As are many of the books I blog about, The Book of Negroes was a book club selection.  This worked out well for me, as I had picked up the book several months ago on my many jaunts through Chapters.  I’d been wanting to read it for some time.  A few years ago a co-worker couldn’t say enough good things about it, and was incredibly excited to discover that Lawrence Hill would be in Ottawa for a conference.

So this was the context which led me to the story of Aminata Diallo’s story.

For some reason I can’t put my finger on, Book of Negroes seemed to me from the start to be Roots-esque. Again, explaining why is difficult; Roots is far more epic of a story, and they only appear to have one common thread: life as a slave.  I suspect it’s my own failing – I clearly need to explore more stories in this vein so that I can have more comparisons.

It would have been difficult not to be somewhat disappointed in the plot, with such a legend as my only template for how to tell such a story.  BON was bound to fail to live up to expectations in that circumstance, so I did my best to let go of my pre-conceived notions.

Book of Negroes drew me in almost instantly.  Once again I made the mistake of beginning to read a book at 11:00 p.m. just before bed, and ended up awake till 4 a.m. just to finish it. So I can say with confidence that BON was engaging and a quick read.

The story of Aminata (and why does everyone have such a hard time pronouncing her name?  Seems easy enough to me…) begins in her childhood in Bayo (Africa), follows her across the ocean on a slave ship and her life in captivity and through her writing her own name in the Book of Negroes in an effort to gain her freedom.

I enjoyed the characters.  I liked them all – from what we saw of them anyway.  I had a particular curiosity and affinity for Chekura from the start.  And while his relationship with Aminata was incredibly (incredibly!) predictable, I still kind of loved it all the same.  What did bother me was its unrealistic nature.  Or so it seemed to me.  Granted, I’ve never been a slave in the U.S. in the 1700s, but how likely is it that these two would be able to follow each other throughout life?  They both survive being enslaved and manage to find each other again and again despite that captivity – not to mention the sheer size of the United States.  What are the odds of that?

Suspension of disbelief at its best.

My only other point – and here I risk sounding insensitive, I’m aware – is that it seemed Meena had quite a bit of luck in where her life took her.  Now, again, I’m aware that’s relative.  But it seems odd to me that she would have multiple people who were willing to teach her to read and write (a black female in the 1700s).  And her second owner was quite kind, as these things go.

The Book of Negroes is not the only novel to fall into this trap.  I know I have read several novelizations of historical tragedies where it seems the protagonist manages to somehow avoid the incredibly horrible treatment that the world now knows as the norm at that time.

But it’s forgivable.  If Meena were to die of fever on the slave ship, there would be no story then, would there?

I read the book in its entirety in about 5 hours, drawn in not because of the originality or complexity of the plot, but because of my intense sympathy for the character.  Hill makes a brilliant choice in starting Meena’s journey into slavery at 11 years old.  She is a child and we cannot help but want to look after her and know she’s ok. 

And that’s what kept me turning the page.  I wanted her to find someone to care for her.  I wanted Chekura to find her again.  I wanted her to get to keep her children.  I wanted her to somehow get back to Africa again. 

I wanted her to be free.

A great book and a slice of history by a Canadian author. Highly recommended. 

For more on Hill and his book, see the CBC.  For a fascinating look at the real Book of Negroes, see the Government of Nova Scotia’s archive site.

This one was for my bookclub.  Generally speaking, if it’s historical fiction, my bookclub will want to read it.  Generally this genre makes me a little wary.  While there have been several books of this type that I’ve enjoyed, they tend to be a bit formulaic.

The first bit of formula is that there must always be a modern day heroine following or investigating the life of the historical heroine.  In the tenth gift we have Julie Lovat and Catherine Tregenna respectively.  For a while I was worried that they would somehow be the same person (reincarnated) or related or some such — particularly when Julie’s cousin points out that they have the very same handwriting!  Thankfully Johnson does not follow down the path that Labyrinth took.

Julie receives an embroidery book as a gift, an embroidery book that happens to be hundreds of years old and once belonged to the above mentioned Cat Tregenna.  In between the patterns and notes, Cat keeps a diary of sorts.  And while Johnson endeavors to explain why Cat knows how to write — her employer wants to do well by her and see her educated — it seems very unlikely that any woman of cat’s station in the early 1600s would know how to write.  Suspension of disbelief.

