Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

  2009. Little, Brown and Company. Paperback. 563 pages.

Recommended by: Capricious Reader, my co-worker Kim

Backstory:

This very popular book has been on my radar since the year it came out, thanks to the championing of several fellow book bloggers. My enjoyment of YA literature is hit-or-miss however, so it was the recommendation of my co-worker Kim that finally pushed me to pick this book up, just as the movie was coming out. Although Kim acknowledged it wasn’t perfect and had some ridiculous elements, as a Southerner herself, she found the Southern Gothic atmosphere set this book apart from other YA novels she’s read.

Beautiful Creatures is told from the first-person perspective of Ethan Wate, a teenager in a small Southern town who can’t wait to escape the oppressive social structures of his school and community. A mysterious new girl, Lena Duchannes, arrives to quickly capture his attention and affections. Lena turns out to have supernatural powers, and this secret is barely kept under wraps, turning the whole of the town against her, her family, and Ethan.

Review:

I struggled through Beautiful Creatures. It is terribly angsty, and needed to be pared way the heck down. Where just a couple of sentences would have sufficed to convey a feeling, there would be a paragraph or two. Things were spelled out that didn’t need to be, and the suspense was so belabored in execution, it just became annoying instead of hair-raising.

There were some fantastic sequences in this book, to be sure, but they were muffled by so much nonsense. I especially despaired over the high school drama, which included the tired cliche of a group of mean-girls who dictate the opinions and actions of the entire school body. Please.

The best parts often involved the adults: Lena’s uncle coming to her rescue during a school dispute; Ethan is visited by a friend’s mom and his house starts acting weird; a ghost appears in a cemetery. There’s also a switch in perspective near the end of the book that was unexpected and a welcome new wrinkle.

I will not be reading the sequels. I will probably watch the movie, not because I expect it to be great, but there’s a possibility it will be better than the book anyway. I think the story might work better visually than on the page. I hope they keep some of the best scenes and, being a movie, have edited out all the bloat from the book.

Excerpts from others’ reviews:

A Tapestry of Words – “It was like [the authors] couldn’t get enough of any one type of magic and so they decided to keep tossing things in there and hoping they would work. It turns into one gigantic hodgepodge of every fantasy cliche and then some!”

Capricious Reader – “Beautiful Creatures is a delicious, lush, and haunting Southern gothic tale of some of the most memorable Southern characters, I’ve ever met.”

Cornucopia of Reviews – “I’ve occasionally found that in books by multiple authors, you can pick up on the different writing styles of each author throughout the book. That wasn’t true for Beautiful Creatures.”

 

 

Istanbul / Jordan trip – Day 2 (Topkapı Palace, Blue Mosque)

Thanks to jet lag, we all overslept the next day, which meant that a couple of sites were knocked off that day’s docket.

We joined the throngs of tourists at Topkapı Palace, home of the Ottomansultans for centuries. We shuffled through the lines in the Imperial Treasury exhibit and the Hall of Holy Relics. The treasures were pretty amazing – jewel-encrusted swords, daggers, helmets and a bowl of large emeralds. My favorite part about the holy relics exhibit was the fact that there is an imam chanting verses from the Koran 24/7, and has been since the 16th century. Such unbroken tradition for so long is fascinating to me.

We lost track of time in the pavilion area of the palace, and the Harem closed before we got to it. (The Harem portion closes an hour before the rest of the palace). That was disappointing, but we didn’t beat ourselves up too much about it.

Here are some of the palace photos:

Gate of Salutation.

Stork flying over one of the domes at the palace.

The Library of Ahmet III. Apparently BYOB – bring your own book.

Tulip season!

Lovely pavilions.

Revan Pavilion.

By the time we left Topkapı Palace, the nearby Blue Mosque had entered into a time of worship service. We ate dinner and then returned.

My sister snapped this fantastic photo of the Blue Mosque interior.

We returned by ferry to Kadikoy, taking a little time to explore one of the landmarks of that area, Haydarpaşa terminal before getting some dessert and then retiring for the day.

