The Fifth Wave Review

The review by Justin Cronin below starts with this line: "In a post-Potter, post-Katniss era, the line between young adult and mainstream fiction often blurs." This is very true, especially for me as I tend to read a lot of YA books. I've written about this before but it remains true that there are some young adult books that are just as entertaining and well written as adult literature. And sometimes more exciting and universally appealing.

Thus is the case with The 5th Wave. Unlike typical dystopian novels, The 5th Wave takes place in the midst of a disaster brought on by the arrival of an alien mothership, which appeared suddenly in the sky. And then did nothing. At least at first. But then come four waves of death and destruction, aimed at wiping out the human race. Here's a description of the waves from an article in Rapid City Journal (whatever that may be):

"In the first wave, all technology is made useless when the power grid is knocked out, causing widespread chaos. In the second wave, tsunamis wipe out coastal cities and their inhabitants. The third wave continues the killing, this time via a deadly plague spread by birds.

Then comes the fourth wave, involving "Silencers," humans who were implanted years ago with an "alien" gene while still in their mothers' wombs. These Silencers look and seem human, yet are actually programmed to kill any remaining humans. Because it's impossible to tell who is really human and who is a Silencer, the basic rule for everyone has become: Trust no one.

As the book opens, it's time for the fifth wave, which is supposed to empty Earth of all humans so the Others can take over a planet free of what they clearly believe is a lower intelligence."

Okay, so that's the basic idea. The story itself is told in a couple different voices. Cassie, a sixteen year old survivor, is living by herself in the woods, a few months after the first wave (although initially it seemed to me at least that she had been alone much longer). Through Cassie's memories, the reader understands the different waves and what happened to Cassie's family. Both of her parents are dead when the book opens, but she has a much younger brother named Sam who was taken by soldiers into a refugee camp. She promised to join him when he was taken (she wasn't allowed to join him) but is having trouble keeping that promise since she is afraid to wander too far from her camp because of the Silencers. Cassie is a realist but still clings to the memories of her past life - her family and her unrequited crush on Ben Parrish. 

Cassie finally decides to go after Ben, but on the way, she is shot in the leg by an unseen Silencer. She tries to flee from a car under which she has taken refuge, but ends up passing out in a snowstorm. That isn't her end though. She is found by Evan Walker, a slightly older farm boy who nurses her back to health and teaches her how to use a gun. She isn't without her suspicions of Evan, though, whose story doesn't quite add up even though he seems to have developed real feelings for her. 

Meanwhile, another young man nicknamed Zombie ends up at the same "refugee" camp as Sammy (nicknamed Nugget). Turns out children are being trained to fight the Silencers. However,  as Zombie trains and deploys on his first mission, he learns that the army he is fighting with may not be exactly what he thought they were. 

The Fifth Wave is a well written, gripping novel with well-written characters who don't fall into the typical cliches of YA dystopia. Even the love story angle works well, although I think it could have used more buildup. The end is definitely exciting and sets the story up nicely for a sequel. I haven't read about one yet, but I'm sure it's coming. And the movie rights were bought before the book was even released. The Fifth Wave is getting a lot of buzz out there and it's definitely worth reading, especially during all the intense summer storms we've been having!

Website

NY Times Review (written by Justin Cronin!)

The Next Hunger Games?

Buy it at amazon and Barnes & Noble

Revenge Wears Prada Review

Oh man... this book. I first read The Devil Wears Prada after college when I was working at Soap Opera Digest. I couldn't quite relate to Andy even though I was working at a magazine. We certainly had pages of the magazine go around that was like "the book" from the novel but my boss, who granted a bit high strung, was mostly fine - nothing like Miranda Priestly. I remember reading The Devil Wears Prada and being vaguely entertained but frankly I remember the movie more than the novel and even that I haven't seen in a super long time. But still, I wanted to read this and thought it would be an easy read while I was going through the craziness of the end of the year and packing up my apartment to move to Philadelphia.

