We’ll eat you up – we love you so!

A sad week for anyone who ever sailed to the land of the wild things, visited the night kitchen, or went outside over there.

Maurice Sendark
June 10, 1928 – May 8, 2012

Thank you, Maurice. You’ll be missed.

ROBYN SMASH!

Can you tell I’m excited about seeing the Avengers assemble? (Thor Odinson, how you doin?)

But seriously. Today, children, we are going to talk about a book that made me angry because it was not angry enough. The book: Fury by Elizabeth Miles. Yes, it’s another YA, but I’m of the Lev Grossman school when it comes to adults reading YA–in case you haven’t already guessed. Now’s not the time to debate the gazillion inarguable reasons why adults should dip their toes into the cool waters of YA lit, so I’ll just put on my placid cult leader smile and say in a dreamy but vaguely sinister voice, “Books are for everyone.” I mean, if I could read Jackie Collins when I was eleven, I sure as hell can read a few YA books now and then, amiright? (Sidebar: But eleven year olds really shouldn’t read Jackie Collins, okay? Mom, that was not cool. So not cool. Although it probably explains a lot, specifically my dream of one day becoming the high-powered, jet-setting, unscrupulous and ruthless ruler of a hotel empire, pursuing emotionally unavailable men with the same passion that I pour into seeking vengeance and restoring my mafioso father’s honour. Wait, was that TMI?)

Back to the book.

Um, your hair is on fire. And Katniss did it better.

Synopsis time (which I feel requires a signature dance of some sort, perhaps with parachute pants): Gah. I don’t even want to do the synopsis dance for this book. Gag. Okay, here it goes:

Ascension is a small town in Maine, which I guess as one of those New England states is kind of spooky. Emily, a.k.a. Em, is totally psyched cos Christmas break is nigh, which means that with her besty bud Gabby out of town, Em, who is a smart, popular, really really nice (ugh) girl with the dancer’s body and budding poet awards to prove it, will finally be able to hit on Zach, Gabby’s boyfriend. But really, she’s such a nice, great, awesome girl! (EYE-ROLL.) Then some chick jumps off an overpass and even though she’s horribly injured and probably paralyzed for life, no one really cares, because I guess people jumping off overpasses happens on a semi-regular basis in Ascension? I don’t know. But hey, the girl wasn’t even popular, so it doesn’t really matter anyway. Oh, and there’s a subplot with a guy called Chase (seriously) and he falls for some mysterious redhead chick with the same disturbingly obsessive intensity of my school-girl crush on Orlando freakin Bloom (NB, I am suitably ashamed of this youthful crush). And come on, haven’t they seen South Park? The redheads, man. Even though we live in a post-Harry Potter world and any idiot would be able to see that Mysterious Redhead is clearly not from Kansas (or in this case, Maine), Chase and the idiotic teens of Ascension are just stupid enough that all of this forms the most meagre of plots and 370 pages. Oh, and that chick who jumped off the overpass? Turns out, it’s relevant. Three hundred pages later.

That was the spoileriest synopsis ever, but hey, I did you a favour. Up front: I did not like this book. First things first, Elizabeth Miles has stolen the title of my autobiography. Second–and this counts as a spoiler, too, so stop reading if you are a wuss about spoilers–even though this book is about the Furies (more on that in a sec) and that’s presumably what the author is referencing in the title, I still wanted more anger and rage and unholy freaking wrath from a book called Fury. Somebody, please, smash a glass. Put a fist through a wall. Spit venomous epithets at your enemy and curse her unborn children. And that’s just Sunday brunch at my house. Sheesh. This book is full of amateurs, man.

The protagonists are unlikable, flat, and in Em’s case, straight-up stupid. I hated the writing, which felt sparse, lifeless, and tedious. Pace-wise, this thing dragged on longer than The Tree of Life. I only finished it because my ears were ringing from the bizarre cluster-cuss of a concert I went to last night and I couldn’t sleep and Fury was the closest book to my bed. (Yann Tiersen at the Phoenix. It was weird.)