Istanbul / Jordan Trip – Day 1

So I have some excuse for not posting in a while. In the early part of April, I went on a trip to Istanbul and then to Jordan. My younger sister has been living in Jordan for a little while, so the primary goal was to see her and sight-see with her. My friend Jen also came with us.

I thought about doing a great write-up about all we did and saw, but it seemed too daunting of a prospect. So instead, I thought I’d do some posts with photos and some captions and leave it at that.

We arrived in Istanbul on a Friday evening, got a meal and then settled into our hostel in Kadikoy, which is an Istanbul suburb on the Asian side of Istanbul. Being on that side of the Bosphorus happily meant taking a 20-minute ferry ride over to the European side each day, as that is where most of the major sights are located.

On our first day, we followed one of the walks described in the most recent edition of Rick Steves’ Istanbul. First major stop: the famous Grand Bazaar.

I didn’t buy anything there, but it was fun to roam about and see what was there.

After a bite of lunch, we next went to the Süleymaniye Mosque, which would turn out to be one of our favorite places of the trip. It’s a huge mosque, very elegant and serene inside.

Then we returned to the market scene, heading down the shop-lined streets to the Spice Market, where I bought a box of lovely Turkish delights. (When I was in middle school, I had a Turkish delight – probably rosewater flavored – and thought it was awful. I clearly was having the wrong kind. It is only now that I better understand Edmund’s temptation in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe).

We backtracked a little to see the Rüstem Paşa mosque, which is lined with beautiful Iznik tiles.

The day was capped off with a journey across the Golden Horn on the Galata Bridge into the New District.

On the ferry ride back to Kadikoy, we enjoyed the illuminated skyline of Istanbul.

gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson

2005. Warner Books. Hardcover. 275 pages.

Backstory:

Joshilyn Jackson is an author whose books I’ve heard about for a while. In fact, I think I put gods in Alabama on my to-read list back when it debuted. This novel is about Arlene Fleet, a young woman who thought she had left Alabama and her past behind when she moved to Chicago right out of high school. But then an old schoolmate shows up at her door ten years later looking for information about Jim Beverly, the boy who had been the high school quarterback when they were teenagers. Fearful that certain secrets may be revealed, Arlene is compelled to return to Alabama, along with Burr, her long-suffering boyfriend.

Review:

gods in Alabama is one of those books that alternates between the present day and past events. It’s also one of those books that loves to dangle its secrets. To Jackson’s credit, she doesn’t get too ambitious about the secret withholding and tells the reader early on that Arlene killed Jim Beverly. But the “why” behind Arlene’s actions is kept mostly obscured throughout the novel, and an earlier traumatic event is referred to repeatedly but not explained. I’m not a fan of this approach in storytelling generally; there’s an artificial aspect to it that I don’t like. If the writer keeps telegraphing that there’s a secret that no one can know, a story the characters swore they’d never tell, and stuff like that, there comes a point where I just flip ahead and find out what it is and get it over with. Which is what happened with gods in Alabama.

So after I spoiled myself, I considered not finishing the book for real, but when I’d peeked ahead, I’d liked what I’d seen of adult and teenager Clarice, Arlene’s cousin and a major player in the book’s secrets. Clarice is beautiful and beloved by basically everyone, including Arlene, but still remains a real person and doesn’t slip into some kind of sainthood.

And I’ll say this for the alternating story structure: Jackson doesn’t use it in an arbitrary fashion. The two major reveals in the book coincide with that story being told by one character to another, with it being a revelation to the listener in each instance. So, the secret-keeping is not entirely for reasons of tantalizing the reader, and it makes sense that the revelations are placed at these specific times in the novel.

In the end, structure aside, gods in Alabama struck me as a variation of stories I’d read or heard before, where the golden boy of the school is really a terrible person, and characters make dramatic promises to God or themselves, like they won’t ever lie. I’m afraid it’s not destined to stick in my brain for very long, but I don’t mind the time I spent on it.

Looking at other book bloggers’ reviews, I feel a bit alone in my lukewarm response to gods in Alabama. It seems to be generally well-loved. I also seem to be one of the few that read this book first and not the related novel, Backseat Saints, which was written later.