Cat’s diary tells of her dreams to leave her village home, her horror at the prospect of marrying her cousin Rob (really?  “Rob”?  It just seems so informal for 1625…) and eventually her capture by Barbary pirates who intend to sell her into slavery.

Some criticisms first:

Gosh Cat and Julie fall in love rather easily.  Here is where The Tenth Gift becomes formulaic again.  Both women fall in love with Morrocan men.  I can only assume this happens because the author herself fell in love with a morrocan man while she was there doing research for the book, because she really doesn’t show us why they fall in love.  We don’t get to know either man well enough to understand it — particularly in Cat’s case, where the man she loves is the man who captured her and her friends and family.

Having Rob go all the way there, spend months as a slave, only to have Cat turn him down was just MEAN.

Gosh Anna was awfully forgiving.  Too forgiving, in my opinion.

Not only are Julie and Cat far too similar, but the two men who died at the Cornwall house both write the exact same goodbye note to their wives?  Because one potentially haunts the place?  What?

The book was a captivating read, in spite of these flaws.  I finished the whole thing in one sitting and was very interested in seeing if the plot would follow through what I felt the rest of the pattern was.  It did, and despite being wildly predicable, it was entertaining.

This is not a book I would normally have picked up, to be quite honest. But my Mom kept hounding me about it — for weeks she would ask, almost every time we talked, “Have you read the book yet?” So finally I bought it and read it just so I could say yes, I have.

So, the Shack instantly comes across as one of those Inspirational books that will Change Your Life merely from the blurb on the back cover. It attempts to answer the question “Where is god in this world of unspeakable pain?” through the story of Mack. Mack has lost his 8 year old daughter; she was kidnapped and murdered while the family was on a camping trip. In the midst of his gut wrenching depression and anger, Mack receives a note telling him to back to the scene of the crime. It is here is ostensibly gets the answer to the question posed on the back of the book.

I am a natural skeptic of these types of books. I want them to mean a lot to me, as they seem to be trying so hard to do so, but it is the trying too hard that turns me off. For example:

1) The faux non-fiction type of writing, as if it was a true story and Mack a real person. I’m not sure what the point of that was, beyond emotional manipulation.

2) God as a big, black woman. Great idea, i totally get what Young was trying to do here, I do. It was an attempt to show people that god is not something that is stereotypical, he is not necessarily male, or white or whatever. And the other two parts of the trio were very United Colours of Beneton as well. But I guess it just seems that by doing this Young is trying to be edgy.

3) God as “Papa”. Sigh. I don’t know why this makes me so squirmingly uncomfortable. But it does. I like the idea as god as a father, and calling him “father” doesn’t bother me. “Papa” seems too familiar, too intimate. I suppose that may be the point. But unlike Mack, I couldn’t get over it.

Despite these negative points, I did enjoy the book. It had a message, although sometimes it was hard to figure out exactly what that was. Young does paint god as a very compassionate, approachable deity, which is a refreshing change.

“I am not evil. You are the ones who embrace fear and pain and power and rights so readily in your relationships. But your choices are not stronger than my purposes, and I will use every choice you make for the ultimate good and the most loving outcome”

And this bit was particularly interesting too:

“Who said anything about being a Christian? I’m not a Christian.”

So, overall, a worthwhile read, just to make you think. It certainly did that for me, and I read it all in one sitting, late into the night. So go into it expecting interesting discussion on religion and life, and you will be satisfied. Go into it expecting to suddenly end up in church next sunday — well, you may have missed the point entirely.

Yet another bookclub choice, The Bestiary was my suggestion for this round, and I rather enjoyed it.

The Bestiary tells us the story of Xeno Atlas and his ongoing search for “The Caravan Bestiary”. Xeno is a man who has grown from a childhood mixed with both loyal care (his grandmother, his nanny) and emotional neglect (his father).  After his mother dies in childbirth, these are his caretakers.

His grandmother, in particular sows the seed of his interest in all things to do with animals, and this love includes both the known and the mystical.  But it is time at boarding school (after his beloved grandmother dies and his father runs off to his life as a sailor) that introduces him to the idea of ‘The Caravan Bestiary”, a book that apparently lists all the animals that didn’t make it onto Noah’s ark.

Christopher manages to write a Divinci Code-esque book that I didn’t loath.  In fact, the similarities didn’t occur to me into well the book.  Mostly because the similarities are superficial (thankfully).  Yes, Xeno is on a mission to unravel knowledge that has assumed to be hidden by the church.  But that’s about where it ends.  No one is hunting him down, and there are no evil church men trying to thwart him.  And Xeno is not the perfect protanganist.