Ok, beware, SPOILERS to follow - including about the end of the book so read at your own risk.

Revenge Wears Prada picks up ten years after The Devil Wears Prada ended. Andy is successful both personally and professionally. As the novel opens, she is preparing to marry the very wealthy Max Harrison, scion of a wealthy NYC society family. During the wedding day preparations, she flashes back to her life since leaving Runway. Her parents got divorced, Lily (her college best friend/alcoholic) moved out to Colorado where she married a yoga teacher and had a baby and Alex (her boyfriend) did Teach for America and now apparently has a serious girlfriend. Oddly enough, Andy and Emily (Miranda's senior assistant at Runway) now are best friends after bonding at a cooking class a year or so after Andy screamed at Miranda in Paris and quit the magazine. Emily ended up being fired right before she was due to be promoted. Both women still worked in the industry, more or less. Andy wrote for a wedding blog, while Emily worked at Harper's Bazaar, until Emily had the idea that they should launch a high end wedding magazine together. Andy resisted at first but they ended up being able to get funding (mostly due to Max Harrison's money. Andy and Max first met at a party Emily threw to attract financiers) and launched the magazine, which three years later was doing quite well as the story opens.

Andy get married, with a bit of trepidation, after finding a note from her mother-in-law before the ceremony pleading with her son not to marry his fiance. The note also mentions that Max ran into his ex at his bachelor's party in Bermuda. Of course Andy doesn't confront Max with any of this for weeks. She also is feeling miserably sick. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Andy accidentally got pregnant a bit before the wedding. The story moves fairly quickly through a year, during which time Andy has a daughter (Clementine) and continues to work on her magazine.

The magazine, The Plunge, is doing well enough that it has attracted the interest of Elias-Clarke, the publishing company that owns Runway. This bring Miranda Priestly back onto the scene, which of course freaks Andy out. Miranda begins seriously courting Emily and Andy. The girls had agreed not to sell for five full years but the money that they would get for selling would be substantial and they would only have to stay on the staff for a full year. However, of course, that was the deal in the first novel - work at Runway for a year and Miranda would help you transition into any magazine you wished. But Andy already couldn't hack a year under Miranda and definitely knew she would not be able to attempt another try. Emily, however, is chomping at the bit, as is Max, whose own company is struggling financially.

Andy manages to delay the decision throughout her pregnancy and maternity leave. Miranda randomly is obsessed with babies and gives her a decadent gift. And then behind Andy's back, Emily and Max sign over the magazine to Elias-Clarke (Max owned 18% of The Plunge so he was able to sign along with Emily). Andy, of course, is furious and kicks Max out of their apartment and refuses to talk to Emily. This is basically the end of the book, except for a coda that takes place a year and a half later. Randomly in the novel, Andy runs into Alex, her ex, and sparks fly. But of course she is married and newly a mother. She goes to this new mommies group where she meets a young woman, the aunt to one of the babies, who has an affair with a young photography student, cheating on her boyfriend, Xander. Before the magazine sale debacle, Andy learns that Xander is actually Alex. So a year and a half later, Andy is doing some free lance writing and Alex shows up and they kiss and decide to move forward with their own relationship.

So basically everyone ends up where they started. Emily was fired not long after the sale of The Plunge, Andy divorced her husband and Miranda got the magazine. I guess that was the revenge of the title. Miranda constantly treated Andy as if she didn't know her although at one moment she looked at her with extreme hatred, so I guess that meant that Miranda wanted revenge from when Andy screamed at her in Paris ten years ago. Or something. Honestly, I'm unclear. Miranda really wasn't in the book that much and it focused just as much on Andy's personal life as the magazine. Actually, I think there was more about her personal life than there was about her career. First off, she was stupid for denying the obvious signs of her pregnancy, then I'm not really sure why she married Max and all of a sudden Alex shows up out of nowhere and is her soulmate?

Whatever. This book was annoying. I guess if you loved the first one, you'll enjoy this. I wasn't impressed. That's all.

