The Impossible Knife of Memory - Laurie Halse Anderson (Book Review)

Title - The Impossible Knife of Memory

Author - Laurie Halse Anderson

Genre - YA

Summary -

Hayley Rose Kincain and her father have finally settled down in the town Andy, her father, grew up in as a young man after years on the road. Hayley is a smart young girl, gifted even, but her anger and bitterness at the adults and people around her hold her back. A bitterness stemming from the treatment given to her father and the disappointments that life itself have brought her way.

"...I shrugged again. Dad rarely talked about growing up in Belmont, but I wasn't about to let her know that. The first time we me, Benedetti told me that I could trust her and tell her anything. People who have to announce that they are trustworthy deserve to be lied to..."

Hayley and Andy have been on the road for years, driving eighteen wheelers and home schooling as best they can. With her mother and grandmother passed on they had no one else. Hayley just wanted to be with her father and Andy was running from the demons of his service to his country. Together they get through the dark times as best they can. But like with most things, eventually they can only run for so long as the demons catch up with Andy and he tries to drive them away with drugs and alcohol. Hayley does her best to help her father but the darkness of his dreams.

"...The old men take us there. A tiny hand, stained with blood and dust, pokes out of the rubble. The old men shout at us.
"What are they saying?" I ask.
"We got the wrong house," the interpreter says.
We blew up a house filled with children and mothers and toothless grandmothers. The insurgent house sits empty, a stone's throw away.
The ancient men yell at me and shake their fists.
I understand every word they say..."

Compounding their lives is Hayley's own distrust of everyone, young and old alike. Doing the best she can, she believes that she alone can help and save her father. But the weight of the guilt Andy carries is too large for the both of them as they begin to understand that they cannot carry it alone. Together, somehow, they must find a way to save one another.

Review -

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I picked up my copy at the Tucson Festival of Books at an author signing. I found the topic intriguing and the story itself is well written. I simply had a tough time liking the main character. Hayley. But in all fairness, she comes by her difficult and nasty attitude through experience and pain. It is only until later in the book, as layers of Andy and Hayley's lives are peeled away do you begin to understand her.
I do want to commend and point out that Anderson does a wonderful job of not holding back when it comes to the pain and suffering that Andy is going through with his post traumatic stress. Nor the impact it has on his relationships and on the life of his teenage daughter as she tries to hold it all together. This realism is something that is missing from much of today's Young Adult fiction and Anderson should be recognized for bringing such a difficult topic to bear with strong writing and beautiful prose.
The Impossible Knife of Memory is a powerful novel of how war and its aftermath continues to take casualties long after the shots are fired.
A good read.

Red Rising - Pierce Brown (Book Review)

Title - Red Rising

Author - Pierce Brown

Genre - Fantasy

Story Summary - (SPOILERS!)

In the caste society of future mankind, the Reds dig below the surface of Mars, sacrificing their lives and future to make the planet habitable for all people. But it is the ruling caste,the Golds, that has deceived them all.

"...I would have lived in peace. But my enemies brought me war..."

Darrow is a miner, deep in the underground, struggling to feed his young family when a simple act of trespassing delivers a sentence of death to his beautiful wife Eo.

"...The trapdoor beneath her feet opens. She falls, and for one moment, her hair hangs suspended about her head, a flourish of red. Then her feet scramble at air and she falls. Her slim throat gags. Eyes open so wide. If only I could save her from this. If only I could protect her; but the world is cold and hard to me. It does not bend as I wish it to bend. I am weak. I watch my wife die and my haemanthus fall from her hand. The camera records it all. I rush forward to kiss her ankle. I cradle her legs. I will not let her suffer.
On Mars there is not much gravity, so you have to pull the feet to break the neck. They let the loved ones do it.
Soon, there is no sound, not even the creaking of the rope.
My wife is too light.
She was only just a girl..."

In overwhelming grief Darrow steals the dead body of his wife and buries her deep in the mines. For this he too will face the sentence of death.
But fate has other plans as a seed of rebellion is planted and Darrow is saved from death for mission that will send him into the very heart of the Golds. Transformed to appear to be a Gold, he joins the young of the ruling caste and is sent to a school for training. Here he learns that the young of the Gold are taught to value power and strength and that even the youth of the Gold are sacrificed to strengthened the ruling caste.

