Book Bummers

Blood, gore, demons, and demented characters . . .  These are themes that abound this time of year, but I am not a Halloween fan - in fact I pretty much skip the whole thing now that I don't have kids at home.  Thanks to two highly anticipated novels, I've had way more than my share this October, starting with Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin.

Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom’s protective Wall.  Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones. (from book cover)

The friend who recommended this series said "Prepare to be addicted."  I slogged through 27 cd's waiting for the addictive part, but all I found were throat slashings, stabbings, severed bodies and heads on spikes.  True, there were a lot of plots and counterplots, but none of them made me wonder "what's next"?  This series is now a hit TV show, which I haven't watched, but I can't image how it translates to TV.  Not a hit with me.

Next was Stephen King's Doctor Sleep.  I pre-ordered my copy months before it's release and, when that copy was back-ordered, bought the Nook version because I couldn't wait to start. I even joined a read-along group so I could discuss it with other readers.  

Stephen King returns to the character and territory of one of his most popular novels ever, The Shining, in this instantly riveting novel about the now middle-aged Dan Torrance and the very special twelve-year-old girl he must save from a tribe of murderous paranormals.

On highways across America, a tribe of people called the True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless—mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky twelve-year-old Abra Stone learns, the True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the steam that children with the shining produce when they are slowly tortured to death. (from book cover)

 I read Section I, just over 100 pages, and had to give up.  I'll admit, I read The Shining over 30 years ago, when it first came out, and maybe my memory isn't what it should be, but I recall it being psychological terror - the effects of isolation.  When this story involved kidnapping and torturing a child, I called it quits.  There is so much real-life horror in the world, I just can't fill any more time, space and energy with imagined carnage. 

Recovery from alcoholism also played a large part in at least the first section of this book.  I can't begin to get inside Mr. King's head (thank heaven) but I assume that writing about Dan's battle with alcohol was in some way therapeutic for his own struggle with alcohol.  One of my other favorite authors, Lawrence Block, attempted a similar catharsis through writing alcohol recovery into one of his popular series.  I couldn't finish that book either.  Somehow, one person's experience with AA and their inner demons doesn't translate to the page - or perhaps it just doesn't translate to me.  Either way, it translates into too much work to read.  I can't believe I put Stephen King in the DNF pile!

Doctor Sleep Read Along

Doctor Sleep, Stephen King's sequel to The Shining, will be released tomorrow, and starting October 1, Tiff @ Tif Talks Books and Charlene @ Cheap Thrills will be hosting a Read-Along.

If all goes as planned, I'll be participating in Twitter chats (hashtag #sleepalong) and posting updates and answers to discussion questions on the following dates:

Monday, September 30:  Doctor Sleep Read-along Kick-off!

Monday, October 7:  Discussion #1 (approx. pages 1-180)

Monday, October 14:  Discussion #2 (approx. pages 181-360)

Monday, October 21:  Wrap-up Discussion (total 544 pages)

I read The Shining soon after it's publication in 1977, at the age of 16 or 17, and have not reread it since.  A recent interview with with Mr. King, published in The Guardian, included this insight:

King notes with some amusement that he has been around so long that kids who read and loved him in the 1970's now run publishing houses and newspapers; he is revered, these days, as a grand old man of American letters. The experience of reading King young – "Under the covers with a flashlight at summer camp," as he puts it – doesn't leave one, and although he says, casually, that "it's pretty easy to scare a 14-year-old", the pleasures of his books endure.

I don't think the experience of reading King young has left me.  The Shining and Carrie helped shape my reading preferences, but I wonder now what other lasting traces the experience left, so I will be focusing on the experience of reading the sequel in "real time".  In the 36 years since I read The Shining, Danny Torrance and I have aged together.  I've changed, my reading preferences have changed, my perspective has changed.  Will it  still be as easy to scare me?  Will I understand Danny's changes?   I think it will be a fascinating read.  Join me if you dare.

The Ha-Ha by Dave King

Howard Kapostash has not spoken in thirty years. The small repertory of gestures and simple sounds that he uses to communicate lead most people to assume he is disturbed. No one understands that Howard is still the same man he was before his tragic injury. But when he agrees to help an old girlfriend by opening his home to her nine-year-old son, the presence of this nervous, resourceful boy in his life transforms Howard utterly. He is afforded a rare glimpse of life outside his shell—with all its exuberant joys and crushing sorrows.

