just about life generally - and these were, without a doubt, the most fascinating, haunting bits of the book.

Though the plot wasn't terribly complex, it was an appropriate fit for the mood, the time, the characters. If the story itself had gotten too much more entangled, it would have risked alienating the lifelike people who populate No Country. Better that McCarthy left the story simple to contrast with the complexity of the moods, persons, and ideals involved.

I suppose that, to be perfectly fair, No Country might deserve a 4 more than a 3.5. It's hard not to stack it up against other McCarthy books, though - in which case, I feel just barely disappointed enough to deduct half a point.* I'm still quite pleased to have read it, though, and much more interested in seeing the movie than I was before reading the book.




*For more of an explanation on this thought process, feel free to check out my post from a few months back Having High Expectations of Creators.

Enjoying the Classics, pt. 2

(Be sure to start with pt. 1 before treading into this post.)


...but, subjectivity aside, there must be a reason that classics are...well, "classic," right?

Sure, we all have different tastes. There are plenty of people who sincerely love the Beatles and 1984. Even above this, though, there must be something that qualifies a book (or a song, a movie, etc.) to be considered "classic."

To make it perhaps a bit overly simple, I suppose we can break it down in three ways, only the first of which I've discussed so far:

We can rate a book based on how much we enjoy it,
how well-crafted it is,
and how important it is.

No, I'm not enjoying 1984 so far. But is it well-written? Is it culturally significant?

The answer to these two questions are "yes" and "very much yes." And sometimes that's enough to rise a piece of art into the zone of "classic."

Not every book is merely meant to be enjoyed, is it? Some are written because the author has some sort of idea or message to impart, and believes that a novel is the best medium for conveying it. Perhaps the author wishes to explain, highlight, or even oppose some sort of zeitgeist in his/her world. There is no doubt that fiction has always been used as a means to this end - surely it always will be (barring some sort of Fahrenheit-451 scenario from happening, God forbid).

Of the three ways of judging a book, I put them in that order for a reason: specifically, I was thinking of them from most subjective to least subjective.

Whether or not a book is enjoyable is 100%, through and through a matter of opinion. What I enjoy might come off as downright garbage to you, and vice versa. After all, I can't stand the Beatles, and I'd bet you probably enjoy them. (Personally, I've never met anyone who doesn't like them; I suspect I may be the only one.)

Whether or not a book is well-crafted is still partly subjective, though I would argue there are at least a handful of measures we can discuss a bit more objectively. (Is the author's word choice appropriate for the subject matter, without being too limited or too wild? Is there variation in the sentence length and structure? Is the setting fully established? Are the characters internally consistent? etc.)

Whether or not a book is important is really not very debatable. This question is something that can be quantified with reasonable objectivity. How have people responded to it? What sort of impact has it had on the culture into which it was introduced? Does it have a timely message?

In fact, of each of these three judgments, we realize that whether or not a book is enjoyable is actually the least determinant factor regarding whether a book is considered a classic.

It's for the best this way. If classics were just based on what's popular and sells well - and on what people merely enjoy, regardless of literary merit or significance - then we run the risk of Fifty Shades of Grey being considered a classic in another 50 years. And that's just not a world any of us would want to live in.


What do you think of all of this, friends? Are there any classics which you don't enjoy, but which you appreciate for their value? Let's hear about them! 

Enjoying the Classics, pt. 1

Let's just clear the air of something right off the bat. This might mortify you, and I'm sorry about that. But here it is:

I can't stand the Beatles.

I know, I know. Maybe there's something wrong with me. I've mystified - and even downright offended - some people by saying this. But it's true. Their music just rubs me the wrong way.

That said, I understand why they're important. Their influence is enormous; they paved the way for future generations of pop music; etc. They absolutely deserve to be looked back upon fondly, and to be as seminal as they are. I understand and accept and agree with all of that.

But I don't actually enjoy their music in the least bit.

So then. If I haven't scared you away yet, I'm sure you can already guess where this is going:

What about "classic" books? Do we have to like them just because they're "classic"?

