Booking It

First in a new paranormal mystery series, Jill Hathaway’s Slide was definitely an interesting read! A little out of my usual genre boundary, but a solid book nonetheless.

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Book Review: Hawksong by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

What is this? A book review? At last? The world must be coming to an end!

Sorry! Half of this post was accidentally published a little while ago - completely my error. Hopefully, I’ve fixed it this time… This is the complete review!

I’m a total evangelist for Patrick Ness’ Chaos Walking books (seriously - go read them), so even though I felt weird about it I just sucked it up and read his newest novel, the middle-grade A Monster Calls. And oh, how glad I am that my book-snobbishness didn’t prevent me from partaking of this delightful, heartfelt fable!

/ weirdness

I owe my soul to Candlewick and NetGalley for allowing me to pre-read this title. Or, not my soul. But I sure owe them something.

Title: A Monster Calls

Author: Patrick Ness 

Publication Date: 27 September 2011

Publishing House: Candlewick Press

Page Count: 215 (Hardcover)

I like writing reviews of books I love. It makes blogging easy - all I have to do is sit at my computer and gush. I’ll try to keep this sensical, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to control the following outpouring of unabashed admiration. There’s something magical about this book - it is reminiscent of C. S. Lewis’ books, from that age of thoughtful and enchanting children’s literature.

The premise of the novel is a popular one in children’s and middle-grade literature - that of losing a loved one. Thirteen-year-old Conor has had to make some serious adjustments over the past couple of years - his father left to have a new family in America, and more recently, his beloved mother has been diagnosed with cancer. However, at seven minutes past midnight, a monstrous tree appears outside his window and proceeds to tell him three tales. And so begins Conor’s often dark, often emotional, often very funny journey towards acceptance and maturity.The simple, powerful plot is almost archaic in terms of structure - the tale is an homage to children’s literature, to fairy tales, and to story-telling itself - but for all of that it’s still very fresh and engaging. Reminiscent of a fable (it’s use of numbers, repetition, and recurring motifs being key in this), the novel’s tone and structure make the magical and supernatural elements of the tale feel very natural. (Haha - get it? Natural? The book’s about a talking tree, people). Despite the fact that the conclusion is to be expected, the tale was inventive and surprising.

However, the magic of Ness’ writing is his ability to generate empathy. (Well - his writing is magical too, but I’ll get to that). I loved Conor. I loved his grandmother, too - such a sharply delineated character. But, most of all, I loved the eponymous Monster. Such is the magic of this novel. A tree was my favorite character. 

Every single one, though, was easy to relate to - and to understand, even when their choices or motivations are different from what you, as a reader, might think. I thought Conor’s interactions with his estranged father - the childlike need to love and be loved at conflict with the maturity forced upon him - was especially telling.

The writing in this book is incredible (I had to think of a word other than “magical” to use - but “magical” definitely works, too). It’s a story that talks about story-telling, and I love that. But it’s definitely a good solid story even if you’re not interested in subtext.I felt it to be a commentary on the power of stories in our lives - the great power of stories to change people and to open their eyes to the world and themselves. 
Is it obvious that I love this book? I don’t even think I need to explain. I was a little weirded at first, because it’s a middle grade novel and, you know, I’m a teenager. But I ate it with a spoon. And the illustrations? (Yep, there’s pictures, folks). Wow. I died a little. So amazing! Atmospheric and absolutely perfect. Props to you, whoever illustrated this book. Okay - props? Seriously? That sounded so stupid. I should have said “I commend you”.

Final Breakdown

Premise & Originality: 0.5 Stars

Plot: 1 Star

Characters: 1 Star

Writing: 1 Star

Enjoyability: 1 Star

Total: 4.5 / 5 Stars

READ IT. GO. I RELEASE YOU.

Classic Pick: The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

Incredible series! Definitely a must-read for anyone who likes fantasy - it’s like the granddaddy of the genre.

“East” by Edith Pattou is a historical-fiction-fantasy adaptation of the classic fairy tale “East of the Sun, West of the Moon.” The fairy tale is classified as the “search for a lost husband” by Aarne-Thompson (am I spelling that right?) and deals with a young girl who leaves her family in order to live in an ice palace with a polar bear. Pattou’s greatest achievement, perhaps, is translating the original tale into an accessible young-adult fantasy adventure. The story deals with the themes of family ties and relationships, as well as guilt, duty, and courage. 

                         

Writing Style: Pattou splits the novel into four “books” (one for each direction on the compass), further dividing these books into very short chapters, some of which are one or two pages. She uses a variety of perspectives including those of the protagonist Rose, the “White Bear”, Rose’s brother Neddy and a variety of others. This narrative style was interesting and enlightening, with the short chapters generally helping the plot to move along. However - it follows several unrelated narrative strains, and the author’s divergence from the primary plot (that of Rose’s quest for the White Bear) are, at times, disruptive and frustrating. The prose itself was blunt and accessible, which, considering the number of plot points in the book, is helpful. Unfortunately, this distances us from the characters more than usual for a story in the first-person perspective. 

Plot: The plot was, frankly, rambly, and generally lacked the cohesion of its fairy tale origin. It had an episodic quality, especially in the last couple of books. That said, it was interesting and fast-paced, covering a wide variety of characters and locales, and Pattou managed to pack in a lot of information about historical Norway, cartography, and Inuit snow-travel tactics. Generally, I believe the story was a successful conversion of the source material. It owes a lot of its structural elements to the archetypal “hero’s quest” - thus the episodic nature of the narration - but considering that it actually IS, in this case, a hero’s quest, I can forgive it a cliched structure. And it definitely kept me entertained. 

Characters: As far as characters go, Pattou manages to create a very large cast that depends heavily on stereotypes from the fantasy and fairy tale genres (ie., plucky heroine, enchanted prince, drunk guy on a boat). The story, however, is PLOT driven, which means that stereotypes work within it and can help to drive it forward. No, there were no deep inner struggles in this novel. But it’s satisfying anyway, because Rose faces enough exterior struggles to make up for it. It’s a young adult fantasy novel, not a psychological thriller. No attempt is made to characterize Rose as anything different that a plucky heroine but because the story needs a plucky heroine, s’okay. I did like the trolls, and I loved the way the White Bear’s chapters are written in short, spare poems - his animal/human natures seemed to come through really effectively in that. 

Dialogue: The book, being plot-driven, doesn’t really rely on a lot of dialogue. Most of it is indirect - a character will say something like “We spoke of this…” and then summarize the dialogue without us getting to read it. Because of the volume of sheer ‘stuff’ in this book, that’s a good thing. It keeps the plot moving along at a consistent pace and doesn’t bog down the story. Usually, I love dialogue, but again the story didn’t really call for it too often. 

Altogether, “East” was a fast-paced, entertaining novel. It wasn’t bogged down by heavy stuff, just a fun, quick adventure story. It’s main virtue is brevity, needed in such an extended narrative. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes the young-adult fantasy stuff but is looking for a break from paranormal and… yeah. I was glad to find this because I’m definitely tired of the paranormal. 

Rating: 4/5

~ This review is also posted on GoodReads ~