I grabbed this audiobook at the library one day when I was in a hurry and just needed something playing in the car on a trip.  I lucked out.  What I got was very different from what I normally read and from what I expected.  

The story covers a very narrow window of time and place - 8 weeks in the limited world of Howard Kapostash - but it covers a wide expanse of emotion and ideas.  Hearing this story from the viewpoint of a man who can not communicate beyond a few basic hand gestures was frustrating - so much so that at times I was tempted to hit eject and move on to something happier.  But it was also intriguing.  Imagine life without ever being able to explain yourself. . . Howard could point to what he wanted on a menu, or tap his watch to indicate he needed to hurry, but he couldn't tell anyone why he was in a hurry.  He couldn't tell anyone how he felt about them, or why he was angry, or what had happened to him in Viet Nam.  When people misjudged him, or used him or assumed they knew what he was thinking, he couldn't correct them.  He couldn't stand up for himself.  

The interview with the author at the end of the audio version added some insight that you wouldn't get from reading the book, so I recommend that, if you chose to read rather than listen, you also read this interview with the author from Book Browse - but not till the end.

This is not an easy read, but it made a subtle change in the way I look at others - What is there in their life that I don't know and they can't tell me?  

Mx3 Book Reviews

Hooray for me!  I actually finished two entries for the Murder, Monsters and Mayhem Challenge.  And they couldn't be at more opposite ends of the spectrum.  One five-star read and one that received one star only because I'm not sure you can give a zero rating.

Where are the Children? by Mary Higgins Clark

This is old-school thriller writing.  I read this book in the 70's and thought I remembered the story - but I wasn't even close.  (Now I'm wondering what book I AM remembering...)  

To escape the terrible secret in her past and the people who knew about it, Nancy Harmon changed her hair color, moved across the country and married Ray Eldredge, believing that at last she had begun a new life.  Seven years have passed and she is happy with her home, her husband and her two beautiful children.

Then an article appears about a famous California murder trial, along with a picture of a woman who looks suspiciously like Nancy.  That very morning, her two children disappear from the yard - and the past and present become inexorably linked.  The police fear that Nancy may have snapper her tenuous hold on reality.  They know nothing about the existence of the stranger in town who holds the key to the children's lives.

I have been in a reading slump lately -- couldn't get involved in anything, nothing was interesting.  That's what inspired me to return to the tried-and-true.  Mary Higgins Clark set the bar for page-turners.  The story is fast-paced, with enough hints to keep you guessing without revealing too much and ruining the twisting ending, and just creepy enough to qualify it for Mx3.

Ms.Clark's more recent novels have lost something, in my opinion.  They tend to be more benign, less intricate, less....thrilling. If you are only familiar with the Mary Higgins Clark of the last 10-15 years, I encourage you to try some vintage suspense.

In the Tall Grass by Stephen King and Joe Hill

In the Tall Grass begins with a sister and brother who pull off to the side of the road after hearing a young boy crying for help from beyond the tall grass. Within minutes they are disoriented, in deeper than seems possible, and they've lost one another. The boy's cries are more and more desperate. What follows is a terrifying, entertaining, and masterfully told tale, as only Stephen King and Joe Hill can deliver.

This is a short-story (about 40 pages) and that's a good thing!  At least the time I wasted was relatively small.  It started out brilliantly, and classic Stephen King -- a common situation that turns bizarre, but maintains that basis of reality that keeps the reader thinking there is a logical solution.  Dave and I were especially enjoying it because it's set in Kansas, in an area we're familiar with, and involved the Tall Grass Prairie that I love.  We were pumped for an awesome journey with the horror "King" (pun intended.) But with about 15 pages left, it went totally off the rails and veered from brilliant to just plain stupid.  There was no point, no progress, no redeeming value.  It apparently became a contest between two  authors to see how disgusting they could be and how many people could be suckered into paying for it.  Honestly, it made me angry that a writing super-star took the easy way out, opting for the gross-out instead of an actual climax to the story.  This isn't horror, this is horrific.