The story itself is both laughable and irritating. On the one hand, I couldn’t stop sniggering every time a ridiculous after-school TV show high-school trope popped up–the secretly promiscuous bookworm, the vapid but loyal cheerleader, the skeezy jock–but I was not cool with the slut-shaming in this book. Double standards are not okay, and if a lady wants to snog her besty bud’s loser boyfriend, she can. She’s a crappy friend and really bad at picking dudes to snog, but she is not a slut. Er, at least, not any more than the man-sluts are sluts for doing the same thing. Let’s just say everyone’s a slut. Or no one’s a slut. Or this is high school, so maybe we should all focus less on the snogging and more on the algebra and grammar and then maybe America wouldn’t be in the sorry state it is today.

This has become awkward. Also, I am Canadian, so I don’t really know or care what state America is in. Controversy!

Now it’s about to get harsh. I am, as you may know, a massive fantasy nerd. Urban fantasy is one of my favourite fantasy subgenres, so I felt very keenly the failure of this novel. The title should have indicated to any reader with a basic knowledge of Greek mythology that this novel is about the Furies, or Erinyes (thank you, wikipedia) who hunt down Orestes in Aeschylus’s Oresteia (thank you, Professor Boyne). SO WHY WAS THIS MADE OUT TO BE SOME HUGE SURPRISE??? Why? And why were the Furies so lame? And what are they doing in Maine? And why are they wasting their time torturing (very lamely, I might add) the high schoolers of this small town, with their petty slights and insignificant cruelties, when they could be out torturing the people who really deserve it? (Like my step-father, ha ha. No, seriously. He deserves it.)

This unhappy marriage of the mundane and the magical is what rankled most about this book. It was a failure as an urban fantasy, and a poor piece of writing in terms of plot, characters, and language.

But it’s okay. Without shite YA novels, we’d have no way of recognizing the stellar ones, right? How’s that for zen.

Best line: “Okay.” JD grinned. “That sounded less creepy in my head.” (p. 96). Ah, JD. You were the only character I liked, and let’s face it, as the eccentric outcast, you were the coolest one  of all. You will grow up to become a witty, fearless musical genius, because even though this was never discussed in the novel, I’m 93% sure that you play guitar and sing in a husky voice that is like warm butterscotch for the ears. Ahem. And also, you’re right. Things always sound less creepy in one’s head. Just ask the burly Georgian I recently scared off. He could not handle my Gollum/Sméagol impersonations. Ah, l’amour voué. It was not meant to be.

Rating: One creepy ginger kid out of five. (Oh,I kid. I love the gingers.) I’d give it zero, because it’s that kind of day, but I will grudgingly give Miles credit for the physical act of writing a book, which is something I seem to be unable to accomplish myself (I blame you, internet). So for simply sitting down every day until she had 370 pages of drivel to email to her soulless, avaricious publisher, I commend the author. Er, good for you, I suppose. Better luck next time?

Laters!!

P.S. I just googled this book and found out that Fury is apparently the first in a trilogy. Of course it is. It’s YA. Milk that cow, Simon & Schuster. This new factoid changes absolutely nothing about my review. Also, there’s nothing on my copy of the book indicating it’s part of a trilogy and so I should therefore expect an excruciatingly slow, utimately unresolved plotline. What the what?

As they say on Spartacus…

APOLOGIES!

This cat is not Book Cat. With his freaky extra fingers (claws?), Book Cat would pwn this cat. Believe it, bruv.

God, I suck at blogging, right? WRONG. The mind-numbing mundanities of my drearily monotonous existence have conspired to keep me ridiculously preoccupied. First there was the small matter of grad school to deal with–which, by the way, I’m pleased to say is finally finished (yay, me)–and then I made the questionable decision to return to the family seat, a.k.a. Helheim, for a week. Mostly because I went to see Of Monsters and Men at the Phoenix (a-freakin-mazing!) but also because I hate fake London and paying for my own groceries. Once the high of seeing those Icelandic indie rock gods had worn off, though, I quickly remembered why the pink elephant in White-by is called Helheim, and even thoughts of Arnar banging on his drums like a Viking god of kynlíf weren’t enough to distract me from the madness of megalomaniacs, rageaholics, and sociopaths.

And then my step-father went to work and everything was cool. JOKES–he didn’t go to work, he’s a total bum. Lol. Silly you.

