Blankets Review

Blankets by Craig Thompson

2003

Last year I read Habibi and that was brilliant and then I came across Blankets which was apparently Thompson's first Big Deal.

So, Blankets is basically a memoir of Thompson's religious childhood out in the middle of Nowhere, Michigan. While it does cover some of his childhood and his relationship with his brother, the main focus of the book is a two week "vacation" when he was a teenager, in which he stays with his "more-than-a-friend-but-not-quite-a-girlfriend", Raina. And that's about it for plot because this book isn't about plot, it's about Thompson's growth and development as an adolescent.

As always, he masterfully merges the story with his illustrations, even when he touches on uncomfortable subjects, which are even more gut-wrenching because this is a memoir and therefore things that actually happened to him.

The only drawback, at least for me personally, is the focus of the storyline. To be honest, the whole teen-romantic-angst angle just wasn't particularly interesting to me. I've probably said this before, but I'm not a romantic person, and I find romance (particularly teen romance) and the drama associated with it, to be tedious. Honestly, I thought dynamic between he and his brother more interesting and would have liked to see more of that, although apparently they sort of drifted as they got older so perhaps there isn't too much there. Of course, he was also still pretty young (24) when he started working on this book, so of course his formative teen years are going to be the focus, and Raina appears to have had the biggest influence on him during that time.

There are parts where the drama seems a bit too drawn out, and parts where the glowing perfection that is Raina seems a bit unrealistic, but then you have to remind yourself that this is from his memories and his perspective, so of course things are going to be skewed. Raina appears perfect because that's how he saw her.

Overall though, it is an enjoyable read, and despite the size, rather quick as it is a graphic novel. Thompson certainly captures the growth and development of his person through childhood to adolescence and beyond.It'd be interesting to see him put out another memoir as a much older person with more life experience to reflect on.

3.5/5 Fancies. 

The Obsidian Blade Review

The Obsidian Blade - Pete Hautman

2012

This book was thoroughly underwhelming. I’ve already mentioned that I approach YA fiction with a certain level of hesitancy because a lot of the time I’ll start one that has an interesting plot, but then it just disappoints me in the end due to either poor plotting or inadequate prose. Unfortunately, this book was no exception.

I think I originally read about the upcoming sequel to this book and that seemed interesting, but of course I have to read the series in order, so I picked up the first book. 

Basically, Tucker’s dad disappears one day, and then reappears a few hours later wearing strange clothes and with a strange space-girl with a poor grasp of the English language named Leeloo Lahlia. Weird things start happening, such as his father, the town preacher, declaring he no long believes in God, his mother going steadily crazy and dysfunctional with a mounting obsession with Sudoku, and weird shimmery disks and ghosts appearing around roofs, until finally his parents flat out vanish. He then proceeds into a time-warping adventure chased by homicidal future-priests.

I suppose this book isn't necessarily bad, so much as simply not engaging. Certainly Hautman has his world building down, and while there were still a lot of open questions at the end, as I mentioned, this was just the opener to a series (an inevitability, it seems, to YA books these days), so presumably, there will be answers to come. But as the story progressed, I was enjoying it less and less and reading it became almost a chore and I only finished because I'd already invested so much time into it.

The beginning moves slow, I mean, you're practically halfway through the book before it really gets going. But that's almost okay, because the whole time it's building up, you keep reading because you're just waiting for something to happen. The problem is, the prose is very sparse. It's a lot of "He did this. Then this. Then he did that. And that." Which didn't draw me in and didn't make for very interesting reading, regardless of the action going on. Plus, Tucker was rather bland--really just standing in as a blank slate asking questions for the readers, and Lahlia, who was a bit more interesting, remained a vague and mysterious figure throughout, so I didn't really end up caring about any of the characters enough to be invested in the story.

Although the sequel is what initially attracted me to the series, I won't be continuing on. 2/5 Fancies. 

The War at Ellsmere/Zombies Calling Review

DUO REVIEW! Because both of these are short, graphic novels, written by Faith Erin Hicks, that I read over the course of a half an hour, it seemed better sense to stick them together. This is a little tough because I have met Ms. Hicks and she is super fun and super nice so I don't want it to seem like I'm just gushing (even though I am, a bit, because I just love her art), but I also don't want to say less than positive things because she is super fun and super nice. Luckily, she hasn't given me reason to say too many less-than-positive things.

The War at Ellsmere

2008

Juniper (Jun) is the new scholarship student at prestigious (and expensive) Ellsmere Academy. She befriends her roommate, the weird girl, and goes head to head with the bitchy rich girl who is mean to everyone.