"...Now if you think this was vile, consider that the Spartans would kill more than ten percent of all children born to them; nature would kill another thirty. We are gory humanitarians in comparison. Of the six hundred students that are left, most were in the top one percent of applicants. Of the six hundreds that are dead, most were in the bottom one percent of applicants. There was no waste..."

Of the remaining six hundred, they are set into teams and each team given an area to claim and protect. They will battle until one team controls them all. Darrow must survive and conquer if he is to be believed to a Gold. Yet this time the game is rigged and no matter how he fights, Darrow finds not only the other youth standing against him but the leaders of the Golds as well. Who can he trust? How will he survive?

"..I would have lived in peace. But my enemies brought me war.
I watch twelve hundred of their strongest sons and daughters. Listening to a pitiless Golden man speak between great marble pillars. Listening to the beast who brought the flame that gnaws at my heart.
"All men are not created equal," he declares. Tall, imperious, an eagle of a man. "The weak have deceived you. They would say the meek should inherit the Earth. That the strong should nurture the gentle. This is the Noble Lie of Demokracy. The cancer that poisoned mankind..."

Darrow is a Red. His wife is a Red. But to win his vengeance, he must learn to be a Gold.

Review -

First I will say I am sorry for giving so much of the story away in the summary, but believe me when I say that there is so much more to the novel than what is summarized. This is 2014's heir apparent to the blockbuster fantasy trilogy. Red Rising is on the same level as Hunger Games and Divergent. I have yet to read Divergent but I will take everyone else's word for it that it too is this good, because fellow readers Red Rising is that good.
READ THIS BOOK!!
Really this is one not to be missed.
In Darrow, Brown has created a hero who everyone, man or woman, can connect with. The desire to do good and strive for more, for himself and those he loves. Then to find out that there is no way he would every be allowed to as he is a Red. The pain and grief at the loss of his young wife. The hatred and anger to destroy the Golds and then the cold realization that all he has ever known and believed in has been a lie. The final truth, the understanding that to avenge his Eo, to bring down the Golds, he must give up the last thing that makes him Darrow. That makes him a Red. His own humanity as he becomes the very enemy he is sworn to destroy. As he becomes a Gold.
Brown has been very ambitious in this first novel. I am hoping that he maintains this pace and action throughout the trilogy. If he can, you will be talking about this one for years to come!

A terrific read!!

The Winter People - Jennifer McMahon (Book Review)

Title – The Winter People
Author – Jennifer McMahon
Genre – Horror

Story Summary –
In the early 1900s, in West Hall, Vermont, the daughter of Sara Harrison Shea goes missing and then is found; dead. Soon afterward Sara herself dies a horrible death and thereafter is said to walk the nights in the small town.
“…He took me to see a lady with tangled hair who lives inside an old hollow tree. She’s been dead a long time. She’s one of the winter people.”
I feel Mama stiffen. “Winter people?”
“That’s what I call them,” I say, turning to face her. The people who are stuck between here and there, waiting. It reminds me of winter, how everything is all pale and cold and full of nothing, and all you can do is wait for spring…”
In her grief, Sara has unleashed a great evil upon West Hall and in her desire to hold her daughter once again, has spoken the words taught to her long ago by her forgotten Aunt. Words that call back the dead. Words that will awaken the sleeper.
“…Then he heard it again. The scratching. Claws against wood.
It was coming from inside the closet.
“Sara,” he said, standing on shaking legs, blood pounding through his head, making a roaring sound in his ears. The room seemed to shift around him, growing longer. The distance between himself and Sara felt impossibly far. The moonlight hit the closet door. He could see it move slightly, the knob slowly turning.
“Move away from there!” he cried.
But his wife sat still, eyes fixed on the door.
“Its our Gertie,” she said calmly. “She’s come back to us…”
Modern day and young Ruthie Washburne is going mad in the small town of West Hall. Trapped with her mother and younger sister in a house in the woods, until one day, her mother disappears and young Ruthie and her sister are left alone.
Slowly Ruthie unravels the history of her home and the legend of Sara Shea. Her death and re-birth and the terrible secret she kept. The truth that so many are searching for and so many more are going missing for.
The bringing back of the dead. The awakening of the sleepers. The Winter People.
“…Oh what power we dead have over the living!
I paid a visit to Lucius – I couldn’t help myself. I let myself into his house just before dawn, stood by the side of his bed, and gently called his name until he awoke. And when I saw how frightened he was, I told him I’d come back from the dead. “You think I was mad when I was living? You know nothing of the madness of the dead. There is no bed to bind me now, Doctor,” I whispered harshly in his ear…”
Ruthie must find a way to save herself and her sister from the legacy of Sara Harrison Shea and West Hall.