Update:  Can't believe I forgot to mention that The World's Largest Ball of Twine in Cawker City, Kansas plays a part in this book. Cawker is only 30 miles from where I grew up and the giant ball of twine is a familiar sight.  When we used to drive through there on our way to see family, Dave would always hit the brakes and yell "Look at that ball of twine!" -- just to annoy the kids.  And it did.

Abby Finds Her Calling by Naomi King

The Lambright family's eldest daughter, Abby, runs her own sewing shop. There, she mends the town's clothes and their torn relationships. But the town maidel has sworn off any suitors of her own because of her unrequited love for James Graber, who is about to marry her younger sister, Zanna...

On the wedding day, Zanna is nowhere to be found, breaking James' heart. Zanna has brought shame to her family, but there's more in store for them when they discover how far she has fallen. Long-buried secrets come to light, and they test the bonds of the Cedar Creek community. Abby is at the center of it all, trying to maintain everyone's happiness. But will she ever find her own?

Up until a few months ago, I hadn't read any of the immensely popular genre of Amish Romances, so I decided to try a few by agreeing to review them.  Abby Finds Her Calling is, by far, my favorite of the three I have read.  It connected with several themes that are close to me.  The problem in writing a review is how to tell you about the things that touched me, without giving away the entire story, but I'll give it a shot.

Aging parents:  There is a scene between James and his father, who suffers from the dementia so common to aging.  When his father speaks out during a church service, James doesn't react with anger or embarrassment.

The world went still.  Time crystallized.  James suddenly saw this moment through the bright shine of sunlight on an icicle...something told James to cherish this fine moment when his father was mentally clear - and to believe every word Dat had said.  A sweetness flowed through him.  For the first time in weeks, James felt peaceful and right with the way things were.

The bond between mothers and daughters, and the friendships of women:  To tell you about my favorite mother/daughter moment would reveal secrets I can't tell, but Ms. King accurately depicted the way love overcomes a mother's anger or disappointment.  The women of the community also overcome their differences to join together to help a friend.

As she looked around the table, at familiar faces lined with love and laughter, Abby realized that gatherings like these were the batting and backing that held the crazy quilt of their lives together.  Every one of these women had her own talents and strengths - added her own colors to the community - yet despite differences of opinion and age, they fit together all of a piece, like the multipatterned squares of this crazy uilt they would complete today.

Faith:  Naturally, faith would play a part in any story based on an Amish community, but this book seemed to touch it more, or maybe it was just my personal mood.  Either way, there is deep wisdom in this story that teaches lessons beyond the usual platitudes.

"But you who gossip and place blame - whether upon Zanna Lambright or each other - stand just as guilty in our own way...After all," he continued, "we're quick to consider [spoiler] a big sin while we minimize the sin of gossip and speculation.  Truth is, bearing false witness is breaking one of God's commandments, same as if we engage in infidelity or lewd behavior."

There is also a scene in the book, featuring one of my favorite scriptures, "But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart."  It teaches a lesson in really hearing God's word.  There are many verses we know by heart because we've heard or read them so many times, but do we really know what they say? 

Most of all, this is a story of incredible forgiveness and acceptance, and the way God can use open hearts to work miracles.



This review is part of a blog tour organized by Tracee at Review From Here.  I received a free advance copy from the author as part of the tour.

11/22/63 by Stephen King

On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas.  President Kennedy died and the world changed.  What if you could change it back? In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King takes readers on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it.

It begins with Jake Epping, a thirty-five-year-old English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching GED classes. He asks his students to write about an event that changed their lives, and one essay blows him away—a gruesome, harrowing story about the night more than fifty years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a sledgehammer. Reading the essay is a watershed moment for Jake, his life—like Harry’s, like America’s in 1963—turning on a dime. Not much later his friend Al, who owns the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to the past, a particular day in 1958. And Al enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession—to prevent the Kennedy assassination.

So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson, in a different world of Ike and JFK and Elvis, of big American cars and sock hops and cigarette smoke everywhere. From the dank little city of Derry, Maine (where there’s Dunning business to conduct), to the warmhearted small town of Jodie, Texas, where Jake falls dangerously in love, every turn is leading eventually, of course, to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and to Dallas, where the past becomes heart-stoppingly suspenseful, and where history might not be history anymore. Time-travel has never been so believable. Or so terrifying.

