The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (2011)

Our friendship came all at once after that, like spring floods from the mountains. Before, the boys and I had imagined that his days were filled with princely instruction, statecraft and spear. But I had long since learned the truth: other than his lyre lessons and his drills, he had no instruction. One day we might go swimming, another we might climb trees. We made up games for ourselves, of racing and tumbling. We would lie on the warm sand and say, “Guess what I’m thinking about” (p 48).

The Song of Achilles is a retelling of the Trojan war from Patroclus’ point of view. Patroclus and Achilles were close friends and companions in the Iliad. Their bosom relationship is often described in later Greek writings as a romantic relationship, though some dismiss this interpretation. Miller takes it and runs with it, framing Achilles and his decisions in light of his sexuality. It also reveals a very human Achilles.

This is a highly readable, enjoyable book, though I expected more literary prose. I’m a glutton for mythology and this certainly satisfied. I appreciated the very godlike qualities Thetis displayed, interactions with Odyssey great Odysseus, and the understated affection between Patroclus and Achilles. 

Only occassionally did the narrative faulter and I thought, “Really?” For example, Achilles makes a stunning first kill in the chaos of storming the beach crawling with Trojans firing arrows on the slow moving Greek boats. He throws a spear miraculously far, killing brutally. But in the next chapter, Patroclus states:

In less than an hour the raid would begin. I had fallen asleep thinking of it; I had woken with it. We had discussed, already, that I would not go. Most of the men would not. This was a king’s raid, picked to grant first honors to the best warriors. It would be his first real kill (p 220).

This is the fifth book read for Roof Beam Reader’s Magical March Challenge.

Stick by Andrew Smith (10/11/2011)

Half my head is quiet.

 I was born this way.
Most people don’t notice right away, but once they do, I see their faces; I watch how they’ll move around toward that side–the one with the missing part–so they can see what’s wrong me with.
So, here. Look at me.

I’m ugly.

I’d like to preface my summary and review with a sentiment. I was enthralled by this book. Completely. I read it in one sitting.

Stick isn’t his real name. It’s Stark McClellan but everyone calls him stick. He’s thirteen-years-old, six feet tall and, well, a stick. His older brother, Bosten, who is in the eleventh grade, has always looked out for Stick, whether it is protecting Stick from school bullies or their abusive parents. The brothers have formed a loving bond so solid nothing can come between them.

There are many exceptional aspects to Smith’s storytelling. Stick is our first person narrator and the verity of his voice is immediately apparent and consistent.

Things get into my head and they bounce around and around until they                    find a way out.
My mother never talk about my ear. She hardly ever talks to me at all.
I believe she is sad, horrified. I think she blames herself.
Mostly, I think she wishes                   I was never born (p 7).

The prose echo Stick’s thoughts just as his thoughts echo and bounce around in his mind, trapped by his missing part. Stick believes himself ugly – a thought reiterated just often enough that we know it is never far from his thoughts. It is a thought that strips him of whatever fragile confidence he is able to build before the negative external forces in his life tear him down. It colors ever new interaction, magnifying his already meek nature. This is depicted as well as and perhaps even better than other excellent books dealing with physical abnormalities (like North of Beautiful and SLOB).

Sand and Water by Shae Conner (2011)

John woke to another morning without Liz (p 1).

It’s been five years since his wife died in giving birth to their daughter Beth and John is still grieving. He has retreated to Tybee Island, GA. While at the park, he meets Bryan who is watching his nephew, Jeremy. Over a series of play dates, John finds himself increasingly eager to spend time with Bryan, finally realizing he is attracted to the twenty-seven year old. But Bryan has experienced tragedy himself and a misstep by John could mean the end of a potentially amazing relationship.

This was a more character driven book than the last adult fiction I read, but what it made up for in character development it lost in mediocre writing (too much tell and too little show). The interactions with the kids helped ground me in reality but much of the relationship stuff was overanalyzed. Too many adjectives!

You need not expect to get your book right the first time. Go to work and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God’s adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by. ~Mark Twain

NetGalley | August 2011 | Dreamspinner Press | 250 pages | ISBN 978-1-61372-090-5 | $16.99

Blind Items by Kate McMurray (2011)

The whole mess began with my fluke television appearance (p 9).

Drew Walsh is an openly gay columnist who has often criticised anti-gay politician Richard Granger. When he is assigned an interview with Granger’s possibly gay son, Jonathan, Drew knows he has a plum political piece. Immediately Drew knows the rumors are true. But Jonathan skirts the issue, calling an end to the interview when the questioning becomes uncomfortable. Against his better judgement, Drew finds himself attracted to the closeted Jonathan. When the two start dating, complications ensue.

This was a quick, easy read with some sexually explicit content. It was hard to see the relationship as anything more than physical when Jonathan didn’t seem to know himself. The tension here mirrored that in Tigers and Devils. One character is ‘out’ while the other is closeted and some external force (like a public career) prevents disclosure. It lacked the humor and witty bantor of Tigers and Devils, coming across as more melodramatic.

