Horror - Yoko Ogawa - Revenge (2013)

Bryan got me this book for my birthday this year. Not because it was on any wishlist or anything, but because he heard them talking about it on NPR. The fact that he heard that and decided that this would be relevant to my interests meant a lot more to me than getting a book that I had put on my list just because.

I read it because he told me to, really. I was floundering over what to read after that library book, and after first pulling The Weird out, he changed his mind and bid me to read the book he got me for my birthday.

This book is super short; at 162 pages, I easily read it over the course of a day. It is made up of a series of interconnected stories, and I do mean interconnected. A bit player in one story is then a childhood friend of another, or a place may appear in two stories, or strawberry shortcake will make another appearance. And all of the tales are dark, but at different degrees: some are subtle, some are not, some are just sad, some are even confusing.

I actually rather liked this book. The fact that almost no one has a name really adds to the sense of interconnectedness, and the fact that emotions are almost never directly described means that you can pull it from the way they talk or think instead. I know it's probably some work by the translator, but the word choices are spot on. Towards the end, however, the complexity of the intertwining stories gets to be a bit much and it's hard to follow how each character relates to another. The last story is actually connected to the first, which I appreciate, but not in a super clear way, which was disappointing.

If you like dark tales and want to see some great examples of how to express emotion without saying "she felt sad", I would recommend this book. $14 seems a bit steep for what you get, but I imagine that will go down the older it gets.

8.5/10

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Thriller - Jeff Abbott - Collision (2008)

Believe it or not, I only recently got a library card. I know, right? Especially with it being within walking distance and with monthly writers' group meetings there. But the fact of the matter is with an extensive personal library, it's hard to justify picking up a book at the public library.

But since I had to do something uncomfortable to practice skills learned in group therapy, I decided to make it something that would reward me. So, fresh and new library card in hand, I picked up the first book in the fiction section that was not a Book # of Many More.

Collision is about two guys on the run from the law and more dangerous guys. Ben Forsberg is a consultant to a security corporation and is a person of interest now because a guy who killed another guy left Ben's business card with the corpse. Pilgrim is a guy who works for a secret government agency that has been ripped apart by bad guys, and is also the guy who left the card. They have to learn to trust each other because they've both been set up to take the fall for a bunch of shit.

This book is like an action movie in book form. If you like CIA dramas, terrorism thrillers, and murderer mysteries, you might find something you like in this book. Personally, I recognize that it isn't FOR me. Also, the theme song of this book should be "It's a Small World" because everyone is being played by someone else regardless of how many years between. Almost no character is used only once, unless as bullet fodder. So don't sit there thinking one person will never show up again until they are dead. Because they will. Ad nauseum.

All in all, I didn't enjoy reading this book. But like I said, it's not FOR me. It's for someone else. So maybe you would enjoy it. But to me it feels very average, almost mediocre.

6.5/10

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Fantasy - Anne Bishop - Daughter of the Blood (1998)

I mentioned before that the Black Jewels series is my absolute favorite, so it should come as no surprise that when I take a book vacation (defined here as a vacation into a favorite book), I default to these. This read-through, however, I went through every single word and actually discovered some points I always missed. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

I bought this book in 2004 at a used bookstore that no longer exists. This was another one of those times when my interest in what was going on on the cover led to a great find. The first time I read this, I blasted through it in a day because I liked it so much.

Daughter of the Blood, being the first book in the series, sets up quite a lot for the future to remark on, but let's just go through it like normal, shall we? A powerful seer named Tersa foretells the coming of a mythological being known as Witch before descending into madness. Witch is dreams made flesh, the wishes and desires of a people known as the Blood. Seven hundred years later, she appears: a child with more power on tap than any other member of the Blood ever before her ascension from her birthright. She is the joy and secret of many people, including a sexually brutal man named Daemon who believes he was born to be her lover, his brother Lucivar (who is featured more in the second book), and their father, who happens to be the High Lord of Hell, Saetan. But there are also those who wish to use her for their own purposes, and the fear that this may happen sows suspicion among her own friends.

Of the three books, this one is probably my least favorite, but let me tell you why. I love these characters. There is a lot here that really turns my crank: the human weapon, the brutality and violence, the wide and sparkling spectrum of color. This book has Jaenelle with her shitty family and occasionally in Briarwood. There isn't as much room for friendly interactions, or the fun of her whirlwind personality as it blows through the lives of these men and her friends. Sure, she spends a great deal of time with Daemon, but the danger of the so-called Light Realm (noted, the danger had to be increasingly present to provide contrast with the Shadow Realm of the other books) takes so much precedence that I don't really like this one. I don't like seeing my book-friends in trouble.

Now, to be fair, I still love it. The detail in the descriptions alone is sensuous and brilliant. But of the three, I dislike this one the most.

It occurs to me that I got a little lost in the details up there, but still. If you like blazing magic and brutal violence, diplomacy and relationships, get thee to your bookstore.

9.75/10

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Fiction - Mark Z. Danielewski - House of Leaves (2000)

Obviously, like any creature of the internet, I heard about this book from this XKCD strip and Wil Wheaton's blog post. But it wasn't until I saw it on a Buy 3 Get the 4th Free table at my local B&N that I bought it. But then there it sat on the bookshelf until a friend of mine saw that I had it, and encouraged me to read it.

House of Leaves is nigh impossible to describe. It starts out being about this one guy having been dealt a poor hand in life, and his friend lives in an apartment complex. And in this apartment complex is an old hermit of a man that has just died. They go into his apartment and find tons and tons of writing, apparently a dissertation on a film called The Navidson Record, where a photojournalist and his family move into a house that is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. At first, this discrepancy could be easily explained away; the difference is only a quarter of an inch after all, so somebody just messed up measuring somewhere. But then a door appears that should lead outside, but instead leads to a dark, cold place that just keeps changing in shape.

More than just being hard to describe, House of Leaves is hard to analyze. First off, I could give two shits about Johnny Truant. This guy is really just a gateway to his mother's letters, of which there is a whole separate book apart from just the insanity at the appendix. But the more fluid language of Johnny is a nice contrast to the highly technical analysis of Zampano. But the odd formatting is only briefly touched on before it HITS like a ton of BRICKS. You'll know it when you see it, but I implore you to power through until at least the Minotaur chapter, which is a work of suspenseful art.

The problem is that then the whole book seems to fall apart.

Too much time is spent after that chapter away from what everyone is interested in, the fucking house, and instead on Navidson and Karen's relationship. Listen, dude. No one gives a fuck. Even the so-called climax is not as powerful as that chapter in the middle of the book.

I know, you're thinking "hur hur, bigger on the inside, it's a TARDIS". And when I read the description on the inside flap, I felt the same way, with a dash of "aren't there a million SCPs that do this?". But it's really more than that. This book really explores what that concept means. If it's bigger on the inside, how big is that? Twice the size? Miles more? Bigger than the earth?

For that chapter and approach alone, I must suggest you get yourself a copy. For the typography tricks, I beg you to read it. The whole thing isn't the best in the world, but you will not regret your time spent on this book.

9.85/10

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