Dave and I read this book together back in December and I've been avoiding reviewing because it seemed like such a daunting chore.  As huge as the book is, in concept, in scope, and in detail (not to mention physical size) it seemed that I should have opinions to write that are equally huge.  And I probably do, if you have an afternoon to sit over a cup of coffee and chat, but trying to put it all into a few concise paragraphs is beyond me.  

Stephen King's writing, as always, is perfection. The research is impeccable.  The characters are engaging, the plot takes endless twist, and the ending is a surprise, yet just what you would expect from King.  If you are a fan of JFK history, or just mid-century history, as I am, you'll fall right into the setting and want to stay.  If you have no idea of anything that happened between 1958 and 1964, you'll probably still fall in and want to stay.  I came away knowing more than when I started, and wanting to know even more.

Dave and I are both fans of time-travel stories, and read-together books that involve so many "what if's" are the most fun - so we both . . . what?  "Enjoyed" seems too small, "loved" sounds so overused, . . . Well, just read it!

Baseball and Books

Yesterday was the final game of our daughter's high school softball career, so even though the team is 0-and-however-many on the season (we could use some work on the fundamentals...and a pitcher) we drove the seventy-five miles one way to watch our little darling stand in right field for two innings and bat once. (There's a "mercy" rule that allows the game to be called after three innings if the score is too one-sided.  Mercifully, it came into play!)  Basically, we had three hours in the car to watch a one hour game, but it allowed us plenty of reading time and Stephen King's new novella, Blockade Billy, seemed like the appropriate book.

Even the most diehard baseball fans don't know the true story of William "Blockade Billy" Blakely. He may have been the greatest player the game has ever seen, but today no one remembers his name. He was the first -- and only -- player to have his existence completely removed from the record books. Even his team is long forgotten, barely a footnote in the game's history.  Every effort was made to erase any evidence that William Blakely played professional baseball, and with good reason. Blockade Billy had a secret darker than any pill or injection that might cause a scandal in sports today. His secret was much, much worse. (synopsis from book jacket)

On Barnes and Noble's website, Mr. King is quoted as saying, "I love old-school baseball,and I also love the way people who've spent a lifetime in the game talk about the game. I tried to combine those things in a story of suspense." And he did so very successfully.  This is the baseball of Field of Dreams:

"Man, I did love this game. I'd have played for food money. It was the game... The sounds, the smells. Did you ever hold a ball or a glove to your face?...It was the crowd, rising to their feet when the ball was hit deep. Shoot, I'd play for nothing!" (Shoeless Joe Jackson)

And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces...It reminds us of all that once was good and could be again. (Terrance Mann)

That's what I wish for. Chance to squint at a sky so blue that it hurts your eyes just to look at it. To feel the tingling in your arm as you connect with the ball. To run the bases - stretch a double into a triple, and flop face-first into third, wrap your arms around the bag. (Doc Graham)

The book is only about eighty pages long (excluding illustrations) and the first sixty or so are classic baseball.  The expected Stephen King twist doesn't appear until the end, but you don't care.  In those few pages, we were transported to the world of baseball in 1957.  The writing is so good that even a marginal baseball fan like me - I love the game, but don't know a lot of the details - was absorbed in the story.  The story is told from the perspective of third-base coach "Granny" Grantham - now living in a nursing home and recounting the tale of Blockade Billy to Stephen King - so it definitely captured the authentic lingo of the game and the time.  Some of the idioms were confusing to me, but Dave jumped in with definitions when needed. 

The twist, when it finally arrives, is not totally surprising - there were a couple clues along the way if you were paying close attention - but it's just "King-ish" enough to make for a satisfying curveball.  This is another example of Mr. King's extreme talent for writing.  We both gave this story an A+. 

Under the Dome by Stephen King

On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester's Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. (synopsis from Barnes and Noble).

It's hard to know where to start in reviewing this book. This is a monster of a book (1072 pages), with a gargantuan cast and multiple sub-plots weaved together to create a massive story. It's about small town politics, secrets, drugs, greed, families, power...It's a mini-series in a novel!