Excerpts from others’ reviews:

Book Chase – “It is a good story, and despite its comic nature, it is filled with observations about right and wrong, human nature, and growing up in a change-resisting South. My only quarrel with the novel is that I found two or three of the characters to be unrealistic and, in the case of Arlene’s black boyfriend, to be too good to be true.”

Rhapsody in Books – ” . . . the characters are treated with respect, and if they seem caricatured or stereotypical at first, it is only because the author has not yet revealed their depth to you.”

tiny little reading room – “This is my second Jackson book and I wasn’t disappointed – it’s snappy, sad, Southern, smart, and somewhat sweet, all at the same time.”

Enjoyable things that are not books

I don’t spend as much time reading lately as I did, say, a couple of years ago. I often as not curl up with a film or a tv show. Last fall, I started listening to a couple of film review podcasts (/Filmcast and Filmspotting) and I started going out to the movies more frequently to check out the films that were discussed. By the time the Oscars rolled around, I had seen six of the nine Best Picture Nominees and four out of the five Best Documentary nominees. But as is often the case, some of the films I enjoyed most from 2012 were not nominated at all.

Looper was probably my favorite film. Great storytelling, great acting – I’m a fan of Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who isn’t?) and Emily Blunt. I saw Looper twice. The first time I accidentally went to a showing that had open captions. I think that is cool that the theater has open captioned shows for the hard of hearing, but the words do intrude on the cinematography and the experience over all. Anyway, I still really liked the film so I decided it was worth seeing in the theaters again, without the captions.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Steven Soderbergh’s action film, Haywire. I know some people criticized the acting of mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carano. I can’t say that was a problem for me, because I just loved watching her fight. You could see her character thinking about her every next move (especially in my favorite sequence, a chase scene in Dublin). The action scenes were subsequently quite interesting – I can’t tell you how many action scenes in other movies just do nothing for me.

The documentary Queen of Versailles should have been nominated for an Oscar. (The film that won Best Documentary  – Searching for Sugarman – was not that good and I suspect had a boost from baby boomer nostalgia.) Queen of Versailles started out as a film that followed the life of Jackie Siegel, former beauty queen and wife of David Siegel, owner of Westgate Resorts, a major time-share company. The Siegels and their many children live in a massive house in Florida, but as the film begins, they are building an even bigger one modeled partially on the Palace of Versailles. But then, as the filmmakers were shooting, the recession hit and the Siegels were in huge financial trouble. They kept filming and what they capture is fascinating, an American story that shows the varied consequences of living beyond your means.

As for television shows, I was not immune to the Downton Abbey mania. Season 3 did not have a promising start but really found its feet in the latter half, I thought. I’m totally Team Edith by the way. (Maybe because I am the middle child of three sisters? Though my sisters and I get along way better than the Crawley sisters ever do.)

Other shows I’ve been keeping up with:

The Americans – I’m a little behind on this show and have only seen the first three episodes, but so far, it’s very compelling television. It’s about two Russian sleeper agents (played by Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys) that have been posing as an American couple in the D.C. area long enough to have a teenage daughter. I’d never seen any of Matthew Rhys’ previous shows, but wow can he act.

Community – I’ve only seen the first two episodes of the new season, and while there is a detectable difference now that its former showrunner is gone, I’m still enjoying the antics of Troy and Abed and the rest of the study group.

Nashville – I started watching because of Connie Britton, but like many viewers, the songs are definitely the strongest draw. Plotlines fizzle at times and Scarlett rarely resembles a real person, but at this point, I’ll stay to the end of the season.

Parks and Recreation – I hated the first season but now it’s the most consistently good show that I watch. The whole ensemble is amazing.

And for the above, I just have to say, thanks Hulu. Also, pbs.org for Downton Abbey. I’ve never had cable and I don’t even have antenna channels anymore, so I’m one of those people completely dependent on the internet to supply me with recent show episodes.

And just to finish off this post, I’ll mention that I did read Bossypants a couple of months ago and it was okay. I mostly know Tina Fey from her Sarah Palin impersonations. I did not watch SNL when she was on it and I didn’t watch 30 Rock either. So this may explain my lack of enthusiasm about the book. That said, I did really enjoy the chapter about her dad for some reason. Also, I totally have hiked that one trail that Tina hiked in the dark with those college boys. It’s a really popular hike for people around here.

