What a zoo

13
Apr 2012

 

The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise

Paperback: 320 pages

Publisher: Anchor Canada (Aug 23 2011)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0385669704

ISBN-13: 978-0385669702

 

This review copy sat on my shelf for a while, but I would have picked it up much sooner if I’d known it was about THE tower.

Balthazar Jones is a Yeomen Warder of Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London, and Member of the Sovereign’s Body Guard of the Yeoman Guard Extraordinary, more commonly known as a Beefeater. He lives in the Tower of London with his wife Hebe Jones. They were blessed late in their marriage with the birth of a son but their marriage has been rocky since his untimely death three years ago.

Balthazar and Hebe are the owners of the world’s oldest tortoise, of which the Jones family has had custody of for decades. For this reason, Balthazar is asked to act as Keeper of the new Royal Menagerie which is to be housed in the Tower as it was until 1835. The Queen has been given a number of exotic animals as gifts from countries, monarchs and world leaders; they’ve long been kept at the London Zoo but the Queen wishes to resurrect the old tradition. Unfortunately, the move doesn’t go as smoothly as planned.

If you ask me, some of the best parts of the book are the descriptions of Hebe’s job at the London Underground’s Lost Property Office. A locked safe, a gigolo’s diary, an Oscar and a magician’s box used to saw glamourous assistants in half are only the tip of the iceberg. The things people leave behind on the tube are fascinating and imagining the owners, entertaining.

While the novel deals with some heavy topics, the description of life for inhabitants of the Tower and their secret lives, the tidbits of history of the landmark, and most of all, the author’s uncanny ability to catch me off guard and make me laugh out loud make it a treasure. Her use of the characters’ full names at each reference creates an interesting feeling of distance, making it feel more like a fairytale than a real story, even while revealing intimate secrets about them.

The one thing I cannot figure out is what year it takes place in.

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A new life

28
Feb 2012

Incarnate, by Jodi Meadows

Hardcover: 384 pages

Publisher: Katherine Tegen (Jan 23 2012)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0062060759

ISBN-13: 978-0062060754

 

 

Recently I find myself being drawn to and enjoying genres I never used to, namely YA fiction, which these days all seems to be set in fantastical realms. (Believe it or not, I’m actually writing this while watching The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants on TV.)

Incarnate is another book I got from the book blogger meet up a few months ago. It takes place in Range, a country in a world where a million souls are reincarnated continuously–until Ana is born. No one knows why she exists in place of another soul who died years earlier and should have returned.

She’s spent her short existence living with her mother, Li, who despite agreeing to raise her, has always told Ana that she’s a “nosoul”, incapable of loving and not worthy of an education. In a world where everyone else has lived for 5,000 years, with the wisdom and knowledge to go along with it, the value of one lifetime is miniscule.

When she’s 18, she sets out on her own in search of the capital city, Heart, and the reason why she exists. She immediately runs into trouble but is rescued by a “young” man named Sam, who promises to take her to Heart. She experiences both acceptance from new friends and resistance from those who devalue her life, but is allowed to enter and stay in Heart under the guardianship and tutelage of Sam, with whom she finds herself growing closer.

The book raises a number of interesting philosophical questions, namely, what’s the value of a single lifetime? Is there a benefit to knowing that, while death is always painful, it’s never final? As a constant seeker of knowledge, I began the book thinking that it would be great to have infinite lifetimes to study and master each craft until I perfect it. And of course that led to panic about how short my life really will be, even if I should live to be 100.

In Range, only certain people are approved to procreate, so as to weed out genetic abnormalities. Souls can be reborn as either male or female in each life and some souls are lucky enough to find a love that transcends death, gender and age. Someone who plays the role of father in one life might be reborn as a daughter several generations later.

The book (also like many other YA books published these days) is the first in a trilogy and I am indeed looking forward to what’s next!

What would you do if you had an unlimited number of lifetimes?

 

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Neither here nor there

21
Feb 2012

 

Lone Wolf, by Jodi Picoult
Hardcover: 432 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Canada (Mar 1 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1439102740
ISBN-13: 978-1439102749

 

 

 

 

 

Avid readers of this blog will know I’m a bit of a Jodi Picoult fan. Fortunately for me, she’s one of those treasures that publishers, literary agents and readers usually only dream about—the author who releases a new book once a year for our reading pleasure. And now, right on schedule, comes Lone Wolf.

Luke Warren is a manly man. He’s “built like the Hulk”—tall, broad and incredibly tough. While working as a caretaker at a zoo, he is drawn to the wolves, and inexplicably, even to himself, finds himself spending the night in their cage. This impulse leads to a lifelong passion for the study of wolf biology, which trumps his relationships, even with his own human family.

After disappearing for nearly two years to live in the wilderness of Quebec and successfully infiltrating a wolf pack, he returns home to find he has difficulty relating to and understanding human behaviour. Fast-forward six years and Luke finds himself divorced and estranged from his son, Edward, who left abruptly to live in Thailand. His only ally is his 17-year-old daughter, Cara, who chooses to live with her father instead of her mother and her new family.

One day, Cara wakes up to find she and her father have been in a ghastly car crash. Her mother has summoned Edward from Thailand because Luke is in terrible condition and his son is the only one legally able to make medical decisions on his behalf, Cara being underaged.

Jodi’s readers will recognize the familiar themes of familial discontent and misunderstanding in the story that follows. While Cara insists that her father is a fighter who will recover, Edward is a realist who believes he’s honouring his father’s wishes by discontinuing life support, and his actions are misconstrued for revenge on a six-year-old fight.