Review –

This tale goes beyond the confines of a ghost story. Nor is it a zombie dead story either. It is a tale of the clash of two cultures. Two sets of belief in the God that is and the Gods that were. Of the powers of the Pagan faith that is wished for when the Christian God fails the grieving.
For many the comparisons to Stephen King’s Pet Semetary will be fast and harsh. But McMahon takes the premise of bringing back your loved ones and the consequences of using such power in a totally different direction. Sara’s dedication to her daughter Gertie and pain at the truth of her death are the fabric of this tale. It is Sara’s story that drives the actions of all the other characters that follow. Until finally Ruthie and the decisions she must make for herself and her family bring the story to its conclusion.
This is a good horror story that moves along slowly, letting the truths it holds creep up on you until you have to know what is coming next. Told in various time periods, it is seamless in prose and builds with a palpable tension until the final scenes with all trapped in the darkness of a cave where the sleeper lives.
A very good read.

 

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Twittering From The Circus of the Dead - Joe Hill (Book Review)

 

Title - Twittering from the Circus of the Dead

Author - Joe Hill

Genre - Horror

Story Summary -

Blake is a young girl who spends most of her time tweeting, more so now than ever since her mother banned her from her blog. Like many of today's youth, Blake's main ability to communicate is with an electronic device in her hand. No longer able to blog she is left with just her phone and her twitter account which she updates continuously.
Her life is about to get worse as her parents plan a cross country trip in a Van. Trapped inside a moving vehicle with her little brother, father and mother she despises, Blake is slowly going insane as many of her twitter followers are reading about constantly.
Somewhere off the beaten path in Colorado or Arizona the family comes upon a Circus.

"...TYME2WASTE God this is the stinkiest circus ever. I don't know what I'm smelling. Are those animals? Call PETA..."

It's not animals that are the attraction in the Circus of the Dead. It is the dead. A circus of zombies and the patrons of the show are locked in with them.
Furiously Blake realizes that the show is not just a show and she is trapped, locked inside with the dead. Can she find help in time to save herself and her family or will she just become part of the show in the Circus of the Dead?

Review -

I have mixed feelings about this story. While I enjoy small horror tales, I can't help or hope that this is just a small bit of a much larger story. That the tale of Blake and her family is just a small part of a novel yet to come.
On its own the story does stand well but there is a lot not explained. Who runs the Circus of the Dead. Who keeps control of the zombies. Where do they go when they are not brought out to perform and how does no one notice whole stadiums of people going missing? Does the circus travel and if so, how?
You see, there is so much to explore and with an author who is coming into his own like Joe Hill, well you can just imagine what the whole tale could be like. I know I would definitely like to give it a read.
What is so awesome about Twittering from the Circus of the Dead is that the whole story is written in tweets. Yes tweets. There is no dialogue and no other form of narrative in the short story. Just an endless series of tweets by Blake as she journals her angst, her family and eventual meeting with the Circus of the Dead. I found this to be creative and full of risk by the author. If only for this, the story is worth picking up.
But besides the novelty of the format, the short story is a good tale. Something you would catch late night on the far end of the cable channels where those dark and demented horror stories wait for the insomniac to watch. Twilight Zone without the TV censors of its day.
You should pick up this short story and if nothing else, introduce yourself to a good young horror writer in Joe Hill and his traveling Circus of the Dead.

Red Sky In Morning - Paul Lynch ( Book Review)

Book Summary -

In Donegal, Ireland, 1832, Coll Coyle faces eviction from the land that has been in his family for generations. With a mother, pregnant wife and young child at home, Coyle must find out why the landowner wants him gone and somehow convince him to leave his family in peace. On the fateful morning Coyle and landowner Hamilton meet on a road and in one tragic moment, one man is dead and the other is on the run.
Coyle finds himself pursued by the Landowner's main man, John Faller. The main who had raised Hamilton since he was a child. The man who has now buried him and sworn to bring Coyle back to face his own brand of justice.
Across Ireland and aboard a ship to the Americas Coyle is chased.

"...The stood up and walked out onto the street and they ran down another and then they began to walk.
This toe of mine is busted.
What'd you do that this fella wants you so bad?
I didn't give him the satisfaction of getting caught..."