Okay, so maybe that description doesn't quite do the story justice. So, We've all seen this plot before. But then, technically, we've see EVERY plot before. At this point, it's all about execution. I always tend to give graphic novels a bit more leeway in terms of literary ability because I feel like they exist in a space where it's slightly easier for me to suspend my belief because of the pretty, pretty art.

I suppose my main beef is that it's so short! There was good build-up, and while the wrap-up was cohesive and mostly comprehensive, I feel like there could have been more. More build up! More character depth! MORE PRETTY PRETTY ART. It seemed this story really just scratched the surface of the characters and the setting and then it was suddenly over. I think there could have been a lot more to it and the ending does seems a little contrived, though Hicks has admitted this herself. But it's a fun, quick, read.

Read-a-Likes: The Dreaming by Queenie Chan

 

 Zombies Calling 

2007

So we jump forward from high school to college in this one. I'll admit, when I first picked this book up, my initial reaction was "Oh god, another zombie book?" Because lets be honest, I feel like zombies have reached a certain market saturation point. But Zombies Calling is fully aware of this and part of the point is that the characters are aware of and utilize zombie-tropes.

Joss loves zombie movies and has the "rules" of the genre memorized. Which is lucky for her because suddenly there's a zombie outbreak on her college campus and now she and her friends have to try to stay alive, using the "Rules" of zombie movies that Joss knows.

It's a pretty simple story and delivers exactly what it promises.As with The War at Ellsmere, the story has a decent amount of build-up, but then the ending sort of rushes on, right after a great deal of exposition about what it all means. This is her first (formally) published book (Ellsmere was second), and she says her main goal with this book was so that she could have some tangible piece of accomplishment at the time, and so with that in mind she met her goal.

I would definitely say that she has improved as a writer and an artist, and if you're interested in getting in to her work, start with her graphic novel Friends with Boys, which is a later work of hers and reflects how she has stylistically grown.

I'd say 2.5/5 for both, but toss in an extra .5 for the art so 3/5 Fancies.

The Year of the Beasts Review

The Year of the Beasts - Cecil Castellucci & Nate Powell

2012

 

For those of you who have been sort of reluctant about getting into graphic novels, this may be a good segue. The main story is textual, however the end of each chapter is capped with a couple of comic pages. It's a fairly short book (175 pages) and because of this, the comic parts really help supplement the story and take it to a greater depth than it would have been on its own.

The main story is that of Tessa and her younger sister Lulu. As with most kids, they're eagerly awaiting summer, however what starts off as a trip to the carnival sours the entire summer for Tessa when her sister manages to snag the guy she's had her eye on. Tessa ends up pursuing a secrative relationship with the neighborhood "weird" kid, which is less fun because there's no bragging rights. Meanwhile, the comic pages follow an alternate story where Tessa (presumably) has turned into Medusa, along with a few other oddly-mythological students at the school.

At first I started off wondering exactly where these two threads were going, but they tie together nicely at the end and when the big climactic event occurs, everything falls into place and you see how the graphic novel represents the main story. Admittedly, the connections are fairly obvious once you get to the reveal, but this is a YA novel, and those tend to be lacking on the subtlety aspects.

As I said before, it is a short book, which worked well, however I don't feel like I had enough time to fully get into the characters and it's written in a sort of detached manner that gives the feeling you're viewing the events and characters from a distance, rather than being right in with them. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and as I mentioned, the comic aspect gives the book that extra level and helps to underscore the emotion. Although I didn't find myself fully inhabiting the story, as I tend to with longer books, the ending still hit me hard--be forewarned, it's a sad book.

3.5/5 Fancies.

Summer of the Mariposas Review

Summer of the Mariposas - Guadalupe Garcia McCall

2012

 

So I'm taking a Young Adult services class in the fall and figured I might as well start reading some YA books. I know I've previously mentioned my disdain for the genre in general, but I might possibly want to be a YA librarian, which means I'll have to read YA books, so now's the time to decide whether I can stomach it on a regular basis.

Well, mixed things about this book. Odilia is the eldest of the five Garza sisters who live near the Mexican border in Texas. When they discover a corpse in their swimming hole, they decide the logical thing to do is smuggle it into Mexico and return it to the family. Things take a fantastical turn as they encounter a good mix of Mexican folklore in witches, warlocks, el chupacabras, and demon-vampire owls, an Aztec goddess, and La Llorona.

First off, in the Land of Teenage Angst and Heterosexual Love-Triangles, it's nice and refreshing to find a book about five sisters and their interdependence on each other.The focus is very much on female relationships, between the sisters, between them and their grandmother, and between them and their mother. They are also guided by La Llorona and the Aztec goddess Tonantzin, both of which are shown (at least in the book) as maternal figures. So points for that.