The novel examines whether it’s braver and nobler to hang on for dear life, or accept a grim prognosis and move on. It also makes me wonder how well we ever really know those we’re closest to.

Two fantastic pieces of news:

  1. Simon & Schuster is giving away a complete library of Jodi Picoult’s books. Be sure to enter the contest!
  2. Jodi is returning to Toronto to promote her book on March 13th. As someone who heard her speak last year about Sing You Home, I highly recommend you plan on attending.

Please check out my other reviews of Jodi work, Picture Perfect, Sing You Home and House Rules.


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A grim picture, a great story

14
Feb 2012

Wither, by Lauren DeStefano

This edition: Hardcover, 368 pages

Publication date: March 22, 2011

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Fever, by Lauren DeStefano

This edition: Hardcover, 352 pages

Publication date: February 21, 2012

Publisher: Simon & Schuster


 

 

 

I came across the second book in this trilogy at a blogger meet up a few months ago. I read the first book on my Kobo and dove right into the second.

The setting is about 150 to 200 years in the future, by my estimation. A botched attempt by medical science to eradicate disease and illness created a generation of nearly immortal humans. But a genetic fluke has left their children and grandchildren doomed to lifespans limited by 25 years for males and 20 years for females. The earth is now populated by an ever decreasing number of “first generations” (about 65 or 70 years old and up) and youths held hostage by the virus.

Education has lost all value. The economy has tanked and the divide between the rich and the poor is enormous. Girls are snatched off the streets and sold to rich men, young and old, as babymakers.

Sixteen-year-old Rhine lives with her twin brother in Manhattan, where the skyscrapers have been converted into the much-needed factories in a world where everyone lives in the moment and very few long-term plans are made. She’s snatched one day and held to wait until her wedding to the man who handpicked her along with two other girls, who will become her sister wives.

While many girls who grew up in orphanages (like 13-year-old Cecilia) or turned to prostitution to survive (like 18-year-old Jenna) might think life in the mansion was a dream come true, Rhine, who’s known the love of a family and has a brother wondering where she is, feels trapped in a prison. Her father-in-law manipulates everyone, including his son, to support his shady experiments in the basement in the hopes of finding a cure for the virus.

Rhine finds an ally in Gabriel, a house servant who shows her kindness. He’s lived there since he was nine and can barely remember the outside world; Rhine begins to tell him stories from her childhood in hopes of convincing him to run away with her.

The series quite strongly reminds me of The Hunger Games. The setting may not be post-apocalyptic and the heroine may not be charged with changing the world, but she is challenging the established authority. She’s taken and held against her will in a place that seems all but impossible to escape from alive. There are some unrealistic moments, but they’re overshadowed by the all-too-real image of what our future looks like.

I don’t want to reveal too much so I’ll just say this: book two, Fever, is a very different book than Wither, revealing even more about the world they live in. I’m looking forward to book three!

What do you think about the scene DeStefano has set? Is our society doomed to fall apart in just a few decades?

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For a good time, pick up a vagrant!

22
Jan 2012

Today I welcome my good friend, colleague and the person who introduced my to comic books, Candace.

Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton

Hardcover : 168 pages
Publisher : Drawn and Quarterly (September 27 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1770460608
ISBN-13: 978-1770460607

I’ve been an avid reader of this blog for quite some time, so it was a lovely surprise when Lindsay asked me to write a graphic novel guest post. Thanks darling!

It seems that I’ve always been destined/doomed (depending on your perspective)to live a comic book–filled life. There’s my father who still keeps his beloved copy of Classic Illustrated Robinson Crusoe in his beside table and my brother who’salways been obsessed with the Joker. But it wasn’t until I met my husband and was introduced to graphic novels that my addiction really began. We now make room for vintage comics and special editions the way others make space for more practical items like furniture, food, etc.

Entering the world of comics can still seem overwhelming for the uninitiated, considering the common stereotype involves superheroes with convoluted histories and storylines cheesier than the latest episode of The Young and the Restless. The fact of the matter is not all graphic novels are about beefy men and busty women running around in tight spandex. Unless of course that’s your thing…

For the graphic novel newbie, Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant is an excellent place to start. Published by Drawn and Quarterly, the book collects the (mostly) historical-based comic strips that originally appeared on the website harkavagrant.com.


Kate Beaton has such a talent for comically interpreting dry historical events by transposing them into modern contexts the reader can easily identify with. She conceives the Brontës as boy-crazy sisters, the Hardy Boys as pot-smoking teen slackers and Handel as forever living in the shadow of Billy Joel.

That’s where I believe her secret to success lies: she’s having so much fun playing with history (and what a variety of well-researched history she chooses from) that the reader can’t help but enjoy the fruits of her labour—not to mention she’s pretty darn hilarious. For me, it was love at first read, as I literally laughed until my throat hurt.

But don’t be put off if history isn’t exactly your thing. Non-historical topics such as pugs, Canadian stereotypes and boobs are also included. (And who doesn’t enjoy a good boob joke now and then?)

If you’re only going to read one graphic novel in your lifetime, please make it this one. Visit Kate Beaton’s website and then go out and buy the book, if only for her witty, print-only, extra commentary on many of the comics.

While you’re at it, why not check out Drawn and Quarterly’s fantastic catalogue to see if there’s anything else that strikes your fancy? You can thank me later.

———

I’m thanking you now, @candace_allison! I’m excited to give this one a read.

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