 

Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden

Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America’s War with Militant Islam

2006. Atlantic Monthly Press. Hardcover. 680 pages.

Backstory: After seeing the movie Argo back in October of last year, I decided I wanted to read more about the Iran hostage crisis. I’d had Bowden’s book on my to-read list for a few years. I knew very little about this moment in history. I was born in the early 80′s, and it was never taught in school. The crisis would sometimes be referenced in news discussions, but not really explained in any detail. So, for those who may be unfamiliar, on November 4th, 1979, a student group called the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran, and took its staff and security personnel hostage. They demanded the return of the ousted shah to be returned to Iran and tried there for his crimes against the Iranian people. (The shah had been allowed to enter the States for medical treatment.) This initial take-over stretched into a drawn-out affair, with 52 hostages kept captive for 444 days until the final negotiated release in January 20, 1981.

Review:

Bowden has written several other well-known books of history such as Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo. In this book, he has put together a thorough account which covers the experiences of the hostages, the motivations of their captors, the intense media coverage, and the actions of the Carter administration and the U.S. military.

Although it took me a long time to read this book, every time I picked it up, I was engrossed. I was most fascinated by the ordeals of the hostages. Especially in the early days, they were usually tied up and blindfolded. They were not allowed to talk to each other. Eventually, some of these restrictions were relaxed, but even then, they were usually kept in dark, dank places. All of them lost weight, some were beaten, a couple tried to escape, at least one tried to kill himself, and at one point, a large group of them were lined up against a wall and told they would be shot. I found myself wondering what I would do in their situation.

For those who have seen Argo and are curious: the six embassy staff members who hid in the Canadian ambassador’s house are mentioned briefly when they make their escape, and also later when news of their rescue reaches the hostages. (The hostages received mail, but it was screened first by their guards. Major news events were occasionally discovered by a hostage through such means as an American fourth grader’s letter.)

My overall impression of the situation was how impossible of a situation it was for U.S. response. Iran’s government was in shambles, which made it difficult to know who was in charge, who had the authority to end this crisis in Tehran. Due to the geographic location of Tehran, a rescue mission was considered an action of last resort, with little room for error. Bowden’s portrayal of the Carter administration is overall a sympathetic one, at least in how it handled the crisis once it happened. Certainly, the President’s short-sightedness concerning the admission of the shah into the United States was a major instigating factor of the crisis.

The epilogue is interesting in that Bowden traveled to Tehran and interviewed some of the former hostage-takers, and took a tour of the small museum of sorts that is set up in the former embassy.

I definitely recommend this book. Bowden’s research shows through in its inclusion of detail, but the details never felt too heavy. Rather, they served to color in the personality of the people involved as well as the tenor of the situation as it progressed.

Excerpts from others’ reviews:

Bridget in Arabia – “All of these elements – the hostages’ experiences, the rescue attempt, and the story of the individuals – are woven together to create a literary whole that is at once informative, compelling, and illuminating.”

Happy Antipodean – “With such a large number of players in this 637-page tome, it is not surprising that you lose track of the majority . . . only a few are well-delineated enough to evoke recognition in the reader each time the author returns to their story. This is a shortcoming, but it is not fatal.”

Musings of a Bookish Kitty – “Even knowing how the situation played out, I was still caught in the suspense of the moment as I read.”

 

Mini-review clearance: Nonfiction

Continuing my wrap-up of books read in 2012:

Why Evolution is True by Jerry A. Coyne

I grew up believing that (macro) evolution was not true because it didn’t align with a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation account. This was the only valid interpretation according to my parents, my church and most Christians I knew. There was a man who sometimes attended that church who believed evolution was true and I regarded him with astonished curiosity. Later, as an adult, I rejected the idea that evolution and Christianity were incompatible with each other, but felt I needed to learn more before officially changing my own view. I’ve had Coyne’s book on my to-read list for several years and finally got around to reading it last year. Coyne, a scientist whose primary field is evolutionary biology, outlines evolutionary theory in an intelligent but accessible way. He references recent research (the book was published in 2009), and includes fascinating and entertaining examples from the natural world. I especially enjoyed the chapters on the fossil record and vestigial organs / embryonic development.