Unfortunately, I wasn't terribly impressed. The idea felt a little forced, in that it's hard to believe that 5 teen and preteen girls find a corpse and their immediate thought is "Let's not only touch it, but carry it all the way into Mexico!" I'm pretty sure most people, particularly young people, see a corpse in the pool they've been swimming in, and their first thought is "I need to go take a 5-hour shower." Admittedly, Odilia, the oldest at 15-is, who's point of view it's told from, has her reservations and only agrees to the quest after La Llorona appears to her and explains that this is one of those divine test type things and she'd damn well better go (perhaps not in those words exactly). So, it's billed as a modern Mexican re-telling of the Odyssey, which is a bit of false advertising because it really isn't. At all. There's two fairly blatant references to the Odyssey (a possessive witch named Cecilia, and an androgynous, blind prophet named Teresita), and that's about it. I mean sure, it's a quest, but it's hardly a re-telling.

There was also a  lack of subtlety. They meet this prophet and she's all "These things will happen. Here is what to do about it." And then those exact things happen. And when a whole bunch of other mystical hoo-ha happens, we're given the explicit meaning behind everything. And sisters have this tendency to continually forget that they were told EXACTLY what was going to happen, and then act all surprised when it happened. Odilia appears to have some modicum of logic as she sort of figures things out first, but then her sister completely disregard any warnings she has. And maybe if that happened once, okay, they're all under 14, we can give them a break. But it continually happens. I mean, yeah, they're kids, but I really think that maybe after they've been violently attacked twice by some mythological creature, they might start to err on the side of caution--particularly if they were told about it in the first place.

Plot issues side, McCall does have some excellent, poetic passages. However, it occurs sporadically here while the brunt of the novel is unremarkable description and awkward teenage dialogue like

"'Oh boy, it's getting deep out there!' Velia said. 'What makes you think Mama knows anything about Tonantzin coming to save us? Because, I'll be honest, I didn't know what the heck was going on when the goddess showed up.'
'Whatever,' Juanita retorted..."

It's sort of hard for me to judge YA books because I'm not great at trying to frame it through my teenage-self (actually, I stopped reading YA while I was still a teenager, so I guess, pre-teen self?). I'm sure there are some teens who'll be welcome to the books expository nature. Plus, it's a quick enough read and it's a great introduction to Mexican/Aztec folklore for those who familiar with it. There is a glossary in the back of the Spanish words used throughout. And as I mentioned before, it's certainly a better alternative than the majority of the cookie-cutter paranormal/dystopian romances out there. 

3/5 Fancies.

 

Laika Review

Laika - Nick Abadzis

2007

 

You ever get that feeling sometimes, where you really just need to cry, but for some reason you can't quite squeeze those tears out? Like, it's just been a real crappy week and you just need something to trigger that cathartic release? WELL, have I got the book for YOU!

So, history lesson! In 1957 the Soviet Union shoots a dog into orbit, thus becoming the first country to launch a living creature into orbit, right after being the first country to launch a non-living thing (Sputnik I) into orbit. Which is just one of the examples of the massive posturing fest that was the Cold War. Anyway, the dog, Laika as she's known in the US, and Kudryavka (Little Curly), as she's known in Russia, died about six-hours in to the launch, though that information wasn't released until around 2002. Sorry if that's a spoiler, but c'mon guys, this is history. I mean, even if you didn't already know the story,  the fact that it's a book about a dog should sort of be a tip off. Because if the dog's name is in the title of a book, it most likely won't be around at the end of the book.

Anyway, Laika is part history, part speculation on the kind of life Laika may have had leading up to her final odyssey. She's caught between the kindness and the cruelty of humans, and despite the abuse and neglect she receives, she never seems to lose her faith and her trust in us, which makes for a truly heart-rending ending.The story is meant to question the ethical quandary of the mission. On the one hand, at that stage in experimentation they really couldn't use people because people tend to rank higher than animals in our collective sense of morality (though, that depends on who you ask). On the other hand, one of the scientists responsible for the project did say,

"We did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of the dog." 

Have I mentioned this is a graphic novel? Because makes it about 10x sadder. It is a good choice of medium, as Abadzis is able to put a human, and canine, face on the subject matter, and Laika's death scene is handled with artistic care and sensitivity. Also, according to the Author's Note, the moon phases on specific dates are accurate to the day. Which is some pretty detail-oriented work there.