Indeed, I questioned his choices regarding his relationship with his father.  Xeno comes across as very hard on the man, who I didn’t feel was such a bad guy.  He did his best to try and raise his son while grieving his late wife.  I also didn’t necessarily buy what felt like his sudden close relationship with the Morettis.  It felt to me like it came out of nowhere.  But once it was there, I enjoyed watching it evolve in fits and starts, much like real life relationships sometimes.

I was also a bit disappointed by the ending. The story didn’t resolve the way I really want it to.  But then I suppose the actual ending was better story telling than what I was looking for.

Despite its few flaws, the Bestiary is an engaging read.  Now I want to go research bestiaries!

This one was another for book club, and I have to say that when I finished it I shut the book with a snap and said “That’s it?!”

Here be spoilers.

This is the story of Mary Boulton, the young widow who killed her husband. That we know from the outset, as Adamson tells us this as we are introduced to the fleeing Mary. Or, as Adamson constantly refers to her, “The Widow”. As if the two frightening brothers-in-law aren’t enough to remind us of her past, this moniker is necessary as well. Don’t forget, dear reader, that Mary killed her husband.

Why does Mary kill her husband? I’m not sure if Adamson intended that to be a mystery, but if so, it was a wholly unsatisfying one. And if it wasn’t meant to be a mystery, and Mary’s reasoning behind her act was meant to be obvious and sympathetic, well, Adamson doesn’t succeed with that either. Finally if it’s meant to be an illustration of her madness, perhaps he shouldn’t have told us she was half-mad on the first page.

Really, I suspect Mary killed her husband so that the author would have something to keep her running.

And run she does. For several hundred pages of drawn out, boring description. The Outlander can be seen as both Mary’s story and the story of those who come to assist her on her journey, and frankly I cared more for her angels than for the widow herself. There just wasn’t a whole lot there.

Not in terms of characterisation, anyway. In terms of mind-blowingly detailed (boring) description, well, there was more than sufficient amounts of that. In fact, I wouldn’t say I read this book so much as I skimmed it for actual plot.

I almost dropped it halfway, but was spurred on by the question of those two scary brothers-in-law who are relentless in their pursuit of Mary. Do they ever find her? That was what kept me going until the rather predictable end.

I miss books like this.  It’s been so long since I’ve come across one. What I Was found me today at Chapters.  I can’t even tell you where.  Was it on a table (20 books to read before you’re 20?  Maybe New & Hot Teen Fiction?), or maybe just there on the shelf.  I have no idea now.  But anyway.  I picked it up and read the back and got chills up my spine.  This was a book I had to read, even if it tore my guts out (which it did, mostly).

What I Was is the story of H.  16 years old and shuffled off to his 3rd boarding school in the middle of nowhere, England. Here at St. Oswald’s, H goes through the now familiar motions of his “sterling history of mediocre achievement”.

And then he meets Finn, an “almost unbearably beautiful boy” who lives by himself in a hut on the cliffs of the seaside.

What follows is the slow deepening of their regard for each other.  Rosoff drags it out painfully slowly for a book that’s just over 200 pages.  Like H searching Finn’s facial expressions, we are left searching the pages for any hint of how the hermit boy feels for his unasked for friend.  Like all the best characters (in my humble opinion), Finn is minimal, but takes up so much space.  And while it’s the mystery of Finn that kept me reading, it’s my complete and utter connection with H that made the story for me.

It takes some magical story telling for a 30 year old woman to see herself so thoroughly in the naration of a now 100 year old man remembering his 16 year old self.  With every time H goes to see Finn, crossing the treacherous water, often soaking himself through with water and humiliation I could sense his feelings growing, while at the same time retaining an innocence that would not have existed if the two main characters were even two years older.

I read How I Was in about 2 hours, turning page after page with an urgency I haven’t experienced while reading in quite some time.  It seemed only fitting that while reading this Young Adult novel I felt 15 again, if only briefly.  Only now, instead of wolfing down my food at supper to get back to the book, I was steadfastedly ignoring the laundry in the dryer.  The wrinkles would be worth it.

Nothing is perfect however, and I admit to feeling slightly cheated and annoyed at the resolution.  While clever in it’s own way, it felt a bit too safe.  H is metaphorically pulled out of the water one more time, no deeper self examination is needed.  How convenient.