Based on my Beatles analogy, you can no doubt guess my answer to this question:

Of course you don't have to like a book just because it's a classic! Forget what your English teacher and your snooty friends and that strange guy at the bookstore said. It is okay to not like a classic. There have been plenty of classics along the way that I haven't enjoyed. In fact, I'll tell you the reason I'm thinking about this topic now:

I recently started reading 1984 by George Orwell. (...yes, for the first time. ahem...*mumbles incoherently*)

I'm about a quarter of the way in, and...well...it's really not my cup of tea so far. I haven't exiled it to the land of no return (at least not yet), but I'm really not enjoying it at all. Yesterday I told my wife that if this book were written today (instead of being a "classic" from yesteryear), I definitely wouldn't be reading it.

Much like I said about the Beatles: I understand why 1984 is important. I can see why it has been so influential. I recognize that the ideas were simultaneously both a product of their time and ahead of their time. I'm glad it exists. But none of this adds up to me actually liking it.

(Now that it's come this far, I imagine I'm probably stepping on all kinds of toes with this post - haha. Oops.)

Of course there are plenty of classics that I've read and loved along the way, for one reason or another. And there have been a fair share that - much like 1984 - ultimately weren't for me.

And that's okay.


What are some classics that you've read but haven't actually liked, friends? And what are some that you've read and do enjoy?

REVIEW: Child of God - Cormac McCarthy

• Year first released:  1973
• ISBN of the edition I read:  0679728740
• Publisher of the edition I read:  Vintage International
• My rating (out of 5):  4

I'm actually a little hesitant to give Child of God a four-star rating. As to be expected from McCarthy, it's incredibly vivid and highly realistic, with characters that veritably seem to have a life of their own. Never once did I feel like McCarthy was overstepping his bounds as the author, nor stretching the reality of the book's mood or setting. As far as the writing is concerned, Child of God is a solid four at the very least - likely more.

My hesitation over the rating, though, is that Child of God plays right at the edge of the line of being too disturbing (at least for my tastes). The main character, Lester Ballard, is a deeply depraved man, and McCarthy doesn't spare many details of the protagonist's escapades. (Thankfully, he spares a precious few, which is possibly the main reason I was even able to finish the book.)

This is not a quest for redemption. This is not a journey of the protagonist coming to the light, learning from his mistakes, or grappling with his morality. Ballard is vile through and through, and McCarthy never apologizes for this nor tries to get us to believe otherwise.

Sometimes it can be off-putting to have a character that is so intrinsically immoral. Where's the complexity, the ambiguity, the checkered past, the thought process that gets us to actually sort of kind of make us just barely begin to slightly understand at least a little tiny bit why this guy is so evil? Though normally these things make for a fantastic, rich villain, in this rare exception, it is most certainly to McCarthy's credit that he does not try to get us to empathize with Ballard. Understanding Ballard isn't the point; we are only observers. Child of God is a portrait of mankind at its worst. And though we could argue that in reality, there always seems to be a reason for a man to sink so low, this book is simply not about the reasons, the psychology, the saccharine. It is about the depravity.

That said, we come to my main complaint of Child of God. (That is, my main complaint regarding the writing, not just my personal tastes.) Though this picture of depravity is fully realized and highly effective, I was left wondering what, precisely, was the point of the tale. Considering that there is no resolution to speak of, I couldn't help but question what exactly McCarthy was trying to convey. Evil, yes, but why? What inspired McCarthy to commit these particular ideas to the page?

Luckily, these questions didn't trouble me until I finished the book. It was not a consuming curiosity that I grappled with throughout each of the 200 pages - more of an idle question once I turned the final page. Considering that the book was so explicit and unsettling, though, it's a fair question to ask: Why did McCarthy spend 200 pages disturbing me, only to end the story without any sort of resolution, redemption, or message?

If this isn't the sort of thing to trouble you, though, friend, then Child of God is one of the better-written books you're going to read. The style, characterizations, and imagery are all first class without a doubt - it is only the disturbing content which gives me pause.