Faller chases Coyle across the ocean, determined to deliver either vengeance or justice to the young man. Faller's own history is darkened by his own deeds of the past and a code of what is right and wrong based on the very basest of beliefs.

"...Faller kicked his horse forward and Macken rode alongside him, his face puzzling and then it straightened. People are still people though, most of the time, he said.
Let me tell you something Macken. People aren't people. They are animals, brutes, blind and stupid following endless needs they know not of what origin. And all the rest that we place on top to make us fell better is a delusion. The price of life is the burden of your own weight and some people are better off without it..."

In a workcamp, building the railroad line, Faller and Coyle meet their final fate. The loss of friends and family. An epidemic of Cholera raging about them, they come to the end of their chase.

Review -

Red Sky In Morning is a well written small novel by Paul Lynch that is reminiscent of American westerns of their heyday. Tales of small town values and revenge and vengeance played out on a grander scale. Violence and vigilante justice that is far more about the bloodlust of a few than setting any wrong right.
Coyle's act of murder is a moment of lost control, not in character, but simply the act of a good man pushed way too far. The subsequent torture of his brother and the acts of Faller and his henchmen in pursuit of Coyle only lend to his sense of innocence and perhaps naivety in the course of this tale.
However Coyle is with his own faults and sins. Spending time and money at brothels while he cries over the lost time from his wife and family is hypocritical at best. Watching the torture of his brother and then fleeing when all he had to do was step forward also points to his sense of self preservation above love of family.
But that is what works so well about Coyle. His humanity. Faults and all. His moments of bravery and cowardice. His love of family and the need to live in the moment, knowing that around any corner is a man with a gun.
Faller also is a very interesting character. The desire to pursue Coyle across the ocean when he could have very well turned away at first seems to be about wrecking vengeance upon the man who killed who is rumored to be his own son. But is instead, after time, more about his sense of what the world is and his need or obsession in setting it right.
Faller is, had he been given a badge, very much the old western lawman. The Wyatt Earps or Bat Mastersons. Men who committed murder and atrocities against others in the name of the law. Faller for himself follows his own law.
The novel is lyrical, written in the halting and haunting lilt that is the brogue of the Irish. There is a style here, seasoned with the cadence that is flavored throughout a Cormac McCarthy novel. The seedier and honest side of human life. As if Daniel Woodrell wrote tales of the Irish Immigrant.
Red Sky In Morning is a terrific read. My issue with it is the ending and I won't say anymore about it than I wished for something different. But overall, it is a very good read!

Best Bondage Erotica 2014 - edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel (Book Review)

Title - Best Bondage Erotica 2014

Author - Various (Edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel)

Summary -

"...Bondage is the most basic building block of kinky sex, isn't it? Ask any random (consenting adult) person on the street what kinky sex is, and they'll conjure up images of someone tied to a bed, maybe blindfolded, while someone else waves a riding crop around or intones dire threats concerning recent naught behavior. It's the very definition of Kink, the B in BDSM, the edgy sex act most likely to wind up illustrating an article spicing up your sex life..."

Best Bondage Erotica 2014 is a collection of twenty short stories, vignettes to be accurate, with the central theme of sexual arousal or satisfaction through the act of bondage. They are told through both the dominating partners view and that of the submissive as well.

"...It's amazing." Her voice had taken on a tone of wonder, and she turned to face me. "I'm helpless, but I feel so...free..."

Best Bondage also explores the realm of sex, both straight and gay, in the form of bondage. There is in fact, a little something in these stories for everyone.

Review -

My first true taste of erotica was many years ago in the writings of Anais Nin. Later on were the voyages through Penthouse Forum, but true erotica, like good porn, is really hard to find. Erotica was never meant to be just smutty. The root word of erotica deriving from the Greek God of Love, Eros. It was meant to elevate the act of sex into something more. Something more powerful.
Don't get me wrong. I don't think there is anything wrong with smut every once in awhile. But the problem with that is that there is so much of the smut writing everywhere right now. And too little of really good erotica.
What is the difference? Well for me it is often characterization. The fleshing out of the senses and personalities of the characters. Not just rushing into one sex act after the other. But the repercussions of those acts, good and bad, that each person involved must deal with.
In this collection, you will not only be introduced to the acts but to the people as well. Their desires, their needs, their curiosities. What do they receive by taking control and by giving it up as well. You will be introduced to a collection of different authors as well and I'm very sure you will be looking for more of their work after tasting their small appetizers in this book.
A sexy and strong collection of erotica.