But seriously you guys, it’s been crazy. I’ve been back in Lundun packing up my shizz and let me tell you, thank the gods for my e-reader. I have more boxes of books that everything else in my tiny flat combined. Which would normally make me feel all uber-nerdy and self-righteous and cause me to strut around crowing “I’m a librarian!”… except tomorrow I have to carry these boxes of books down six flights of stairs because this apartment’s elevators are demonically possessed. So, a bit of cold water on that one.

So that’s what’s been going on. I have been reading, lots and lots and lots, and as soon as I’ve moved out of Crap City and back to the House of Horrors, I’ll be blogging about the books I lurved and the books I loathed, and also the books who are just going to be casual, no funny business-type friends.

But for now, here’s Book Cat, getting more writing done than me, the bumptious little bastard. Rub it in, T. Rub it in.

Those thumbs are just weird.

Cor, that cat’s got swagger.

Wow. I guess I have a heart after all.

Jerry: [crying] What is this salty discharge?
Elaine: Oh, my God. You’re crying.
Jerry: This is horrible! I care!

(Seriously though, doesn’t watching this make the cold chunk of igneous rock that’s lodged in your chest start to feel things again? Damn. Watch it on Vimeo here)

(FYI, igneous because it is the best kind of rock, and by best, I mean it’s made of LIQUID HOT MAGMA and also the most fun to say. IGneous. Iiiiiiiiiiiigneous. Igneouuuuus. Go on, say it. You know you want to. There. See what I mean? For some reason, saying it makes me feel like Gandalf.)

This is just wrong

What... I don't even ... Why would anyone... Never mind.

I’d rather steal a book…or cake

I know, I know. Too long, Robyn. Mea culpa and whatnot. So what have I been doing instead of blogging? Um, homework? Ha! As if. I managed to escape fake London for a weekend–huzzah! It was good to get back to Toronto for a reprieve. Went to the Game of Thrones exhibition at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. It wasn’t bad, kind of scant, and no pictures allowed. Now, being the bad-ass, stick-it-to-the-man stirrer that I am, I normally laugh in the face of such no pictures edicts, but Christ on a cracker, there was an army of grim-faced TIFF goons policing the area like a bunch of old-timey police officers in a Chaplin picture (I swear to the Seven they were swinging billy-sticks!) so, alas, I’ve no sneaky against-the-rules pictures to share with y’all. I wasn’t risking getting tossed out onto King St. to take some pictures of…pictures. Cuz yeah, it was mostly pictures. Nice pictures, but still. That’s what the internet is for. Bit of a let-down, to be honest.

Highlights? There were four costumes: Jon Snow’s Ranger outfit, Catelyn Stark’s grey dress (which one? Exactly), Daenerys Targaryen’s khaleesi leather stuff, Melisandre’s red ensemble, and, best of all, one of Cersei Lannister’s gowns. It was turquoise and gold and embroidered with birds. Birds! I also liked seeing the handful of props, and if you’re an uber-fangirl like me, the sheer awesomeness of cavorting beneath a model of Sean Bean’s head stuck on a pike is too transcendent to describe. Oh, yeah–and then I got to sit my ass in the mother-flippin IRON THRONE!

I sat in the throne in which Sean Bean sat. Which means my ass kind of touched Sean Bean's ass. Which means you may now call me Mrs. Bean.

It. Was. AMAZING!!! And then I had no choice but to engage in an epic Game of Thrones season 1 marathon as soon as I got back to the old casa de familia. Hm… what else… saw some folks I like, and some folks I don’t like, and went book shopping at Book City in the Beaches. That’s about it. I certainly haven’t been maniacally devouring the craptastically engrossing Black Dagger Brotherhood series by J.R. Ward. No, sir, definitely not. Moving on…

Before a certain Brotherhood robbed me of my sanity and good taste in books, I read Rebecca Makkai’s The Borrower. Synopsis time!

If you try to 'borrow' this book, by the hammer of Thor I will crush you with my giant man-hands.

Children’s librarian Lucy Hull is struggling with life after college and a boring job in small-town Hannibal, Missouri, when she begins to suspect that her most ardent patron, voracious reader ten-year-old Ian Drake, may be in need of more than smuggled books that don’t fall under his conservative mother’s definition of ‘good’ books. Her suspicions are confirmed when Ian runs away from home and co-opts Lucy into kidnapping him. In a bizarre and inventive take on a buddy road-trip, Lucy and Ian cross the country, tangling themselves even deeper in the faux-kidnapping plot, and it quickly becomes clear that Ian isn’t the only one fleeing life in Hannibal. Amusing, touching, tender, and thoughtful, the story of Lucy’s quest to save Ian is an enjoyable and intelligent story, and will make readers remember the many way  that books, libraries, and librarians can change lives.