The political aspect was timely. I imagined Richard Granger as a Tea Party candidate.

NetGalley| July 29, 2011 | Dreamspinner Press | 195 pages | ISBN 978-1-61372-068-4 | $14.99

Tigers and Devils by Sean Kennedy (2009)

Declan kicked two glorious goals over the first quarter, but by the start of the second the strain on his body was starting to become apparent. The commentators were very pleased with themselves that they had a potential tragedy unfolding on the ground that they could talk about endlessly (p 99).

A large part of my love for the New York Mets baseball team (even in their darkest hours – of which there are many) is due to the excellent commentating by Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, Keith Hernandez and Kevin Burkhardt.  I’ve been hammered to tears by some commentators and their soap opera coverage of the tiniest disruption in a game. Remember when Brett Farve was injured?

As a hard-core sports fan disinclined to the melodramatic, I appreciated Simon’s snarkyness. And anyone who can work a Buffy reference into his/her snarky remarks gets points from me.

I sighed, watching the bags start to spill out onto the rubber tracks. “I got jumped by the press in the car park.”
Roger’s eyes widened. “Was there a rumble?”
Fran hid her smile behind her hand.
“Yes, there was a rumble. Luckily this cute blonde girl came out of nowhere and staked them for me” (p 286-87).

So it was with a smile that I read about Simon, a twenty-something film festival coordinator, and his tumultuous relationship with star footy player Declan Tyler. When Roger and his wife Fran drag Simon to a party, he acts the wallflower and hopes for a swift departure. Then he overhears someone bad mouthing Declan. Simon defends Declan’s playing but writes him off as appearing arrogant, unaware Declan is also at the party and eavesdropping. This meeting sparks a passionate but troubled relationship. Declan is not ‘out’ though Simon is. Declan is injured and anxious to make a return to the football field but he plays for an out-of-town team.

But Simon’s happiness is palpable. It brought me back to the first days of my current relationship.

On the tram ride home I smiled to myself like a loon and got the usual wide berth that the other passengers afforded to public transport crazies (p 25).

Folks who enjoyed David Levithan in their teens will enjoy Tigers and Devils as emerging adults. The book is a lot of dialog and a little description but it avoids over-analysis (which I always appreciate!) so it’s highly readable. I enjoyed learning about Australian football (which I researched a little on my own) and Australian slang and tradition. ‘Bog-off-to-the-Pub Fridays’ is something I hope to impliment at my workplace

She Loves You, She Loves You Not… by Julie Ann Peters (6/2011)

Dad’s always complaining about the urban sprawl – when he’s not specifically hating on the homos who are moving into Virginia Beach. There’s this older neighborhood near our house that’s being renovated, and one of the shops has a rainbow flag flying off the balcony. Even though it’s on our way to school, dad makes Paulie and me walk five extra blocks to steer clear of it (p 33).

Unable to accept his seventeen-year-old daughter is a lesbian, Alyssa is sent to live with her estranged mother, Carly, in Colorado. Through flashbacks, we learn about Alyssa’s passionate, melodramatic relationship with fifteen-year-old Sarah and its dissolution at the hands of their mutual, supposedly gay friend, Ben.

In Majestic, Alyssa is known only as ‘Carly’s girl.’ Her mother’s reputation looms over her like the Caribou Mountain looms over Carly’s mansion. How did her mother end up with such a luxurious house? Who are her clients and what does she really do for a living? Carly is intent on discovering the truth about her mother, if only to stop her from thinking about Sarah.

Meanwhile, Alyssa crosses paths with Finn, an attractive girl in her early twenties. At first, Alyssa is intent on avoiding love and its cruelty, but she soon finds herself unable to ignore or resist her attraction to Finn.

This story attempts to cover a slew of themes. Alyssa is disowned from her father and feels equally as unwanted by her mother. She has been betrayed by the person she loves the most and her best friend. She is lustful and desirous of a partner. She has a strained relationship with her step-mother but clearly misses her younger half-brother. Her mother is an exotic dancer, something Alyssa has a lot of trouble accepting. She longs to understand why her mother left her.

Reading this on the heels of Please Ignore Vera Dietz, I can’t help but compare the two, their structures, the absent mother, and their dealings with disappointment in love. Vera, however, handles the transition between past and present much more effectively and elicited more of an emotional response from me. She Loves You did a little more telling than showing, though I believe teens will have no trouble relating to Alyssa’s thoughts and inner struggles and her physical desires.

This is a review of an advance reader’s copy provided by the publisher, Little, Brown and Company. If you would like my copy, just leave a comment with your email and it’s yours.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan (2010)

Tiny Cooper is not the world’s gayest person, and he is not the world’s largest person, but I believe he may be the world’s largest person who is really, really gay, and also the world’s gayest person who is really, really big (p 3).

In the word’s of one of the authors, “Will Grayson, Will Grayson is about two guys named Will Grayson who live in different Chicago suburbs who eventually meet each other.”

The two Will Grayson’s are very different. One is straight, the other gay. One is depressed, the other is reserved. One has parents happily married and working as doctors. The other lives with his single, unhappy and financially struggling mother.