Interview with the author

Washington Post Review

11 Most Cringeworthy Moments

Buy it at amazon and Barnes & Noble

The Ashford Affair Review

I had a REALLY hard time picking a new book before starting this one. I tried to get into Mark Helprin's In Sunlight and in Shadow, which sounded awesome, but I couldn't get through the overly descriptive sample. Turns out the book was 700+ pages. I would have drowned in words! Every description I read just didn't pull me in, but I finally went back to my sample of The Ashford Affair, which ended up completely sucking me in. This is a definite recommendation for fans of Kate Morton's novels.

The Ashford Affair follows Addie, a young girl in the early twentieth century whose parents died, leaving her to be raised by her aristocratic aunt and uncle. Her slightly older cousin, Bea, is her one comfort. The two girls are raised together and both cross paths with a man named Frederick in different ways. Addie's story goes from the country estate of Ashford in English to Kenya in the mid-1920's to New York City in the '90s.

By the 1990s, Addie is quite infirmed but beloved by her family and friends. Her 34 year old granddaughter, Clementine, is a lawyer who works ridiculous hours trying to become partner. She has just ended an engagement and feels quite alone as she learns that her grandmother, who helped raise her, is quite ill. Clemmie slowly learns the truth about Addie's past throughout the novel, which also flashes back to Addie's storyline in England, Africa and finally western America.

The story is rich and intriguing. As I said earlier, it's very much in the vein of Kate Morton - a sprawling multi-generational novel with a secret that is only revealed towards the end of the book. Clemmie is sort of your typical overachieving lawyer type who can't see her soulmate under her nose, while the mystery of how Addie ended up married and raising the children she raised definitely pulls the reader in. The ending wasn't entirely surprising, but was definitely satisfying. I've never read the author's Pink Carnation series but they sound interesting although there are so many of them that I don't know if I have the energy to start the books at this point. Overall, I really liked this novel and hope she writes more standalone stories!

Buy it at amazon and Barnes & Noble

The School of Good and Evil Review

Entertainment Weekly just wrote a review of The School of Good and Evil (linked below) and raved about the book even for adults. It's the first of a trilogy, with books two and three coming out in 2014 and 2015 (all summer releases). Universal also just picked up the rights to develop movies out of the plot (see article below).

Anyway, this novel is seriously adorable in a Harry Potter meets Once Upon a Time kind of way. The story is a bit predictable, but it has a good message.

The School of Good and Evil tells the story of Sophie and Agatha, two girls from a small village on the edge of the woods who are complete opposites. Sophie is the classic fairy tale princess, the daughter of a widower, beautiful, blonde, good singing voice, who spends all her time doing good deeds. Her best friend, Agatha, on the other hand, lives in a cemetery and resembles an evil witch: lank, greasy hair, bulging eyes, bad manners. She's like Snape as a girl.

Sophie initially befriended Agatha as a Good Deed, but the girls grew on one another so that they are friends when the novel opens. In the village, every four years a mysterious being called the School Master arrives and steals two children, one good, one evil, for a school hidden somewhere in the woods. These children never return. But periodically new story books are brought to the village and the illustrations in them sometimes resemble the missing children from the last two hundred years. No one knows where these stories come from or if the school is real but the adults freak out every four years and try to protect their children from the School Master.

Sophie, of course, is dying to go to the school to achieve her true destiny as a fairy tale princess. Agatha, on the other hand, doesn't believe in the school, but wants to protect her best friend. The girls' true colors are hinted at quite early on. Sophie is selfish and her Good Deeds are really quite ridiculous (like making face cream for orphans), whereas Agatha is truly good and will put herself in danger to save her friend. When the School Master shows up to take Sophie away, Agatha gets herself taken too and the two girls are off to The School of Good and Evil... where everything goes terribly wrong.

The girls are dropped off at the "wrong" castles: Agatha to Good with a myriad of vapid princesses and muscled princes while Sophie is stuck in a dank tower with horribly evil children. Of course all she wants to do is get to Good, while all Agatha wants is for the two of them to go home.