I’ll give Rosoff a bit of a break on this, though.  While the ending felt too safe, I did not feel that way about the rest of the book, which is what’s important I think.

“What I Was” was a surprise, in the best way possible.

This may just be the quickest turn around time I’ve had on a book in ages.  I picked up The Graveyard Book just after Christmas at Chapters.   I’ve been intending to buy it forever, not sure what spurred me on this time, but regardless…

I read almost everything Neil writes.  And this is a man who has quite an array of work.  From graphic novels (Sandman) to picture books (The Day I Sold My Dad for Two Goldfish), adult books (American Gods, Neverwhere) to youth books (Coraline).

So, despite the fact that The Graveyard Book is meant to be for the 9-12 set, I was excited to read it.  It did not disappoint. TGB is the story of Nobody “Bod” Owens, a boy raised in a graveyard by the ghosts who live there.  It’s a neat idea — the kind of idea that makes me jealous, really.

The funny thing about TGB is the fact that so very much of the focus could be on the coolness and weirdness of life in a graveyard, but it’s not.  The focus is on Bod and his relationships with the “people” who care for him. Neil writes these moments rather fantastically.  He has a was of writing these relationships that are so incredibly touching, but so incredibly subtle at the same time.  I wish I could do that.  There are so many of these moments in TGB.

TGB is a short book, a rather quick read.  So while at times it seems like the plot is moving rather quickly, I think this is a function of the book being aimed at kids.  Attention span, etc. etc.

There was one other interesting aspect of TGB was the fact that I got to “follow along” as the book was written.  Neil keeps a regular internet presence, with a blog, a Twitter account, and a Goodreads account.  While he was writing TGB he made several comments on his blog about the process, what chapter he was on, how he felt about where the story was, etc.  It was very neat to see this aspect of story writing.

I highly reccommend TGB for both adults and children.

I first heard about Jennifer Haigh’s novel in a book review magazine I subscribe to.  The Condition introduces us to the McKotch family: Workaholic science obsessed father Frank, weirdly prudish and “proper” wife Paulette, distant, private Billy, runaway, haphazard Scotty, and finally Gwen, their middle child.

At the beginning of the novel we discover that something is not quite right with Gwen.  When the McKotches discovery she has Turner Syndrome — a condition that means she will never go through puberty and will end up a woman stuck in a girl’s body — it seems to be the end of their family.

The rest of the novel takes us through the adult years of the children, and the older years of Frank and Paulette.  We watch them all struggle with various aspects of their lives, keeping their hurts from each other while at the same time managing to heap more on each other as well.

Surprisingly little is said about Gwen’s Turner Syndrome beyond the insecurities and social issues it causes her.  She struggles to fit in and find her place in a world that is not set up for her either physically or emotionally.  I can relate to that.

But ultimately, that can be said for all of the McKotches, none of them feeling quite comfortable in their own skin.

Haigh write a wonderful story about a very compelling, yet very normal, family.  The Condition was a pleasure to read.

So about a week or so ago I downloaded and converted WALL-E to put it on my ipod for some indeterminate date in the future when I might have time to blow watching a movie on the go.

Today was that day.

I was training it to Barrie for Christmas and started up WALL-E.  And, oh man.  I thought PIXAR were geniouses before, but now?  WOW.  I LOVED this movie.  I wanted everyone I know in the world to watch it.

It is so freaking adorable!  I know that’s hardly a ringing endorsement, but the was this movie manages to pull you in and tug at your heart strings with only minimal dialogue is hard to dsecribe.  How they managed to get one animated robot to give such a completely heart rendering “performance” — especially the facial expressions OMG!

Highly reccommended.  One of my new favourites.

I am nothing if not in love with all things Harry Potter, so my ability to be objective in reading this book is almost nil.

I enjoyed this very much, and it absolutely made me want to read Deathly Hallows again. My favourite was the Fountain of Fair Fortune, but the best part of the book overall was Albus Dumbledore’s notes on the fables — very amusing.

The humour amuses me so much. I provide this quote as example:

“As the eminent wizarding philosopher Bertrand de Pensèes-Profondes (’Heh ‘ — A) writes in his celebrated work A Study into the Possibility of Reversing the Actual and Metaphysical Effects of Natural Death, with Particular Regard to the Reintegration of Essence and Matter: ‘Give it up. It’s never going to happen.’”

A great little book for the Potter fan.