Coyne’s main stumble is the awkward inclusion of sentences along the lines of, “why would a beneficent creator have done such-and-such this way” (I don’t have the book with me, so forgive the paraphrase). The book’s focus is not theological, so sentences pondering the motives of God just come off as clumsy and distracting. But overall, I really appreciated this book for giving me a good understanding of evolutionary theory. I felt like something just clicked in my brain after reading Coyne’s book and made me look at the world with fresh eyes.

(While reading the book, I sought out writings by Christians who view as evolution is true and found this great article by a biology professor who used to support the Intelligent Design movement.) Obviously I came to this book with issues of faith in mind, but I recommend Why Evolution is True for anyone who wants a refresh on evolutionary theory.

Ox Travels: Meetings With Remarkable Travel Writers – introduced by Michael Palin

If you’ve been reading this blog for while, you may know that I have a penchant for travel writing. When I was in Portland, Oregon last year, I raided the travel section of Powell’s Books, and this was one of the books highlighted by the store. Ox Travels is a collection of 36 travel essays, and proceeds of the book go toward supporting the work of Oxfam. Some of the essays are adapted excerpts from books, especially in the case of well-known travel writers such as Paul Theroux and William Dalrymple. I hadn’t read any of the source books, so the re-use of this material didn’t bother me. As with most books of essays, there were a few weak links, but overall this was a fine collection. There is “The End of the Bolster”, a little romantic tale from Sara Wheeler and “A Cave on the Black Sea” which is a story from an unfinished book by the recently deceased Patrick Leigh Fermor. There is a story which tells of a Brazilian Rastafarian who travels to Benin, the land of his ancestors; another story describes a tense encounter in the diamond fields of Zimbabwe; a street performer works a bit of magic on a desperate crowd waiting for a plane in Freetown, Sierra Leone in “The Beggar King”.

Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death by Deborah Blum

The subtitle of Ghost Hunters pretty much gives the premise for this book, although I would qualify that the book focuses on many researchers and not just William James (brother of author Henry James!). Ghost Hunters chronicles the efforts of these scientists to investigate mediums and others who claimed to bear messages from the dead, whether through sittings, seances or letter-writing. Blum focuses on the scientists’ work of the late 19th century and the early 20th century. Unsurprisingly, the scientists are derided by the rest of the scientific community for this line of research. The researchers often found possible psychics to be frauds, but occasionally there was an incident that seemed genuine and not a trick. It was methodical work with few rewards and about halfway through the book, I felt like that could somewhat describe my reading experience as well. I won’t blame Blum, as I think some external factors contributed to my declining interest in the book, but I was really dragging along by the end. That said, one of the aspects I did enjoy about this book was the parade of Victorian movers-and-shakers that had connections to psychical research: there were a lot of familiar names, from authors to philosophers to inventors.

This book was recommended to me by Eva.

Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood by Fatima Mernissi

This is a short memoir by Islamic feminist writer, Fatima Mernissi, about growing up in Fez, Morocco during the 1940′s. As the outside world is shaken by World War II, young Fatima learns about harem life. While her grandfather had many wives, the generation of Fatima’s father tended to be more monogamous. The household Fatima lives in is a harem because the women are not allowed outside, except on escorted visits. Another aspect of harem life is the multi-family dimension: Fatima grows up with cousins and aunts and uncles around. An aunt comes to live there after separating from her husband. Fatima observes how the women around her negotiate this cloistered life. Some abide by it strictly, while others test the boundaries. Fatima also compares this harem life to the harem life experienced on her grandfather’s farm, where the rules are a little more relaxed because it is in the country. I thought Mernissi occasionally laid it on too thick with metaphorical / inspirational passages, but I loved how Mernissi captured the details of this life and the personalities of her family.

This book was recommended to me by a friend who studied abroad in Morocco when she was in college.