When the residents of Chester's Mill are instantly and totally separated from the world, they naturally react with confusion and apprehension, but they refuse to believe it will be a long-term crisis. However, as days pass, life under the dome begins to degrade.

Environmental issues, supplies of food and fuel, access to medical care, much-needed professionals who were out of town and unable to return - there are a string of concerns that arise from the town's isolation, but the biggest problem is the struggle for power. Dave describes it as "Animal Farm" from the mind of Stephen King.

Big Jim Rennie, one of the town's Selectmen, is determined to exploit the dome to promote himself as the "savior" of the town, and in the process create his own system of martial law that allows him to write his own rules, deputize his yes-men to enforce them, and then act as judge, jury and executioner, literally, of those who object.

Dale Barbara, a former soldier recently returned from Iraq and a newcomer to town, reluctantly leads the small band who dares to stand up to this tyranny and fight to save Chester's Mill from the dome and Rennie.

In our opinion, the negatives are few: the large cast of characters seems unwieldy at first, but it's surprising how quickly the reader gets to know the residents of the town - and the playbill at the front of the book provides quick reference if needed; and the gore-meter did rise above my comfort level at times, so the squeemish among you may want to find a reading partner like I have who will edit some of it for you.

The positives, however, are many: the story moves at top speed from page one and, hard as it may be to believe, there were no parts where we felt we were getting off topic or slowing down; there are moments of unexpected, if slightly unorthodox, humor (Dave actually laughed out loud when one man who went flying through the air "trailing intestines like party streamers" - grizzly and warped, I know, but freakishly funny); the action rockets right to the last page and the ending - which you are guaranteed not to predict - simultaneously concludes the story and opens up new questions.

For those who normally avoid horror stories (and I would be one of them), let us reassure you that this is not "occult" horror - no satanic children of the corn, no Carrie-style telekinetic revenge. The horror in this story comes from ordinary people held under a microscope, so to speak, and the things they are willing to do under extraordinary pressure.

Don't be frightened off by the girth of this book. We promise you won't be able to put it down - except when your arms give out.

The Mist by Stephen King

November Novella Challenge is underway and we finished our first selection, Stephen King's The Mist, while traveling over the weekend. We had mixed reactions.

A bazaar and unearthly fog moves across a small town in Maine, bringing with it a circus of prehistoric and fantastical creatures which spring out of the mist to devour whatever gets in their road. A group of locals and vacationers are trapped in a supermarket, devising various escape and survival plans.

Like all Stephen King stories, the pace was fast. Only once did we feel him "rabbit trailing" and then only for a couple pages. The background info on the main character, David Drayton, and his feelings of inadequacy as an artist when compared to his famous father may have been pertinent and useful in a full length novel, but in this formula there wasn't time to develop the character that far, so only served to slow things down.

The various cliques that developed among the refugees trapped in the market were an intriguing microcosm of society: the "flat-earthers" who chose to deny that anything was happening, the blood sacrifice group which was willing to sacrifice someone to appease the evil - as long as it wasn't one of them, those who just sat back and allowed others to make all the decisions...

Of course the gore level was too much for me (Tami) but I had to concede that point somewhat on the grounds of "What did you expect from Stephen King? If you don't want gore, don't open the book." However, even the gore was freakishly fascinating in it's originality. No two people were decapitated, dismembered or disemboweled in quite the same manner. Definitely no points off for predictability.

Our biggest complaint was the ending - or lack thereof. King has a tendency to let his readers form their own ideas of what happened to the creatures he creates, and that approach is great - in theory. But we had a serious desire to call Mr. King and ask, "But what about....???"

Starting with a scale of 5 stars for the perfect book, I took off a point for gore and a point for frustrating ending - but then had to give back a half-point because it wasn't like I wasn't warned in advance that there would be blood (I read every King book I could get my hands on in the 70's). So I rated this novella as 3 1/2 stars. Dave - who uses King's Gunslinger series as the gold standard for the 5-star book - only gave it 3 stars. "The measure of a good book is you can't stand to put it down and can't wait to pick it back up. I couldn't wait to get home from work to get to the next chapter of the Gunslinger books, but I didn't have that feeling with this one."

On to the next novella on our challenge list: Animal Farm by George Orwell.