The two Will Grayson’s are alike. They struggle at relationships. They cannot act on their feelings and so turn inwards.

Then the two meet and a series of changes begin to occur.

*~*

I have mixed feelings about this book. There are moments this book shines. There’s wit and feel-good moments and sprinklings of humor.

Everybody’s always got their panties in a twist about how the youth of America are debaucherous, sex-crazied maniacs passing out handjobs like they’re lollipops, and you can’t even kiss a girl who definitely likes you (p 80)?

And then there were moments when I was extremely annoyed: at the cliche plot points (suburban kids go to big city for concert of weird niche band and life-altering experiences ensue – hum, where have I read about that before?) and at the ridiculous, almost fantastical ending (Will Grayson’s from all over!).

Will Grayson had a very My Most Wonderful Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins, and Fenway Park feel but I just didn’t love this story as I love Kluger’s, though both are fun.

When I started this book, I didn’t understand the nature of the author’s collaboration. Did they write the chapters (and therefore the charactes) individually or together? The chapters alternate between the two Will characters. So which author wrote which Will? Then I read the EW interview and, if I read correctly, Green wrote Will #1 (chapter 1) and Levithan wrote  Will #2 (depressed Will).

Whoever wrote what and for whatever it’s worth, I thought Will #2 was better written, as was Tiny during those chapters. This Will Grayson sees through the bull. His problems are real and he has dimension. Straight Will Grayson is so vanilla, I thought the book could be titled Will Grayson, Tiny Cooper. Not that Tiny broke any conventional gay character boundries the way Sprout did.

But I know this will be a hit with young adults. The authors know their audience well and they know how to write popular fiction for them. I’m sure it will crop up on a few Mock Printz lists but this just isn’t award material. It’s too uneven.

Read alikes: Freak Show by James St. James, Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan, Sprout by Dale Peck, The Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd, My Most Wonderful Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins, and Fenway Park by Steve Kluger

Read an interview with the two authors at EW.

The Boy in the Dress by David Walliams (2009)

Once, Dennis was off school with a really bad cold on a match day. He had just finished watching that day’s Trisha, a gripping episode about a woman who discovered she was having an affair with her own husband. Then he was looking forward to some Heinz tomato soup and his second favorite show Loose Women, where a panel of angry looking ladies debated important issues of the day – like diets and leggings (p 29).

Walliams delivers a social satire with rapier wit and writing reminiscent of Raold Dahl. Dennis, whose home and school life reminds me strongly of Matilda’s, is boring and uneventful. His mother left two years ago, his father is depressed and his brother is a bully. Dennis, however, misses his mother and wishes he could talk about her. He is sensitive and clearly desirous of a female figure in his life.

So when Lisa, two years his senior, discovers Dennis has read Vogue, a close friendship develops that quickly leads to Dennis passing himself off as a girl in a dress. Dennis experiences a whole new world as a girl.

This book was a pleasure to read, taking me back to my own childhood when I read Spinelli and Dahl. I found myself laughing heartily and admiring the tactful way Walliams introduced possibly touchy topics to his child readers. Just wonderful.

Ash by Malinda Lo (2009)

Ash is a finalist for the 2010 William C. Morris YA Debut Award.

Malinda takes the skeleton story of Cinderella (a young girl loses her mother; father remarried before following his first wife to the grave; girl lives miserably with stepmother and two stepsisters) and builds a new story involving the seductive and deadly faeries of lore, the king’s huntress as friend and love interest, and storytelling.

The writing is solid. I’ve always loved fairy tales (not the sugar-coated Disney retellings but the gritty originals) and you will enjoy this book if you do as well. Some of my favorite passages were the fairy tale stories within the story; cautionary tales of humans caught in fairy rings or by the fairy hunt or those who seek out Fairy Queen aid.

I enjoyed this retelling far more than A Curse as Dark as Gold so I wouldn’t be surprised if won, but I have yet to read the other nominees.

Sprout by Dale Peck

Without missing a beat, Mrs. Miller rattled off a stream of obscenities so fully and completely unexpected that I fell off my chair. Mothers were defiled, and their male and female children, as well as any and all offspring who just  happen to’ve been born out of wedlock. As for the sacred union that produced these innocent babes, the pertinent bodily appendageswere catalogued by a list of nicknames so profoundly scurrilous that a grizzled marine, conceived in a brothel and dying of a disease he contracted in one, would’ve wished he’d been born as smooth as a Ken doll (p 50).

This is a complex book. The narrator is aware of his reader and frequently addresses him/her directly. He is gay. His mother recently died and his father is now alcoholic. He has just moved to rural Kansas. But he never bogs us down in his sobering reality (though some passages were tedious reading). He seems inherently hopeful.

I’ve never lived in the south or in a rural area. Currently living in NJ, I can’t exactly see myself recommending this to one of our teens, except for its GLBTQ theme, even though it’s a book about so much more. Even as the narrator tries to force that issue into the back seat. It really is integral. I can’t say I loved this book but I did enjoy most of it. A little heavy-handed meta cognition though.