REVIEW: Another Episode S/O - Yukito Ayatsuji

• Year first released:  2016
• ISBN of the edition I read:  9780316312318
• Publisher of the edition I read:  Yen Press
• My rating (out of 5):  3

You might remember from my October review of Another that I was quite smitten with it. (I gave it a 4.5 - pretty dang great, really.) One thing I said about it was, "Every step of the way, the story continually evolves - whether subtly or overtly - and is jam-packed with at least a dozen hefty twists, each of which alters the trajectory of the plot in unpredictable ways."

You can imagine, then, that I had rather high hopes for this side-story novella, Another: Episode S. Ultimately, these might have set me up for a bit of disappointment. 

Episode S wasn't bad. It wasn't anything particularly special, though - at least not compared to its counterpart. Here we have a ghost story about the ghost of a man trying to figure out how he died, why, and where his body is. (He is under the impression that he can't move on from this world until he finds his corpse so that he can get a proper burial.) It's kind of straightforward stuff, really, nothing groundbreaking (up until the end, at least).

I discovered an interesting concept after finishing the book, though:

There were several things about the plot development that bothered me. Frankly, I thought they were rather lazy on Ayatsuji's part, even a bit of a stretch. It felt as though Ayatsuji was taking the easy way out, relying too much on coincidence to move the story along. Curiously, though, once I hit the twist ending - which was quite sizable and highly intriguing, by the way - I realized that many of the things which bothered me along the way were actually intentional, and weren't as lazy or stretchy as I had thought. 

This said, on the one hand, I'd like to say that this revelation washes away the bad taste of that perceived laziness. It was certainly a worthwhile ending which I didn't see coming, and which made sense of the apparent conveniences along the way. Then again, I spent 200 pages with those things. And even though they were justified in the end, so to speak, that's still 200 pages of a bad taste. It's not necessarily so easy to gloss over that, even with a great finale. 

Some people say the end justifies the means. I think Episode S is proof that this isn't always true.

If I look at Episode S as a side story to add a little more weight to the world of Another, it's interesting enough. Considering how much I loved the first novel, I was glad to have the chance to spend more time in the universe. Episode S is absolutely not a starting point for the universe, though, and it won't win over anyone who wasn't impressed with the first book - it's just a nice little filler to flesh out the world a bit more.

(A couple minor, non-review notes, by the way:

One of the reasons Episode S is not a starting point for the world of Another is because it gives away several of the twists from the first book. If you're interested in the world, PLEASE read Another first.

Also, you might have noticed the title of the book also mentions Episode O, which I didn't comment on in this review. Episode O is a very short manga included in the back pages of the book, about which there's not much to say. It doesn't have much of a plot on its own - it's really just meant to highlight a tiny little bit of backstory from the original novel, and would be completely meaningless if you haven't read the original.)

REVIEW: The Halo Grower - Ryushiro Hindemith

• Year first released:  2016
• ISBN of the edition I read:  0989488926 (sorry for the Amazon link this time - this book isn't available via Barnes & Noble)
• Publisher of the edition I read:  Corinthian Editions
• My rating (out of 5):  2.5

As you've noticed, sometimes I have a hard time figuring out exactly what I want to say about a book. Whether it's because I have mixed feelings about the book, or else because I struggle to find the right words/examples to explain how I feel about it (whether good or bad), sometimes it can be difficult to express.

This is not one of those times.

The Halo Grower is not a bad book, per se. There were plenty of elements to it that were generally interesting and worthwhile.

What Hindemith did wrong, though, he did very wrong. And, considering that it's the main conceit of the book, there's really no way around discussing it at length.

Before explaining, it's worth pointing out: The Halo Grower isn't an especially well-known book. (In fact, I suspect it's self-published, though I haven't verified this yet.) I discovered it in a list on goodreads.com, which listed it as one of the "most difficult" novels in English. Naturally, I was curious. Before picking it up, I didn't know what about the book made it so difficult. After beginning it, the answer came quickly...