I quite liked this book. It was nice to read about a librarian who was close to my own age and shared my propensity for lazy subversiveness. The story was well paced, and I found Makkai’s style to be highly readable. The little parodies of classic children’s books peppered throughout the novel were a nice touch as well. I thought Lucy, Ian, and Lucy’s father were excellently realized characters, although the rest of them, particularly Lucy’s best friend and Ian’s mother, were a little flat for my tastes.

I’ll be honest. I loved the little asides about Lucy’s Russian heritage (oh, Russians!) and the insights into the cultural dilemmas of first-generation Americans.

There’s wasn’t a whole lot that I disliked about this book, aside from the flat secondary characters. I would have liked a bit more of a resolution. It was a bit of a cop-out. I felt like Makkai got to the end of the story and had no idea how to construct an elegant, meaningful conclusion. It was okay, it just wasn’t as great as the rest of the story. And there’s the flimsy premise of the story. It requires a dedicated suspension of belief to go along with Lucy and Ian’s complicity kidnapping ruse. It was funny, though, and clever, so once you accept it, it stops bothering you.

But come on. If I were going to steal anything, it wouldn’t be a ten-year-old boy. It would be cake.

A slab of scrumptious vanilla cake from Hummingbird Bakery

Now tell me you’re not craving cake. 

Back to the book. Favourite quote: “What is one Russian? A nihilist. What are two Russians? A game of chess. What are three Russians? A revolution.” (Chapter 2). Hahaha. (Oh, Russians!)

Rating: 4 out of 5 lovable larcenous librarians. (+10 for alliteration!)

I have been… busy

YOU CAN'T SEE ME!

Robyn: Hey, Titus, what are you reading? Oh my great giddy aunt, is that… is that J.R. Ward? Damn, T… that’s just… I mean… really?

Titus: LOOK AWAY! LOOK AWAY!

This is not a Karl Wolf song…regretfully

Apologies all around for taking far too long to feed the hungry blog-monster. I’ve been busy trying to figure out computational linguistics. And also designing my She-Ra, Princess of Power, costume for when I (fingers crossed) crash Comic-Con. It will happen. Oh yes, it will happen. For the honour of Greyskull!

Okay, so maybe I spent a little too much time on the latter, but computational linguistics is just a class; She-Ra is forever.

So what’s on the block today? It’s Habibi by Craig Thompson. (I know, another graphic novel, right? Shut up.) Brace yourself, it’s going to get mean.

Let’s get this out of the way. I hated this book…graphic novel…thing. No, seriously, I hated it. Hated it. HATED IT. Just talking about it is making me all agitated and smashy.

So what did I hate? Story-wise, everything. The non-place Islamic-y setting was not the abstract fairytale landscape the author was going for; instead, it made the story inaccessible and confusing. Tone-wise, the typical combination of whinging, grandiosity, and pretentious self-awareness that characterizes Thompson’s other works, Blankets and Carnet de Voyage (there’s another I haven’t read, and won’t). I didn’t hate the characters, but I found them to be both inconsistent and unrealistic.

And then shit got weird. Cough castration cough. Yeah, it was disturbing. What is the deal with this guy and sex? Craig, buddy, I know you had an effed up, religious upbringing, but dude, seriously. Get over it. Don’t you live in Portland now? Portland, where the dream of the ’90s lives, where everybody’s freak flag flies high and freaky. Put a bird on it. Chill out. It’s okay to like sex. Please don’t cut off your boules robotiques.  Crikee.

The whole sex-guilt thing got pretty boring, and the way Thompson lingered over it (and boy did he linger–this book is freaking massive, like two hundred pages longer than it should have been) felt veeery uncomfortable. Like someone was enjoying it all a little too much. Reveling in sexual violence, exploitation, and, ultimately, mutilation, while never managing to convey any discernible message condemning these practices (not even exploring them in a thoughtful way) made Habibi feel like very pretty torture porn.

