2.5 Stars for Plain, Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

 

2.5 Stars

I could not finish it and with so many other books to read this summer, I simply didn't want to plow through. The writing is way too embellished. Beautiful writing is not just about how to turn a clever phrase. Danforth can certainly do that, but beautiful writing also means knowing what to cut. The book in general is too long. In Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forster, he warns against what he calls "tea time." He explains these are scenes that do not push the plot forward. Folks sipped a lot of tea in Plain Bad Heroines. The other reason for my 2.5 star review is lack of horror and this is a personal preference from a girl who loves horror. This is a story within a story one from the past into the present. I did not understand the connection. If there wasn't going to be a real connection perhaps Danforth could have approached this story like a set of short stories set in a Canterbury Tales structure or just stuck with the past story. That one was a little interesting. In the end, I felt disappointed. I looked forward to reading this because of the unique premise and promise of horror. Instead, I found I couldn't root for any characters because they didn't seem like they needed saving. Perhaps this is the irony, thus, Plain Bad Heroines. 

4 Stars for The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer

 

The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer proved itself to be more entertaining than I'd expected. It doesn't have to be read in its entirety because it is composed of smaller stories within a larger one. It almost reads like a book of short stories with dark fairy tale morals and with a big dose of humor at the expense of human folly. I loved the stories particularly: The Pardoner, The Wife of Bath, and The Squire. The ending of these tales became Middle Age preachy, but I suppose it needed redemption after the tales of lechery, bloodshed, idolatry, adulatory, and so on. For example, The Wife of Bath's tale and The Pardoner's tale embrace love of lust, power and greed with outright defiance. These two characters don't care what others think of them and firmly know who they are. They are in stark contrast to characters like The Nun, and The Knight, so for me to fully grasp the importance of the most entertaining stories, I had to read the other stories that contrasted them, so I recommend reading The Canterbury Tales in its entirety even though the stories can be read separately. 

5 Stars for Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley glitters with gold. This novel is a journey through the Native American Ojibwe community and its culture but it is a universal human experience loaded with betrayal, death, love, and self-discovery. 18 year old Daunis Fontaine, the protagonist, struggles with who she is with biracial prejudices all around her, plus she's a brilliant scientist nerd struggling with her femininity against the backdrop of her desires for a guy she cannot truly trust and another who already betrayed her and then there is her brother, Levi, the son of the mother who cheated with Daunis's father. Then, let's tie in federal agents and a big meth drug ring to spice up the danger in this book. Yes, this book does not feel like a debut from Boulley, but a literary gift to readers willing to explore culture, understand betrayal, love and forgiveness. Beautiful. 

5 Stars for The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black

The line Cardan whispers to Jude, "By you, I am forever undone," reminds me of the line Gatsby (The Great Gatsby) speaks about his true love, Daisy, "When I kissed this girl, I knew my mind would never romp again like the mind of God." The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black is the third book in the series, The Folk of the Air. All three books are deserving of the full star rating. 1. You have a dynamic female protagonist, Jude with no magic in a world of fairy magic. All she possesses is a passion for power and a very clever mind. I love her! I rooted for her from page one of The Cruel Prince, the first book in the series. 2. Cardan, a complex cruel prince, who battles against a closet full of his own demons, and loves Jude despite his nature to destroy. 3. Plot twists that surprised me. For example, the ending of the second book, The Wicked King, thundered with electric promise. If you read the first two books, you have to read the third. 4. Ms. Black's need to put Jude in every possible danger leaving her only - well this makes me think of that old show MacGyver in the 1980s where getting out of danger involves real complexity - and that Jude is abundance of. Jude is amazing but she is also real, well as real as a mortal can get in a land full of magic. Jude is vulnerable (especially when it comes to Cardan) but also because of her mortality. Excellent characterization. Jude could easily be a cross between Lara Croft and Lady Macbeth, now isn't that a combination. Cardan is the better version of Dorian Gray. 

4 Stars for All the Light We Cannot See

 

Anthony Doerr's All The Light We Cannot See follows is told primarily in two perspectives: Marie-Laure, a French girl and daughter of a master locksmith at the Natural History Museum in Paris and the other character is Werner Pfenning, a German boy growing up in the mining town of Zollverein. Many books have been written during the WWII era, but few with this interesting perspective. The unique premise drew me in first. The imagery kept me afloat throughout the book. It felt like an old song like Dinah Shore I'll Walk Alone from the 1940s or maybe something more classical like Vivaldi's Winter because beneath it there was a dark brutality behind every scene. I felt Doerr's remarkable PG approach to this war and the horrible acts committed buckled my legs beneath me, simply because my imagination and historical knowledge about this war conjured up real witches and goblins. Characterization of both Werner and Marie-Laure rooted me to them, made me want to know their inevitable end. Both Marie and Werner peeled like an onion or rather a well compiled tape parallel to Guardians of the Galaxy. I loved rhythm and meter making up their choices and the destiny they had no control over. However, in the end I ended up with a four star rating because the ending did not satisfy me. I felt Marie and Werner's paths should have crossed much sooner and I also felt the romance between the two could have been cemented more, but also held like a tight wire in which the two crossed to meet maybe making it or maybe falling to their death. The intersection of the two characters was way too abrupt for me. Still, I highly recommend this book. It's beautiful and a journey worth taking. 

5 Stars for Yoko Ogawa's The Housekeeper and the Professor

 

The premise of Yoko Ogawa's The Housekeeper and the Professor drew me into its pages. The magic of math kept me in its pages. Ironically, I am not a fan of numbers. I'm an English teacher. I love a good story. This is a good story. It is lined in mathematical equations above my mental capacity, but understanding an equation is different than just understanding its importance to the characters in this novel, characters that statistically should not have formed the incredible beautiful caring bond they did - but they did and through numbers prime, amiable, etc. I believed in the impossible because of the certainty of numbers. A big thanks to the math genius who explained Euler's Identity and its significance at key moment in the plot of this story...

"The significance of Euler's Identity in the book is reasonably clear: It is the Professor’s way of expressing the synthesis of the worlds that he, his sister-in-law, his housekeeper, and her son are living in. Each is included without being denied, just as each mathematical family is included without being negated or changed in the Identity. A brilliant literary as well as mathematical insight therefore."

I listened to this book on audible, but I plan to purchase a copy for future ponderings. 

3 Stars for Ta-Nehisi Coates's The Water Dancer

I really feel awful giving this book a three star review for two reasons: 1. Most of my teacher friends love this book and 2. It's clear Ta-Nehisi Coates did a ton of research which deserves reward. My problem with it is that it reads like a one of those true crime stories with unknown actors and actresses. The main character, Hiram was as flat as a pancake cooked in Crisco. Despite his hard life, I never got the emotional outpour of emotion from him and my theory on this is that Coates did way too much telling. As a reader, I like to feel and think for myself. The only character with the potential to pull at my heart strings was Sophia. This would have been a much better book if Coates had let her tell the story and allowed her to show her emotion rather than tell us what she was feeling. Considering the background of the book, loosely based on William Still, an African-American abolitionist, this is a noteworthy book, but it is not a literary great such as Morrison or Hurston.