Neither girl will get what she wants and along the way, they both discover that it's not what is on the outside that counts; what's inside is more important. Agatha and Sophie take fascinating journeys in the book as they discover their inner good and evil sides. The story itself is a bit Harry Potter light. While Harry Potter never skimps on details (well most details. How many damn kids go to Hogwarts?! Who are Hermoine's other two mystery roommates?), The School of Good and Evil is a bit vague in terms of the actual school The teachers are barely fully formed presences (no McGonagall or Flitwick here) and the buildings themselves aren't very well described. However, the overall message is a good one. And the story is entertaining. The ending left a lot of places for the author to go. Will the next book follow Agatha and Sophie? Or two other children from their village? Or some of their classmates? It's a mystery, but one I will definitely check out next summer!

Book website

Book trailer

Entertainment Weekly Review

Article about the movie

Buy it at amazon and Barnes & Noble

The Position Review

Meg Wolitzer's The Interestings is one of the hot releases of the spring (along with Reconstructing Amelia and The Woman Upstairs). I've been seeing it everywhere and started looking into Wolitzer's other books. Three of them were available for the kindle for under $4 and since all the plots sounded interesting, I grabbed all three. Wolitzer, like Jonathan Franzen and Jeffrey Eugenides, writes literature, although as a woman she sometimes get unfairly categorized as a "chick lit" writer when her focus is on sprawling family epics much like Franzen and Eugenides.

This also means that the writing can be a bit heavy handed. Sometimes I think "literary" authors lose the joy in their writing for the sake of crafting a novel that gets glowing reviews. If the author is trying too hard to make an impression, I lose interest in the story, which is why I often find YA books more entertaining (less of a challenge to read but infinitely more fun). I remember slogging through The Marriage Plot - finding it a bit boring in all honesty. And frankly, I could tell from the first chapter of The Position that I might have the same reaction.

The basic plot concerns the four Mellow children - Holly, Michael, Dashiell and Claudia - and their discovery of Pleasuring, a sex book that their parents Paul and Roz wrote. After Michael's initial reveal of the book to his siblings, the book moves forward to the now adult children and how their lives were impacted from the book.

Michael works for a computer company and is involved in an relationship with an actress but struggles with depression, which effects his sex life. Holly has completely removed herself from the family, living across the country with her husband and infant son. Dashiell is a gay Republican working for the campaign of a senator with his long term boyfriend. Claudia, the youngest, is adrift at 34, with no real career or long lasting relationship.

Turns out that not long after Pleasuring came out, the Mellow parents separated. The reason why is filled in during flashbacks told from Roz's perspective. Not much happens in this novel, really, although the action is driven behind a proposed thirtieth anniversary release of Pleasuring, which Roz really wants and Paul does not. Each chapter is narrated from a different member of the family. During those chapters we learn more about each child's youth and how they grew up to be the person they are during the present time. We also learn about how Paul and Roz first met and how they decided to write their book.

And really, despite me saying that not much happens, at the end of the novel when all of the characters (except one) are in one place, there is definite growth. Wolitzer pulled me along through the book and without even realizing it, I became invested in the characters and where they would end up. The ending is bittersweet but really well written, which reflects the novel as a whole.

This is literature at its finest. While I don't think I'll dive into the other Wolitzer books I bought right away, I'm glad I have them. She's a talented writer who definitely deserves a spot among the best novelists out there now. Even though The Position isn't her newest book, I do recommend it.