Lots of other people have talked about the problems of appropriation and racism that are present in this book, so I won’t. I will say I found it too inert and, frankly, ridiculous, to be truly offensive. It was reductive, repetitive, unfocused, and sophomoric.

But damn, it was pretty. I have never admired the beauty of something I hated so much (oh wait, that’s a lie; several ex-boyfriends can be included in the god-I-hate-you-but-DAMN-you’re-pretty category). Check it:

Rating: Because of the art alone, I give this book/graphic novel: One out of five ‘deeply metaphorical’ (um, yeah, right) ruined boats in the desert.

I prefer this habibi. Yum. Screw you, Craig  – let’s all do some crazy sexy-dancing, librarian style. By belly-dancing and fake-flamencoing in a sexy style around our tiny kitchens and grim, shoebox apartments while hugging our irritated cats to our woefully single bosoms! WOOOO!

Le sigh

As Leo Tolstoy once said, "Boredom: the desire for desires." And as Pepe Le Pew as once said: "Le sigh." Now go away.

Uh-oh. More poetry.

I know, so much poetry, right? You’re probably thinking, what the cuss is wrong with this fool? What, does she think she’s some spinster bluestocking governess mooning over her brooding and taciturn employer, wandering the moors with her book of poetry clasped to her bosom, sighing and occasionally spouting lines of Keats while discreetly trying not to sully her hem? (Okay, so maybe I’ve been reading a little too much of the Bronte sisters. And watching the films inspired by them. And lusting over Michael Fassbender. And Tom Hardy. Shut up.)

See, I was reading all of this poetry over the holidays, when reading poetry was a completely logical thing to do and not at all a depressing and very very stupid thing to do. But, as a great hobbit once said, I’ve put this off for far too long, so I’m just going to bite the bullet and keep it short. Here we go.

First up: Pablo Neruda, specifically, his first collection (published when he was only nineteen years old – nineteen!!!), by Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair) (1924).

I have absolutely nothing to say about this. If you’ve read this, you’ll know what I’m talking about; if you haven’t, you just have to read this. Please. Do yourself a favour. Trust me. You will thank me.

My favourite, and arguably the most famous of the collection: “Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche” (“Tonight I can write the saddest lines”). A brilliant, lovely, bittersweet meditation on past loves. Especially good for those of us anticipating a solitary February. (Stupid February. )

Lastly, the fascinating Anna Akhmatova. By some freakish chance or literary miracle, I stumbled across the complete works in my local public library (I know, right? Score!)

Perhaps not as well-known in the West as Neruda, Akhmatova is truly a poetic genius, and is considered one of the great Russian poets of the twentieth century. Her life story is incredible and tragic; her poetry is beautiful. (Forgive me if I start gushing like a crazed fan-girl. This is unavoidable when I talk about her.) Stark, direct, restrained – and yet, piercing and unsettling and affecting. A few lines can reduce me to the ugliest crying you can imagine (don’t try to imagine it, though, it’s really ugly). Much of her early poetry is melancholy; the speaker often seems brittle and tense, like a girl on the edge of shattering. Small details, like a glove placed on the wrong hand, a hand on a knee, or glowing candles, make each short piece vivid, like a single frame from a film we’ve all seen. I love her earlier work, especially the poems from Evening (1912) and Rosary (1914), but Akhmatova also wrote some incredible long poems during World War II, and kept writing until her death in 1966.

Akhmatova’s poetry is easy to find online, too, if you don’t have the library luck I had.

So that’s poetry done with for now. God, what a downer, right? Not funny at all, and hardly any links or anything. I’m off, aren’t I? Shut up, you try being me. Sorry, sorry. I’ve been in school too long, people. It’s starting to get to me. And then there’s the mounting terror at the prospect of life beyond school. I’ll let Ray explain:

Ah, Ray. So true.

Anyway. I promise, next week will be better. I’ve got some good stuff for you. You’ll see. You’ll all see. Mwa ha ha ha haaaaa. (What the what? I dunno… I’m tired. Robyn OUT.)

P.S. – I forgot to rate these masterpieces… What a maroon!

I’m pretty sure it goes without saying that it’s five out of five slices of fried gold for both Neruda and Akhmatova. Huzzahs all around!