I picked up Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald from a friend. I have tickets to go see the author give an informal interview at the NAC at the end of the month and thought that I should at least read her most popular book.

Turns out I’ve already read it. I read it again anyway, because I only remembered two parts of the book, and by the time I did I was at least a third of the way through.

I have no idea how I forgot reading this book, because it’s certainly a story that sticks with you. The Pipers are one tragic family. Tragedy seems to flow through the very blood that connects them to each other. Every character is flawed, but mostly sympathetic (although I can’t seem to drag up any sympathy for James. By the end of the book I think he’s revolting), but they certainly makes some very bad choices.

It makes me sad that most of them never had a better end for themselves. Except for Lily and Anthony. But I suppose they deserve the ending since the way they came into the world was terrible.

I’ll just state straight out that I did not like this book. I didn’t hate it, but reading it was a chore every step of the way.

Labyrinth by Kate Mosse is a long, long book. Almost 700 pages. Unnecessarily long. Mosse likes to describe every bloody thing in the book. Every flower that the main character Alais looks at, from its colour to the way it slopes in the wind, is described, and I just don’t care.

It’s a semi-interesting story. The bandwagon plot of protecting/discovering the Grail (authors really need to stop with this one now). It really only gets good in the last 100 pages, and the whole story could have been told in that space.

It’s small positive parts are heavily outweighed by the crap. The length, the predictability, the stupid parallels (Alais/Alice, please). Not recommended.

I Trust Snape

Because I do.

This book has been sitting on my To Be Read shelf for, oh, 8 years now. I bought it back in my early university days (when it first came out) but just never managed to find the time to read it.

And I haven’t yet. Not the whole thing, anyway. I read one section for my book club last month, as we were all sort of out of other suggestions and kind of wanted to tick this one off our mental list.

It turns out that my sympathy for all things anti-corporate, and my desire to whole-heartedly embrace activism of any sort died a couple of years back. I just didn’t care, and I’m sure that I went out for MCDonald’s wearing Nike and driving a car that I filled up with shell has shortly after I put the book down.

It’s certainly not any faults within the book that caused the lack of interest. It was well-written and seemingly well researched. Naomi Klein certainly wrote a timely piece. And that’s likely the problem: it was far too timely and has now become dated.

This one was a book club pick, to be read and then when we got together we watched the movie. The book is a 700+ page meh fest. It’s not bad, perse, but it’s not good either. And frankly it’s supposed to be all suspenseful, but really isn’t because you know who killed Tess straight off. It’s no big shock at all. I really just didn’t care about any of the characters, and actively hated others. But it was readable and passed decent time while I was trapped in a boring hotel in the middle of nowhere Missussauga for a week.

The movie was even worse only because of the fact that I had just read the book so any tiny wee bit of suspense and thrill that might have been in the movie was obliterated. It was apparently nominated for Oscars, but I really have no idea why. The movie did, however, redeem itself and the book with it’s ending – an original bit that never happened in the book. So ya for that.

Oh Boy. I don’t even know how to start this post. I LOVE this book. Absolutely crazily adore. It’s the kind of book I need to use up and devour.

The story itself is as old as the hills – King Arthur and his court. The twist of course (that I’m sure everyone knows by now) is that it’s written from the point of view of the women of the story. The main Protaganist – Morgaine is a really cool character, though she tends to be single minded. I loathed Gwynhefar. Whiny, overly pious twit, that one.

But the best part of the story, in my mind, is the relationship between Lancelet and Arthur. Bradley paints it with such tenderness and slight torturousness that you feel so much for the two of them.

Some passages to illustrate:

“Don’t do that,” Lancelet said…”Promise me, Gwydion.” She was astonished that he used the old name. Arthur pressed his hand, and bent down to kiss Lancelet on the cheeck, carefully avoiding the bruised side.
“I promise Galahad. Sleep now.” (page 301-2)

I could go on, but then I would just swoon into nothing. Brilliant. The whole thing.

So the thing to note before I get into this, is how I came to be in possession of this book in the first place. Anyone who knows me knows that I would not be likely to purchase this book for myself.

The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning was a birthday gift from my brother who is a minister. My brother is passionate about his faith, just as I am passionate about all the things I believe in. We play this game with each other, sending bits of our lives and beliefs to each other in the hopes that some of it hits the intended target. I send him things like clips of Angel and Collins on youtube as an illustration of loving gay men, he sends me things like this book.

I have worked hard within myself to get this far, to gain the self-esteem & confidence I have. Too hard even, to see myself declaring that I am unworthy and poor in spirit. Manning says at one point: “My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it” (page 25, emphasis mine). Nothing? Really? Well, speak for yourself, Brennan, for as flawed as am, for all the mistakes that I have made and will continue to make, I know that I am deserving of god’s love.

One of the best parts of the book is the addendum “19 Mercies: a spiritual journey”. Indeed, chop off the rest and expand this section and you may even get me to keep reading. Plus, Manning points explores some interesting ideas here, like the idea that meal sharing back in the time of Jesus indicated a desire for friendship, and that such a fact should be kept in mind when receiving communion.

He also thoroughly explores the idea of god as father and humanity as he children. Here is where I started to squirm. Not because I disagreed with the idea, indeed the image is nice. But for some reason it makes me wildly uncomfortable. I’m not sure if it’s because the father/child relationship is one I am vastly unfamiliar with, or if it’s the image Manning paints of humanity as children. Because we don’t get to be adult children of the father – no in this relationship we are as small children, innocent, trusting and without conditions. Again, a truly lovely idea, and oh that it were so. Perhaps I find it difficult, embarrassing even, as an adult to see myself in such a way. Even when I was a child I talked myself out of childish comforts rather early. I have too much pride, although it’s the best metaphor for a relationship with god that I have heard.

All in all, not a bad book. Easy to read, doesn’t speak down to you, and many of the concepts I could get behind. But the ones I couldn’t I really couldn’t and that distracted me and prevented me from enjoying it completely.

So I just finished reading The Continuity Girl by Leah McLaren (yes, the Globe & Mail columnist for those of you following along at home). This one came to me via my bookclub, and I have to say, it’s the first time in a while that I have actually finished a bookclub book. The Continuity Girl could be viewed as chicklit, if you squint. It certainly has your standard quirky (female) protagonist, with her also-quirky friends and family, who is on a (yes, quirky) mission. But inspite of myself, I really enjoyed reading about Meredith Moore and her sudden and strange quest to spawn. Meredith becomes a self-proclaimed “sperm bandit” in an effort to have a baby without the entanglements of an actual relationship. The book follows her along the quest and you see her meet and interact with several characters (in the truest sense of the word). Some rather important bits of the plot were almost as predictable as The DaVinci Code (this is not a compliment), which loses some points in my eyes. I really didn’t want to enjoy this book as much as I did; infact, when I discovered the glowing review from the author of The Fabulous Girl’s Guide To Decorum (my definitive example of the truly bad and horrible aspects of “chicklit”) on the back of the book I almost stopped reading on principle. But Continuity Girl in the end was a fun, quick read. It won’t cause you to ponder the meaning of life, but you will want to know how it turns out.