Ryushiro Hindemith has a much better vocabulary than you and I do. (That, or he just has a mighty thesaurus, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.)

This fact alone isn't a problem. It's a good thing, in fact. Considering that a person's vocabulary is the number one measure for determining their IQ, Hindemith is clearly in the realm of genius.

Rather, the problem is that Hindemith wants to make sure that we absolutely know he has a better vocabulary than us, to the point where he's clearly just showing off.

Every single page is packed with words you've never seen before. Many of them are, in fact, real words. Others weren't exactly extant before Halo, but still make sense in the way that he used them (adding prefixes or suffixes to change the type of word they are, etc.).

Here, for example, is a very limited list of words from The Halo Grower which I'd wager you haven't come across in your readings:

• blepharospasmic
• Buddhamaniacal
• cathexes
• centuplication
• chirospasmic
• clerestories
• ectomorphic
• eigengrau
• epeirogenic
• etiolated
• Husafellian
• ignivomitus
• karmavention
• lachrymations
• lagophthalmos
• lethologica
• narthex
• neurapraxia
• nevi
• nystagmus
• plantarflexion
• pulchrified
• pyrocumulus
• sanctoliloquy
• sanctomaniacalism
• sanctomegalithic
• shadowgraphical
• stelliferous
• stygiophobia
• synapectomy
• telamonic
• telamons
• triboluminescence
• tritanopia
• vitruvian

Again, this is only a tiny sampling of Hindemith's crazy word choice. In fact, I pulled all of these from just the final 15 pages of the book. (This is merely because I didn't think to start making such a list until I was nearly done reading the book.)

Clearly the vocabulary through Halo is what classifies it as one of the "most difficult" novels in English. Really - how many of these words have you seen before, friends?

That said, I didn't have any trouble following the book. No, I had never seen any of these words before either, but most of them are pretty clearly guessable in context. I only stopped to look up the definitions of one, maybe two words while reading. (Neither of which are actually on this list I shared - they appeared earlier in the book.)

What troubled me more than the use of these rare, complex words, is that Hindemith clearly went out of his way to use them - well out of his way.

If "lachrymations" truly was the best word to use in the context of the sentence, I wouldn't mind in the least.

I'll spare you the trouble of looking it up, though: "lachyrmations" is another word for "tears." Yeah, tears. Like, those drops of water that come out of your eyes when you cry.

Never once in the entire book does Hindemith say that his character "cried" or "shed tears." Nope. The character shed "lachrymations." (He shed them rather often, in fact.)

Oh, come now. This is just plain silly, isn't it?

And it's precisely this silliness that shows us the truth: Hindemith is trying to be difficult. He's purposefully going out of his way to show off his vocabulary.

Yes, I like to learn things as I read. I suspect you do, too. I'm not particularly interested in having an author brag to me about his vocabulary for 250 pages, though. It's a little unbecoming.

Friends, here's a pro tip for you: when you're writing your best seller, let your main character cry. Don't make them lachrymate.

So then. How was the book beyond this asinine word choice, you ask?

Meh. It was fine. The overall setting was quite intriguing. Ironically, though, the plot didn't really go anywhere. (This is ironic because the book is, more or less, a Buddhist cosmological epic about creation and reincarnation - which means that the plot goes everywhere, so to speak - and yet, it doesn't really amount to much. Rem - the main character - basically just comes up against one hurdle or another [actually, mostly one hurdle over and over again] during his creation process, and...well, that's about it.)

I enjoyed picking apart The Halo Grower, accepting the challenge of discovering and understanding this insane vocabulary. It was a fun literary exercise, if nothing else. As well, the setting was vivid and vibrant and of personal interest to me; it's a theme that isn't touched on often, and was worth exploring for that reason.

Aside from these things, though, I really don't know that I can recommend it to anyone. If you want to accept the challenge of Hindemith's word choice - or if you're interested in a peculiar, modern look at Eastern cosmology - then sure, give it a shot, I guess. Otherwise, it's hard to say who else this book might be for.