According to Amazon, this book is intended for ages 10 and up. I would say based on language and subject matter, it's probably more suited towards the older end of the middle-grade group. It's definitely a denser graphic novel, with a lot of text. As I mentioned, it does get pretty depressing, but then again, little kids are all sociopaths anyway. I don't know how else I could've watched The Land Before Time over and over without batting an eye back when I was a wee-one. 

Basically, it's very well done, but also sad, sad, sad, and sad. So, if you're not one for weeping uncontrollably, or if you're a vehement dog lover, you might want to stay away, though I suggest you steel yourself and pick it up anyway, because it's definitely a good read.

4/5 Fancies

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Review

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs

2011

You see this creepy-as-all-hell cover and then you see the book is smattered with these weird and freaky vintage photos and you think “This looks like one spooky book!” And the inside flap continues to lead you along that track—horrific tragedies! Abandoned houses! Dead children! Wales! If that’s what you’re looking for…just flip through the pictures and put together your own story in your head because I guarantee you it will be 10x scarier than this book.

I feel like so much more went into the marketing and package of the book than into the actual content of the story. The cover is nice and eerie, the end paper and title pages are full-color (or rather, black and brown, but that’s more color than most books get), the paper's thick, and of course, there are those creepy photos throughout. It even has a book trailer. But no matter how fancily you wrap up a dead bird, it is still a dead bird.

 So, Jacob's grandfather likes to tell these stories about how when he was a child he was sent away from home to an orphanage on a Welsh island, he was accompanied by other "peculiar" children and supposedly kept safe from "monsters". As Jacob grows from wondrous child to petulant teen he realizes that his grandfather's tales are probably just tall tales. Then his grandfather is horrifically killed in an "accident" and Jacob heads off to Wales to visit his grandfather's old home as a form of closure. But it soon becomes apparent that his grandfather was telling the truth all this time. That's about as far as I can go without spoiling anything and that's about as far as the blurb goes also. But if you think this is going to be some really creepy ghost story, I'll save you some time. It's not.

 When I first saw the book, read the summary, and heard a bunch of reviews talk about how scary it was, I was really hoping for something like The Orphanage. What I got was just another YA supernatural fantasy, complete with tacked-on romance, unsupervised precocious teens, and a sequel in the making.

I'm not angry, I'm just very disappointed. Okay, and a little bit angry.

Admittedly, I don't read all that much YA (and this book is one of the many reasons why), but I can tell when a book is written at a lower level but written well versus when a book is just poorly written. Unfortunately, I have to say this book fits the latter. But the really frustrating thing is that it didn't start off that way. Riggs clearly knows how to write, as least some of the time. And I did actually finish the book, which I guess says something. Even when it became apparent that this book was not what I was looking for, I kept going because I still wanted answers (I won't be reading the sequel, though). However, as the book progressed, the quality of the writing seemed to decline. Maybe Riggs and his editor were getting too close to deadline or something because by the end, his sentences, dialogue, and plot points were just downright sloppy. Also I find it hard to believe that a 16-year-old in "gifted" classes, who uses words like torpor and soporific, has never heard of Ralph Waldo Emerson and lacks the ability to draw basic conclusions from fairly obvious clues. It's like Riggs couldn't decide whether this was an older teen or a middle grade book and then kind of failed at both.

Then there’s the matter of the pictures, which Riggs seems to use as a crutch, except that it’s a broken crutch. Rather than giving us a description of some characters, he would simply say something like “They looked like their picture” INSERT PICTURE. But the problem with this is that he’s not consistent. When he introduces us to one character, he tells us he recognizes her from a picture, and proceeds to show us a rather blurry, unclear photo of what I thought was a ten-year-old girl. And so I assumed this character was a ten-year-old girl, until pages later it became apparent that she was a teenage girl. The same thing happens with another character. We’re given a picture, in lieu of a description, of a little boy. And then later on, we’re given another picture of him only this one shows a much older boy. WHICH IS IT RIGGS? And then there’s the actual incorporation of the photos. Riggs describes the picture “It has this in it and with this and looked like this” and then we’d get to see the picture which just felt very…pointless. What I really didn't like, though, is that he gives an explanation for the oddities in each picture which diminishes their creep-factor. I don’t think Riggs realizes that not-knowing is far scarier than having a detailed explanation for everything, especially when the explanation itself isn’t all that scary.

There's so much more I could say against this book, but that would be spoil it and make this review longer than I'm sure anyone cares to read, suffice to say (hint: mild spoiler coming up), Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is yet another incarnation of X-Men/Harry Potter/Charlie Bone, and a poor one at that. If you're cool with that kind of story, then go ahead and read it because you'll probably enjoy it more than I did.

  Speaking of twins, 2/5 Fancies. 

Read Instead: A Dark Dividing by Sarah Rayne