Buy it at amazon and Barnes & Noble

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

I watched the movie Hugo a few months ago and enjoyed it so much that I immediately went to find the book only to learn that it wasn't available on the kindle. I posted something about that on facebook and a lot of people told me that the book was so special because it is mostly illustrated so I had to get a hard copy. Luckily one of my students was able to lend it to me. It's a super quick read since it is mostly illustrations but the book is pretty thick so I waited until I was home last week on bed rest for a couple days at which point I tore through it super quickly.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret is the story of a young boy who lives within the walls of a train station in Paris. His uncle, who has disappeared, was the keeper of the clocks in the station who was in charge of cleaning, winding and maintaining all of the timepieces. Hugo's father (another clock maker) died in a fire at a museum, leaving behind only one automaton that they had found in the attic of the museum. Hugo wants to repair the old automaton with the skills he learned from his father but he also has to spend every day caring for the clocks and avoiding the station master. He also needs to survive. While he tries not to steal, he does need to eat and has to take some food from the different vendors in the station to live.

Eventually, he is caught stealing a small wind up mouse from a man named Georges who runs a small toy shop in the station, which brings Hugo into the larger story. What is Georges' past? Why does his goddaughter, Isabella, wear a key around her neck that looks like it would wind up the automaton? What will the automaton write when it comes to life? How does the magic of the early film industry fit into any of this?

Do yourself a favor and read this magical book, even if you don't have a child to read it to. It's a lovely story, which actually includes pictures from early filmmakers like Georges Melies. And as I said earlier, it's a very quick read - perfect for a rainy day. I really loved it!

Book website

Buy it at amazon and Barnes & Noble

The Perks of Being a Wallflower Review

The Perks of Being a Wallflower came out when I was a senior in college so it wasn't on my radar for a long time. I don't know when I started to hear about it but it seemed to be one of those seminal coming of age books that people love. It wasn't until I started seeing movie reviews that I even really thought about it. And then over mini-term, I bonded with two of my eighth graders who both love reading and who now spend tons of time at my desk having our own little book club. Both girls recommended that I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower (and a couple other recommendations as well).

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is an epistolary novel. The main character, Charlie, writes to an anonymous person he refers to only as "Dear Friend". Charlie is a freshmen in high school, still coping with the death of his Aunt Helen at the age of 7 and the suicide of his friend Michael which happened a year or so beforehand. Since their deaths, Charlie has felt very alone. He is incredibly smart but does not have friends. Early in the book, in shop class, he meets Patrick and later Patrick's stepsister, Sam, who Charlie is immediately drawn to. Both are seniors but they take Charlie under their wing and give him a group to belong to.

Charlie, the titular wallflower, lives a very internal life. He just wants friends and he wants those friends to be happy. He is the youngest child of a family is clearly loves him but is not very demonstrative. He is highly sensitive and cries frequently but for the most part he is deeply invested in feeling and observing. One of his teachers tells him to participate in life, which he starts to do with Sam and Patrick's group. Sam dates an older boy, who is out of high school, while Patrick is in a closeted relationship with the quarterback of the school's football team, Brad.

Throughout the year, Charlie experiences more and more things. He drinks and begins smoking both pot and cigarettes. He spends almost every Friday night watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which his friends act in. Along the way, he meditates about family, novels (his English teacher keeps giving him books to read outside of the normal curriculum from The Catcher in the Rye to The Fountainhead) and his friends. He  deals with abortion, his first girlfriend, school dances, lunchroom fights, detention and all of his friends graduating from high school). Along the way he learns a lot about himself. At the end of the novel, Sam tells him that he needs to be less passive. He needs to stop being the wallflower and learn how to engage with people in a meaningful way instead of letting them do whatever they want in order to be happy even if it doesn't make him happy. Eventually he comes to terms with trauma in his own past and in acknowledging that, it seems that he will hopefully have a happier, more participatory future.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is completely beloved and also spent about ten years on the American Library Association's list of 100 most banned books. It's probably still on the list in fact. A lot of people have compared the novel to The Catcher in the Rye, which I personally did not like when I had to read it in 9th grade (I didn't like whiny teenagers when I was a whiny teenager), but I did like this novel. Interestingly, Charlie's narrative voice reminded me a lot of Pat Peeples' voice in The Silver Linings Playbook. Both are epistolary novels featuring damaged and depressed characters trying to find some semblance of normality in a chaotic world. And I think both are certainly worth reading.

Buy it at amazon and Barnes & Noble